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DIEGETIC STANCE AND ITS ROLE IN ROLE PLAYING GAMES: AN EXAMINATION OF SCHEMA DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION IN DIGITAL INTERACTIVE

By

HENRY JAMES BUTLER

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2003 TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

LIST OF FIGURES ...... iii

ABSTRACT...... v

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

HISTORY OF THE DIEGETIC STANCE ...... 4

DIEGETIC STANCE AND THE RPG ...... 7

CONCLUSION ...... 22

WORKS CONSULTED ...... 25

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 29

ii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

1 Classic stage...... 4

2 Classic stage enlarged ...... 4

3 These three images of “Lucy” ...... 6

4 Manny, imposing ...... 9

5 Manny kicking off stilts ...... 9

6 Eva, the stereotypic ...... 10

7 Pickup scene ...... 12

8 Meche...... 12

9 Manny watches Meche ...... 13

10 “Anna” ...... 13

11 Anna in black and white ...... 14

12 Even before Cath meets Schmidt...... 14

13 The Croatian girl ...... 15

14 In the midst of her grandfather’s seizure ...... 15

15 As her grandfather calms down ...... 16

16 Smethalls ...... 17

17 Note the elevated position ...... 17

18 Note the stance and posture ...... 17

iii 19 Agent Wilmore deadpans...... 19

20 Detective Astradourian ...... 19

21 Wilmore puts taper on his nose ...... 19

iv Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

DIEGETIC STANCE AND ITS ROLE IN ROLE PLAYING GAMES: AN EXAMINATION OF SCHEMA DEVELOPMENT AND NARRATIVE APPLICATION IN DIGITAL INTERACTIVE FICTION

By

Henry James Butler

May 2003

Chair: J. Yellowlees Douglas Major Department: English

New media develop from pre-existing media, adapting and adopting those tropes and structures which can be applied from the old form to the new. As new narrative structures coalesce within that new media, narrative schemas–and the scripts used to implement them–are subliminally applied as templates to the new form, creating a cognitive foundation that allows the reader to comprehend and project the of the . The process of transplantation provides a unique vantage to examine established paradigms anew in the light of the new media, and to occasionally discover other paradigms either overlooked or trivialized in their previous utilization.

One such transplant is the use of stance–physical gesture, spatial position, or carriage–in juxtaposition to the environment to convey intent, effect, purpose or emotion to the reader of a narrative and to contribute to the progression of the diegesis. This

v diegetically motivated stance is not new, but has been uniformly overlooked or

disregarded in established media. Easily misidentified as verisimilar mimetic

representation and nearly transparent when executed effectively, diegetic stance presents the reader with subliminal information scripted within a given schema to advance the narrative arc.

Subtly used, it provides the author a tool to provide the user/reader/player information by means of which the overt surface action of the narrative can be subliminally reinforced, amplified, or contravened. How this schema of stance has been adapted to the new digital media, specifically the fictional narrative needs of the graphic digital Role Playing Game (RPG), will be the focus of this thesis.

Following a brief discussion of the evolution of the diegetic stance, from identifiable historical roots in ancient Greece through adaptations to a variety of media, four specimens of RPG will be evaluated in terms of their utilization of stance.

LucasArts’ Grim Fandango, Smoking Car Productions’ The Last Express, Cyberflix’s

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, and Fox Interactive’s X-Files will be examined to

explore how effective implementation of the diegetic stance can be vital to the successful execution of the scripts within a narrative schema, and how failed implementation can fatally undermine the diegesis.

vi INTRODUCTION

All new media must establish their own operational paradigms, borrowing from prior media those concepts that apply and struggle to adapt or create those that differ or are unique to its narrative modality.1 In “The Pleasure of Immersion and Interaction:

Schema’s, Scripts, and the Fifth Business,” J. Yellowlees Douglas and Andrew Hargadon argue that readers port existing schemas and scripts2 from existing media as a template for the new and a fundamental tool of cognitive functionality. (6) Therefore, any successful implementation of the media must, of necessity, mine schemas of prior media which can be scripted onto the new paradigm.

