The Literature of Video Games

  In 1997, this computerized woman became a sex-symbol to thousands of sad, lonely Final Fantasy fan boys all over the world.  Her name is Tifa, and she is one of the love interests of Final Fantasy VII.  It is eleven years later.  Since that time, her image has changed greatly, but fans still flock to her. 

Indeed, she is more popular than ever, appearing in multiple sequel games, a sequel movie, and two prequels.   Now she is isn’t simply a symbol to fan-boys, but to fan-girls everywhere… 

 

 

 

Fan girls….  Like her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay…  So this is a bit of a dramatic representation.  But let’s face it, video games are the newest entertainment form.  We love them.  We draw from them for fun, for enjoyment, for stories of good versus evil.  They give us our space operas, our science fiction, our fantasy, and our great romances.  My point is simple.  Tifa Gainsborough was initially nothing more than a sex symbol.  And let’s face it, guys, I think anyone with an imagination can understand why.  But she’s something more than that now.  She’s a character who people care about.  The young woman in the photograph above is a fan of the character because she finds something worthwhile in the character, not because she wants to be considered a sex-symbol to geeky guys all over the world…  Okay, I don’t know that she doesn’t have some sort of sick geek fetish, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess she doesn’t.  She believes in the character of Tifa Gainsborough and she believes in the character’s innate strength. 

This is just an example of the fanbase games like Final Fantasy, King’s Quest, Myst, Legend of Zelda, and all their sequels have generated.  

 Indeed, alongside Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Ewan McGregor, Daniel Radcliffe, Angelina Jolie, Keira Knightly, etc, etc, etc, this is now the face of a hero.  But I’m not here to talk about fans.  I’m here to talk about what has been created through the growing fanbase.  Literature. 

 

When I was in fifth grade, I read a novel starring the main character of the King’s Quest games.  The novel had been written by a writer hired by the gaming company to further interest buyers in their game.  Yet, in so doing, Sierra, the game company to make King’s Quest, attached their games to a literary genre.  Suddenly, King’s Quest wasn’t just a video game, it was literature.  And, to understand the book, one must realize what came before.  Therefore, the book wasn’t simply literature, the game was literature.  It was part of the canon of the universe and it was, in all actuality, more valid for plot and character than the books written by a hired-gun writer who had nothing to do with the characters’ original creation.  If one wanted to truly engage the book, one had to play the game.  Only then could they understand the nuances of Prince Alexander’s quest to save his father, King Graham, and the magical land of Daventry.  The book may’ve been called The Floating Castle, but, above that, was written the words “A King’s Quest Adventure.”

This wasn’t the first game to be turned into a novel, to be made into an accepted literary form and genre.   But even that doesn’t seem to go far enough.  Look at games like Final Fantasy, like Legend of Zelda.  These are games that tell epic stories, that engage the player in entire quests, involving sub-plots, dynamic, three-dimensional characters, romances, treacheries, adventures, all the elements that have gone into the great works of fiction.  Homer tells of these things in the Illiad and Odyssey.  Mallory writes of them in Le Morte D’Arthur.  Such themes and motifs appear in the works of Shakespeare, Shelley, Byron, Bronte, Austin, Poe, Asimov, Chricton, all the great authors of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance, and Adventure. 

It would be easy to make the argument that these games are literature because they have plots that fall out like chapters, Final Fantasy XII and Tactics even being presented as if each second of the game is a chapter of a book and the Legend of Zelda games often beginning with a storybook prologue, and because, even in games with cinematic sequences and voice-acting, the majority  of dialogue takes place through written words.  Even actions are shown that way.  “You pick up a ________.”  “You see a ______.”  But these aren’t good arguments, they’re just technical arguments.  The good argument isthat the dialogue, the written word, touches players and fans.  They’re moved by them.  That’s not something one expects from a game or video game.  Especially not in the world of Doom and Duke Nukem and Halo.  Shoot ‘em-ups are not literature (There are exceptions… sometimes).  But I challenge the reader to play Final Fantasy and not be drawn into the storyline.  In Final Fantasy VI, 17 characters, all playable, vie for the player’s attention.  Every one has their own story.  Every one has a intertwining plot that brings out more and more of their character until they emerge together at the end of the game.  In Final Fantasy VII, amnesiac lead Cloud becomes a sort of Everyman for the player.  But at the same time, Cloud is a character of conflicted emotions and deep, painful memories which he holds back and which form the nucleus of his great battle with fan-favorite villain Sephiroth.  When Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past first emerged, fans were zealous in their desire to grab up a copy of the game that promised to tell young Link’s backstory, how his life began, and other fans actually attempt to trace the timeline of the land of Hyrule, of the two beings, Link and Zelda, constantly reincarnated to fight against the demon-king Ganon.  In their own ways, these works become like good novels.  They tell their story, develop their characters, and make an argument, all leading up to the inevitable climax and wind-down action.  And, if in the end, the hero ends up with the girl or the guy, well then, so be it. 

