this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Increasing use of respawn as a plot device in media? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I am watching Severance and playing Hades 2 lately, and I noticed that 'respawn' as a plot device has really increased in last few years.

It's not just respawn, but it's the mechanism where each spawn helps push the narrative further.

The Good Place was similar. Mickey 17 seems to be doing the same thing from what I can tell in the trailer.

Am I just cherry picking or is this a real trend? And does this reflect some other underlying phenomenon?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You have me thinking about the time in South Park where Satan killed Saddam Hussein in hell. He comes right back, “where was I going to go, Detroit?”

What respawn happened in Severance? I can’t think of anyone that died and came back.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Not really death but going in and out of Lumen kind of resets things and they have to figure their way out. It seems similar.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Ah, gotcha.

I feel like the respawn mechanic in media is often used for social commentary about capital treating labor as a disposable commodity. I think severance is definitely a commentary on corporate life, but also on the nature of consciousness and identity.

We have a generation of filmmakers that grew up playing video games, as has much of their audience, so I think that’s why it’s become such a trope lately.