ABSTRACT:The paper revisits a central question in the study of characters in digital games: Do players of, for example, a racing game steer the virtual car directly themselves, or are they controlling the body of a virtual driver? This seemingly technical question is shown to be primarily cognitive and conceptual: players draw on their real-life and fictional frames of reference in an ongoing epistemological process of situating themselves vis-à-vis gameworld and playable figure. The traditional metaphor for this relationship, that of a cyborg, neither captures the variety of relationships suggested by games, nor the range of interpretations open to players. To overcome this limitation, I propose six conceptual types, based on the significance that tools and vehicles have for the playable figure. I ask: is there a co-dependence between equipment and user, is it permanent, and do they have a metonymic relationship to each other? These abstract categories are shown to be connected to archetypical proto-narratives epitomized by characters from mythology and popular culture, which players implicitly refer to in conceptualizing their relationship to the gameworld. The essay, then, offers a framework for the conceptual variety of player-playable figure-relations, which, in drawing on cultural history, should be equally transparent to scholars of game studies and narratology.
{"title":"Theorizing the Player-Playable Figure Relationship","authors":"H. Backe, Petri Lankoski","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0014","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The paper revisits a central question in the study of characters in digital games: Do players of, for example, a racing game steer the virtual car directly themselves, or are they controlling the body of a virtual driver? This seemingly technical question is shown to be primarily cognitive and conceptual: players draw on their real-life and fictional frames of reference in an ongoing epistemological process of situating themselves vis-à-vis gameworld and playable figure. The traditional metaphor for this relationship, that of a cyborg, neither captures the variety of relationships suggested by games, nor the range of interpretations open to players. To overcome this limitation, I propose six conceptual types, based on the significance that tools and vehicles have for the playable figure. I ask: is there a co-dependence between equipment and user, is it permanent, and do they have a metonymic relationship to each other? These abstract categories are shown to be connected to archetypical proto-narratives epitomized by characters from mythology and popular culture, which players implicitly refer to in conceptualizing their relationship to the gameworld. The essay, then, offers a framework for the conceptual variety of player-playable figure-relations, which, in drawing on cultural history, should be equally transparent to scholars of game studies and narratology.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"240 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49241416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Response: Composite Avatars and the Epistemology of the Playable Figure","authors":"Petri Lankoski","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0028","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"250 - 252"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47383305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:On the basis of a recognition of the semiotic theories on character, this paper aims to identify some cornerstones useful for developing a theory of transmedia characters. Firstly, we will reconstruct the troubled fortune of the notion of character in French structural semiotics which reduced it to a combinatorial conception, according to which the identity of the character relies first of all on the fact of being a lexical unit that can be analyzed and decomposed, like the phoneme, into a series of "distinctive features" (Lévi-Strauss) or "semes" (Barthes; Greimas). Greimas even rejects as useless the idea of character and splits the concept into the dichotomy actant/actors, on the basis of a distinction between the being and the doing that refers to Aristotle and the privilege he conferred upon action. Hereafter we will focus on two broader visions which go beyond textual immanence: the semio-pragmatic conception of Philip Hamon—where a character effect produced by a text is linked to the reader's memory synthesis—and the socio-semiotic conception proposed by Marrone, for which the construction of characters is the result of a combination of intertextual relations. On the basis of these developments, in the last part we will re-read the observations on the nature of the character developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in his still little known studies on the Germanic legends. Ultimately, Saussure's conception of the character as a cultural construct may offer a significant contribution to a transtextual study of the character.