1This borrowing and process is examined in detail by Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin in Remediation: Understanding New Media. Bolter and Grusin argue that new media consist of “networks or hybrids . . . expressed in physical, social, aesthetic, and economic terms” which are borrowed and adapted from existing media. “New digital media are not external agents that come to disrupt an unsuspecting culture. They emerge from within cultural contexts, and they refashion other media.” (19) Lev Manovich, in The Language of New Media, specifically endorses this dynamic in computer based media, directly citing Bolter and Grusin before noting that “the history of the human- computer interface is that of borrowing and reformulating . . . reformatting other media, both past and present.” (89)

2In The End of –or Books Without End?, Douglas gives a cogent one page summation of schema and script and how they function “like the hermeneutic circle,” where the “overarching schema we would call a ” serves as a cognitive scaffold upon which the scripted behavior of the individuals within the narrative can be mapped by the reader–a cognitive aid that enables the reader to “flesh out,” project, and interpret the action. Douglas notes if the script for a given schema is violated the reader tends to become frustrated at what is seen as the growing opacity of the text. (33)

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Computer media are not exempt from this cross-grafting of scripts. One such transplanted schema is the use of stance–physical gesture, spatial position, or carriage–in juxtaposition to the environment to convey intent, effect, purpose or emotion to the reader of a narrative contributing to the progression of the diegesis. Utilized as a narrative device, this diegetically motivated stance is one of the oldest narrative schemas, arguably pre-dating language itself. (Lust 19) Although often visually indistinguishable from verisimilar mimetic representations and nearly transparent when used effectively, diegetic stance presents the reader with subliminal information scripted within a

“naturally” occurring and culturally influenced schema generated (as Bob Hughes describes it in Dust or Magic: Secrets of Successful Multimedia Design) “a real world

[that] is full of movement information . . . we can interpret . . . consciously as we learn to

read the signs.” (185)

Subtly used, it provides the author a tool to provide the user/reader/player

information by means of which the overt surface action of the narrative can be

subliminally reinforced, amplified, or contravened. How this schema of stance has been

adapted to the new digital media, specifically the fictional narrative needs of the graphic

digital Role Playing Game (RPG), will be the focus of this thesis.

Precisely what an RPG is continues to be heatedly debated. Stephen Poole–in his

exploration of the videogame form, Trigger Happy–traces the genesis of the form to both

text based games and the 1970s era Dungeons and Dragons board games which evolved

through the computer into a narrative experience “offer(ing) the player a chance to be

fully individual in a world where an individual has real power . . . where actions always

have deterministic consequences for or events. (40" While Poole’s definition 3 would be hotly debated by many, he argues that to some extent this separation of the

RPG from videogames as a whole could be needlessly reductive since “on a basic level, nearly every videogame ever made is a role-playing game” as RPG elements “are creeping crabwise into any number of other (videogame) genre,” (41) a phenomenon which makes the specific study of the RPG applicable to the general understanding of videogames as a whole. For purposes of this paper it is useful to apply his template of the

“generic” RPG as a videogame where “character is not merely a pretext to the gameplay, but a part of it.”

While the diegetic stance could be shown in any RPG–and, by Poole’s argument, any videogame–the four specimens examined latter have been chosen for the range of their various graphic forms of presentation and their heavy reliance on narrative character. The later has lead to the serendipitous exclusion of several traditional RPG and videogame forms, such as God games and first person shooters, in an attempt to present examples which are clearly diegetically driven and not the result of an attempt at verisimilatude.3

3First person shooter games are perhaps the best example of this problem. The mimetic use of stance–attempted verisimilitude–is pervasive in this form, much as it is in action , where the primary interest is the mimicry of “reality.” The graphic representation of stance in these instances can be closely associated with its use in “combat” target ranges such as those used by police departments to train officers when to shoot and when not to shoot. The effect of the stance in these instances is predominantly atmospheric, and not contributing to a larger diegesis. While diegetic uses could be shown in these specimens, the high potential for confusion with mimetic usage–already cited previously–prompts their exclusion for the sake of clarity in a paper focused on the diegetic usage as an unexamined visual . HISTORY OF THE DIEGETIC STANCE

The language of movement, gesture, and carriage has been

a fundamental and highly effective script for much of recorded

history. In 467 B.C., the Greek Telestes detached himself

from the orchestra using “rhythmic steps and gestures” to convey

the action of Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes to the Fig. 1: Classic Stage: in one of the earliest recorded examples. (Lust 20) As a diegetic In the era of and television it is often device, stance has proven itself highly portable from medium to easy to forget the scale of distance medium. In performance arts, it not only became a staple form of many live presented. (Pauly 28) conveying emotion to the audience, but of amplifying that Image property of Edition Norma. emotion at distance to the back rows of the theatre (Figures 1 and

2). Its persuasive power was so evident that the Romans incorporated the physical manifestation of motion and gesture of the diegetic stance as a core component of their declamatory rhetorical canon. The author of the Ad Herennium openly warned Fig. 2: Classic stage enlarged: In spite of his students not to be too “conspicuous” or “elegant” in their use the grainy nature of this enlargement, the of the diegetic stance, lest the orator “give the impression we are diegetic stance of the is clearly . . . actors.” (201–203) evident. (Pauly, 28) Image property of Edition Norma.

