The Best Man by Stephen Bond
Stephen Bond! I wasn’t putting any money on him coming back to interactive fiction, but he is back, and how. Bond is known especially as the author of Rameses (2000), a work famous for having a socially awkward protagonist who always – no matter what you try to make him do or say – follows the path of least resistance. The poetry scene in my own Turandot is based on Bond’s game, as those who knew it could not fail to notice.
Bond then wrote the 2004 game The Cabal, which is one big in-joke about the interactive fiction newsgroups at the time, and about which Emily Short wrote that it ‘ages badly’… and that was in 2007, so I suspect it is now more or less incomprehensible. He also used to have a website with writings on IF and other topics, but it seems to be down. I remember his essay on player freedom quite well, because in it he criticised an essay of my own at a time when I was young enough to be somewhat scandalised when people misunderstood my writings – and perhaps also young enough to not consider whether the fault might have been my own. In addition I distinctly recall that Bond had an article in which he explained why he didn’t like Little Miss Sunshine. He didn’t like Little Miss Sunshine! What kind of man is that?
A man whose return to the world of interactive fiction is a reason for celebration, that’s the kind of man he is. The Best Man is a powerful work written by what can only be called a deliciously mature writer. Bond is brilliant in evoking personality, giving us not only a distinctly cringe-worthy protagonist, but also a cast of minor supporting characters who are given more life and personality during their brief appearances than the main characters of many another work. And he’s also very good at using the medium he has chosen, expertly hiding or emphasising the linear nature of his game as needed, and giving us one delightfully inventive scene where the protagonist-narrator Aiden keeps rewriting the imagined reconciliation with his loved one – a scene both beautiful in itself and a perfect way to showcase Aiden’s narcissistic obsession.
Ah, Aiden. The Best Man stands or falls with Aiden, of course, with how interested we become in this guy who is asked to be the best man at the wedding of the woman he is not-so-secretly in love with. Aiden is not someone for whom social interaction comes easily. This is why being taken up in Laura’s circle of friends unsettles him so much and then feels like a blessing, even though he’s never treated all that well – perhaps the original, first-stage friendship with Laura was okay, but certainly the dubious social rituals of this group of friends, and the disregard for his feelings shown by Laura, tell us that things haven’t been right for a long time. For someone like Aiden, who doesn’t have any other social support to fall back on but craves love and acceptance, the only way to deal with this is to convince himself that everything is okay. Rather than develop his social antennae, he has every reason, at least in the short run, to let them atrophy even further. But of course this is an unstable strategy which cannot be extended indefinitely without embracing madness.
The marriage ceremony will be the crisis point. Either Aiden must succeed at his most over-the-top attempt at self-deception yet (that it’s really, in some sense, Aiden that she is marrying!), or he must finally face reality. And Bond is excellent at raising the tension and keeping us on the edge of our seats. Will there be a disaster? Will it all end in reality and growth, or in self-deception and ruin?
Bond’s final master stroke is the careful ambiguity of the ending sequence. Whatever you do with the rings, it will end up looking like outward compliance and inward resistance. Then you are more or less forced to give a speech, and this speech can be read both as a narcissistic story about Aiden’s own love for Laura and as a straightforward story about the marriage that takes place (a better story, for that matter, than any of the insufferable lads is able to give). With what intention is Aiden making the speech? Both, no doubt.
And so we get to the epilogue. There’s an entire discussion on this forum about whether Aiden joins some crazy incel group or rather becomes emotionally mature. I don’t think we can decide this question based on what Bond is giving us. There’s a dig at his old friends that doesn’t sound very mature, sure; but then again, these old friends were indeed superficial jerks, and it’s not bad to recognise that. It’s clear that Aiden has not reached perfection; but the scenes with the side characters reminded us that imperfection can be enough. The way I read The Best Man, both possibilities, ruin and growth, remain open until the very end. And isn’t that precisely the human condition?