Tweet
By Alexandra Geraets in Serious Infotainment
Monday, March 19, 2012 at 10:00 A.M.
When I was growing up, my favorite stories were mythologies. I
didn't care where they came from, or whose culture they belonged
to. I wanted to know, to understand, to explore why a certain person
was remembered, why certain cities mattered above others, why one
story element could be found in hundreds of other stories.
Mythology plays an extremely important part in video games. It's
not necessarily a game's internal mythology that piques a player's
interest; it's the influence of real world myth and legend on the
game's narrative and characters. Some of the most influential games
are based around mythology and epic tales of struggle against and
between gods and men.
There is an idea called the monomyth. It's the idea that there
is a basic pattern that is repeated in narratives around the world,
stories such as the world destroying flood, the half-god/half-human
hero who must seek out gods and other supernatural beings to save his
world, a young hero is influenced by an old sorcerer to seek out his
great destiny. The Great Flood is familiar to most people; Gilgamesh
is a staple story; King Arthur is a story that most kids learned and
never forgot because they wanted to be Arthur.
Video games owe a great deal to the monomyth and mythology in
general. Think of the some of the most notable video game narratives.
Final Fantasy almost always
involves the a hero influenced by others to seek out a great evil,
facing great peril and the opportunity to rise above one's initial
station at every turn. The God of War series
sees the gods of Greek mythology come to life, showing us a heroic,
well-intentioned goddess, and a despotic tyrant of a ruling god,
while a half-mad, homicidal Spartan seeks to destroy everything they
stand for. Shin Megami Tensei involves
a noble youth, spurred on by an influential sorcerer (Igor) to
embrace his destiny with the help of supernatural allies to defeat a
great evil and seize his destiny.
These series all play with notions of myth and the importance of
great heroes. Mythology and the fantasy experience of a video game go
hand in hand. While thousands of years ago old men told stories
around campfires about great heroes, far away lands, monstrous
creatures, beautiful women, and the wrath and favor of gods, now we
gamers experience those same things through a screen and a
controller. We experience a story, a myth that we might not otherwise
experience.
As gamers, we get to be Odysseus, Gilgamesh, and Beowulf. We can
be Nike, goddess of victory, Kali, the destroyer, or even the warrior
queen Boudicca, and threaten the might of a great civilization. We
can be these mythical characters because they are legend; they never
fade, they never die.
There has been discussion, some of it loud, much of it vicious and
filled with venom, regarding a particular legend's ending. (Mass Effect 3)
There is a feeling of despair, loss, grief, and misery that a story did not
receive a true conclusion. I feel that this is wrong. It's another
example of myth, of epic literature. Epics don't always have happy
endings; they don't always work out the way that people want them
to. If they changed, then the story wouldn't mean the same thing.
There is something far more important at stake in a mythical tale
than the simple question of whom the hero kisses in the end. The
greatest of epic tales present this simple concept: there is one
person who must decide what role she or he will play in the greater
journey to come. That role is sometimes hero, and it is sometimes
martyr; sometimes it is redeemer, and sometimes it is destroyer.
Sometimes, the hero of a story is a monster, but redemption can be
found. Sometimes, the hero is a kind soul, but the most evil of
choices must be made in order to maintain balance.
It's not ideal. It's not happy. A myth is sometimes cynical,
bleak, and it leaves the listener feeling helpless. This does not
mean that the story did not teach sometimes. Mythology twists and
turns in a thousand different ways, across thousands of years,
stories jump back and forth, they warp and shift, changing with the
influence of the story teller, the government, the culture, the
artistic environment.
Video games let us be the stars of our own epic tales. RPG's are
all about the lone hero on a potentially doomed quest; they are
completely focused on a primary character, and the friends, allies,
and enemies she or he might make along the way. That is the very
nature of the epic tale. It is a story about a single entity. The
epic tale is a story that consumes that entity, the villains who
taunt and tempt that entity, and the allies and friends who accompany
the entity upon his or her journey. It is the monomyth, and it's
spread across dozens of games.
Video games have established their own variations on mythology. In
our games, we are the epic heroes. We get to be the hero that
we used to pretend we were as kids. Do you remember playing with friends
as a child, declaring yourself the hero of the story that you would
pretend and make up on the fly? You raised your fist, proclaimed
yourself the hero, and named one of your friends the villain.
You played out your own story, and you built your own legend from it.
The same is true of game narrative. We embrace narratives that are
familiar, as familiar as the mythologies we learned as children, from
the classical to the religious, and we understand it as we understand
our own hearts and minds. We recognize archetypical heroes and
villains, and when stories twist our perceptions, we attempt to
compensate by seeking out a mythical character that might suit the
role. We look for a link to familiarity; in finding it, we recognize
the myth as our present game's reality. When we can link a game
character to myth, we see structure, balance, and order. We see the
monomyth, the familiar, the all-encompassing story that everyone
knows.
The familiarity of myth serves us well as gamers. We seek it out,
we learn from it. We play our games as best we can, seeing familiar
concepts, characters, and stories unfold before our eyes. We embrace
myth as easily as we embrace a game's internal structure. When a
game shares its own mythology, we see familiar elements of our own
experiences.
When we bring our own experiences - be it educational,
professional, personal, or spiritual - to a video game, we gain
more from the story than we might have previously thought. When we
bring our own experiences, we gain more. We see beyond a simple
controller and a visual interface. We see what the story truly is,
what it means, and where it will go. We appreciate it more, because
the elements are familiar, the hero is known to us, and the story is
never forgotten or completely told, until it is never told again.
A myth lives on long past its game over screen.
Serious Infotainment runs on Mondays. You can follow Alexandra
on Twitter @Al3xandra_G.