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Theatre in the pre-director European –roughly until the mid-19th century4–was heavily dependent on the use of physical gestures to broadcast emotion and intent to the audience/reader to the point that physical technique was paramount.

(Whelan, 39) With the advent of Stanislavski’s acting system in the late 19th century, a fundamental paradigm shift in the use of the diegetic stance took place. Ushering in a school of acting–heavily influenced by 19th and early 20th century depth psychology–which required the actor to “organically” find the emotions within their own experiences, physical action not centered in the “self” was gradually devalued until, by the mid-1900's with the arrival of Lee Strasberg’s Group Theatre and the “Method,” the actor was expected to become the character and to perform from within that absorbed identity. (Whelan, 39-40) Effectively, the schema for the diegetic stance was stood on its head: instead of the physical conveying the emotional, the emotional was to convey the physical. The diegetic stance did not disappear; its point of origin merely shifted from an overtly external mechanic to an internal manifestation. By the 1970's, overtly constructed diegetic stance in film and on stage was generally dismissed as just artifice and “bad acting.”

Early film actors were effectively forced to operate almost exclusively within the schema of diegetic stance as mimes, being silenced and lacking most of the classical stage mechanisms because of restrictions imposed by the primitive nature of their

4Whelan dates the emergence of the director as a distinctive independent participant in theatre at roughly 1860, in a Russian theatrical community growing increasingly dominated by Stanislavski and his methodologies. (39) Others may debate the exact date, but seem to concur on its mid-century origin. 6 technology. (Lust, 165) Refinement in the use of camera angles and montage were developed at least in part as technical procedures which could amplify and multiply the effect of the actors’ pantomime.5 Modern cartooning also embraced the diegetic stance as a solution to personifying a physical abstraction, an external application to imbue emotion as Fig. 3: These three images of “Lucy” an external affection where no actor resided to invest it from from Charles Shultz’s Peanuts illustrate the within. (Figure 3) These uses of the schemas were further refined schema of the diegetic stance at work within in animation and music videos, with subsequent impact on human- the cartoon paradigm. (Inge, 47, 35, 262) computer interfaces and RPG methods. (Hughes 185) Images property of King Features.

5Mime and pantomime–while technically quite different–can be treated as synonyms within this discourse. DIEGETIC STANCE AND THE RPG

While the use and significance of gesture and stance has been an issue in research on artificial intelligence for decades (culminating in the neural networked “Kismet” head at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Haydon 47; Ferrell overview)) only in the last decade have the technical capabilities of most personal computers permitted the development of Role Playing Games1 (RPGs) graphically sophisticated enough to take fuller advantage of forms of diegetic stance inherited from cinematic and comic .

That RPGs have been heavily influenced in their narrative form by the schemas of film and animation is clear from the scores of Hollywood creative talents who have found a new outlet in the digital form. Trip Hawkins, Chief Executive Officer of 3DO Company and an RPG pioneer, notes that the basic approach to production of an RPG is cinematic.

“You go through the same process you would to make a great film,” Hawkins says, “and

(only) then you apply the technology.” (The History of Computer Games prologue)

1The exact definition of Role Playing Game is far from fixed, ranging from so broad to include card games such as “Dungeons and Dragons” and paper based strategy games to definitions so narrow they would exclude works such as Jordan Mechner’s The Last Express for not having enough “gaming” elements. For purposes of this discourse RPG can be treated as designating those graphically based digital which require the reader to , direct, or assume the role of the focalizer within the narrative.

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Given this symbiotic relation, it follows that RPGs would be prone to port the schemas of cinema wholesale–the diegetic stance among them.

As a totally constructed universe, the RPG poses a unique challenge to its author, a wealth of choices which all impact upon each other. In such a fluid environment, the application of the diegetic stance has been uneven at best, with mixed results. One cornerstone decision the RPG author must make is that between live action or animation.

