The Remarkable Life of Ibelin

Right, I know I'm quite late to the party in writing about this, considering the movie came out close to two months ago now, but I still wanted to jot down some thoughts about it.

Fun fact: The first mention of this film I recall seeing was this post from the WoW Bluesky account, and at the time I was totally confused and thought that it was just some strange meme that I didn't understand. (In my defense, posting one random meme every three months was about all the effort they put into that account at the time.)

Later, I saw someone yell in Dornogal that we should all buy the "Revan" pack and support a good cause, to which my reaction was 1) what does Revan have to do with WoW, and 2) why are people trying to get others to spend money in the cash shop now?

Yeah, I'm not always the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to making sense of unexpected new information, but I got there eventually.

In case you also still don't know what I'm talking about, "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" is a movie that was recently released on Netflix and documents the life of Mats Steen, a Norwegian WoW player who died at a young age but also became famous posthumously once his parents found out about his "second life" in World of Warcraft and how much of an impact he'd had in that virtual world, which was such a stark contrast to his real life and how he was largely housebound there due to a severe disability.

The BBC actually printed a long article about him five years ago, which I read at the time and found touching then too.

I actually resubscribed to Netflix specifically to watch this film (though knowing that Arcane season two was meant to come out shortly after helped with my decision as well) and it definitely felt worth it. I wanted to show it to my mother too (since I was visiting her at the time and she really dislikes everything to do with "online", so I thought it might be useful for illustrating what it means to make friends on the internet) but she didn't feel like watching something so sad and I can't blame her for that. You'll definitely need to be armed with some tissues, especially for the beginning and end, but it's not all depressing; don't worry. 

I was obviously familiar with the basic "plot" from the BBC article, but where the movie really expands on things is just how much Mats got up to online, as the RP guild he was in saved a lot of conversations on a forum somewhere, and the film-makers used this to reconstruct some scenes and had them animated using WoW models, which adds a lot to the storytelling. You really get a much better idea of everything he got up to and how he interacted with his guildies, and that was quite enjoyable to learn more about.

The devs also erected an actual memorial for him in Elwynn Forest that resembles his real-life gravestone. I visited it in game afterwards and lit a candle.

Oh, and that "Revan" pack is actually called "Reven Pack" and gives you a pet and backpack, with 100% of the proceeds going to the non-profit Cure Duchenne, which is dedicated to battling the degenerative disease that cut Mats' life short. I bought one of those as well.

I think everyone who's built real relationships with people they met in an MMO will be able to relate to Ibelin's story, but I've got to admit that beyond that, it also got me wondering whether I've met people similar to Ibelin without even knowing it. For example there's this one guy with whom I've been playing for many years who's often made us wonder... things. We know nothing about his real life other than what country he lives in, and he's never once spoken on voice chat, even though he's always happy to come on and listen. He does communicate by typing, but rarely even that, and when he does, it's often very slow and deliberate. He never seems to have any obligations that keep him away from gaming. He's extremely good at what he does while playing with us, yet also accepting and tolerant of other people's failures and faults to an almost inhuman degree. We used to joke sometimes that we can't really know for sure that he's not an alien, a robot or a hyper-intelligent cat, but I've got to admit that the thought has certainly crossed my mind that he may simply be a person who has some bad stuff going on in real life, from which he's intentionally escaping online. It'd just feel kind of rude to press the issue when it really doesn't matter to our relationship.

Anyway, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is an excellent movie and I can recommend it. If you can't or don't want to pay for Netflix, reading the BBC article will still give you at least the basic gist of the story. And remember to cherish and look after your online buddies. You'll never know what tomorrow will bring and how much of a difference you might be making to someone else's life hundreds of miles away.