{"title":"Towards a Semiotic Theory of Transmedia Characters","authors":"P. Bertetti, Mattia Thibault","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0013","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:On the basis of a recognition of the semiotic theories on character, this paper aims to identify some cornerstones useful for developing a theory of transmedia characters. Firstly, we will reconstruct the troubled fortune of the notion of character in French structural semiotics which reduced it to a combinatorial conception, according to which the identity of the character relies first of all on the fact of being a lexical unit that can be analyzed and decomposed, like the phoneme, into a series of \"distinctive features\" (Lévi-Strauss) or \"semes\" (Barthes; Greimas). Greimas even rejects as useless the idea of character and splits the concept into the dichotomy actant/actors, on the basis of a distinction between the being and the doing that refers to Aristotle and the privilege he conferred upon action. Hereafter we will focus on two broader visions which go beyond textual immanence: the semio-pragmatic conception of Philip Hamon—where a character effect produced by a text is linked to the reader's memory synthesis—and the socio-semiotic conception proposed by Marrone, for which the construction of characters is the result of a combination of intertextual relations. On the basis of these developments, in the last part we will re-read the observations on the nature of the character developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in his still little known studies on the Germanic legends. Ultimately, Saussure's conception of the character as a cultural construct may offer a significant contribution to a transtextual study of the character.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"225 - 239"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48015207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contrasting Character Identities: A Response to Kai Mikkonen","authors":"J. Blom","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0037","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"180 - 181"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46137583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Portal and the Minimalistic Companion: A Response to Kristine Jørgensen","authors":"Ida Broni Christensen","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0044","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"195 - 196"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43130112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:This article makes a case for considering not just the implied author (IA) but the flesh-and-blood one in our interpretations, despite the anti-intentionalist assumptions that guide our discipline. Specifically, it argues against the view that we can find out about the IA only through consulting the text: instead, we must sometimes also look to the flesh-and-blood author to construct the IA. To make my case, I focus on the story “The Goophered Grapevine,” by Charles Chesnutt, a Black American author writing in the post-Reconstruction period. My examination of his story draws on the body of narrative theory concerned with unreliable narration, entering into a debate on the location of unreliability: does it reside with the historical reader or is it inherent in the text? An analysis of “The Goophered Grapevine” reveals the existence of two audiences, a discerning and gullible one, who come to very different conclusions about the narrator’s reliability; it also reveals problems with each side of the debate. The analysis shows how important it is to consider Chesnutt’s intentions in forming our interpretations of his story—and by extension the intentions of other minoritized authors. Because literary scholars rely on close reading, the texts we scrutinize offer a myriad of interpretive possibilities. We need at times to use the intentions and beliefs of flesh-and-blood authors, particularly minoritized authors, as a source of inspiration for certain interpretations and an ethical check on others.
{"title":"Charles Chesnutt, Rhetorical Passing, and the Flesh-and-Blood Author: A Case for Considering Authorial Intention","authors":"Faye Halpern","doi":"10.1353/nar.2022.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2022.0002","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article makes a case for considering not just the implied author (IA) but the flesh-and-blood one in our interpretations, despite the anti-intentionalist assumptions that guide our discipline. Specifically, it argues against the view that we can find out about the IA only through consulting the text: instead, we must sometimes also look to the flesh-and-blood author to construct the IA. To make my case, I focus on the story “The Goophered Grapevine,” by Charles Chesnutt, a Black American author writing in the post-Reconstruction period. My examination of his story draws on the body of narrative theory concerned with unreliable narration, entering into a debate on the location of unreliability: does it reside with the historical reader or is it inherent in the text? An analysis of “The Goophered Grapevine” reveals the existence of two audiences, a discerning and gullible one, who come to very different conclusions about the narrator’s reliability; it also reveals problems with each side of the debate. The analysis shows how important it is to consider Chesnutt’s intentions in forming our interpretations of his story—and by extension the intentions of other minoritized authors. Because literary scholars rely on close reading, the texts we scrutinize offer a myriad of interpretive possibilities. We need at times to use the intentions and beliefs of flesh-and-blood authors, particularly minoritized authors, as a source of inspiration for certain interpretations and an ethical check on others.","PeriodicalId":45865,"journal":{"name":"NARRATIVE","volume":"30 1","pages":"47 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48069205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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