While animation might seem to be the more liberating choice, the application of schemas to this must be established and followed with care. Without the interpretive nuances and innovations of an actor, the author becomes the sole generative force for all the elements of the diegetic stance. While live action allows the author to rely on the creative interpretation of an actor’s internalized (within the dominant psychological schemas of performance) providing at least an initial physical

presence and motion from which to improvise, no physical actor is present in animation to create that externalized manifestation of the character. In animation the author must define the physical manifestation essentially from scratch without the template of an actor to build upon. How RPG authors have responded to this challenge in the absence of an established has been as varied as it has been uneven.

LucasArt’s Grim Fandango is one example of a primarily animated approach. In

Grim Fandango we are treated to an entirely constructed world of an afterlife populated

by walking skeletons working off their sins before being allowed to advance to their final

rest. A highly satirical RPG read within a schema constructed from scripts derived from

Aztec , the mythos of la Dia de los Muertos, and well-known plots, it 9 casts the reader as the alter ego for Manny Calavera, visually represented as little more than a in a suit. Given the limitations of the graphical paradigm chosen–how many expressions can you generate on a skeleton head before rupturing the schema?–the narrative becomes highly dependent on the diegetic stance to propel the story forward.

Our initial introduction to Manny establishes this dependence on stance immediately. In his role as Grim Fig. 4: Manny, Reaper/Salesman, Manny is selling passages to eternal rest to the imposing as Grim Reaper (Grim newly dead. Tall, gaunt, and imposing as the Reaper (Figure 4), Fandango). Image property of we are immediately treated in the initial cut scene to the sight of LucasArts, LLC. his removing his robe and kicking off stilts (Figure 5) to an average, long suffering corporate –down to the gray flannel suit–put upon by his boss and unappreciated in his after- life of “quiet desperation.” This reduction is carried out entirely by the physical transformation from figure of fear to one of ridicule and pity. Despite its outrageous premise, this is a highly familiar cinematic script the reader can readily plug into: Manny is Danny Kaye with a Hispanic accent, straight out of The Man Fig. 5: Manny From Diner’s Club, with all the auxiliary scripts attached. kicking off stilts he wears under his robe This use of physical rhetoric extends even into the (Grim Fandango). Image property of mechanics of the gaming paradigm itself. When left alone for too LucasArts, LLC.

long, Manny will begin to scratch his head in the universal script 10

for puzzlement: “What do I do now?” If still left undirected,

Manny will calmly begin to smoke–literally “taking five” while

waiting for his alter ego, the reader, to determine his next action.

This script subtly taps into operative natural and cultural schemas

without rupturing the narrative, using diegetic stance to cue the

reader without resorting to overt extra-diegetic action.

When we are introduced to Eva as Manny’s boss’s

secretary, her stance tells us her response will be acidic and

barbed even before she speaks (Figure 6). Replicating the familiar

posture and behavior ranging from bored desk sergeants in the

film noir classic D.O.A.2 to the receptionist Vera in the television of all things film noir The Chronicle,3 the

reader is presented with a familiar template. Without her uttering Fig. 6: Eva, the stereotypic bored a word, and without the subtle cues and nuances normally found secretary (Grim Fandango). Image in the human face, we know she will act put out when questioned, property of LucasArts, LLC. running interference for her boss. Posed sitting with her chin in her

hand while lazily leafing through her magazine, the script of her

2D.O.A., the 1950 film noir classic directed by Rudolph Maté and staring Edmund O’Brien. As the title credits role O’Brien marches into police headquarters at night, down a hall lined with numerous “desk sergeants”–most of whom appear to be languidly leafing though magazines.

3The Chronicle, this short lived but creative satirical series, centered around a fictitious tabloid where the outrageous headlines are really true, ran on the Sci Fi cable channel in the fall of 2001. Vera was the long suffering, iron willed receptionist who never looked up from her Hollywood fanzine while simultaneously taking messages, delivering notes, and keeping “walk-ins”–alien or other–from getting into the newsroom. 11 snippish response is programmed into the schema of her stance. We expect her to be uncooperative; what would strike us as improbable, after seeing her, is if she had abandoned this script to demonstrate compassionate concern for Manny’s well-being.

