Monomyth and Hero's Image Transformation in Videogames
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Section Philosophy MONOMYTH AND HERO’S IMAGE TRANSFORMATION IN VIDEOGAMES Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ekaterina Galanina' Kesearch Associate Alexander Vetushinskly* 'Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk State University, Russia ^M.V, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia ABSTRACT Tliis paper is devoted to the philosophical research of videogames as a phenomenon of modem culture. The subject for study is myth and mythological structures in videogames. Videogames represent value and meaning related constructions of the modem dpoque. However, they fulfill mythological elements inherent to the archaic consciousness at the same time because the archaic story of the hero’s way consisting of the three basic stages - exodus, initiation, and returning along with the appearance of the hero’s image in videogames monomyth (J. Campbell) that becomes the basic narrative structure. The purpose of writing this paper is studying formation and transformation protagonist’s image and monomyth in videogames on the example of Metal Gear Solid. In this paper we study the representation of monomyth in videogames and the transformation of the hero’s image that is connected with the deeper image work out in modem videogames that leads to a sort of “democratization” of the hero phenomenon. Heroes of the past arc being left behind, videogames arc moving to the post-heroic dpoque that coincides with the transfer from escapism to post-escapism. Keywords: game studies, videogame, myth, monomyth, hero I.NTRODUCTION Videogames were bom in scientific laboratories in the 1950-ics. 20 years after they were coming from closed scientific and educational institutions starting to bring good income to their creators [1]. Despite the fact that gaming industry has existed for about half a century and is a significant cultural phenomenon, videogames arc understudied compared to cinematography, literature, theatre, etc. What is more, videogames are a powerful influence tool, taking peculiarity of the medium itself and its popularity into account. Studying videogames is of crucial importance for understanding their entity, role and place in modem culture. Videogames continue to be considered by many people to be an escapist phenomenon. A point of view according to which videogames lead us to some false reality, to the fictitious world diverting people from reality remains quite popular. A gamer is talked about as a traitor of the tme reality: he is weak, not brave, he is not able to accept the world as it is, that’s what makes him leave it and join the world of dreams and fantasies, where everything is much more simple than in reality [2]. Using the elements of archaic mythologies by videogames allegedly encourages even greater escapism, because that way videogames bring us back to the childhood of humanity, to primitive culture that has already been overreached by the “mature” https://doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2018/2.2 547 S"* International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences & Arts SCil.M 20lx culture. Although, such assertions sound quite assertive being addressed by the media all the time. In fact, videogames haven’t been escapist for quite a long time. Today, videogames don’t only lead us away from reality, but they bring us back to ц proposing the opportunity of better solutions of life problems. Gamergatc. garnificaiion, game-based learning, social problems anxiety - all those characterize the modem stage of videogames industry development, that is called post-escapist for a reason Videogames are ceasing to be merely an entertainment, they touch upon social issues, they become an instrument of critical analysis. Such changes affect videogames contents and their perception by society, heroes’ images, assessing the heroic change as well. The purpo.se of writing this article is studying formation and transformation of a hero’s image and monomyth in videogames on the example of Metal Gear Solid senes. Talking about establishing and developing a hero’s image in videogames we will use Campbell’s work in which he proposed a universal mythological scheme - the monomyth [4]. That model of a hero’s travel is present in all ancient mythologies, folklore, epos, literature, cinematography, etc. even Uxlay. Even though the phenomenon of the heroic it.scif and monomyth is represented in many .spheres of culture, in videogames these phenomena haven’t been studied well enough. BIRTH OF Л HERO IN VIDEOGAMES In first videogames, both commercial and purely scientific (c.g. Tennis for Two, Топц) there was no hero as such. In those games, a player manipulated geometrical objects. First attempts to use the heroic appeared in videogames along with anthropomorphic characters. In order to make the elements on the screen look like possible heroes the> needed to be given