Monthly Archives: December 2008

Epilogue

Just a last comment of interest I didn’t have room for in my final paper. I argue that trailers use repetition not just to hammer advertising into our heads, but to signal genre placement for the upcoming film. In the case of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, it’s amazing how redundant the literary referents are. Not only is the whole thing based on Tolkien’s books with inter-titles that call the story legendary, but Sir Ian McKellen, Britain’s foremost Shakespearean actor, provides the voice-over narration. Additionally, Liv Tyler is featured disproportionately to her role in the film, as she is the ‘thinking man’s sex symbol.’ For a great film, it’s amusing how hard the trailer tries to justify itself as worthy of an intellectual audience.

The real end. 

A Narrative Theory of Life

A couple of the authors we’ve read this term have talked about how we process life using (without consciously understanding, in most cases) narrative theory. Inspired by Bordwell’s baring of the narrative device, I thought it would be fitting to apply as many theories as I could think of to life in general for my final blog post.

Bordwell’s narrative schmata: We use schemata to decode the proper response to a story being told to us. For example, someone being hit by a bus is funny or not funny depending on the cues given within the telling. Misreading the signs is funny in movies, but awkward in life, so the socially superior quickly become adept at applying schemata to stories. However, I don’t think we process our own lives using schemata. It is unlikely that an angry person has enough perspective to read the cues of a vicious pranking during the act and foresee the outcome, thereby realizing the joke and adjusting his attitude accordingly. 

The implied author debate: I suppose the fatalists among us are searching for the implied author of life. I’m torn as to whether I could also say that most religions are doing the same thing. Religion in general is certainly narrative, both in actual history and in myth. Some version of the Christ tale shows up in nearly every religious text throughout the history of the world. Based upon the thorough and successful recycling of that tale, the homogeneity of Hollywood’s recent output should really be no surprise. In the research I’ve been doing about trailers, I’ve found that most authors who speculate about advertising narratives believe that humans like repetition, with only a smidge of variation, which is why genre is so successful as a coatrack to hang a narrative on. But I am off topic. 

Subjectivity and Focalization: Simple. In life, everything is subjective and focalized through you. Much as we try, it is impossible to truly “get” another person’s position on things. Whether you believe in nature or nurture, our outlook in life is profoundly different than anyone else’s and we are helpless to understand anything at all from another point of view. 

Seriality: In the film About a Boy, Hugh Grant’s character explains that life is like a television show in which we are each the star. Come to think of it, this analogy has been used in several other television shows, including Boston Legal, and literalized in films like Ed TV and The Truman Show. Whichever of Ndalianis’s paradigms fit your life best, life as an indefinite television serial where you are the star seems an apt simile. Other characters come an go, stories arc to completion over an episode, over a season, or even over the whole series. And this is where 

Videogame Logic comes in. As I stated in my previous post, Second Life is a lot like real life, and we are each the protagonist of our own game narrative. Reversing the comparison, at points, life is a lot like a game. We make power-plays, we follow set paths (promotion=level, or, if you like, the rags to riches game). We fail, and can’t hit replay, but do get a second chance in another arena, or game space. Don’t get partner at one law firm, migrate to the next for a do-over. Or start a new game as a chef. Take your pick. 

In that same vein, relationships are the most narrative aspect of life that I could think of. They follow a series of levels, and however they turn out, there is a narrative arc. But, then again, this is real life that I’ve been talking about. Closure is the greatest narrative myth we tell ourselves. If our life is a television series, it certainly isn’t a sitcom where every episode begins and ends in stasis. There is no finality to narrative arcs in life except death, and even then, nobody really knows. Perhaps we prescribe false endings in order to deal with the concept of infinity. Even though elementary school is far behind us, I, for one, still occasionally get uncomfortable flashbacks to embarrassing moments or things I regret. These flashbacks don’t serve the plot of my television show in any way. If life is a narrative, then it also defies narrative categorization. Sitcom? Art-Cinema? Neo-noir? Perhaps we all use narrative theory to understand and deal with portions of life.

But overall I’d have to agree with Ashleigh Brilliant. “My life has a superb cast, but I can’t figure out the plot.” Happy Holidays to you all. The End. 

Is Second Life a Narrative Game?

A while back, I spent some time on Second Life while researching various virtual worlds (most of my arguments can also be applied to Habbo, a much more limited virtual world designed for tweens and teens). Second Life is self described as a “vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity.” Residents “retain intellectual property rights in their digital creations,” so can “buy, sell and trade with other residents.” These exchanges occur in the Marketplace, which “supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions” handled in the inworld currency, the Linden dollar. (more about Second Life on their website)

Looking back now, I wonder if Second Life could really be categorized as narrative, or even as a game. Yes, your avatar can fly if you like, but much of Second Life is alarmingly real. The desires of the users behind the residents may only be acceptably explored on the web, but they are real desires. Real people interact in real ways inworld, exchanging real money for inworld services and property that has real word value. 

Jesper Juul presents a prominent argument used to justify examining games as narratives:

Since we use narratives to make sense of our lives, to process information, and since we can tell stories about a game we have played, no genre or form can be outside the narrative.

Second Life is aptly named. It is another life that people all over the world lead with great success. Like our real lives, our Second Lives are made sense of through narrative terms. Residents construct their own goals, which they reach or do not reach, with or without help from other residents. You are the protagonist of your own second life. But here’s where things get muddled for me. Each of the bit parts in your story are a protagonist in their own story, in which you are a bit player. This isn’t a case of multiple protagonists because the story is completely different for each participant (and their stories involve other residents with their own distinct stories and so on ad infinitum).

Does this matter? Perhaps. It certainly doesn’t fit with Bordwell or Chatman. In fact, it fits with none of the narrative theory we’ve read that I can think of. Even Ndalianis’s most complicated paradigm falls short of encompassing the complex interactions constantly occurring inworld. Unlike most games, each character is endowed with personhood and free will, complete with individual action and intent. There is no completion of second life, no high score or kill screen. There is not even an ideal to strive towards but never reach (like Tetris). Second life is a user-created, user-controlled environment with, quite literally, an infinite number of possible “game” paths and no way to replay them.

Narrative distance is another issue worth examining in Second Life. Juul explains,

In an “interactive story” game where the user watches video clips and occasionally makes choices, story time, narrative time, and reading/viewing time will move apart, but when the user can act, they must necessarily implode: it is impossible to influence something that has already happened. This means that you cannot have interactivity and narration at the same time. And this means in practice that games almost never perform basic narrative operations like flashback and flash forward.

Telling implies a past that isn’t present in Second Life. We don’t consider to our lives as narratives unless we are telling a story of past events. Second life is exactly the same. There are no flashforwards or flashbacks, only retellings, and only if you chose to recount a Second Life interaction inworld. Which would be rather redundant, if you were in the same company that experienced the story in real time. On the other hand, the backstory of Second Life is arguably much richer and deeper than most narrative media in existence. 

For me, it’s hopelessly complicated. Is Second Life a narrative game? I don’t have an answer, only more questions. Any other residents out there have some insight?