Jesse and Polaris: Into the Unknown (Spoilers ahead for Control and Frozen II)

     In 2019, we got the game Control. If you know me, it's entirely possible that you've heard me talk about this game, and I've written about it at least twice here on my blog, so I don't want to go too deep into the deeper themes, but I just wanted to write a little something with Control Resonant coming out this year. In one post, I talked about how it's kind of beautiful how Jesse is able to find herself and take her place as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control and becomes the one in charge of facing the things that go bump in the night, even though there are so many threats to be overcome even in the first hours of her new inherited job. Today I would like to focus on Jesse's bond with Polaris, and a little bit about believing in yourself, even if your task is so overwhelming. It's been a while since I've written something like this, so it won't be too long today, but I do hope you'll enjoy the long awaited return.

    I don't want to get too into the weeds, but I'll give a bit of a plot summary here before diving into the real meat of what I would like to talk about. I have to warn you that there are spoilers ahead, so if you don't want to spoil what leads into the closing sequence of the game, I would suggest you play the game for yourself (as long as you're alright with some slight psychological horror action), and then read on. Control is the story of Jesse Faden, an Ordinary girl from Ordinary, MA, who is searching from her brother. She believes that the government has abducted her brother following a supernatural disaster which ended up destroying her whole town, leaving her and her brother as the sole survivors. Jesse finds the Federal Bureau of Control, guided by a being from another dimension which she treats like an imaginary friend, named Polaris. Through a strange series of events, Jesse becomes the new Director of this supernaturally driven branch of the government, and Polaris acts as her guide, as well as seemingly giving her the power to resist the Hiss, which is the evil force attacking the Bureau through mind-warping frequencies turning the employees into monsters. As you get further and further into the game, Jesse does find her brother, but all is not well. He has been infected by the Hiss and has gone pretty much insane, so it becomes more about defeating this force instead of just finding her brother. Fast forward and she finally comes to what she believes is the source of the hiss, and this is where I want to focus today.

    Jesse discovers that Polaris is more than just an entity in her head, it's a real being, and it has been communicating telepathically to her in order to bring her there, and to allow her to free it. She comes to the chamber where it is being held and the Hiss tries to attack it, eventually leading Jesse to break the device that seems to be over it, looking like a floating orb. She gets the orb open after defeating the monsters around it, but there's nothing inside. Polaris is gone, and there's nothing to stop the Hiss from taking full control. The credits roll, and that's it. There was no way for Jesse to withstand the corruption... and there's so much of it that the credits themselves become infected with the message. The credits fade to white and Jesse is working as a temp at the bureau, everything is red, and she must deliver mail to all of the forces of the hiss for eternity, seemingly. Suddenly she remembers what happened, and somehow breaks out of it. She believes that Polaris is still alive somehow and is helping her out. She finds her way back to the Oceanview Inn (don't ask, but basically it's a liminal space that you enter several times throughout the course of the game), and finds Polaris. That is to say, she finds a part of herself that she never knew was there, who actually holds the power that she had been attributing to some other being looking out for her. With this newfound power, she is ultimately able to stop the corruption from corrupting the whole Oldest House, and saves her brother (though he ends up in a coma from his plight).

    I was listening to some Disney music as I was driving home from class the other day, and "Show Yourself" from Frozen II came on. If you're familiar with the movie, Elsa has been following this "siren song" since early on, and she's found this ice lair where she believes that some other being like her is waiting. She is shown a vision of her mother, and told that "you are the one you've been looking for." Something stuck out to me about that line, "You are the one you've been looking for all of your life," because it's very similar to the lesson that Jesse gets here towards the end of her story. Elsa has been looking for some higher calling or some way to understand her powers and what they're for, and the answers were somehow inside herself. There's something that we need to realize as people as well, not about powers, maybe, but about the power that we hold.

    Friends, we have so much that we can do, so much that we can contribute to the people and works all around us, and more often than not, we can't see that. I'm certainly that way, and I don't think I'm alone in that. So often I'll be paralyzed by choices or feeling like I can't possibly measure up to whatever seemingly impossible task lies ahead. It's important to know though, we can do it. We need to have a little faith, which is hard to some by sometimes, especially when it's faith in our own abilities, but it's important. Without that belief, it can be almost impossible to take even the simplest or the most important steps in life. Within us, we hold a spark of something special, something so rare that we don't even know how to characterize it, and so, we each have a Polaris. Something that we don't know about ourselves that guides us along the way. It can be faint sometimes, and may even seem like it's gone, but it may end up being the most core part of you, that piece that makes you you. I have to point out in closing that Polaris is also another name for the North Star, and what does that do? It guides. We have that power within us, we just need to believe in it.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. I have been gone for a while, either busy or just tired, somewhere in between the two, but I hope I'll be able to be a bit more frequent every now and then moving forward. Thank you for all the kind words and genuinely enjoying my posts, even if they are a little too detailed sometimes. I really hope you're all doing well, and I pray that your year is starting well, even in a time when so many are hurting. Thank you again for all the support! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Dreamer, and always remember, you have more power than you think.