What's So "Maybe" About Catherine?

Before I get started, let me bring those of you who are unfamiliar with the game Catherine up to speed. Feel free to skip the following paragraph if you're already hip to the game.

Released in North America this past July, Catherine is the story of an embattled 32 year old man named Vincent. Like many men his age, Vincent is in something of a rhythm. He has a decent, if not high level or glamorous job. He has his own place and he has a long standing relationship with a woman named Katherine. She is thinking about marriage. Though he cares deeply for her, he isn't. The arrival of Catherine, a sweet, care free, built-for-pleasure blond complicates things when she seduces Vincent, unaware of his relationship with Katherine. Through a series of block puzzles and conversation trees, the player guides Vincent through the frightening, guilt-laden emotional minefield of sex, infidelity, love and commitment.

So with that said.....

One of the things that makes the concept behind Catherine so compelling to me is that I love art as discussion. Whether it's a game or a film or a book, I love stories that are essentially crystallized discussions about a part of the human condition. Those that know me personally know that love, commitment and fidelity rate high on my list of essential human concepts. Factor in my passion for games (particularly those of the quirky, Japanese variety) and Catherine should have all my synapses firing. But through 4 chapters, something is really bugging me.

Just an FYI there are NO SPOILERS ahead.

I think we can all agree that the best pieces of contemplative art pose questions without agenda and avoid giving the audience the feeling that there is a "correct" answer. While great works have been created that are not so impartial, and are no less great for being so, they constitute a "statement" as opposed to a discussion.

Catherine most definitely postures itself as a discussion. If it were a simple statement about love and fidelity it would task the player with escaping one of the women or definitively trying to earn the "right" woman's affection. Instead, the game gives you a choice about who to end up with and no, it's not a Fable style "bright 'n' shiny" or "dark 'n' spiky" kind of binary choice.

There are four endings for both women, varying from not-so-good to "perfect" depending upon the decisions you make in the game. After certain key choices, the game even presents the player with a pie chart showing a percentage of what players chose their first time through. All of this serves to make the player feel as if the game is a sort of interactive, impartial discussion about love, marriage and fidelity.

The problem is that the facade of impartiality breaks right down with the character of Katherine, Vincent's long time girlfriend and would be fiance. She is, in my opinion, an insufferable type of human being. It's as if the creators polled unhappily married middle-aged men, asked them what they hate most about their wives and used that as a metric when creating Katherine.

Every negative stereo-type associated with "the woman who just wants to tie you down" is made manifest by her. She is cold, subversive and has a knack for passive-aggressively deriding every little thing Vincent does. From his laundry habits, to his social schedule and even his commitment to work overtime when needed, there doesn't seem to be anything about Vincent that she actually likes. She seems to have only two motivations for opening her mouth and those are chiding him for some inane little thing, or not-so-subtly advancing her agenda of marriage and children. In 4 chapters, I can't recall a single warm, kind or loving thing she had to say.

Before going any further, let me share a little bit about where I am coming from, since it may appear to those of you who played the game that I am reacting to the character in such a way because I have had bad experiences with women or am possessed of a fear to commit.

Hi! My name is Vincent and I am 32 years old and recently divorced. That's correct! I share the protagonists age and name! Before you point to the "divorced" bit let me break that down for you. Similarly to Catherine's Vincent, I met my wife in school, we went our ways after, and eventually we reconnected. My now ex-wife was, and IS, a wonderful person and a great friend. We certainly had our problems, but her secretly hating me, as Katherine seems to feel about Vincent, was not one of them. She loved me precisely FOR what I was, not in spite of it.

Despite our issues, and the eventual ending of our union, I would recommend marriage to anyone. If love is a driving force in your life, like it has always been in mine, there isn't a better decision you could make in my opinion. And as an Atheist, I come to that without any sort of religious motivation. Seriously, marriage rocks!


Vincent, or any real-world man who doesn't hate himself would be patently stupid to marry Katherine. Women like her are the reason so many men see marriage as "the end of their life".


Perhaps I am being a bit harsh, but after 4 chapters of trying to be open minded, this is how I felt about the character. I have met plenty of folks, male and female, who don't agree. If I'm being honest though, I've spoken to more women who agree than men. Take that as you will.

Going into the game, I was positive that in my first play through I would patently ignore Catherine and marry my long time girlfriend. Sadly, the game doesn't make that entirely possible, as you have no choice about whether or not Vincent cheats on Katherine with Catherine. He just does (another quibble I have). But after seeing what Katherine was actually like, I still felt that Vincent's infidelity was inexcusable (as infidelity ALWAYS is) but I also felt like I understood where it came from.

And this is the exact point at which the "discussion" breaks down. If the player feels in any way that Catherine is some kind of respite from Katherine, it's not a discussion about marriage vs freedom any longer. I really applaud the creators presenting a more realistic, grey shade picture of infidelity than is typically portrayed in the popular arts, really I do. But in this context it has the side effect of opening the door for us to see Catherine as a hero figure, saving Vincent from a terrible life of being nagged to death by someone who doesn't truly understand or love him.

And boy is it a feat to make ME of all people feel that. I mean, if I met a girl who looked like Catherine in real life, I would say she had "3 miles of bad road" written all over her. On the surface, she's the kind of apex predator that a man normally stays far away from if he wants an actually rewarding relationship. But not only does the game paint her as sweet and gentle as can be, they made her competition a buttoned-up shrew of a woman. Nothing like making the decision for the player!

But I am still early in the game, so I suppose there is still time for Katherine to prove to me that she wants to marry me because she loves me so much rather than because she is getting tired of her mother nagging her about it. While initially I was intrigued that the game could make me even consider Catherine, I realized quickly that they only achieved it by making me hate Katherine. While the game as a whole is made from more sophisticated stuff than most, that very vital element is kind of a cheap parlor trick by the standards of other artistic mediums.

A good piece of contemplative art relies on the presence of a "maybe". Maybe A or Maybe B? Do I sacrifice my life and the lives of people I love to save an entire planet, or do I protect myself and those I love at incalculable human cost? Cliche as that for instance may be in the game world, at least I can see the "maybe" in it. But what's so "maybe" about Catherine?