Lecture

**Items You Love at Members-Only Prices**

Level number
11

Date of creation
September 2009

Preceded by
House

Followed by
Theater

**Lecture** is the eleventh chapter of *The Beginner's Guide*.

## Description

### Level

This brief level takes place in a university classroom with a teacher giving a lecture and a student watching it from one of the seats. The teacher is talking about perfection, stating that being perfect is effortless and necessary, among other things. The player begins as the student and, eventually, the camera starts shifting to other seats (possibly suggesting that there are actually several students in the classroom).

Suddenly, the player begins controlling the teacher, from whose perspective there is a black hole on the "wall" behind the student, with a lamppost next to it. The player also chooses which, between three sentences, will be the next the teacher will say. One of the options is what they will actually say (marked in yellow) and the two others are thoughts they are keeping to themselves (marked in gray), revealing that the teacher isn't perfect and has actually several problems in their life.

### Narration

*This one gets a bit goofy.*

(See Dialogue Section)

*About halfway through the game, the perspective shifts...*

*And you play as the teacher. And suddenly you discover that your teacher is just as bigotted and afraid as you are. Oh and also you can move around the classroom now.*

*I fell pretty hard for this one. I feel like it's one of the most relateable experiences that you can have, to assume that some other person is perfect and totally fulfilled in every way, and completely miss all of the little flaws that make them painfully human. I think about this game a lot these days.*

## Dialogue (From In-Game Files)

Why did you come here today? Was it to improve your life? Was it to get a better job? Was it to make your relationships more meaningful? No. You came here to become PERFECT. This workshop is going to teach you how to be perfect. I want your friends, the people in your life to look at you and think: "wow, this person is a better human being than I am." Right now, who do you think about that way in your own life? Who do you know who is so well developed as a person that they make you feel disgusted with yourself? Compared to whom, you feel useless. Selfish. Ungrateful. I intend to make you into that person. Perfection IS within your grasp. And the question is not how do we do it, but how do we do it EFFORTLESSLY. This is easy. It is so easy. It is so easy. Being perfect is effortless.

(Perspective shift)

(Choices do not make any difference, so the order will always be the same.)

1. This is the key: how do I achieve it with no effort.
2. On the way to work I told an elderly person to start contributing to society.
3. Kids should not follow their dreams.

1. Well let me tell you right now: If it isn't effortless, then it's not the right answer.
2. I still love you, it's just that you make me feel cold on the inside.
3. Being alone must be awful.

1. Thank goodness all of you perceive me as being wise and intelligent!
2. Drinking is not hurting my life.
3. If you are torturing yourself trying to find the right solutions for your life, you're not doing it right.

1. Do you understand that you won't be happy until you love me? This is for you.
2. Seek out only one thing: what is the easiest, simplest path forward.
3. Ew. I'm developing a cyst. Gross.

1. HAHAHA JUST KIDDING.
2. Anyone want to do some ecstasy after this?
3. There is no truth. There is no path.

1. What if I'm not a good teacher...
2. Do what is easiest. Do what is simplest. Feel what is true.
3. HOLY SH\*T you guys something is coming out of the back of the room! LOOK OUT!!

1. Nothing. No one.
2. It's coming for you! It's going to destroy you!
3. Everyone run! RUN!!!

1. Perfection.
2. Perfection.
3. Perfection.

## Trivia

By noclipping, the player can find a second black hole in one corner of the world. It appears to be identical to the first, including the animation being synchronized.