Celeste

Added on May 25, 2024

Madeline decides to climb a mountain. She doesn't put much more thought into it--she decides she just "wants to". It's implied that she's doing so as the final endpoint of a depressive episode--to push herself to "do something". So she climbs Mount Celeste, which she quickly learns is host to some sort of mystical power. She's forced to confront the heart of her depression, and overcome it.

Very Early-game Spoilers (Stage 2)

After she falls asleep for the first time, she has a vivid dream in which her reflection breaks out from behind the mirror and escapes. This "Part of Her" (called "Badeline" out-of-game by fans and devs) is real, and proceeds to deliberately hamper her efforts to progress up the mountain.

Badeline could be seen as fantasy Plurality, with this existing "Part of Madeline" taking physical form.

The game, from this point, becomes a very deliberate and clear metaphor about depression and identity, with the mountain warping to force Madeline (and others) to confront their worst fears and traits.

Near-end spoilers (Stage 6)

"Badeline" is not defeated with aggression or refusal to give her attention--she is "defeated" by giving her the love and care that she needs. This was was intended as a metaphor for depression, giving yourself love and comfort when you're scared rather than arguing with yourself and spiraling further. Madeline and "Badeline" rejoin, and climb the mountain together.

Full-game spoilers

"Badeline" is shown to still be around in all post-canon content, leading me to think that this "inversion of Plurality" has become explicit Plurality (though the developers have never mentioned this part, and it is very easy to see this more as self-love than plurality.)

One cannot talk about Celeste without mentioning its odd relation to LGBT. The creator intended it, explicitly, to be about depression, and that is all. However, many trans people saw themselves in metaphors the game uses:

• Enemy coming from a mirror
• Identity and struggling to find oneself
• Eyes being upon you

And latched onto the game as an unofficial LGBT title. The game was composed of the original creator's issues, though, and so the creator was forced to think on their own struggles... And she changed her name to Madeline. Though not initially intended to reflect LGBT experiences, it has become a modern classic of LGBT representation.

Overall, Celeste manages to capture a broad scope of Brain Problems, despite the relatively low (for this list) amount of cutscenes and dialog. It is one of my favorite games of all time.

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# fantasy plurality # lgbt # plurality # mental health # highly reviewed # nova loves # indie