Content material warning: Discussions of subjects together with conversion remedy, loss of life, familial abuse, and ableism
Main spoilers for all the video games within the One other Code collection
After I started taking part in One other Code: Recollection (2024) earlier this 12 months, I knew the sport would diverge from its supply supplies. The unique One other Code video games had been developed for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii techniques, so main adjustments had been wanted to reconfigure the puzzles initially designed for twin screens and movement controls. Even with these gameplay adjustments, the narrative of Recollection was almost similar to my reminiscences of the unique DS recreation, providing a contemporary perspective, and fashionable polish, on a beloved childhood basic. The variation of its sequel for the Wii was additionally a delight, offering me with the chance to lastly expertise a narrative that was by no means localized for North American audiences.
Nonetheless, I used to be unaware that whereas Recollection is structurally similar to the unique video games, the sequel recreation’s narrative obtained a significant overhaul. Numerous story beats and character motivations have been modified, rearranged, or outright omitted, with some components and characters reframed and reimagined. Amongst these adjustments, probably the most personally placing was the unconventional distinction in a single character: Ryan Grey, a neurodivergent-coded antagonist initially offered as an unambiguous villain, however reinvented as a nuanced, sympathetic determine within the remake.
Between his interpersonal interactions, previous traumas, low empathy, and flat have an effect on, Ryan’s persona and actions resonated an incredible take care of the mannerisms I related to neurodivergent folks, together with myself. A morally complicated character written with stunning nuance and depth, I ended Recollection relating to Ryan as considered one of my favourite characters. So think about my shock once I found that Ryan’s unique iteration was not a guileful however usually sympathetic character, however a conniving and duplicitous villain. Even with these main ethical variations, the unique Ryan Grey continues to be a neurodivergent-coded character, having the identical traits as his iteration in Recollection, however how these traits are offered within the recreation’s narrative is extraordinarily completely different.
One would possibly assume this alteration occurred as a consequence of a change in writing employees in the course of the remake’s improvement, however that is unlikely because the One other Code collection’ lead author and creator, Suzuki Rika, labored on Recollection as the sport’s Situation and Story author. It made me surprise what might have brought on such a dramatic shift on this particular character’s position and portrayal within the fifteen years since his unique creation, and the way this alteration would possibly mirror a gradual shift in how society views neurodivergent-coded characters and traits.
Dr. Ryan Grey in One other Code: R – A Journey Into Misplaced Reminiscences (2009)
Dr. Ryan Grey in One other Code: R – A Journey into Misplaced Reminiscences (2009) is a scientist and researcher who the protagonist, Ashley Mizuki Robins, meets throughout a barbeque at Lake Juliet. He was allegedly tasked by Ashley’s father, Richard Robins, to observe over her whereas Richard handled a safety drawback throughout the J.C. Valley labs. A loquacious particular person with an intense curiosity within the subject of reminiscence analysis, Ryan builds up a optimistic rapport with Ashley as they set up a connection by way of their shared admiration of Ashley’s late mom, Sayoko Robins. Ryan’s real curiosity in Ashley’s ideas and emotions serves as a optimistic distinction to her father, who had been absent in her life for a number of months and left her lower than an hour after being reunited once more. Ryan can also be proven to be useful to others, as he tries to help one other character, Elizabeth Alfred, in finding her misplaced music participant, exhibiting he’s somebody the folks of Lake Juliet depend on and belief.
Even so, some elements of Ryan’s habits are questionable and regarding, particularly when it entails the tone he makes use of when speaking with Ashley. From their first assembly on the barbeque, Ryan has a behavior of undermining and dismissing the varied flashbacks Ashley has been experiencing as she revisits Lake Juliet. When Ashley tells Ryan that she remembers seeing him 13 years in the past, he tells her that she is mistaken, making her query whether or not the flashbacks she had been experiencing had been real. There are additionally smaller, subtler methods by which Ryan talks that really feel condescending and belittling however are nonetheless nice sufficient to make the participant surprise if there was something value questioning.
