While the camera in the real world is not objective anymore than the person behind it, I think in the game it is meant to represent such a tool. It is a simple function and is much more a device of simple point and shoot. It’s simplicity and the simplicity of the photogrpah targets try to strip away the subjective elements of the camera. Yes leaving out something in a shot is important to understanding it, but in Beyond Good and Evil that is never a concious consideration. Certain pieces of information need to be found out. And while facts can be spun any which way, the fact themselves are an objective reality.

As for looking at the time in which the game was created and any indication of how it is a commentary on modern media I have no doubt that it is, though an underdevloped commentary. Even more so is how the Hillian Word changes its tune when its proved that the Alpha Sections are no good and calls Jade intrepid and investigator instead of terrorist. I think it would be close to an idea that there has to be a journalistic responsibility.

If we are going to consider the nature of objective\subjective truth in the game it’s worth looking at the culture in which the game was created. At that time the US and Coalition forces were involved in military action in Afghanistan and barely six months before the game was released Coalition forces entered Iraq. France had never really supported either action so it’s not a huge leap to see the game as a criticism of the way the media are exploited to justify acts of aggression. Consider the first time you meet the Alpha Sections, and they have an embedded journalist with them who’s clearly more interested in a story of how well the Alphas are doing than the real story of the suffering of the people of Hillys.

I’ve often wondered if Beyond Good & Evil was saying something about the nature of truth, that somehow people can tell what is true even when it’s not presented objectively. I agree with Simon that photography is no more objective than anything else as what is not included in the shot, is just as important as what is. At the start of the game the people of Hillys are willing to accept the Alpha Sections at their word because the Iris Network isn’t really getting their message across. The moment Jade starts to work for them and get her images out to the public the reaction of the people on the street starts to change quite rapidly. They know what they are seeing from Jade is the truth even if they are also aware that it is as subjective as anything presented by the Alpha Sections.

I wonder if the message behind Beyond Good & Evil is that truth will out.

Aside from that, my views of documentary/filmic reality and objectivity don’t have to do with the book, but rather from learning about them as a film student and a journalism researcher. The core of my critique is from the journalistic perspective, not from the Nietzsche stuff.

I agree, I don’t think we see eye to eye ideologically. To me there is a truth, because there exists a world without interpretation. Without man the world could not be interpreted, but it would still be. That is the objective reality. If a man we to cross the street that is an objective action. Why he crossed the street would be an interpretation. His motive could be good or evil, but whatever the subjective application to his action, he still crossed the street.

This is what I am saying. The two groups are applying their own subjectivity to the actions of the other, but when it is all stripped away it does not change the fact that the Alpha Sections are kidnapping the Hillians and that is a threat to the people.

As to the argument for objective reality and good and evil as subjective, we’re really not coming from the same ideological planes here. Snapping a picture is not objective, because you choose the frame (this was a problem from the very beginnings of photography and documentary, not just coming with the advent of Photoshop).

Good and evil are subjective, as you say, which is why it’s boring that this game presents so obvious an evil to the player–the DomZ (even though it does push through the rhetoric of Alpha and Iris). The book that this game’s title derives from holds that Truth itself is necessarily as subjective as Good and Evil. Everything you’ve written only confirms my assertion that the designers (and most of the game’s players) rely on naive assumptions about control, truth, and photography.