Category: One off

New years eve, a liminal study in gray

~ SamRandom ~ Leave a comment

New years is a time of liminality, of barriers and of new beginnings. In the western hemisphere it is also a time of transition between the darkness of winter, and the light of spring, between snow and flowers. Greyness is in and off itself a form of liminality, between black and white, and often seen as an allegory for moral and ethical ambiguity.

I find something beautiful in the gray, and the collection of pictures I took represents some different aspects of grayness, and once I found one aspect of gray beauty, I kept finding more and more.

These images were taken as me and my friend were traveling and exploring an industrial complex close to where I live, much of which is still under construction. Both qualities were further added to the liminality of the shots I took the day’s images. The factories were mostly empty this close to the holidays, though many of the lights in the offices and the company glowing labels were still fully lit.

The unfinished nature of many of the buildings, as well as the fenced off areas further cemented the feeling that this is a place in transition, as well as a place that only a few are welcome.

As we walked further and further, more and more construction became apparent. As well as the grays of the construction sites, slowly making way for the darker greens and grays of the surrounding forests. Mist rising from the endless horizons of wooded hills in the distance.

The gray grewever more apparent and dominating in the sky as the day passed on towards night. The mists rising from the forest, indicating that the temperature was slowly but surely rising, as the dew rose into mist, joining the clouds above.

As we walked, the sun started to set, and the mists started to rise ticker and ticker, blurring colors and making the horizon blend more and more with the sky.  The lights started to glow brighter and more and more street lights started to glow, giving the scenes an even more eerie feeling.

The wilder nature and the city share many liminal spaces, where the farmed forests of energy trees meet the suburbs in unplanned clusters of trees and bushes and greenery. These spaces are everywhere, and very easy to miss, but they are often defined by their lack of human involvement, as well as their wide variety of plants and, if you are lucky, animals.

Final thoughts of the year

As I was taking these photos, and writing this text, I was in the process of moving from my home of several years and going back to my hometown, to hopefully be able to follow my dreams. So in many ways, these pictures also resemble a liminality for myself, and my life, as I am waiting to leave my old life, and move towards my new, and hopefully better life.

I hope to be able to share more essays, photo collections and a lot more in the coming years, I hope to see you all there!

Essay: The immersive world of Morrowind

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This text will be my first in a series of essays, more informal texts that are more opinion oriented then my normal research oriented texts. The topic of today’s text is brought to you by Daipanda, a loyal viewer of my twitch stream. If you like to have your own topic suggestion featured on the blog, please visit Twitch.tv/samrandom13 for more information.

Introduction

This text will discuss the many aspects of world-building found in the video game Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, and how they in tern leads to a number of role-playing possibilities for the players. I have recently been playing trough the game at my twitch channel, and have as a result spent a lot of time analysing its story and world building aspects. I will today discuss three aspects that I have found of special note, the faction system, the in game dialogue, as well as the in game books and other texts of Morrowind.

Factions

Elder Scrolls: Morrowind uses a series of reputation systems, one being a personal disposition system for non playable character, that ranges between zero and hundred, that gauges how friendly each character is towards the player character. A second system, and the one I am the most interested in today is the faction reputation system. This system similarly scales between zero and a hundred, and dictates the player characters options while dealing with said faction, as well as dictating the base level for NPCs personal base disposition with the players. Bring in good standing with a faction will allow the player to use certain traders, get better prices, as well as to get specific quests from them. Being in bad standing will lock the players out of many of these features, and in some cases, will turn the entire faction hostile towards the player. Al factions starts with varying degrees of like or dislike toward the player, and some will always despise the player cahracter, regardless of what they do.

The most interesting aspect of this faction disposition system is that, besides affection the relationships between the player character and the faction, do also play a role between the factions themselves. Each faction has a set disposition ration to every other faction. For example will the two major magical factions, the mages guild, and House Telvanni, have a negative disposition towards the others members, due to them competing for the same markets, namely magical services.