Eva’s stance is actually a composite, a combination of carriage and action specifically designed to give the reader sufficient hint data to circumvent the inability within the master schematic conceit of the diegesis to give her the facial to render an appropriate facial expression–disdainful, weary, sour. It is comparable to the effect demonstrated by Lev Kuleshov in the 1920's, when he presented the same film footage of an actor intercut with differing visuals. (Murray 160; Mast 183) The audience cognitively mapped different emotions on the expression depending on the juxtaposed image–food made them read hunger, a corpse made them read grief. In Grim Fandango

the sameness of Eva’s expression as a skull is juxtaposed with the diagetic stance of

bored indifference, leading the reader to cognitively map that expression onto her

expressionless face.

When deconstructed, Eva’s stance can be seen as a composite dominated by two

primarily physical affectations. Her distracted leafing through the magazine (traceable in

cinematic instances of the film noir tradition at least as far back as Sam Spade’s secretary

Effie in The Maltese Falcon) can be seen as a culturally influenced gesture–if for no

other reason than it is dependent on a culture that has developed the sort of mass print

and literacy which allows the action to be imbued with a sense of the mundane. The chin

on the hand can be seen as a more natural, universal pose. What is distinctive about the

stance is how the two individual actions work in harmony–much like a chord would in

music–to generate a singular effect. The magazine leafing might be misconstrued as 12 akin to the purposeful act of search–much like one can witness among patrons in library stacks on a daily basis–were it not reinforced, and the chin in the hand could be mistaken for contemplation along the lines of Auguste Rodin’s statue The

Thinker were it not for the amplification provided by the browsing of the magazine. As with the formation of a compound word, a new and distinctive third meaning has been articulated by their joining. Together they telegraph the clear unified Fig. 7:Pickup scene from the Blue Coffin, message: “I’m bored, I’m not happy, and I’ve got an attitude.” no words needed (Grim Fandango). This schema of stance pervades the narrative and is the Image property of LucasArts, LLC. dominant means of subtly rendering diegetically important data, such as romantic interest and sexual desirability–areas which could not be rendered through the dialogue (the only other fully renderable diegetic channel) without rupturing the film noir schema and descending into the overtly maudlin.

In Grim Fandango, when we are treated to a pickup scene between two skeletal actors in The Blue Coffin saloon (Figure 7) the script–boy skeleton leaning aggressively over the submissively receptive girl skeleton–eliminates the need for any dialogue. Meche, Manny’s within the script, is Fig. 8: Meche, sexually constructed almost entirely through a variety of diegetic Manny’s Femme Fatal (Grim stances essentially cribbed from an assortment of film noir Fandango). Image property of specimens. From her initial posture during her first interview LucasArts, LLC. 13 with Manny (Figure 8) to her stocking scene (Figure 9)–openly appropriated from any of a dozen film noir films, as well as

1968's The Graduate–Meche’s sensuality and Manny’s reason for

being obsessed with her are reinforced by physical presentation. Fig. 9: Manny watches Meche In this second scene the master schema of a diegesis populated by remove her stockings (Grim Fandango). skeletons is reinforced even as Meche’s sensuality is amplified by Image property of LucasArts, LLC. use of the scripted schema: her sensuous lower leg foregrounded

in the frame as the fully shaped stocking is slowly rolled down to

reveal–a femur. Even within this moment of the master

conceit of the diegesis–a world populated by walking skeletons

behaving like flesh and blood humans–is reestablished within the

perpetuating schema of the film noir by a skillful use of the

diegetic stance.

If Grim Fandango represents the implementation of a

completely animated diegesis–one totally constructed and

maintained solely by fealty to the schemas accessed in its

creation–then Jordan Mechner’s The Last Express represents a

realistic animation closely constructed along the lines of live

action. Utilizing a variation of a live modeling technique Fig. 10: “Anna” having high contrast (reminiscent of rotoscopy) originally used by Walt Disney to give makeup applied. Note the “blue screen” his animators a more realistic template of human motion, (The background (The Last Express Official History of Computer Games sec 1) Mechner used high contrast Home Page). Image property of Smoking makeup on live actors, filmed them performing the scripted story Car Productions, Inc. 14 paths against a blue screen, then rendered black and white stills which were colored for the final product (Figures 10 and 11).

