#50: Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (LucasArts, DOS, 1991)

One less obviously heavy moment that really stuck with me, and stands out even decades later, concerns Guybrush’s romantic relationship with the powerful and resourceful Governor Elaine Marley. The first game featured a neat undermining of the idea that she needed to be rescued, but concluded on a more typical romantic note. This time round, Guybrush crashes her party, in search of a treasure map piece, and is revealed to be thoroughly unwelcome.

Like almost everything in the game, it’s played for humour — the incongruity of Guybrush turning up to a mansion in this historic setting to say

he’s her ex-boyfriend; the discovery that she named her dog after him — but humour can always be a way of making other points. The game doesn’t fill in exactly what happened, but her message comes through clearly. She hasn’t been captured by ghost pirates; no curse is keeping them apart; she just decided, as someone with her own agency, that she didn’t want to be with him. Even after a storybook ending, someone can still change her mind.