When a player joins a faction, these negative modifies will be calculated in to the disposition of every other faction. <in some cases, like with the great houses, it is impossible to join more then one, and joining one of them will permanently stop the players from joining the others with said player character. Due to the immense powers struggles being a major theme of the setting of Morrowind, will it be made clear to the player right a way that joining one of these great houses will swear them in to said house, and bar them from joining any other. The actions of the player will, as they progress trough their chosen house storyline put them in direct conflict with the other houses, and as a result will their personal and faction wide disposition go down with each of the NPCs pertain to said faction.

Other factions conflicts are more obscure and easy to miss, and several are deliberately obtuse, one well known example comes to mind early in he game, where he player is first introduced to the staple factions of the Elder scrolls series, the mages, thieves and fighters guilds respectively. The players are initially able to join both the thieves and fighters guild at their leisure, but are at one point tasked with retrieving a certain item, a book containing sensitive information, for both factions. both factions will have vested interest in this book, and the players will be forced to chose a side, with some outcomes leading to the players being unable to join one of the factions in the future.

By forcing the players to take sides in these and many other conflicts does the game enforces the idea that the character the players is in fact, part of is a part of a greater narrative and world, and by forcing the player to make these decision is the player incentivised to crystallize an identity with said world. The player is not a omnipresent being that exits outside the narrative, or indeed the ultimate hero for al inhabitants of the world. They are a part of a wilder narrative, if a very crucial part of it.

Dialogue

As is the case with many role-playing games, is the interactions with player cahracter one of the bigger parts of Elder scrolls Morrowind. This is primarily doe by approaching an npc and engaging in a dialogue, here the players will be presented with a series of topics that they can ask this specific npc about. These topics vary greatly from npc to npc. The players are normally allowed to ask about as many of these topics as they like, and as many times as they like.

In some rare cases are the players forced in to a decision, here the dialogue box is frozen, and the player is presented with to or more red dialogue options, that they must pick one off, before they can continue. With this mechanic will the player be forced to conciser the context in where they ask certain questions, and take up specific topics.

One last note on the dialogue options of Morrowind, is that many of the characters will give fully, or partially incorrect information to the players, rather due to ignorance, or wilful malice. In no area is this as obvious as with the case of directions, that is often obtuse by the original quest givers, forcing the player to wander around the countryside, or look for alternate directions form other npc`s in the area.

Books

The last facet I want to touch on is the large number of books, scrolls and booklets that the player can find and read trough the game. These range from travel guides, and instructional manuals on proper trade conduct, to theological discussions and series spanning high fantasy novel series.

These books gives an incredible depth and nuance to the setting as as a whole, by giving examples of fiction and no fiction alike. Books like “The true nature of the Orks” and “The wild Elves” presents thoughts and biases of the various nations of the world, and tales and poetry describing the war of the red mountain gives grand examples on how the various cultures and nations of the Elder Scrolls series perceives the same historical event.

One of the more interesting facets of the books and scrolls in the Elder Scrolls series has always been the numerous contradictions and arguments that can be found within many of the non fictional texts. These contradictions do not come form sloppiness or oversight in the writing, rather the opposite in fact. The world of Elder scrolls is full of various cultures, and al with their own varying groups of philosophers, researchers, magicians and academics. The differences and arguments that the player will most often find is of a theological nature, more specifically on the nature of the divinity, or lack there off, of the living gods of the Tribunal, a topic that I promise I will return to in a more academic text later on!

The way that a lot of the information and lore of the elder scrolls series, and especially Morrowind, is presented in the way of books and scrolls. As with much of real life information and texts, is there always a sender with a message and a goal. By presenting the world via these complex and sometimes contradictory explanations on everything form the nature of the gods to how to best cast a fireball, will the players be incentivised to think critically about every text and piece of information they come across, and slowly puzzle together the truth, just like a scholar living in Morrowind would.

Final thoughts

Elder Scrolls: Morrowind uses a number of strategies to draw the player in to its world, chief amongst them obfuscation, and forcing the players to take sides. By obfuscating some of the information that is presented by the player, and presenting conflicting narratives, does the game force the player to conciser each new piece of information from various sides and angles. Furthermore, by presenting some of the information from the npcs in a similar contradictory way, are the players forced to think of them less as objective directions given by a story, and more like subjective interpretation of various real life people.

