Golemic Gamers

I HAVE long been fascinated by the old Jewish folk-legend of the Golem and, over the course of several decades, have managed to collect various interpretations of the story, both old and new. Be it the medieval tales of Rabbi Loew of Prague; the gripping narrative of Gustav Meyrink's 1914 novel, 'Der Golem', which was made into a silent film the following year; or Roddy McDowall's maniacal invocation of his mythical creature in the 1966 production, 'It!' The stumbling figure of the terrifying Golem has captivated people for several centuries and even inspired Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' and J.R.R. Tolkien's own Gollum.

More recently, it occurred to me that the increasingly popular computer game, Pokémon, works on the same principle. However, rather than have a vengeful rabbi wedge a Hebrew prayer behind the teeth of some clay monstrosity and then seek to control that which was formerly lifeless and inanimate, it seems that the Pokémon creatures - themselves brought to life from the recesses of the human mind - essentially end up controlling the humans. Now, who could have ever imagined that the Golems would gain the upper hand...