Throughout the recreation’s last two chapters, Ryan Grey’s full nature is lastly revealed as a duplicitous and merciless one who continuously makes use of and deceives folks to pursue his targets. This contains erasing Richard Robin’s reminiscences in order that he can now not keep in mind his daughter, trying to overwrite Ashley’s reminiscences with Sayoko’s, and threatening to shoot Ashley and her father. Along with his merciless actions, Ryan discusses how he finds Ashley’s emotional misery at her father’s reminiscences being erased to be complicated, as he doesn’t perceive what might trigger her to react so strongly. When Ashley begins crying, Ryan breaks his usually flat have an effect on to angrily shout at her to cease, as he believes that tears are a “protection mechanism” utilized by “weak-hearted folks” experiencing “pointless feelings.”
After briefly stopping Ryan, and restoring Richard’s reminiscences, Ashley quickly discovers the the explanation why Ryan selected to harm so many individuals. Ryan Grey was the organic son of Judd Fitzgerald, the founding father of J.C. Valley, and witnessed his mom die defending him at a really younger age. Because of this, Ryan was wracked with grief, continuously crying, finally closing himself off from the remainder of the world and going totally non-verbal. Not figuring out what to do to assist his son, Judd determined the perfect factor to do was to erase all of Ryan’s childhood reminiscences and have a trusted household buddy undertake and lift his son.
In a merciless irony, Ryan grew as much as be a scientist in his personal proper, resulting in him being mentored, and later employed, by Judd, admiring and respecting him. As time glided by, Ryan discovered that Judd was his organic father, inflicting Ryan to really feel immense self-loathing for admiring the person who erased his reminiscences. Between this and Judd selecting Sayoko as his successor, Ryan plotted an elaborate revenge scheme in opposition to his father and the corporate he constructed, which in the end led to Sayoko’s homicide. By the top of the sport, Ashley, whereas sympathetic to his backstory, has an especially unfavourable opinion of Ryan, saying that she is going to by no means forgive him for what he has performed.
Ryan’s character in A Journey into Misplaced Reminiscences is an unambiguous villain, whose actions within the recreation are offered as being really despicable and unforgivable. He’s additionally uncomfortably harking back to quite a lot of basic stereotypes many neurodivergent persons are acquainted with, significantly these of us on the autistic spectrum. Essentially the most notable being extraordinarily, “abnormally,” emotionally indifferent from the remainder of humanity, one thing that has been used to vilify autistics and other people with low empathy. Simply as traits related to psychological sickness or neurodivergence are sometimes portrayed as evil and horrifying (from intrusive ideas to so-called “cut up personalities”), “impassive” villains are a stereotype all through fictional media, with low emotionality and empathy typically linked to a supposed lack of humanity.
This trope implies that people who don’t expertise “right” or “applicable” emotional responses to the world round them are “mistaken” and will need to have their habits “corrected” to swimsuit the norm. Ryan’s childhood expertise of getting his father erase his reminiscences to “heal” him in the course of the pure technique of grieving can also be uncomfortably harking back to conversion remedy, made all the more severe that the narrative appears to sympathize extra with Judd Fitzgerald’s perspective than Ryan’s—a lot in the identical means that loads of media, fictional and non-fictional, sympathizes with the “struggles” of oldsters of autistic kids fairly than participating with the attitude of the youngsters themselves.
Whereas this can be very uncertain that this was the supposed message from the sport’s writers, Ryan’s story nonetheless performs into long-standing stereotypes and paints an especially unfavourable image of people that don’t meet societal requirements of neurotypical, making us appear harmful, untrustworthy, and irregular. That is what makes Ryan’s story in One other Code: Recollection all of the extra startling given the most important contrasts involving their character and presentation.