By forcing the player to choose between various factions are the player encouraged to form a more uniform image of their character, one that is slowly formed from a blank slate in to an individual by the choses they make along the way. The player character is formed as much by the factions they join, and friends they make, as by the once they choose, or are forced not to join. The lack of ability by the player to join every faction, to see every side of each debate, at least in one playtrough, further drives home the subjective and splintered nature of the narrative in Elder Scrolls: Morrowind.

I would argue that these two facets of Morrowinds storytelling greatly helps the immersion and ability for the player to fully play the role of their chosen character, and is a contributing factor to why the game is still played, and talked about to this day. I will return at a later stage with a more in depth analysis of many of the subjects touched upon in this text, especially the concept of ambiguity in the presentation of the texts of the Tribunal and other faiths.

The use of hallways in Fiction

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Source: Coralline

The hallway has been used as a number of symbolic objects in fiction, from doorways to other worlds, to extensions of characters mood and emotions.  I will in this essay present three genres of fiction, and their use of hallways in wildly different ways. Namely will we examine fantasy, science fiction and horror, and their uses of the hallway as a way of telling a narrative.

Fantasy

Many types of fantasy, especially those that follow the trope of “two worlds”, use some sort of doorway or hallway to access the different worlds. The use of hallways can be used to extend the notion of distance between the “real” and “other” world. A good example of this would be the wool corridor between the other mothers world, and the world of everyday life. The transportation through it, both with time and space, can create a larger sense of distance, and otherness. 

Science fiction

The blog post created by Curley (2015), discusses the idea of the corridor as a canvas to create world building and set dressing. The corridor can be used to present the tone, setting and themes of the narrative. Two examples would be the sleek corridors of the enterprise showing the futuristic utopian world that the story takes places in, where minimalism and simplicity of life has taken hold in the confederacy. This can be juxtaposed with the shops if the Alien franchise, where the ships are seemingly created from a lot of different manufacturers, and clearly made with a small  budget, where price comes before safety.

Horror

The corridor in the is almost a staple of the series, where it is used to great effect to show anything from loneliness, to claustrophobia and disorientation. A classical example would be the corridors in Saltney Cambrics, the Shining uses corridors very effective to create a sense of dislocation, and otherworldliness to the hotel of the movie. Nightmare of Elm Street uses the hallway as a way to enhance the sensation and feeling of nightmares and otherness.  

Source: the Shining

The corridors have been used as hunting grounds for monsters and villains to set harrowing chase scenes, or once again be used as a portal between the natural and the supernatural world. (Ripatrazone, 2015)

Romance

The corridor in romance films are used to show closeness as well as distance, separation and togetherness. By empathising the size and distance of the hallway can the physical distance between characters work as an allegory for both emotional and mental distance, as well as the actual distance between them in space and time.

Conclusions 

We have here seen how the hallway has been used to create a series of different moods and narrative cues, and concepts. Many of the themes are somewhat bleeding in to each other, and are used in similar ways, but I have in this chapter tried to show a distinct tradition and history of using the hallway in narratives. I wanted to show in this chapter that even a seemingly arbitrary set piece as the hallway can have a rich use of narrative and symbolic use within film making.

References: 

Let’s explore science fiction’s glorious hallways, Christopher Curley, 2015, taken from: https://news.avclub.com/let-s-explore-science-fiction-s-glorious-hallways-1798283284

The Long, Lonely Walk: Hallways in Horror Films, Nick Ripatrazone, 2015, taken from: https://themillions.com/2015/08/the-long-lonely-walk-hallways-in-horror-films.html

The scribe: A comparative look at the writing professional

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The concept of the professional writer has changed wildly over the years, and are indeed still changing to this day. What this texts is going to focus on specificity is the invention of the printing press in Europe, and what that meant for the world of the written word, both socially, cultural and economically.

The manuscript and the ideal text

The ideal text is a concept within many fields of research, and has number of different connotations. In this text we are interested in the concept in therms of literary and writing history. The concept of the ideal text in this context is a text that is as close to the authors original intent or “original text”. In order to create these ideal texts are usually many different translations and editions used, to see which parts and passages that seems to correlate the best with each other. From these different editions is a so called Ideal text created. This text would then work as a basis, or a reference point for further studies.