While this produces a more lifelike image than that of Grim Fig. 11: Anna in Fandango–what the production releases described as “effectively black and white still photo, and as finally turning the actor into a human cartoon” (The Last Express rendered (The Last Express Official Official Homepage)–it places even greater importance on the Home Page). Images property of Smoking schema of the diegetic stance: for the more realistic visual Car Productions, Inc.

presentation subliminally implies to the reader a more nuanced

representation of the bodies of the narrated agents. While the

reader may simply accept the over-the-top renditions of Manny’s

boss and Glottis the mechanic/driver sidekick in the completely

abstracted world of Grim Fandango–where skeletons walk and

the living, when seen, are presented as one-dimensional cubist

impressions–The Last Express’ comparable realism of

presentation implies a realism of form. Fig. 12: Even before Cath meets Schmidt, While the creators of The Last Express (reminiscent of the German’s diegetic stance telegraphs the the previously cited admonition to orators in the Ad Herennium) reader that he is arrogantly self consciously avoided digital video so their readers would not “get assured (The Last Express). Image distracted by the actors' performances,” (The Last Express property of Smoking Car Productions, Inc. Official Homepage) their design ironically renders the diegetic

stances of the actor more significant. The decision to use a form

of stop-action animation–similar to the technique used to film in

claymation–during dramatic cut scenes, rather than full motion 15 animation, accentuates the stance and gestures of the characters, who linger on the screen for as much as a minute at a time as the dialogue continues to run. They have effectively set themselves up for what Brenda Laurel called “cognitive train wrecks,” (xviii) unintentionally placing the reader in the position of having to figure out the intent of a situation when two schematic signifiers .

While the majority of the text demonstrates an effective and nuanced usage of the physical schema, such as the Croatian girl Vesna’s cautioning hand on Milos’ arm when Cath enters Fig. 13: The Croatian girl Vesna’s hand their cabin (Figure 13), at times the script breaks down as a cautiously place on Milos’ arm tells the cognitive dissonance develops between the still shot action and reader there is something worth the dialogue within the scene. exploring here (The Last Express). Image Two of the most glaring such breakdowns occur within a property of Smoking Car Productions, Inc. single cut-scene, where Tatiana’s grandfather has a seizure requiring Cath, the reader’s diegetic double, to intervene.

Tatianna begins to scream at Cath (who has been previously established as a doctor, though one with unorthodox methods) as he moves to calm the patient. “What kind of doctor are you?” she Fig. 14: In the midst of her grandfather’s yells in fear (Figure 14), while the screen shows her with an seizure, Tatianna screams at Cath, expression one can only describe as bizarre. Looking either like “What kind of doctor are you?” (The Last an angry child defiantly taking communion, or a porn actress in Express). Image property of Smoking mid-performance, the dialog continues to beneath the Car Productions, Inc. 16 lingering image. The polarity of these examples demonstrates the unanchored reaction these discordant signifiers of gesture and expression create, leaving the reader to scramble for significance.

This is a cognitive train wreck in full collision. At a moment of high narrative tension, when the distraction from the narrative thrust of the text should be minimized, the diegetic stance suggests a comic effect inappropriate to the moment. This effect is followed up when the next stop-action shot (Figure 15) Fig. 15: As her shows us Tatianna, supposedly surprised by what her grandfather grandfather calms down, Tatianna reacts has said, looking as if she has just been goosed. Because of the (The Last Express). Image property of stop-action technique used in The Last Express, these images Smoking Car Productions, Inc. linger on the screen for almost a minute–rupturing the and undermining the scene by creating narrative dissonance through the collision of two contra-indicative schemas.

If The Last Express could be termed a realistic animation,

Titanic: Adventure out of Time could be described as an animated reality. While the technical aspects of the RPG are superlative

(including a fly-through tour of the liner so realistic it was used by museums (Douglas The End of Books–Or Books Without End.

11)) the characters are animated with a photographic quality stop- action technique so rigid it renders the characters as little more than waxen stick-figures. Despite the photorealism, this approach renders the effective use of diegetic stance almost impossible. 17

All dialogue in the game is delivered in extreme close up with a minimal view of secondary physical gestures that could support an effective diegetic stance, creating a stilted and Fig. 16: Smethalls, flattened effect, despite a realistic graphic rendering of faces. the cabin attendant, in one of his three stock Smethalls, the cabin attendant (Figure 16), is restricted to three poses (Titanic: Adventure Out of facial gestures: eyes down when he wants you to pick a response Time). Image property of Cyberflix, from the dialogue screen; eyes straight as he speaks; and an Inc. conspicuously cocked left eyebrow when he thinks you’re being dense.