Ryan Grey in One other Code: Recollection (2024)
The Ryan Grey that Ashley meets in One other Code: Recollection is sort of similar to the unique iteration of his character if one solely compares them on surface-level particulars. Ryan Grey meets Ashley throughout a barbeque that her father holds at Lake Juliet, introducing himself as a behavioral psychologist allegedly working at J.C. Valley. The 2 quickly develop a optimistic rapport as they talk about Sayoko Robins, and the way reminiscences form an individual. The main variations between the 2 iterations are how Ryan’s refined dismissive language is just not current within the 2024 model, and the few remaining cases have been majorly re-framed. For instance, in each video games, Ryan tells Ashley that she is vulnerable to “false recall” in that she misremembers sure occasions that didn’t happen. The unique Ryan Grey makes use of this as a weapon to gaslight Ashley into doubting herself, whereas Recollection’s Ryan makes use of this to ascertain a shared connection, as Ryan additionally has gaps in his reminiscence which he concludes are indicators of misremembering his previous. Ryan is offered with some parallels to the protagonist, already inviting a stage of viewers curiosity and sympathy not almost as current within the unique.
That being stated, there are a number of oddities surrounding Ryan that the participant observes as the sport progresses. The primary is his uncanny potential to seem and disappear from a scene in seconds, nearly as if he teleported himself to the world. Then there may be his second scene within the recreation, the place Ashley briefly experiences an odd, sudden headache whereas speaking with Ryan at his cottage. Lastly, there may be the unusual phenomenon the place the one folks able to seeing Ryan are Ashley and Ryan’s collaborator, Sofia Callaghan, whereas Richard and the present director of J.C. Valley, Rex Alfred, are each incapable of seeing him.
These curiosities proceed after Ashley thwarts Ryan’s plans to implant Sayoko’s reminiscences into her utilizing the ANOTHER, a machine created to change reminiscences, and confronts Ryan about what he has performed. In contrast to his unique iteration, Ryan is instantly repentant upon studying that Sayoko had constructed a failsafe to forestall the ANOTHER from being exploited and helped her daughter retain her reminiscences. His dialogue and physique language present nice unhappiness and grief, expressing his needs to see Sayoko and realizing that it will by no means occur. After Ashley asks Ryan to clarify why he tried to revive Sayoko in her physique, he provides a cryptic farewell and rapidly vanishes earlier than her eyes. And but, regardless of solely being a room aside and with the ability to see clearly by way of the connecting window, Ryan was nonetheless fully invisible to Richard and Rex whereas this change happened.
As was the case in A Journey into Misplaced Reminiscences, Ryan’s backstory and motivations are quickly revealed. Similar to within the unique recreation, Ryan was initially the son of Judd Fitzgerald and witnessed his mom die after she protected him, which led to him being so consumed by grief that he stopped expressing himself and have become totally non-verbal. Not sure of what to do, Judd determined that totally eradicating Ryan’s reminiscences can be the perfect technique to assist “deliver (his son) again”. From right here, Recollection provides two main variations to this model of Ryan’s backstory. The primary change is that Judd used the prototype model of ANOTHER to extract his reminiscences, with the help of two of his mentees, Sayoko and Rex, and had these reminiscences saved in “liquid reminiscence” developed within the J.C. Valley labs. The second, and most devastating, change is that, not like the unique recreation, the experiment was a catastrophic failure, and Ryan Fitzgerald died.
Shortly after Ryan’s loss of life, Sayoko noticed an odd phenomenon within the liquid reminiscence extracted from him; as a substitute of remaining static, the reminiscences started to vary and kind new recollections. In different phrases, a brand new consciousness was being shaped from the late Ryan Fitzgerald’s reminiscences, which, mixed with stated thoughts changing into built-in with J.C. Valley’s pc system, progressively led to the creation of the particular person we now know as Ryan Grey. Sayoko tried to relay this discovering to Judd, however he dismissed her findings as nonsense, making her one of many solely individuals who knew of Ryan’s existence. Ryan’s “bodily” appearances had been optical illusions created by highjacking the safety cameras related to the ANOTHER machine, briefly impacting particular folks’s notion to swimsuit his functions, thus making it appear to be he’s current in an area. Ryan’s targets had been motivated by an existential want to discover a goal in his existence, and to fulfill with the one one who really knew him one final time, earlier than his bodily type of liquid reminiscence fully dissolves.