One good example of such an ideal text would be certain plays made by Shakespeare, of which we only have second hand notes and recordings off. Plays being a personal property of the theatre troupe, and never shared outside the company, was the only way to acquire other theatres plays, to sit in the audience and try to record it line for line.

To understand the cultures of the medieval scribe work, and how the printing press changed it, one must first understand the concept of the Manuscript. The Manuscript of the medieval European scribes, and their coupes across the world is in and of themselves unique items. Each and every one of them created by a person, at a specific point in time. Things like spelling and grammar errors, translations errors, as well as corrections to these errors, al leads to the further differentiation of a text. Furthermore were many scribes not just tasked with creating an item of functionality, but also of creating an articulacy of value and beauty.

Bildresultat för medieval manuscript
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_illuminated_manuscripts

One of the results of this is the fact that we need to conciser that, unlike a published and printed book, was these manuscripts made for a specific individual, or a small collection of individuals rather then for a public.

Many manuscripts were made for specific nobility or other inportant individuals, and it was not uncommon for historical or religious texts to be custom tailored to collaborate the stories and features of the ancestors of the chosen patron. These texts were, and still are considered great works of art for a very good reason, as many features large masterfully made artworks, as well as pretentious and rare materials, such as gold and rare pigments.

The medieval scribe

The image most have of the medieval scribe is of an elderly monk sitting hunches over his text books and slowly tracing the words and images of his predecessors. The work of the medieval scribe was indeed a lot mover involved then that, and often included correcting spelling errors or factual problems that the author has left in, (and accordantly creating their own errors from time to time). The work for the scribe was often seen to be of just as an inportant and vital task as the original author, and the two were seen as co creators for each work. It was indeed a common practice for the scribe to make themselves a small portrait in the manuscripts themselves.

The creation of each and every manuscript was as a result a unique and one of a time production, and each object that was created in this was was as well, a unique artefact. This will be put in to contrast of the mass produced series of identical texts possible with the invention of the printing press.

The printing press and the question of ownership

The concept of copy rite and ownership relay came to a head when the printing press and its use became more and more widespread. It became more and more easy to copy, redistribute and acquire the written word. This did do a lot of good for he spread of art, culture and science, as well as differing political ideals. One group that was both gained from, and suffers at the hands of the printing press was the authors of these new texts.

The authors of the renaissance had a vast new audience of hungry readers, but no clear way of safety monetizing said market. It was not uncommon to acquire books form other printers, and then undersell them by producing cheaper copies. These infringements was mostly done over national borders, and a few duchies of the holy Roman empire was nutritious for these bootlegging printers. They acquired books form across the border, and then managed to make significantly cheaper copies, due to them not needing to pay the original author.

The difficulty of the author, and publishers to properly monetize their products lead to the invention of more clear and universal copy write law. In order to properly push their newfound claims. To be able to properly make these claims, a new image of the author had to be created.

Copywriting and the idea of the author

The idea of the author of a author as a a unique genius, that springs original concepts from their very essence is a relatively new one as well, one which origin can be argued to be traced to (at least in Europe) the invention and refinement of the printing press.

In order to protect the writers livelihood in this new environment, was an image of the proses of writing, and the author was needed. German authors in particular was hurt by the introduction of the printing press, and its consequences for their ability to protect their economic safety. The concepts of a writer living solely on sales of reprints of their books are a relatively new concept in Europe. Before was writers usually paid on commissions, or even more often, by patronage of a noble or other rich individual. This new writers found themselves completely without any sort of safety net. In order to make sure these writers could protect their income and works, would they need to reinvent the very role of the author (Woodsmansee 1994). I will here present two different definitions of the author, and how it relates to the medieval manuscript.

The inspired craftsman

The renaissance, and pre printing press idea of the writer, was mainly that of a craftsman. An individual that has learned a trade, and applies heir tools, experience and the knowlage of previous craftsmen to create new works out of existing myths, stories and narratives. Much like a carpenter works with already existing wood, so does the writer work with pre existing themes and ideas. (Woodsmansee 1994)

When a writer seemingly created a completely new topic or concept, this was not attributed to the individual themself, but rather to some sort of divine or supernaturally inspirational force, be it a deity or a creatures such as a muse. Note that this puts the professional writer, in the position of a vessel for other ideas and beings, rather then being the originator of said ideas themselves. (Woodsmansee 1994)

The lone artist

After the introduction of the printing press, and the coming of the enlightenment, did another concept of the writer, the artist. This individual worked towards unevenness and individuality, they were the sole source of their work, and as a result the sole owner of it as well. Their inspiration came from within, lacking any mundane or supernatural force of inspiration. Because the writer is the single originator of the text, they also held the single credit and responsibility for the text, and as a result, also the single monetary and intellectual rights to it. (Woodsmansee 1994)

The influences of craftsmanship also disappeared gradually, and was instead replaced by the concept of solitary artistry. A similar trend could be found in al of the disciplines that would later be known as the “fine arts”. These being dance, theatre, paining, sculpting and writing. In al these disciple was there a clear move made to make a distinction between the crafts and the arts, as well as elevating the later over the former.

Conclusions

What I have tried to present here is a n introduction is a shift in mentality and reality of both the author and the book as an item when the printing press was fully introduced in Europe. With the artefact created going from a physical unique item, to the ethereal idea of the Text, so did the image of the writer go from the craftsman scribe, to the artist writer.

Sources

P.F.F. (2006). Manuscript, not Print: Scribal Culture in the Edo Period. The Journal of Japanese Studies 32(1), 23-52. doi:10.1353/jjs.2006.0016.

Woodmansee, Martha (1994). The author, art, and the market: rereading the history of aesthetics. New York: Columbia University Press

Undertale: an example of multileveld textuality.

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Warning: This text do contain several major spoilers for the game Undertale. We will in this examine the games narrative in its entirety. As a result we ask you to only read this paper if you have already consumed the medium in question, or don’t mind being spoiled on key parts of its narrative.

Introduction

Undertale is an indie game created in 2015 by Toby Fox. Undertale is s classic turn based role-playing games in the vein of Earthbound and the early Final fantasy games. The unique mechanic of Undertale is that every single foe can either be killed or befriended, as well as, the game saving everything you do contiguously, regardless of the players own saving and loading.

This is not going to be the focus of this paper tough, rather this text will focus on how Undertale plays with different narrative and textual levels. This text will begin with a small introduction to the terms and general theories this analasys will be based on, followed by an in depth analysis of the text concluded with a concluding discussion on the analasys as well as tips on further reading materials on the subject.

Terminology

Before we start with the analysis of Undertale itself, will I present a series of terms that we will use in this, and future texts like this. It is inportant when writing any kind of academic text to always clarify how You the author will use the terms used. A term like text or contextulity will have different meanings, and it is vital to specify which meaning you will use.

Text

Firstly the term Text will refer to everything that is traditionally considers to be part of a video game, graphics, music, game mechanics, dialogue etcetera. In other words is the term text not limited to the written word. In this chapter will text mean the game Undertale.

Textuality

This is a breakdown of the different textualists we will examine in this chapter. We will also analyse how these levels interact with each other.

Text– Everything that is explicitly part of the narrative or story itself. Characters, plot, game mechanics, items, rooms etc, game assets. The text encompass everything that can be part of the text itself, this is different between genera and media forms.

Subtext– Everything that is implied or offered by the author in the text. Themes, morals lessons etc. These themes are not directly mentioned openly in text, but inferred using allegory or hints left for the reader to find for themselves.

Intertextuality– Anything connecting this text with another text, for example Toby Foxes other games or games in similar genera. The most common example of intertextuality is between the texts within the same series. In the terms of literary theory is there no connection between, for example, part 1 and part 2 of the Harry Potter series. These ties are instead left for the reader to create, just as the subtextual connections. Intertextuality more difficultly means the narrative ties between books. Titles, the text on the back and the numbering of series, falls within the category of paratextuality.

Paratextuality– Surrounding texts not part of the text, including the code, the title screen and border etc. These are part of what is sometimes reoffered to as the “artefact” or the object of study. Code, the box, the background blurb.

Analysis

The text we are to analyse today is a video game titled Undertale, its tag line being “a friendly game where no on needs to die”.

Undertale is constructed as a traditional turn based RPG where you traverse several game maps or “rooms” and fight enemies on a “battle screen”. By battling you gain either experience or money. You get money by choosing to ”spare” an enemy, and you get XP for killing an enemy.

Battle menu, source: Havoc teh Raven

The picture above represents the battle screen in Undertale. Here you have a series of options presented to you, you can do one of the following things on your turn, fight, act, use an item or try to spare your opponent. Here you also see your level and your current hit points.

The large black screen is representing the enemy attacks, and here you will dodge, their attacks in the vein of bullet hell shooters1. This area is, as described earlier very much a physical plane within he game world. Other characters can very much influence this seemingly purely mechanical plane. This fact become even more apparent within the games so called ”dating hub”.

Papyrus discussing dating hub, source: Havoc teh Raven
The dating hub, source: Havoc teh Raven

The paratextual connections, are used very often as a narrative device. This can most most easily be seen in the border window of Undertale, this border is not what we would consider part of the normal text. The border is often used as a narrative device, this is done by either changing the title of the game or moving the program around the desktop in various ways.

Papyrus has his special ability stolen, source: Havoc teh Raven

A second layer of paratextuality is a lot more closely tied to the text. This layer consists of the gameplay vs story. The battle screen is most often considered a semi real plane, existing only to drive the story forward. The most obvious moment being, the fight with Papyrus being interrupted by the annoying dog physically stealing his ultimate attack. A more obscure example is that the different areas within the world is know as ”rooms”. Rooms are usually what these areas are called within game terms. These rooms are then tied together, with ”doors” or ”portals”. The character Sans ability to teleport can be, the ability to freely enter these rooms out of order. These doors can at different points also lead to different areas, something we will discuss later.

Relaterad bild
Save screen, source: Nasıl Yüklenir

Lastly we need to discuss the concept of Loading and Saving. I here refer to the ability to create a ”save state”, this save state can later be returned to by loading a save state. The power of loading and saving is something that some characters have this ability to ”save” and ”load” at will. More specificity do you the player, and the main antagonist share this mechanics laden ability. This ability in game lets you return to a previous ”save state”, and fix potential problems and or misses you may have done. From a gameplay perspective does saving not actually create a save state per say, but rather moves you along a different narrative path, the game instead autosaves whenever the game is closed. This fact become apparent rather quickly as your player character has reactions to characters they meet for ”the first time”. Certain characters like Sans, and the shop keeper Temmie also seems to be able to keep track on whenever you load and save.

Subtext and the mystery of Gaster in the code.

In this last segment will indulge ourselves in some theorising on some materials not directly tied to a first hand source. In this area we will partly discuss things found within some second hand sources, mostly in the form of Wiki pages and other peoples analysis of Undertale. The character known as Gaster can only be encountered if some very specific criteria are met in the games algorithms. These algorithms are known in the games files as “fun values”, and are used to calculate a series of random events occurring.

One of the more interesting random events bring that of the character Gaster. Hem as well as any character related to him, can only be met if certain fun levels are met. One of these individual explains that Gaster was “lost in his own creation”. This could either relate to the grand power plant known as the Core, witch he supposedly created, or that he got lost in the very code itself.

Conclusion

The narrative style of Undertale takes up on a rich tradition of fourth wall breaking. This tradition was common in certain schools of theatre and film. These breaks go further then the simple acknowledgement of the audience, and makes both the game and the player itself, part of the narrative.

Different characters, such as Flowey, Sans and Asgore al have some sort of power to influence the game mechanics or objects on a Paratextual level. These are but a few examples of the various ways Undertale plays with differencing levels of textuality. I will leave it to the readers if the wish, to discover the rest for themselves.

Footnotes

1The genre of games where you play as a ship or other small object, dodging a series of bullets or other fast moving objects.

References and further reading

Click to access Narrative%20in%20Games.pdf

https://www.jesperjuul.net/text/clash_between_game_and_narrative.html

Analyzing the Game Narrative Structure and teqnice – Huaxin Wei

Undertale – Full Pacifist Play-through – No Commentary: Havoc teh Raven

Undertale Save File Nasıl Yüklenir

https://undertale.fandom.com/wiki/W._D._Gaster