Keeping the Fires Lit: A Review of ‘Born to Die’

Words & Art: Virginia Paine / Storeenvy Born to Die: Dark Souls, Depressions and Making Comics is a mini-comic that tackles several topics using a narrative of playing through a video game. Not just any topics and not just any video game series, of course–creator Virginia Paine fashions their playthroughs of the first Dark Souls game in a story that mirrors her challenges she faces in real life that include living with depression and being a creative struggling for reasons to make art in dark times. Paine was thoughtful enough to include content warning for the discussion of depression and suicidal ideation and to note that are mild spoilers for Dark Souls I. “Why is this game resonating with me so much?” I am a Queen of RPG video games of the past (PS1 GANG, GANG), but I haven’t done much gaming lately; however, even I’ve heard of the near impossible, terribly difficult level of playing expertise needed to even attempt playing a game in the Dark Souls series. There’s a myriad of jokes and memes (even causal gamers know of the infamous ‘YOU DIED’ meme) to this effect, and Paine mentions that their decision to play was in part of how much talk there was of it being overtly difficult. So, last summer they took a crack at it and embarked on their first adventure. In my best narrator’s voice, I should tell you it wasn’t easy, and yet they played on. Most interesting, in this narrative, was the parallels the author made of their playthroughs of Dark Souls and real-life o…