Penny Prescott, the Secret Service Contact, is similarly Fig. 17: Note the elevated position of restricted (Figure 17), forcing the actor/animator to rupture the the hand required to get the arm in view. physical script of these gestures are performed in real world This restricted mode severely inhibits the action, and therefore creating an unexpected, inconsistent effect. diegetic stance and creates a choppy, Hand raised to chin height, elbow bent, she seems to point quirky effect(Titanic: Adventure Out of directly into the face of the reader in a manner far more Time). Image property of Cyberflix, confrontational than the narrative would seem to call for. Inc. Other characters inhabit the ship corridors like waxwork statues–lifelike, yet inanimate (Figure 18). When addressed, gestures are over-amplified, as with Smethalls’ raised eyebrow or

Penny’s pointing finger, so as to generate an effect. The result is Fig. 18: Note the stance and posture of unintentional comedy. While this runs counter to the script the characters (Titanic: Adventure presented us on the audio track (the foreboding music and Out of Time). Image property of Cyberflix, the continuing countdown towards the inevitable sinking of the Inc. 18

ship) the physical schema ends up being so limited it effectively becomes a blank template onto which the individual readers can map their own interpretations.

In fact, this may have been the intention of the Titanic’s creators. Unlike

animation–even the highly realistic animation of The Last Express–photo-realistic

imaging creates an issue of physical continuity for the hypertextual narrative. Given

existing schemas from the traditions of cinema and comics for reading diegetic stance,

we expect a degree of continuity of action from live footage we do not expect from

animation. We fill in the

interstices between the animated images, creating a visual whole from the disjointed

pieces. Similar to an illusion of continuity created by intercutting scenes in film–a well-

established technique of contemporary cinema–the reader will cognitively attempt to

construct a whole from the pieces presented by accessing their internal library of

applicable schemas. Given the photorealistic images of Titanic, the conceit of stop-action

encourages the reader to apply the schemas of animation with its looser script for

physical action and amplification.

This is not the case in The X-Files. At the far end of the spectrum from the fully

animated universe of Grim Fandango, the live action rendition of The X-Files is closely patterned on the scripts and schemas of the very successful television show on which it is based. In spite of its use of full motion digital video, the diegesis is tightly limited–largely restricted to underplayed facial gestures and non-sequitur interaction. In large part this appears to be the result of the interactive nature of its narrative design when coupled with live action–the same cognitive train wreck the creators of Titanic sought to avoid with the use of their stop-action method. Much of the action involving 19 inter-character interaction is confined, limiting the potential for scripting much as in the case of the extreme close ups of

Titanic–although the use of live action does prevent the awkwardly

unnatural stances of Titanic. To avoid the issue of physical

continuity within the paradigm of an interactive live-action

narrative, the actors in The X-Files underplay their parts outside

of the cut-scenes almost to the point of deadpan (Figure 19 and Fig. 19: Agent Willmore deadpans 20). Since any potential answer could follow any potential his conversation with the coronor over the question in the gameplay, the actors retreat into a stone-faced mutilated body of a victim (The X-Files). delivery which leaves little room for physical amplification or Image property of Fox Interactive. nuance. While the master schema of the television series on which

it is based encourages this, there is little attempt to adapt this

schema within the RPG. Outside of the well-executed scripts of Fig. 20: Detective the series–diligent agents wading though paperwork at their desks, Astradourian calmly tells the coroner she the indignant hotel clerk–there is little which can be seen as an “hates coming here” (The X-Files). Image adaptation to this new medium of the RPG. This would have made property of Fox Interactive. a great episode of the series, but it is unsuccessful as interactive

narrative.

An early scene between Agent Willmore and the Fig. 21: Willmore puts tape on his nose suspicious Mr. Wong demonstrate this awkwardness with regard in one of the few light moments in this RPG to the diegetic stance. Willmore confronts Wong on a dock in an (The X-Files). Image property of Fox attempt to extract information, and the reader proceeds to choose Interactive.

the questions Willmore will ask. Unlike Titanic, which provides a 20 question choice with no audio attached, the paradigm chosen by The X-Files creators was to run short scenes of Willmore asking each question selected before Wong answers.

Since Wong’s answers range from friendly to contemptuous, a dissonance emerges between the tenor of his response and the manner of Willmore’s questions. The few gestures the actor uses during his questions–the cocking of his head to convey disbelief, a quizzical look–will strike the reader as inconsistent, depending upon the order in which the gestures are prompted. In multiple readings, the agent can appear rude, lost, or befuddled. Wong–a stock character who plays this one scene as a jovial –may strike the reader as a sympathetic character because of his bonhomie, despite the revelation of his very checkered history and probable involvement in a murder. This is probably the most animated use of the diegetic stance in the narrative, and the inability of the diegetic stance to perform coherently has undermined the ability of the script to execute properly within the narrative frame of the RPG, leading the reader into a cognitive train wreck.

