Queer Failure in Video Game Novels

University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020-08-27 Failure is the Name of the Game: Queer Failure in Video Game Novels Brooks, Laura Brooks, L. (2020). Failure is the Name of the Game: Queer Failure in Video Game Novels (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112479 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Failure is the Name of the Game: Queer Failure in Video Game Novels by Laura Brooks A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH CALGARY, ALBERTA AUGUST, 2020 © Laura Brooks 2020 ii Abstract Considering the important process of using queer theory as a mode of resisting the ableist white cisheteropatriarchy of mainstream video games, Failure is the Name of the Game: Queer Failure in Video Games Novels seeks to bring this work into the literary sphere. I use the theoretical frame of queer failure to examine a quickly expanding subgenre of fiction, the video game novel, where video games serve as key elements of a novel’s plot and setting. Each chapter examines a phenomenon of real-life video games and compares how these phenomena have manifested themselves or been challenged in literature. Chapter One challenges the persisting heteronormativity of classic video game culture to queer Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game by proving that there is reparative queer content in these otherwise heteronormative texts. Chapter Two examines the heteronormative impulse of e-sports through the example of Riot Games’ League of Legends and how Marie Lu’s Warcross queers this gaming genre. Finally, Chapter Three examines the racism embedded in Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft and the massively multiplayer online role-playing game genre and explores how Brittney Morris’s SLAY responds to this tradition by creating a gaming space for only Black players which begins to empower Black transgender gamers. Ultimately, my thesis demonstrates that not only have video games always been queer, as games scholar Bonnie Ruberg suggests, but so have video game novels. I assert that video game novels and the practice of reading video game novels queerly should become part of the conversation surrounding queer game studies. Further, I argue that these literary works have the potential to provide direction to real-life video games as the genre begins to imagine answers to the issues of the dominant gaming community and the development process to create alternative worlds and futures for video games. iii Preface This thesis is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Laura Brooks. iv Acknowledgements I wish to thank the following individuals for their support throughout the writing of this thesis: 1. My thesis supervisor, Dr. Derritt Mason, who was an inspiring and generous mentor throughout this project. I have grown considerably as a writer and researcher thanks to his guidance. 2. My thesis defense committee, Professors Rain Prud’homme-Cranford and Ben Whaley. 3. The University of Calgary and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, for their financial support. 4. My community at the University of Calgary; Trynne Delany, Leah Van Dyk, Shuyin Yu, and Sean Bristowe. Their continued friendship and support has helped me to develop strength and bravery I did not know I was capable of. 6. My family. I would like to especially thank my mother who was my constant ally throughout the writing process. I am so grateful for the numerous late nights she spent with me. v To my brothers Rob and Dave – without you I never would have picked up a controller. vi Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ........................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... iv Dedication .......................................................................................................................................v Introduction: A Literature Review of Queer Video Game Failure ................................................. 1 1. Video Games and Failure ........................................................................................................5 2. Queer Theory and Radical Failure ..........................................................................................9 3. Queer Game Studies, Failure and Inherent Queerness in Games ..........................................15 Chapter One: Let’s Play it Gay: A Reparative Queer Reading of Ender’s Game and Ready Player One .................................................................................................................................... 24 1. Ready Player One and the Queer Secret of the OASIS ........................................................28 2. Ender’s Game, Failure, and Queer Pacifism .........................................................................39 Chapter Two: The Queer E-Sport: Marie Lu’s Warcross, League of Legends, and the Queer Potential of Hacking ..................................................................................................................... 52 1. League of Legends and the Heteronormative Standardization of E-Sports ...........................57 2. Warcross, Queer Hacking, and Failure .................................................................................64 Chapter Three: The Limits of Queer Failure: Brittney Morris’s SLAY and Black Transgender Gaming .......................................................................................................................................... 80 1. World of Warcraft and White Cisheteronormativity .............................................................83 2. Brittney Morris’s SLAY and Queering Character Creation for Black Transgender Gamers .92 Conclusion: The Queer Video Game Literary Avant-Garde ...................................................... 104 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 110 1 Introduction A Literature Review of Queer Video Game Failure The inaugural Queerness and Games Conference in October of 2013 marked the beginning of a pivotal intersection between video games and queer theory. The “Arts of Failure” session drew upon the coincidence of video game scholar Jesper Juul and queer theorist Jack Halberstam both publishing books on failure entitled “The (Queer) Art of Failure.” Juul’s The Art of Failure (2013) explores the many ways that players experience failure while gaming and why they continue to play despite these “failings.” He makes no reference to the potential queer implications of these findings. Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure (2011) explores how accepting failure corresponds with alternative modes of being outside capitalist heteropatriarchy. Despite using failure as a frame to analyze cartoons and works of visual art, Halberstam never mentions video games. Despite having never previously spoken, when the two authors were asked to put their work into conversation, significant similarities began to arise. Juul argues that in video games “people do strange things a lot of the time. They don’t necessarily play for the goal, or they goof around in various ways” (“The Arts of Failure” 204). Indeed, as Juul outlines, there’s a vast tradition of playing video games outside of their win conditions, for example, playing a shooter game like Grand Theft Auto, while refusing to fire a single bullet or break a single traffic law.1 These alternative ways of playing a game can all be defined as “failing” from the game’s perspective. Similarly, Halberstam notes that “in a homophobic context, the queer fails to be straight, literally … there are two responses you can have to that. One is to try and play the game 1 See Ruberg’s Video Games Have Always Been Queer for this example. Ruberg highlights how players can find alternative enjoyment or even purposeful pain in video games by intentionally playing the game improperly or by “losing.” 2 as it’s been written … or you refuse the game” (“The Arts of Failure” 202). As Juul suggests, queer people “do strange things a lot of the time” according to heterosexual standards. Halberstam suggests that the queer subject fails to “play the game” of heterosexuality in a similar way to how a player can fail to play Grand Theft Auto by being a law-abiding citizen. In fact, many video games have literalized Halberstam’s findings in games where passing as cisgender or straight is part of the game’s mechanics.2 In the “Arts of Failure” session, Halberstam makes explicit the queerness within Juul’s work, stating that the “idea that you want to play to win, and that only winning

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