To sum up, and quote from my own paper: “It seems that these works are literature not so much in that literature was ever created to define them as such, but because they have bought their place their through the development of a literary basis within the games.  Literature is supposed to make readers think, to move readers, to engage them.  These games do exactly that.  Perhaps, then, that is the argument for them as literature.  They do what literature is supposed to do and, therefore, by succeeding in doing, defy definition to, instead, simply become literature through action.” 

I present this as an argument rather than an explanation because I think that in arguing it I allow myself to prepare for my paper and, at the same time, put forward the theory to you.  I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I’ve enjoyed talking to you. 

Thank for all the time you’ve spent with me today and throughout the semester. 

Ryan

Okay- Back to posting. Paper Topic and Bibliography

Okay- wow.  I realized that I’m extremely behind on posts- I’ve missed two I believe.  I don’t know, I’m really not good at this blogging thing.  But I’m going to try and fit both posts into this one here.  So, without further adeu: everything you’ve ever wanted to know about what I’m doing with my paper.

Okay, after careful consideration, I’ve decided to pursue the concept I’ve been working with since the beginning: Are video games a form of literature?  My attempt is not to prove that all video games are or aren’t, but to prove that one video game is.  That video game, for all of you who haven’t recognized my heartfelt and probably extremely sick obsession with the series, is Final Fantasy. 

My arguments will be spelled out in a multiple step process.  First, I need to lay out the arguments already out there for and against literature.  To do so, I hope to set up at least a working definition of what literature is.  This doesn’t necessarly mean that it is an exact answer, but simply something that answers the question “what is it that literature does.”  The thing is, I believe that we can all agree on a few basic points on what literature is and what it definately covers. 

Once I have covered this sort of definition, I need to go about refining it.  Namely, I need to investigate what makes up a genre and then examine the genre of fantasy/science fiction.  I need to explore the staples of this and determine what basics fall into all good science fiction and fantasy.  This will create a starting point for the judgement of Final Fantasy. 

The fact is, Final Fantasy draws heavily on fantasy and sci fi.  Therefore, if I can determine a link between the two, show where they match up, I hope to prove that Final Fantasy, through plot, character, and genre tropes, falls into the category of written and designed fantasy, not simply cinematic or gaming fantasy.  I will analyze how written dialogue and plot are used to tell the stories within the various games and I will connect the genre and the games in this manner. 

My hope is that, at this point, I can direct the flow of the paper back to step one- what is literature?  and, from there, prove that Final Fantasy is indeed literature, thus proving even further that video games are literature. 

The following bibliography are just a few texts I plan to use in the writing of this paper: 

Asimov, Isaac. Gold. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.  

 A series of essays by the famous writer of science fiction on what makes science fiction.  I will use this to

examine the nature of science fiction and then examine its role in Final Fantasy.  

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York UP, 2006.  

 We've all read Jenkins.  His book will work mostly to enforce ideas of how culture is coming together, 

how we're living in a time of fusion between ideas, thus video games and literature.  

Jim, Meyer. "What is Literature? A Definition Based on Prototypes."

1 Apr. 2008 <www.und.nodak.edu/dept/linguistics/wp/1997Meyer.htm>.  

 An essay that analysis the meaning of literature from a word based view.  This paper will come in extremely handy

when trying to state exactly what literature is.  

Julian, Kucklich. "Perspectives of Computer Game Philology." Game Studies. 1 Apr. 2008 <www.gamestudies.org/0301/kucklich/>.  

 Anm interesting paper on how video games interact with society and how they are becoming a form of literature.

Mostly, this article is useful in that I can use it to look over what arguments have already been made for and against 

video games as lit.  

Vitka, William. "Once Upon a Time." CBS News. 24 Mar. 2006. 1 Apr. 2008 

<www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/23/tech/gamecore/main1434480.shtml>.  

A very good article on video games and their place in culture today, drawinng even from our old friend Jenkins.  

This will work as another source to explore the video game as literature argument from various viewpoints

and will serve to give more fodder to both camps.  

Sorry, I edited these differently, so they appear somewhat different here:  

Brooks, Terry, comp. The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 2001.
A set of essays on the creation of fantasy worlds and how some of the top authors in the field go about
creating.  An excellent way for me to explore the fantasy gernre and its connection to both literature and
the Final Fantasy Series.

Final Fantasy Compendium. 9 Apr. 2008 http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/.
Considered by fans to be the absolute Final Fantasy site on the web.  It
is run by die-hard fans who never get their facts wrong.  Indeed, the webmaster
runs it like a company.  A source for all things Final Fantasy.
Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003.
The connection that video games have with learning and the use of words.  I plan to use this to engage the arguments
of whether or not video games are literature by examining how they are often used to teach, primarily the arena of the
book.
Stephenson, Neal. The Diamong, or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Spectra, 2000.
We've all read it, so I'll just tell you why it's here.  I want to use this book as a
primary example of science fiction, to compare to Final Fantasy, and for the way it
itself engages the literary world.  I am debating using Tolkien's Lord of the Rings for
fantasy.
Wolf, Mark J.p., ed. The Medium of the Video Game. Austin: University of Texas P, 2001.
An examination through essays of where the video game currently stands and what sort of
work is being done in the field, including essays that show that work.  This, again, will
help me build my definition of video game and further explore the video game as literature
argument and where it has already been.
Okay- before you go thinking that this seems like far too little, I have some books on the way (you wouldn't believe how many of these I had to
send away for, either Amazon or Inter-library.)
Anyway, that wraps all this up.  Have a good one.
Me

Maybe we’ve been too hard on all this.

