Honor of Kings: The Way of All Things

Have you ever considered why sometimes despite all the efforts, failure feels inevitable? Have you wondered in life some things are just out of your control? No matter how successful you are, there are always regrets, things you wish you had done better. What if EVERYTHING in this world is out of your control? What if all our lives are just part of a written script? We are fated to march towards the inevitable end.

The EP 14, Honor of Kings "The Way of All Things" asks those same questions. By putting forth a debate: If all things are determined, are our choices in life still meaningful? Through the incredible visuals heavily influenced by Chinese culture, using the Weiqi (Go) game as a medium, the episode establishes the conflict between two philosophies about how the world works. It does not provide you with the answer (or does it?), just like in life - YOU are the one supposed to find YOUR answer like the protagonist, Yixing did.

Absolutely masterful piece, compared to all other episodes, this one is not only visually stunning but also thought provoking. During the watch and for quite a while after the episode had concluded, I am left to reflect on my life, the choices I made in the past...and what comes in the future?

P. S.

The only Weiqi(Go) knowledge needed is: The stone pieces are either black or white.

You capture an enemy stone by surrounding it with yours You concede by placing the opponent's colored stone on board.

I think this is an interesting story.

The plot of the story is the surface manifestation, and the core corresponds to the title "The Way of All Things", which actually refers to the collision of mechanical materialism (Tian Gong) and dialectical materialism (Yi Xing). Tiangong believed that all causes and effects had already been determined. Despite seeing the "scenes" of the past and future failures, Yixing did not give up human subjective initiative. He realized that the game itself had an impact on the entire city and chose to destroy Tiangong to play until the last moment.

But in the final scene of the screen, Tian Gong watched everything from a distance, implying that all the previous events were actually part of Tian Gong's precognitive calculations. The last sentence was the real beginning of the game, and thus the causal loop was truly completed.

I've never heard of the game this episode is based off of, but that didn't really matter to me. Everything in the episode looked gorgeous. Like, I loved the visuals and the backgrounds. But every time the main character was on screen, I couldn't get over how ugly the character model looked. Like, it looked like a completely different style compared to everything else. Similar to the Final Fantasy style. He was literally the only character in the episode that looked like that, and it really bugged me. I don't understand that choice at all. However, I am going to increase my rating from my original 4/10, simply because everything else is artistically gorgeous.

As someone, let's say, no more in his 20s, I already saw the core of the story portrayed here. It actually starts from a philosophical question: if God knows everything, including how all things will end, how can this be reconciled with Free Will? If the ending is already written, what we do doesn't matter, right?

St. Augustine, among others, explained that, yes, these two apparently mutually exclusive things can coexist quite well. Many others tackled the problem in religion, philosophy, and popular culture. The pinnacle on the matter in pop culture remains, IMHO, Alan Moore's Watchmen (strictly the graphic novel).

Here, however, we have a "compact" approach to the question: a single city governed by an AI who just knows how all will end. And it is ending badly. A young boy challenges the concept. The two play a game of Go-a game, to be clear, that will end only in one way. When the AI can show you at will one minute (or one hour) in the future and there is no escape, how can the boy's choices matter?

If the question intrigues you, it must be said that this episode gives the answer, but not in an explicit way. St. Augustine, while not being on the "easy reading" shelf, just explains us; "Watchmen" needs for the reader to pay attention but gives all the clues needed to understand a paradox that... actually isn't a paradox at all.

Yet, this episode is beautifully written, fully to the point, and with stunning visuals. It is really good chow for the brain. If you like it, buy Watchmen (again: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL). Or St. Augustine. Or check Wikipedia; that will work too-it is unavoidable.

I have reviewed each episode of "Love, Death + Robots" and am a big video games guy, so thought I'd do the same process for Amazon's "Secret Level".

Massively online battle games, particularly ones for mobiles aren't something I've engaged with at all. So, despite its apparently huge successes, I'd never heard of "Honor Of Kings" until this episode. Maybe it's just that lack of familiarity, but I don't see how this short fits in around the game, based on the description I've read.

Yi Xing (Aleks Le) challenges Tiangong (Nelson Lee) an A. I. that controls the city he lives in, to a game of Go for that control. Yi hates the A. I. for the part it played in the death of his parents, who died during attack on the city that it repelled. The A. I. is so powerful it can accurately predict the future and even uses its creative skills to show Yi what is about to happen. It takes a novel approach from Yi to even stand a chance.

So, it looks pretty amazing, there's no arguing with the fact that Digic pictures, who've been in the business for twenty years have done a really amazing job with this one. It perhaps is the best-looking episode of the lot. Is it in service of much though? It's not a particularly complex story, despite how the predicting the future feeds into the story.

It was fine, solid even. It just doesn't tie into something I care enough about, or make me care enough about it.