Monday, March 19, 2012 at 10:00 A.M.
When I was growing up, my favorite stories were mythologies. I
didn't care where they came from, or whose culture they belonged
to. I wanted to know, to understand, to explore why a certain person
was remembered, why certain cities mattered above others, why one
story element could be found in hundreds of other stories.
Mythology plays an extremely important part in video games. It's
not necessarily a game's internal mythology that piques a player's
interest; it's the influence of real world myth and legend on the
game's narrative and characters. Some of the most influential games
are based around mythology and epic tales of struggle against and
between gods and men.
There is an idea called the monomyth. It's the idea that there
is a basic pattern that is repeated in narratives around the world,
stories such as the world destroying flood, the half-god/half-human
hero who must seek out gods and other supernatural beings to save his
world, a young hero is influenced by an old sorcerer to seek out his
great destiny. The Great Flood is familiar to most people; Gilgamesh
is a staple story; King Arthur is a story that most kids learned and
never forgot because they wanted to be Arthur.
Video games owe a great deal to the monomyth and mythology in
general. Think of the some of the most notable video game narratives.
Final Fantasy almost always
involves the a hero influenced by others to seek out a great evil,
facing great peril and the opportunity to rise above one's initial
station at every turn. The God of War series
sees the gods of Greek mythology come to life, showing us a heroic,
well-intentioned goddess, and a despotic tyrant of a ruling god,
while a half-mad, homicidal Spartan seeks to destroy everything they
stand for. Shin Megami Tensei involves
a noble youth, spurred on by an influential sorcerer (Igor) to
embrace his destiny with the help of supernatural allies to defeat a
great evil and seize his destiny.
These series all play with notions of myth and the importance of
great heroes. Mythology and the fantasy experience of a video game go
hand in hand. While thousands of years ago old men told stories
around campfires about great heroes, far away lands, monstrous
creatures, beautiful women, and the wrath and favor of gods, now we
gamers experience those same things through a screen and a
controller. We experience a story, a myth that we might not otherwise
experience.
As gamers, we get to be Odysseus, Gilgamesh, and Beowulf. We can
be Nike, goddess of victory, Kali, the destroyer, or even the warrior
queen Boudicca, and threaten the might of a great civilization. We
can be these mythical characters because they are legend; they never
fade, they never die.
There has been discussion, some of it loud, much of it vicious and
filled with venom, regarding a particular legend's ending. (Mass Effect 3)
There is a feeling of despair, loss, grief, and misery that a story did not
receive a true conclusion. I feel that this is wrong. It's another
example of myth, of epic literature. Epics don't always have happy
endings; they don't always work out the way that people want them
to. If they changed, then the story wouldn't mean the same thing.
There is something far more important at stake in a mythical tale
than the simple question of whom the hero kisses in the end. The
greatest of epic tales present this simple concept: there is one
person who must decide what role she or he will play in the greater
journey to come. That role is sometimes hero, and it is sometimes
martyr; sometimes it is redeemer, and sometimes it is destroyer.
Sometimes, the hero of a story is a monster, but redemption can be
found. Sometimes, the hero is a kind soul, but the most evil of
choices must be made in order to maintain balance.
It's not ideal. It's not happy. A myth is sometimes cynical,
bleak, and it leaves the listener feeling helpless. This does not
mean that the story did not teach sometimes. Mythology twists and
turns in a thousand different ways, across thousands of years,
stories jump back and forth, they warp and shift, changing with the
influence of the story teller, the government, the culture, the
artistic environment.
Video games let us be the stars of our own epic tales. RPG's are
all about the lone hero on a potentially doomed quest; they are
completely focused on a primary character, and the friends, allies,
and enemies she or he might make along the way. That is the very
nature of the epic tale. It is a story about a single entity. The
epic tale is a story that consumes that entity, the villains who
taunt and tempt that entity, and the allies and friends who accompany
the entity upon his or her journey. It is the monomyth, and it's
spread across dozens of games.
Video games have established their own variations on mythology. In
our games, we are the epic heroes. We get to be the hero that
we used to pretend we were as kids. Do you remember playing with friends
as a child, declaring yourself the hero of the story that you would
pretend and make up on the fly? You raised your fist, proclaimed
yourself the hero, and named one of your friends the villain.
You played out your own story, and you built your own legend from it.
The same is true of game narrative. We embrace narratives that are
familiar, as familiar as the mythologies we learned as children, from
the classical to the religious, and we understand it as we understand
our own hearts and minds. We recognize archetypical heroes and
villains, and when stories twist our perceptions, we attempt to
compensate by seeking out a mythical character that might suit the
role. We look for a link to familiarity; in finding it, we recognize
the myth as our present game's reality. When we can link a game
character to myth, we see structure, balance, and order. We see the
monomyth, the familiar, the all-encompassing story that everyone
knows.
The familiarity of myth serves us well as gamers. We seek it out,
we learn from it. We play our games as best we can, seeing familiar
concepts, characters, and stories unfold before our eyes. We embrace
myth as easily as we embrace a game's internal structure. When a
game shares its own mythology, we see familiar elements of our own
experiences.
When we bring our own experiences - be it educational,
professional, personal, or spiritual - to a video game, we gain
more from the story than we might have previously thought. When we
bring our own experiences, we gain more. We see beyond a simple
controller and a visual interface. We see what the story truly is,
what it means, and where it will go. We appreciate it more, because
the elements are familiar, the hero is known to us, and the story is
never forgotten or completely told, until it is never told again.
A myth lives on long past its game over screen.
Serious Infotainment runs on Mondays. You can follow Alexandra
on Twitter @Al3xandra_G.
Comment