Spiritfarer and the Sociology of Grief

In Spiritfarer, Stella takes on the role of the spiritfarer, or the one who ferries souls across to the land of the dead. Its a beautifully artistic game by indie developer Thunder Lotus Games, and it paints a way to talk about death and grief in very realistic ways, without ever feeling heavy-handed. So let’s explore this game, and why this game paints such a positive depiction of what it feels like to grieve.

As the Spiritfarer, you do more than just bring spirits to their end. 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, which eventually leads them to the gate. Spiritfarer is a wonderful demonstration of grief and what it means to deal with death.

Grief has, in academic treatments in the 20th century, been considered something more pathological. Its a mental obstruction which needs to be gotten passed in order to be “cured” from bereavement. This was being shaped by scientific rationality. Grief was a condition. This made it more difficult to understand how grief can be reflective and nuanced.

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

In 1996, Dennis Klass coined the idea of “continuing bonds” – that our connections and relationships continue onwards even after death. Sometimes, this is through our knowledge of physical objects or other human relationships shared with the deceased. Locations, items and people all cement us to the deceased, and we continue to have these relationships far past the passing.

So we’re talking about a social aspect to bereavement, in a typically first-person game. 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 bounds in the relationships forged with the spirits. We do not just assist the spirits for no reason. We see their connections to places, things, and others. We design and decorate their cabins in order to reflect their original home lives and the things that are of importance to them. The food they eat is specially chosen in order to give them the greatest happiness, and connect them to the lives they once had. And our interactions with them, to give them the experience 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. Atul continues to exist in his love of food, especially porkchops and friend 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 this children. We find Gwen twice at the villa she grew up in, where she finds herself constantly grown 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 characters we play as, but this action also impacts us as players. Video games, as an inherently interactive media model, does not just become through our interactions with it – the best games leave an imprint on us in a similar way. Stella’s interactions with the spirits demonstrate where these continuing bonds are for the characters. But there are also bonds left upon us as players.

Whenever a spirit leaves through the Everdoor, we still keep their 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. Its a perfect demonstration of what grief feels like: having their bonds present, while also having their absence very much felt.

At the core of our shift to understanding grief through continuing bonds is also a shift in understanding what a person is. Who we are as a person is not restricted to something individual. We are not separate beings away from others who then disappears after 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 with family, friends and my significant 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 them. Likewise, I carry within me multiple people who have passed.

And not only do I carry aspects of their persons within me, but others carry parts of my personhood in 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 sometimes harsh, show us we can accomplish. Political leaders who inspire us, but whose private lives 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.

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 relationship with them. But likewise, when one of them pass, we still carry a part of them with us - the part of them that was reflected in our own experiences and development 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 one developer mourns. The bond of the child is still in the developer, and now forever present in a video game.

Spiritfarer does not treat grief as a simple five-step process. It doesn’t try to 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 assumed what the player will feel, allowing the experience to be nuanced and reflective. It demonstrates bereavement as something inherently not-clinical. It does not rely on continuing bonds, but rather subtly demonstrates them through interaction, experience, and a love for others.

The game’s interaction with us marks us with the grief and loss, but also with the hope of the personhood’s retainment - of a continuation, an understanding of the inherent connections of death to ourselves. Continuing bonds can hurt - perhaps the constant reminders and the personhood we carry is not one we wish to be reminded of on a regular occasion. But they can 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 the realist. One that does not end in neat little bows of acceptance, or that is clinical and ends with a neat cure. It demonstrates grief as being messy and troublesome. Its nuanced and complicated. It can hurt and heal simultaneously. And its just as beautiful.