Spiritfarer and the Sociology of Grief

Spiritfarer is a beautifully artistic game from developer Thunder Lotus Games, and is an entirely about grief and death. Our playable character Stella takes on the role of a psychopomp, ferrying souls to the land of the dead.

When it comes to Spiritfarer’s treatment of death and grief, it explores these heavy topics in a very realistic way without ever feeling heavy-handed. So today, I want to explore this game, how it paints a positive depiction of grieving, and how its a great demonstration of the sociology of grief.

On paper, the job of the Spiritfarer is to bring the souls of the recently departed to the Everdoor, or the final place for the souls to leave the place of spiritual limbo and move on. However, Stella does much more than this. Throughout their time with you, you help them progress through their issues. You give them food, hugs, and assist them in their various needs and wants. This eventually leads them to feel more comfortable arriving at the gate.

Grief has, in academic treatments in the 20th century, been considered something more pathological. It was a mental obstruction which needed to be gotten passed in order to be “cured” from bereavement. This view was shaped by Western ideas of scientific rationality. The understanding of grief as disease made it more difficult to understand how grief is more complicated - it’s reflective, nuanced, and immensely personal.

Anthropologists highlighted how our social situations impact our grief. When we started to see bereavement as something more inherently complicated, we becan to understand how it incorporates all aspects of the process both before and after death: it incorporates dying, death, mourning, memorialisation, religion, ethics, and even legal considerations and issues.

Bereavement is not just one instance, or one moment, or even something that can be “gotten passed”. Rather, its an ongoing process of learning and adjusting.

In 1996, Dennis Klass coined the idea of “continuing bonds”. Continuing bonds was the idea that our social connections and relationships continue, even after death. Sometimes, this through our knowledge of physical objects, items that the dead have left for us to treasure and be reminded of them. It could also be other human relationships we shared with the deceseased - friends who we maybe only connected with through that person may grow or become more important with the shared loss. It could also be places we shared, a continuing process of visiting locations that remind us of those who have passed on. Locattions, items, and people all cement us to the deceased, and we continue to have these relationships far past the passing.

So this is a social aspect of bereavement that we’re talking about. But our case study of the day is Spiritfarer, a typically first-person game. You can play the game with someone, who takes over your little cat friend, but the vast majority of play is singular. Singular experiences which reflect social realities can be overly complicated to understand and difficult to pull off from a game-developer standpoint. But Spiritfarer accomplishes this.

Spiritfarer embodies continuing bonds in the relationships forged with the spirits. We do not just assist the spirtis for no reason. We see their connections to places, things, and others. We design and decorate their cabins to reflect their original home lives and the things that are of importance to them. The food they eat is specifically chosen to give them the greatest happiness and connect them to the lives they once had.

But this is just from the persepective of the spirit. Our interactions with them, giving them the experiences they want, imparts on us how important these things are for the people we are supporting and helping. These interactions not only paint a picture of who these spirits were as people, but what it is that will remind us of them as we move forward.

As each spirit leaves our boat, moving onwards through the Everdoor, we continue to have their presence surrounding us. Sometimes directly in the empty rooms still decorated in their way, sometimes through other aspects we interact with regularly. Atul continues to exist in his lvoe of food, especially porkchops and fried chicken. His commentary on certain food items also paints his own social bonds. He talks about popcorn and how it reminds him of times with his children. We find Gwen twice at the villa she grew up in, where she finds herself constantly drawn to. She struggles to reconcile her life, her death and the locations she finds connections in. And after she has passed through the Everdoor, we still feel her connection when revisiting the villa.

Spiritfarer’s continuing bonds works in two different ways. We see how they impact the character we play as, but this action also impacts us as players. Video games, as an inherently interactive media model, is not just a one way street. They come to be through our interaction with them, yes, but the best games leave an imprint on us in a similar way. Stella’s interactions with teh spirits demonstrate where these continuing bods are for the characters. But there are also bonds left upon us as players.

Whenever a spirit leaves through the Everdoor, we still keep theri home on the boat. We are reminded of elements of them as people when we enter their door, or even when we pass their building. We think about them again when we scroll through our recipes and are reminded of their past favourite foods. Even after our friends have passed through the Everdoor, we continue to think of them, and we continue to feel their presence, while also feeling their absence. It’s a perfect demonstration of what grief feels like: having their bones present, while also having their absence very much felt.

There’s something very important at the core of our shift of understanding grief. When we changed from understanding grief as pathologic to social, we also changed our perspective of what a person is. Who we are as people is not restricted to something individual. We are not separate beings away from others who then disappears ater our passing. We are not separate from others. Humans are inherently social creatures - we live with and for others. So, part of who we are as people also lives within the people we are surrounded by. I am not just myself, but am also made up of who I am in the eyes and connections of family, friends and my siginficant other. I live as part of them, and continue within them. When I pass, they will each carry a part of who I am with then. Likewise, I carry within me multiple poeple who have passed.

So I carry others’ personhoods within me, and others carry mine within them. Each person I meet in my life carries this personhood inside them. The spirits you ferry to their final crossing in Spiritfarer are more than just random individuals. They represent the people we attach ourselves to throughout our lives, the ones in which we see ourselves reflected. Family members who have always been there in our lives. Best friends, who we’ve grown and developed alongside. Teachers who, while soemtimes harsh, show us we can accomplish more than we think. Poligical leaders who inspire us, but whose private lvies are a lot messier than we thought. The characters chosen not only impacts the character of Stella, but also us as players. I see in them reflections of those who have built my own personhood, pieces of who are nestled within me.

This is why, in our normal non-gaming lives, when these people pass, it feels as if part of us is gone as well. Because there was a part of us in them - part of us that has been formed and developed through our relatinoship with them. But likewise, when one of them pass, we still carry a part of them with us, the part of them reflected in our own experiences and developed through our relationship.

All of this is in the development of Spiritfarer - echoed in every passing of a friend, every building erected on our boat, and every hug we give to our friends. Even the nooks and crannies of the world are filled with reminders and markings of those important, even to the developers. For example, one island had a small memorial to a stillborn child a developer mourns. The bond of the child is still in the developer, and now forever present in a video game. And even more than that, its presence connects through our social bonds others playing the game who similarly mourn, creating new relationships through the experience of grief.

Spiritfarer does not treat grief as a simple five step process. It doesn’t show us what bereavement looks like through a progression that ends with a great acceptance that allows us to move on. Instead, it paints grief as a constant. It is not assume what the player will feel, allowing the experience to be nuanced and reflective. It demonstrates bereavement as something inherently non-clinical. It doesn’t so much as rely on continuing bonds, but rather subtly demonstrates them through interaction, experience and a love for others. It demosntrates them through focusing on the social aspects of our lives, and therefore the social dimensions of grief.

The game’s interaction with us marks us with the grief and loss experienced through the game, but also with the hope of personhood’s retainment. Its the hope and love of the continuation, an understanding of the inherent connections of death to ourselves, that things are never truly gone or truly gotten over. But always remain.

Continuing bonds can hurt. The constant reminders of the personhood we carry with us is not one we wish to be reminded of on a regular basis. But they also allow us to feel, to maintain connection to those who have passed. They can be healing, as well as harming.

Spiritfarer is the greatest demonstration of grief because it is so very real. It is one that does not end in neat little bows of acceptance, or one that is clinical and ends with a cure to the pain. Rather, it shows us how grief is messy and troublesome, nuanced and complicated. It can hurt and heal simultaneously. And its just as beautiful.