Flight or invisibility? The next 'Splatoon 2' match-up has a cool history

Which superpower would you choose: flight or invisibility?

Splatoon 2's semi-regular Splatfest competitions let players choose which of two teams they'll represent. As with the original game, it's always a binary choice between two seemingly innocuous options.

The two previous Splatfests, for example, pitted cake against ice cream and then ketchup against mayonnaise. The next match-up is flight vs. invisibility, but the choices this time aren't as mundane as they might seem.

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Whether it's intentional or not, Nintendo's next Splatoon 2 event is picking up on a question that's been asked and dissected in the annals of pop culture for more than a decade. Perhaps the most well-known example goes back to a 2001 episode of This American Life.

John Hodgman, who hosted the first segment of an episode called "Superpowers," lays out the ground rules right away:

Flight versus invisibility. This question is only for you. Whichever you pick, you'll be the only person in the world to have that particular superpower. You can't have both. Which do you choose?

The rest of the piece ponders the meaning behind that question as random speakers deliver increasingly animated takes on which power they'd prefer and what they'd do with it. And in these responses, Hodgman notices an unusual pattern: the choice itself creates a real dilemma for people.

"Many brood anxiously over their choice, switching from one to the other and back again," he explained.

"That's because, more than the ability, say, to burst into flame or shoot arrows with uncanny accuracy, flight and invisibility touch a nerve. Actually, they touch two different nerves; speak to very different primal desires and unconscious fears."

It's Hodgman's friend, identified only as "Christine," who sums this idea up best.

"One superpower is about something that's obvious and the other is about something that is hidden. I think it indicates your level of shame," she said, prompting Hodgman to ask for clarification.

So she continues: "A person who chooses to fly has nothing to hide; a person who chooses to be invisible wants, clearly, to hide themself."

On a certain level: flight makes you a hero, invisibility makes you a villain. But the question also isn't quite as black and white as that reductive take makes it seem.

It's not that a certain type of person chooses flight and a certain, other type of person chooses invisibility. As Hodgman contends at the end of the segment, each choice carries its own universal appeal even though the two stand in opposition to one another.

"It's not a question of what kind of person flies and what kind of person fades. We all do both. Perhaps that's why, when I put the choice to myself, I'm hopelessly, completely stuck," he said.

"At the heart of this decision, the question I really don't want to face is this: Who do you want to be, the person you hope to be or the person you fear you actually are? Don't rush into it. Think it over. Which would you choose?"