HERMENEUTICS IN SIMULATED ENVIRONMENTS: THE LITERARY QUALITY OF DIGITAL ARTIFACTS by Steven James Koontz A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Purdue University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Arts College of Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences Hammond, Indiana December 2020 THE PURDUE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE APPROVAL Dr. Mark Mabrito, Chair Department of English Dr. Dennis Barbour Department of English Dr. Karen Bishop-Morris Department of English Approved by: Dr. Jesse Cohn 2 Dedicated to my grandfather, whose wisdom still continues to inspire and motivate. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Composing a thesis has proven to be the most difficult academic endeavor with which I have ever been tasked; in fact, at times I have felt that voluntarily electing to undertake this route towards graduation almost bordered on masochistic. As an individual who works full time in a professional capacity, teaches, and has been taking courses, to say it has been challenging is an understatement. That said, the faculty and staff at Purdue Northwest have been quite accommodating, and without their assistance and understanding, I never could have completed this document. Much of the inspiration for my work was provided by the numerous courses I took with Dr. Mark Mabrito, whose insights into the media landscape helped me perceive new vistas of expression that exist at the crossroads of interactive technologies and the written word. Special thanks are also in order for Dr. Karen Bishop-Morris and Dr. Dennis Barbour, both of whom graciously offered to be part of my thesis committee despite their many other obligations. Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, even simple words of encouragement were of inestimable value. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ 6 GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................................... 7 ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... 8 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM ....................................................................................................... 9 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................................... 16 MODES OF LITERARY EXPRESSION .................................................................................... 20 On Linearity ............................................................................................................................... 22 The Meaning of Play .................................................................................................................. 23 BLOODBORNE: A LITERARY CASE STUDY ........................................................................ 26 Literary Pedigree ........................................................................................................................ 26 Primary Narrative ....................................................................................................................... 31 Uncovering Narration through Paratext ..................................................................................... 33 Close Reading and Close Playing .............................................................................................. 38 Literary Devices and Language ................................................................................................. 41 Linearity in Bloodborne ............................................................................................................. 43 Reading Ability and Playing Ability .......................................................................................... 44 DISCO ELYSIUM: CHALLENGES IN GAME EXPLICATION .............................................. 46 CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................................... 50 AREAS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH........................................................................................ 52 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 54 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Illuminated poetry has been embraced for its multimodality. From William Blake; commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Ghost_of_Abel_(page_2).jpg. ...................................... 21 Figure 2. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice offers a darkly psychedelic vision in conjunction with an experience redolent of mental illness according to experts consulted for the game (Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice). ........................................................................................................................ 24 Figure 3. Madman’s Knowledge text description, a key item in Game lore (Bloodborne). ......... 27 Figure 4. The Character creation screen allows the user to customize their avatar (Bloodborne). ....................................................................................................................................................... 31 Figure 5. A typical item description through menu paratext (Bloodborne). ................................. 32 Figure 6. Labyrinthine levels reflects complex narrative (Bloodborne). ...................................... 33 Figure 7. Albert can be seen prostrating before an altar (Bloodborne). ....................................... 34 Figure 8. Martyr Logarius (Bloodborne). ..................................................................................... 36 Figure 9. Ebriatas, Daughter of the Cosmos, a quintessentially Lovecraftian abomination (Bloodborne). ................................................................................................................................ 39 Figure 10. The note mechanic enables players to influence storytelling (Bloodborne). .............. 44 Figure 11. Dialogue features (Disco Elysium). ............................................................................. 47 6 GLOSSARY Avatar: A virtual representation, often customizable, of the player in a digital game environment. Boss: In the context of video games, an opponent that presents a greater challenge that normal enemies encountered in the game world. Cutscene: Cinematic style scenes, oftentimes non-interactive, in digital media that serve to further the story. These are often triggered by reaching some milestone in the game or simulation. Daedal: Complex, intricate, or labyrinthine. Etymologically linked to Daedalus, builder of the Cretan Labyrinth in Greek mythology. Ergodic: A portmanteau of the Greek words ergon (work) and hodos (path) used by Epsen Aarseth to describe text reliant on exogenous elements, and kinesthetic actions beyond what is required by an average written work (1). Hub: In video games, a place where the player character travels to make alterations to their character, purchase items, and access other areas of the virtual world. Generally a safe zone without enemies. Neoteric: That which is newly emergent and novel. NPC: Non-playable character. In digital games, these are the characters that populate the simulated environment. Non-playable characters are often benign and often serve to propel the story forward, or provide a simulacrum of fellowship. Paratext: Text serving as a supplement to the main body of work, functions different depending on medium. Text within, alongside, or surrounding the primary text. 7 ABSTRACT The topic of video games is expansive, encompassing numerous domains that have yet to be thoroughly examined within a scholarly context. Modern games, especially those in the adventure and role-playing genres, are oftentimes heavily laden with text, and therefore serve as excellent subjects when formulating hermeneutical models for simulated virtual contexts. Furthermore, many games belong under the umbrella of literary studies due to their reliance upon text to forge interactive, fictional narratives. While this means many games possess qualities that render them germane to academics within the sphere of English studies, they remain neglected outliers due to manifold factors, ranging from outmoded biases against the medium, to a lack of established evaluative methodologies. As a result, the field is largely bereft of consensus strategies for engaging digital works featuring literary exposition and dialogue in the form of on-screen text; however, existing theories, including more abstruse ones relating to ergodic literature, hypertext and cybertext, provide a foundation on which to construct new modalities for assessing texts that exist within virtual environs. Research indicates that audience experiences in text-driven games are markedly different than those offered by analog texts due to their interactivity and non-linearity, thus reinforcing the need for the expansion of existing models. Of additional concern, analyses of modern text-oriented games prefigure some important implications for the areas of pedagogy and textual information conveyance in general. These considerations all coalesce to illustrate the exigency for a new or updated theory for understanding and interpreting text in digital substrates, ultimately allowing for inchoate and emergent art facilitated by technology to be recognized as academically relevant. 8 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM