Literature, Warfare, Omelas, and Rain

A New Literature

J. Hillis Miller: "The end of literature is at hand. Literature's time is almost up. It is about time. It is about, that is, the different epochs of the different media" (On Literature, 1). This is true, for the death of the Author would inevitably lead to the death of literature, an appropriation of the narrative by the audience in the absence of authorial command and content. The phoenix of literature and narrative will break outward, explode, while, because of its age and its culture, implode. Hamlet: "This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,/That inward breaks, and shows no cause without/Why the man dies..." (Hamlet IV.iv). The deterritorialization of modernity and postmodernity can no longer insist on definitions, no longer conscript meaning within the purview of the hegemony. Narrative qua narrative, literature qua narrative--this is the game, the reterritorialization of the audience as author. The old death of the Author, with reader response and deconstruction, must capitulate to the new death of the Literature as the game moves outward, expanding into and exploring the form of what it means to be.

Theory can predict in loose outlines the path the game must take, but the game itself is powerless to take any form and any path independent from the gamer. Theory can sketch the outward forms, the inward importance, of the game, but the game itself must take the gamer to those signposts. Yet the gamer misappropriates power, assuming that the game exists for the outward expression only. Or the gamer misinterprets the narrative, assuming that the game's story speaks for the inward exploration only. The gamer is always already outside the game--literally and theoretically. The game exists without the gamer, but without the game, there is no gamer. The ideal contingency of what is transcribed within the algorithm has context only based upon the unideal within the gamespace, the reality of the world perceived.

The game points to the Enlightenment more forcefully than other media, as it stands alone in being the unreal responding to the real, a bundle of secondary qualities that can only operate through a medium of something with primary qualities. The oral history (and live performance) is transient and remembered only, incapable of being relived. The novel (and writing) is static and permanent, incapable of adapting to new times (rather, the times must readapt to the novel, for there is too much of worth to abandon the novel, despite the way the world advances). The film (and television) is static and capable of being relived, though what it relies on heavily is the spectacle of itself (much less than the game, yet still in a way that betokens the ambivalence of the medium). Al Gore: "Individuals receive, but they cannot send. They absorb, but they cannot share. They hear, but they do not speak. They see constant motion, but they do not move themselves" (Assault on Reason, 16). Thence comes the game in its ideal (the ideal of an ideal). The game is dynamic and capable of being relived, though its reliance on spectacle and its greatest strength (interaction) also weaken it to a point far from transcendence.

Modern Warfair

War has changed. In the digital, as in the real, there are rules of engagement. Some are unwritten and unsigned (don't camp; headshots get extra points), while others are unflinchingly imposed (Geneva conventions may be ignored in Abu Grahib and Gitmo, but no gamer can usurp the authority of the algorithm). The war outside of the game and the war inside of the game are inversions of each other. For the real soldier, there is no health pack, recharging of shields, or respawn point. For the virtual soldier, there is no politics, past life, or outside considerations. What preoccupies one does not preoccupy the other. The virtual soldier cares about reaching a checkpoint to prevent a loss of progress. The real soldier cares about reaching a safe haven to prevent the loss of life. The terms of the two represent each other only superficially, for the death in the game is immaterial, frustrating the ludonarrative impulse alone. Death on the battlefield is material and ambivalent, for the real soldier who dies does not know it.

Hence there is no playing at war, for war is not fair. The most skilled do not 'level up' or even make it home. Just war theory bears this out, as the premise for conflict is circumscribed by conditions that do not gel inside the new unreality of the game. Games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Brothers in Arms, and the Halo franchise do not at all represent war. Even the in-limbo Six Days in Fallujah cannot make a game out of war. The lines are too dissimilar within. Yet the superficiality of the game and the war allow for parallels that bear analysis.

• Example: Those who are denied the right to play and the right to war are given to complaining (with forums, petitions, and creation of new accounts for the unreal, and forums, petitions, and creation of new laws for the real).
  
• Example: There are ethical dilemmas that, upon completion, may warrant awards (positive/negative karmic trees for the unreal, and positive/negative press for the real).
  
• Example: Those who participate in the game and the war are of a volunteer ethos, and both have a duty imposed by the exercising of volition (no one is forced to play Ghost Recon 2, and there has been no conscription to the armed services in America since 1973).
  
• Example: The use of violence will resolve the conflict, even if the conflict is, itself, violence.
  

Violence par excellence is promised in both, but the delivery is distinct. The game strips away the inconveniences of the war, creating a condensed experience of fighting, with bloodbaths that pause only long enough for the next level to load. The daily grind, hours of vigilance, endless heat, perpetual stress of being in a war zone comprises the majority of many soldiers' lives. This discrepancy, long leveled at books and movies, now takes aim at the video game--and the charge still stands. The violence of the real battlefield is tangible in all the ways that the digital is not, driving a wedge between expectations and results.

None of this is to say that the games do not lead some to think of war. No reflection of humanity is truly complete without a component of the violent and the dark. The holy books of the three major monotheistic religions of the world all discuss violence as a part of reality, and every derivative and inferior narrative that stems outward from such books must, at the very least, take it as implied that violence exists in the world.

On Omelas

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", a marvelous short story by Ursula K. LeGuin, describes a utopia that may be. People are free, happy, and capable of pursuing destinies of their own choosing. Holidays and work are enjoyed in equal measure, people are not puritanical nor licentious, but instead all live in harmony. In the depths of a closet, however, hidden deep beneath the city, a single child suffers and moans in the privation of its soul, caked in filth and starving its life away. Every person in Omelas knows about this child, and all know that it is because that child lives and suffers that everyone else can enjoy the life they have. Some few people feel that there is something inhumane about this, and choose to walk away, abandoning a life of tranquility bought with the suffering of an innocent for a life that they live independently.

This may very well be a story, not of those rejecting a potential utopia in favor of an unknown world, but instead an allegory for the thinking gamer, one who, rather than reveling in the utopia of the ideal made unreal and accepting it as such, instead turns his back on the pure ludological appeal of the gaming world and wishes to explore outward to additional lands and narratives. The price of playing is not as dramatic, but the effects are similar. Much is sacrificed for the ludic, and it is important to respond to what is being offered outside of the game. Hence the banality, futility, and idiocy of the phrase, "It's just a game." Yes, there is much in the game that is ludological, schediological, or narratological. These are the pillars on which the game itself rests. But there is much outside of the game that provides the context to what is being played. No civilian can play a soldier like a returned veteran can. No child can play a parent like a father or mother can. The context of the real is what allows the unreal its freedom. To those who cannot walk away from the game to see the world beyond--nor see the world beneath, the deeper signs and signifiers of the game--then there is a distinct loss. The context of the real makes the impossibility of the unreal conceivable, believable, and worth desiring.

The fear of how obsessive some people are over video games (above and beyond writing a book of essays about them), the constant, almost desperate attempts to link antisocial, violent, or aberrant behavior to video games, the imposition and regulation of video game sales, and all attendant disinformation about the medium, now comes into sharp focus. Those who look inward at Omelas will see one of two things: a world of bliss and understanding; or a world built on what they cannot accept. Those who only see the former are blinded by the brilliance of what the game can do; those who only see the latter are confident that all within the walls are benighted devils deserving of censure and reproach. Neither attitude serves the reality of what the game can be. And little wonder: there are precious few examples of that in the gaming world.


The Heaviest of Rain

Quantic Dreams has taken the narratalogical and schediological challenge of moving the video game into Hillis' "different media" with their brilliant and horribly undervalued Heavy Rain. The ludological component is somewhat lacking, proof that the industry is not quite capable of fully utilizing the game on its own terms. But there is much that works in the game; so much so that it overcomes its ludological shortcomings beautifully.

Heavy Rain relies on the same thing that thatgamecompany's Flower attempted (successfully) to invoke: emotion.^* The characters of Heavy Rain contain almost every necessary component for well-rounded and fully realized fictional beings: believability, sympathetic flaws, and honesty. Heavy Rain also handles mature issues well, performing the story for the audience, rather than pandering to it. The main purpose of the story is to allow the gamer to get to know its main protagonists. It is this level of detail in the mundane that works strongest for--and against--the game.

The tiniest minutiae--brushing teeth, shaving, playing with one's children, trying to work as an architect--push the gamer more and more heavily into the character's shoes. When it works, it is phenomenal. The empathy and care that is generated in the gamer can only be felt via this constant presence and control. It is here, however, where the ludic fails, as many gamers, so attuned to the spectacle of gaming and the type of response that they demand and are accustomed to the controls, cannot engage in the story to the correct degree. It is, as it were, too steep of a learning curve. The QTEs that play a predominant role in the control of the game are not tiresome, difficult, or poorly done; they are simply a more overt showing of what the controller normally does. It is a complex piece that must be sight-read as it is played, rather than a memorized ditty that can be rattled off like a thirty-lives code. This complexity offends the gamer who is more attuned to playing by rote than by improvisation.

Still, despite this minor setback (and it is minor), Heavy Rain stands far above other narratological media. It is, within the boundaries of the story, two-way. It gives possibilities, closes doors, opens windows, unlocks treasures, and refuses to let the ineptitude of the gamer halt the progress of the story. Rarely will a game allow such freedom with the choices in an almost genuine way. Unlike sandbox games that provide the greatest, most hollow promises of freedom, Heavy Rain allows the gamer to manipulate not the world around the character (an impossibility in the real world that is actually matched in the game world), but instead the story itself. The possibility of the death of the avatar is real, but the idea of not finishing the game is impossible. This allows the story to be told according to the whims of the game and the gamer, a symbiosis that is as beautiful as it is difficult to articulate.

Heavy Rain is not a game that should be precisely emulated. It must be expanded upon. The idea of sitting down with this game to 'play for a few minutes' is absurd. It is not that kind of game. It does not need (the laughably ubiquitous) multiplayer option. It needs a greater control option (perhaps it will be achieved with Move) and greater appreciation from gamers. It needs to be used as a model of what is possible, and an inspiration to push games toward what should be.

---------------------

*While Quantic Dream's masterpiece pushes emotions of fear, anger, stress, and empathy, Flower instead focused on emotions of tranquility and calm