"They Said I Could": Power and Authority in Papers, Please

On day 6 in Papers, Please, there is a terrorist attack mounted by a citizen of Kolechia. On day 7 you are given the directive that all people from Kolechia must be searched in order to look for weapons they could be attempting to smuggle into the country. As an immigration officer trying desperately to save my sick, cold, and hungry family members, I dutifully scanned the first Kolechian to approach my station and, expecting an airport-security-like experience, was surprised to presented with two pictures of my prospective entrant completely naked. I immediately felt as though I had no right to be seeing this. Yes, as an authority figure backed by the government, I possessed a lot of power but should that power really extend to such a gross invasion of privacy?

This mechanic specifically led me to think more about power within Papers, Please. Many video games hinge on the player having some sort of power. In Kirby games, you can have many powers depending on which enemies you encounter. In Braid you have the power to manipulate time. However, I have never played a game before where your power so clearly rested in your authority within the game. In Papers, Please, I believe that this wide-reaching power and authority that we are presented with adds an important dynamic to the choice gameplay by providing players with an "out" for their ethical dilemmas.

As we have discussed in class, Papers, Please creates a very complex system of choice. Any decision made requires the player to consider a variety of factors: am I correct, is it ethical, will it help me earn more money, etc. Different players may play with different goals in mind, guiding them through these tough decisions. For example, early on I decided I cared a lot more about my family then most other things in the game. Thus, most of my choices were aimed at earning as much money as possible and when I had to separate a family or turn people away, while I felt bad, I could live with my choice of working to save my family.

Your authority in the game acts as another, perhaps less involved justification for your actions. Through your daily updates you are told, "you have to do this" or "don't let this happen" and you have a choice to listen or not. However, you can also lean into a "cog in the machine" mentality and for each decision, rest on the directives of the game and ignore some of the more nuanced thinking about the ethical dilemmas. Of course, choosing to play this way is still an ethical choice but one that maybe seems less involved. This is in part because you are given so much power by your government. You can search people, question them, detain them, all because some higher force told you that you could. But beyond just the power, you are given the authority that basically tells you it is alright to do these things. The Oxford Dictionary defines authority as "the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience." The idea of power as a "right" makes it easier to justify these hard ethical decisions the game presents you with. It can be seen as providing one way of interpreting "right" and "wrong" within the game. What's "right" is whatever you do with your power because your authority tells you that it is. Without such explicit authority from the game, for example if all of the options were there but maybe you weren't told about them or weren't told to use them, every exertion of force or power would reflect more clearly back on you rather than on the in-game government telling you what to do.

However, focusing less on your authority and more on the power you wield can have the opposite affect. Like I experienced during my first use of the scanner, the power you have over people is very obvious and forces you to confront your god-like role in people's lives. For me, it felt wrong to have this much power over others, regardless of my in-game jurisdiction. This balance between authority and power is an important dynamic as it both allows people to avoid some of the ethical debate presented by the game and forces others to think more critically about the power they do possess.