When Willmore finally tracks down the missing Mulder–the putative objective of the RPG–Mulder sits cross-legged on the floor of the attic where he was held prisoner while Willmore questions him. Like a Buddha in a trenchcoat, Mulder answers every question with no more animation than any other character in the narrative.

While this flattened delivery can work in other media (and is a trademark of the television series), it becomes highly problematic in the self-directed narratives of RPGs.

Minus the subliminal hint data provided by the nuanced diegetic stance, a successful graphically-rendered diegesis is likely impossible. CONCLUSION

While the goal of this thesis was to establish the role of diegetic stance as a narrative tool in RPG’s, it is clearly only the opening dialogue of what might be an ongoing examination of the form and its presentation. Several questions have already been raised, some leading off in different directions (e.g., the historical development of the diegetic stance verses its usage and effectiveness across different media). All will require further scrutiny to fully comprehend the role diegetic stance plays generally in the manifestation of schematic narrative structures in general, and the mapping of those schemas into the tabula rasa of the RPG specifically.

The brief historical summary of the diegetic stance provided early in this thesis was far from comprehensive. Little more than a fleshed out time-line, its primary function to provide context and position of the stance on the narrative landscape before addressing its usage in the essentially uncharted terrain of the RPG. The diegetic stance warrants examination in each of the forms mentioned (theatre, cartoons, cinema, animation) as well as in several which were not (music, literature) to fully understand its impact.

The diegetic stance is often dismissed as mere kinesis by rhetoricians who collapse presentation and purpose. Similarly, it has often been dismissed as simple artifact or little more than “technique” by narrative practitioners and those who have not understood it as a vital component of the coherent schematic whole. As a means of

21 22 projecting a scripted construct, the examination of diegetic stance as a unique and distinctive form can only contribute to our understanding of the narrative role of schema.

I have also raised issues of adaptation, in both general and specific applications in

RPGs. As the RPG develops and is further refined as a narrative form, what paradigms will be adapted from prior media, what new ones will develop, and how will the various scripts and the schemas they invoke most successfully be mapped onto the new media?

Wide spread failure to recognize and understand this adaptation process is already apparent. I have shown how “cognitive train wrecks” have been created by misapplied schemas and scripts. While similar in effect, the methods by which to map these scripts onto full animation (photo-realistic and animated stop action) and live action would appear to be fundamentally different from both each other and their related forms in other media. This adaptation of technique as well as content resurrects issues of action, continuity, and caricature long settled in other forms. How these infelicities are rectified or avoided in the future, how narrative forms will be modified to facilitate the process, and the role the diegetic stance will play should be the subject of further discussion.

One fruitful area of future study not addressed in this work is the issue of the RPG as a narrative form that fundamentally shifts the role of the reader to that of a , and how the diegetic stance can facilitate or derail that fundamental change. Unlike prior media in which the reader is largely a voyeur, the RPG demands a degree of participatory readership uncommon and awkward to execute in earlier forms. To the extent the RPG protagonist is a tabula rasa upon which readers map themselves, or a cybernetic double who is inhabited by the reader(s), will be determined by the success of the RPG author in 23 creating successful scripts–including the diegetic stance–capable of performing, within the restraints of the form, to create a coherent schematic structure. WORKS CONSULTED

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X-Files. Gary Sheinwald, Producer. Beverly Hills, California/Sterling, Colorado: Fox Interactive/Hyperbole Studios. 1998. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

After receiving his Bachelor’s in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of

Florida in 1980, Henry James Butler worked as a reporter and editor in both print and radio before opening a computer consulting firm in 1986. He taught computer sciences and English at a private junior college for a decade before returning to the University of

Florida to complete his graduate studies, and currently teaches for the Upward Bound program based at that institution.

He has presented a number of conference papers on a variety of topics, ranging from “Caricature and Cognition in Comic Art” (Will Eisner Symposium/Comics

Conference, University of Florida, February 2002) to “Voyeur to Participant: The

Reader’s Role and the Function of Cyber-Fabula in the Emerging Cyber-Narrative”

(Narrative Society National Conference, Rice University, March 2001). His areas of primary interest are digital narratives, diegetic stance, and schema theory.

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