human features - affection, will, thinking and decision making. One of the first games in which a player controlled a human was Adventure released in 1979 on Atari 2600. In that game you played for a knight that came to a castle to tight a dragon. But it lacked heroic narrative and the structure that would tell about coming through .series of trials. What is more, the hero himself was a small square. The situation changed in Superman for Atari 2600 relea.scd in 1979. Unlike Adventure it hud a character that кюкеО like a person. The climax of that movement on Atari 2600 was the game Pitfall! released in 1982. That was one of the first platformers in histors' ob\ iousl\ created under the influence of Indiana Jones. Although Indiana Jones was definitel) a hero it is hard to tell the same about the protagonist of Pitfall!. There is no specific stiir\ development in the game. That is why it is almost impossible to tell whether Harr) is a hero from the very beginning or he becomes one after the adventure. It is easier to sa> that 1 larry is not yet a hero. Heroes appeared in videogames thanks to the Japanese developers. The Atari gener.ition is not yet a heroic epoque, but the generation of NES - is totally heroic. If .Atari made the heroic possible by creating anthropomorphic characters, it was Nintendo that created real heroes. If Mario from Donkey Kong (1981 arcade machine), for instance, was not a full-fledged hero for the conflict of the game was unclear, Mario from Super Mario Bros. (NES videogame, 1985) was already a real hero who went for an adventure full of danger to rescue a kidnapped princess. 548 Section Philosophy Super Mario Bros, was followed by a whole series of heroic games - The Legend o f Zelda, Contra, Castlevania, Ghost'n’Gohlins, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Mega Man. They have anthropomorphic characters, however, from then on we don’t just look after them, we get to know their story. I.c., the main innovation of the.se videogames was minimal narrative telling of a character’s quest full of threats and dangers that only a hero can tackle. Of course, such narrative was not created by Nintendo, it is the legacy of manga, really popular in Japan. Unlike Atari the Nintendo console was able not ju.st to work with visuals, but also give them small portions of tc.xt (like in silent movies). It should be noted that the characters themselves came to video games not from literature, but from cinema. First and foremost, this is due to the fact that video games, like cinema, have visual media. But apart from this, a .special role here was played by that particular place that Western culture occupied in the Japane.se imagination. The fact is that in the game industry, the Japanese came trying to copy Western products: Sega and Taito came into the industry with clones of the Pong slot machines: Nintendo did this with the clone of the home Pong console; Namco entered the gaming industry having acquired the Atari plant in Tokyo after the unsuccessful exit of the American company to the Japanese market [1]. Although, the situation changed after the relea.se of Space Invaders by Taito and Pac-Man by Namco that became the most successful games of their time, the content of Japanese console games remained .secondary to the Western primarily American popular culture for a long time. For example, let’s consider the video game Contra. On the title screen, we see two characters of the videogame that are a reference to the cult heroes of .Лтепсап films. One of them is copied from Schwarzenegger, the other - from Stallone. To be more precise, one is copied from the Terminator, the other is from Rambo. The videogame makes them its characters. From the very beginning, a player understands that he is not playing ordinary soldiers but real heroes nothing can .stand to. Moreover, if you plunge into the content of the game levels your knowledge of this adventure becomes even more unexpected, as Terminator and Rambo went on a hunt against the endless enemy armies in order to defeat the xenomorphs from "Alien” by Ridley Scott! Such a mixture of Western popular media franchises is almo.st a classic situation for Japanese video games of the mid-19X0-ics. A similar situation took place in Snatcher by liideo Kojima. The protagoni.st was a clear reference to the character of Harrison Ford in “Blade Runner”, and another character of the videogame - a reference to Sting from the “Dune”. In another videogame of the Japanese game designer Policenauts we encounter a similar phenomenon: the main characters of the videogame arc the characters of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the movie “Lethal Weapon”. In legendary Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, the faces of all the characters that can be contacted by the walkie-talkie are clearly traced. So. the protagonist is Mel Gibson, the main antagonist is Sean Connery, the auxiliary characters arc Tom Beringer, Dolph Lungren, and Bob Hoskins.