Tag: Unwinnable

Essay about Barret Wallace on Unwinnable

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Just in time for the Final Fantasy VII Revelation announcement, my essay “Barret Wallace Was Not Wrong” was published on Unwinnable (here)! This essay is about the joy of blowing up data centers Mako reactors, and I had a lot of fun writing it.

The truth is that I’ve been thinking about the relationship between precarity and stochastic violence a lot these days, and I really can’t blame anyone for fantasizing about it. If I’m being totally honest, I have to admit that I’ve had some daydreams about it myself. My pet fantasy at the moment involves planting poison ivy all around the building that’s rumored to be the de facto [redacted] field office in Philadelphia, and I’ve also indulged in more than a few vivid daydreams about the Waymo cars and Uber Eats delivery robots I sometimes see around town.

As satisfying as setting community hazards on fire might feel in the moment, though, I’m not convinced that individual acts of violence ultimately serve any greater purpose. But then what? Are we supposed to just make angry posts online without actually doing anything?

We have plenty of stories about fictional teenagers and superheroes saving the world from archvillains to use as models of action, but they’re not obviously not grounded in reality. We also have stories about real-life wealthy philanthropists using their resources to make a difference, but that’s not really useful to the vast majority of us either. Then I started thinking about Barret Wallace in Final Fantasy VII, who is dead broke and disabled in his mid-thirties but decides to take on a giant corporation anyway. And you know what? That’s a model of heroism that resonates with me.

Here’s an excerpt from my essay:

At the end of the game, Barret Wallace does end up saving the world, but not through terrorism. Instead, he becomes a key figure in a loosely federated community of people committed to practical action that transcends individual acts of violence. This community includes Shinra’s victims as well as its former and current employees, from veterans of its space program to disgruntled middle managers. Barret wasn’t wrong when he took action against Shinra; he just didn’t yet see how powerful a global resistance movement could be.

You can read the full essay on Unwinnable here:
https://unwinnable.com/2026/06/08/barret-wallace-was-not-wrong

The Environmental Horror of Elden Ring

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to the kind editors at Unwinnable Magazine, I got to write my dream essay about Elden Ring.

In “The Environmental Horror of Elden Ring,” I discuss how the ongoing disaster of the hellish Caelid region provides an interesting counterpoint to the common characterization of postapocalyptic spaces as green and beautiful. For me, Caelid was a gateway into an exploration of how and why the aftermaths of environmental catastrophes are often presented as utopian in digital spaces, and I think Elden Ring subtly reflects the frustration that many of us feel toward power structures that remove us from direct stewardship of the nature that surrounds us in real life.

If you’re interested, you can find the full essay in the March 2023 issue of Unwinnable, and you can check out a substantial excerpt on the magazine’s website (here). I’ve also archived a PDF of the article (here).