Soul of Zelda: A Memoir of an Ephemeral Being Mitchell Kopitch A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts University of Washington 2018 Committee: Ted Hiebert Sarah Dowling Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences ©Copyright 2018 Mitchell Kopitch University of Washington Abstract Soul of Zelda: A Memoir of an Ephemeral Being Mitchell Kopitch Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Ted Hiebert School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Hybrid document of memoir and fiction concerning fantasy, video games, and the ways in which game design nuance can be found in every day life. Particular attention is put on The Legend of Zelda from 1986, the first 3D Zelda installment, Ocarina of Time in 1998, and Dark Souls from 2011. This is a fictional story heavily inspired by those games and many others, but the story and characters are original, including a queer/gender bending protagonist. The story-line is a creative work that emulates the underlining philosophy of fantasy video games such as Zelda and Dark Souls, re-imagining video game design and personal gaming experiences as prose. 1 ~ Soul of Zelda ~ A Memoir of an Ephemeral Muse by Mitchell Kopitch Turn Page1 1 Book Equivalent of “Press Start”. 2 WORLD SELECTION: Poetics Statement Introduction: By the Author World I I-I: Intro Cinematic Interlude #1 - On Psychiatry I-II: Opening Interlude #2 - A Connection I-III: Character Creator Interlude #3 - Consumption World II II-I: Tutorial Interlude #4 - The Universe as Game II-II: Fast Travel Interlude #5 - On Labors of Love II-III: Mod Interlude #6 - Deprived World III III-I: Open World Interlude #7 - Extremity III-II: Dungeon Crawl Interlude #8 - The Male in the Room III-III: Boss Battle Interlude #9 - Of Demons and Memories Additional Content Attunement Exam 3 Poetics Statement When I parted ways with one of my roommates in college, he gave me his copy of Dark Souls (2011) as a parting gift. This was strange since the two of us had never gotten along. Yet curiously, we had taken a personality exam, as requested by the institution, and had nearly identical results. By all accounts, we should have connected better than we had. I never got the chance to ask him what Dark Souls meant to him, for it would come to mean a great deal to me. At the time, my interest in gaming was reaching an all time low. I started playing Dark Souls more from vague curiosity than anything else. I had heard the game was particularly difficult, which proved to be true. Over the weeks that I trekked through Lordran, I was seduced by its evocative world, its reluctance to explain its own deeply intricate mechanics, and despite being set in a fantasy, it was uncompromisingly true to life in a way that games had never been. It is true to life because it does not make concessions so that the player is always victorious, always able to embrace their own power fantasies. In fact the case is the opposite, with favoritism always and firstly given to the zombies and demons; it is their world you are invading, after all. There was one place called Blighttown, a murky swamp that took days upon days to overcome. I was so deep in the depths, constantly weighing my potion reserves against my skills in combat, my wit against traps and hazards, and so often did I believe I would never see daylight again. But I remember distinctly when I finally arose out of that dark depression, and I came upon a familiar setting, the Firelink Shrine, where the journey had begun. And I felt this enormous sense of relief to be home. Games represented some of my fondest memories of childhood. I remember late nights with the glow of the TV, the volume at 1 or 2 so as not to wake anyone in the house, and trying to reduce the click- click noise on the controller by being gentle. I remember waking up early and listening to the gentle hum of my CRT TV, the static tickling my fingers when I brush along the rounded glass screen, and the pixels of Hyrule field gradually brightening. Hyrule is the fantasy landscape in The Legend of Zelda. The original Zelda, released in 1986 was one of my favorite games as a child. Ten years ago marks the last time I played a new Zelda title, for around this time the series, like other games, had lost my interest. What initially drew me in was the thinking space when I’m deep within a dungeon; weighing my combat skills and my potion reserves against my ability to solve the temple’s riddles, and survive against the colossal boss monster at the end. 4 This feeling, that connection with my survival instincts had been gradually snuffed out of future entries, and after playing Dark Souls, I realized this sentiment carried over into my depleting interest in gaming as a whole. Yet the two had encapsulated so much of the same essence that it was almost uncanny. It was not a direct mimic, but they were spiritually connected in a way that modern Zelda games did not seem to be. Dark Souls revived in me the same essence I had felt when playing Zelda. In fact, if you had shown an image of Dark Souls to ten-year-old me alongside an image of the most recent Zelda, and asked me which was Zelda, I’d like to think I’d have told you Dark Souls. This would become the pillars of a story I had been composing since I was a child, and this thesis is an experimental sampling of that larger concept. If the spirit of old Zelda could be reborn in Dark Souls, then it stood to reason that it was not Zelda I loved per se, but rather an ethereal being that is known by many names. This thesis is an attempt to harness this being, in another form, prose and text. I wrote my fantasy story, but coinciding with it are other voices that help facilitate the growth of this being. I have references to Zelda and Dark Souls throughout the text, but a reference is merely a show of admiration, and admiration is nothing like the mental space I’m in whenever I play one of these games. What I feel is far more primal, that fight for survival, that forced dependency on the self, the catharsis that the horrors of one’s life are ultimately demons with health bars. The allegories to depression, in particular with regards to Dark Souls has become a common belief and it was certainly true for me. I remember driving to class contemplating the game until I was mentally exhausted. And I would say to myself, “you’re obsessed. It’s just a damn game. What is it? Why can’t I get it out of my head?” And it wasn’t until I listened to others speak on the internet about their battle with depression, suicide, and other life burdens that it finally clicked. I sat on the edge of my bed in the dim glow of the gold lettered titled screen, the soft piano theme playing, waiting for me. And I realized that psychologically, those demons were not fantasy demons. They were my demons. Because I had fought them. And I was enraptured by the fact that I could no longer pity myself, because by now it was evident I could slay my own demons. But it was difficult. The game was difficult. Thus when you read the thesis, the fantasy aesthetics are something of a red herring. They’re there to look warm and inviting, but there is much more happening beneath the surface. The footnotes will identify these threads for you, but even these are limited. That 5 voice will point out specific references to my gaming experiences. They shed light into the child mind, the one that was formulating the ethereal being. Then there is the author of the text herself, a thoughtful teenager who, for me, represents those real world contemplations I have while composing the fantasy narrative. Like games, everything about fantasy seems tarnished by either the gullible ingestation of it or the unwillingness to take it seriously. A perception of mine it may be, but fantasy and video games are like peanut butter and jelly; we all like them but we sometimes think there is not much to be said about them. Of course there is plenty that has been said about both fantasy and games. But it hasn't been said in ink and paper yet. In other words, rather than make overt references to Zelda, I've opted to make references to what Zelda inspired in me, as if the text were a game; thus both must play a role. The text is designed with thoughtful navigation on the part of the reader. I make overt references to Zelda and the like to establish the subjects of fantasy and gaming motifs in the reader’s mind. Like a game, the opening portions are much easier to read; simple diction, generic storytelling. But as we delve further into the text, the difficult rises, and as a reader of it, you would become like me, weighing where you are with what you know and what you can withstand. The reader does not need to play Zelda or Dark Souls or even live my life; the text has punctured holes into this space for you.