Amongst these various adjustments from the supply materials, probably the most placing is that Ryan is painted as a morally complicated character in Recollection fairly than the unambiguous villain he was in A Journey into Misplaced Reminiscences. Ashley calls him out on his actions and strategies however can also be sympathetic to him and keen to be taught why he pursued the trail he did to fulfill Sayoko once more. After an extended dialogue, Ashley guarantees Ryan that she gained’t overlook him, fulfilling his deepest want to have somebody on the earth keep in mind him earlier than he lastly passes on. Ashley’s view and remedy of Ryan by the top of the sport are starkly completely different from the unique, and the viewers is invited to share her care and sympathy for him. Ryan’s neurodivergent coding can also be not vilified on this recreation. Whereas he’s nonetheless notably “completely different” from the remainder of the forged of characters, it’s clear that these variations are usually not one thing to concern, however are simply part of Ryan’s persona and the distinctive circumstances of his existence.
Recollection additionally shifts the narrative from sympathizing with Judd’s perspective to specializing in Ryan’s ideas and emotions on his father. As a substitute of sepia-toned sentimental pictures, the recollections are nearly like one thing out of a horror film, with darkish shades of purple and barely distorted visuals portray an image of a person so decided to “repair” his little one at any value that he ended up killing him. This model of the sport’s narrative makes the parallels to conversion remedy really feel much more visceral, exhibiting how mother and father of neurodivergent kids might undergo excessive actions to “save” their kids from one thing they understand as “mistaken” when the fact is significantly extra complicated. With this course of framed so horrifyingly, the viewers’s sympathy now lies with Ryan, and Judd’s rejection of his little one’s autonomy is offered as really villainous.
An indication of change
After I initially accomplished One other Code: Recollection, my emotions about Ryan Grey had been difficult. He was a flawed and multilayered character, whose actions had been indefensible in some ways, and but he was nonetheless handled with compassion and kindness by Ashley. Studying about how a lot Ryan has modified since his unique look in A Journey into Misplaced Reminiscences has brought on me to reframe my viewpoint on the character in numerous methods, with the best takeaway being appreciation for these adjustments.
All through my life, I’ve seen the methods narratives, each fiction and non-fiction, vilify neurodivergence in quite a few methods, reinforcing myths and stereotypes of our group being harmful and untrustworthy compared to our neurotypical counterparts. Seeing the creators of the unique One other Code video games return and radically rewrite a personality who, whether or not deliberately or not, was written into the stereotypes of a neurodivergent villain, is one thing uncommon and memorable in some ways. Whereas I might not go so far as to say that the brand new Ryan Grey is a “good” instance of illustration—as famous above, it’s tough to know if he was deliberately written as a neurodivergent character, and one might make the argument that he dies twice within the recreation—he’s nonetheless leaps and bounds a significantly better character now than he was fifteen years in the past.
These adjustments make me hope that, nonetheless progressively, folks’s perceptions of neurodiversity are slowly altering for the higher. Writers could also be reflecting on the neurodivergent characters they’d written up to now, and contemplating how they might change or re-approach them with their present information. I gained’t assume Suzuki Rika, and the remainder of the One other Code: Recollection story staff, had these ideas and emotions in thoughts when growing the sport, however it’s nonetheless heartening to know that they willingly made these adjustments and that fashionable gamers will be capable to expertise this model of the story. I can solely hope this can be a signal of issues to return, with extra tales that deal with neurodivergent characters with empathy and nuance fairly than concern and scorn.