I’ve been thinking about class yesterday, about what we’ve been talking about when it comes to all of this new media.  I’m wondering if we’ve been a bit harsh, being addicts of tree flakes.  Seriously, we’re all programmed to expect certain forms of media as mainstream, yet, at the same time, aren’t we the ones who always run around saying, “New is good!  Let’s try something interesting and limit-breaking.”  Yet, at the same time, we say, “But let’s keep it within genre.”  I think that’s our problem.  We want to do things differently enough that we’re original, but we don’t want to do things that are absolutely new.  New scares us.  It’s a strange sort of truth, isn’t it?  We want to do things that nobody has done before as long as someone has laid the foundation.  But Amerika is an interesting thing when you apply that theory.  He’s just out there.  He’s taking the very basics of an art, computer art, and trying to throw in elements of literary entertainment.  He’s blending the literary and the visual arts.  Some have tried this in cinema and theater, but, really, those just become another thing all together, performing arts.  They aren’t something new, which is what Amerika has created.  It’s a fusion of literature and visual. 

This is not to say that I like what Amerika has done.  Thing is, I think he made a very worthy effort.  But as I said yesterday, Amerika really should put up an anti-seizure warning.  I mean, I know we brought up that there aren’t very many peopl e who actually go to the site and that it really is geared towards people who get it already, but if Amerika wants to create a new art, he needs it to be something that everybody can access and have a chance at.  Theater has very few people who can’t at least have a chance at understanding it.  The same with novels.  Amerika’s site is actually tough for some people to even take at a sensory level.  I have sensory integration disorder (called something else these days, they changed the name about ten years ago, for anyone in health services who doesn’t recognize the name) and I found myself have difficulty dealing with the sensory overload on Amerika’s site. 

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that Amerika is trying something new and we have to give him credit for that.  When we see flaws in it, they need to be flaws in it, not flaws in our own ability to get over the newness of it.  We need to go on through this class with a knowledge of our prejudices without just openly accepting things because they’re new.  Any thoughts? 

Really? I thought I was writing about video game lit.

Okay, when the hell did the video game become literature?  When did we, as a society, reach the point where we decided we needed complete emersion within everything that was for our entertainment?  Isn’t there something to be said about simply sitting back and enjoying?  Now we have to be interactive with our enjoyment?

Don’t get me wrong.  I love story-based video games.  Absolutely love them.  I was playing Final Fantasy before Final Fantasy had a cult-following.  Only type of games I won’t play are on-line games (they promise more chances to play with others, but at the expense of story.  And, damn it, there is NO character development.  I mean, what the hell?  Why would you become part of a story with no character development?).  Here’s my point, though: we’re talking now about interactive novels, interactive movies.  Why is this considered a good thing?  And why aren’t they just considered video games? 

With Amerika, Jackson, and Kinder all under our belts now, I think we need to start seriously considering what the novel is.  What the movie is.  What we’re doing with both.  We talk about interactive stories, interactive novels on CDs, novels that pretty much are practically “Choose Your Own Adventure Stories,” only without having to flip page to page.  However, they also act as databases to help you keep things together within the story.  Possibly a great thing.  Imagine Dickens without ever having to go to an appendix or to skim back pages to remember which starving orphan he’s talking about at which point.  Yet, at the same time, do you really want to be reading along on a page and suddenly decide, “Hey!  I want to know where this quicklink goes,” only to discover an hour later that you’ve spent the last hour clicking every link, checking every character bio and story insight and that you have not only, somehow, read too far, thus ruining your surprise at the plot, but have also completely forgotten where you are? 

What really insults me, as an actor, mind you, is the statement that Kinder makes, that Muniel doesn’t underestimate the role of actors, but that, “like Hitchcock he valued them as objects.”  That’s not an actor’s job, to be a moving set-piece.  Actors have always been expected to bring emotion and depth to characters.  Yes, there have always been directors to demand that actors do it “exactly as it is on the page” (George Lucas and the Cohen brothers spring to mind), but the best directors always allow their actors freedom to explore a role.  To break an actor’s role down to no more than scenery or prop is to destroy the essence of cinema and theater. 

Now to my original point.  It’s nice to sit and be entertained.  It’s nice to sit and read a book.  It’s nice to sit and watch a staged production.  And you know what’s really nice?  Being able to read or to simply enjoy one’s self without burning holes  in the brain staring at computers.  I mean, I don’t actually think computers burn holes, but it’s been proven that computers do worse eye-damage than simply reading.  The lights in the computer cause headaches.  Books can do these things, but only after long hours of use.  It is estimated that anything over twenty minutes on a computer is damaging.  I was advised just last week by an eye doctor that one should look away for a full minute every twenty minutes.  Otherwise, damage will be done.  So why are we seeking damage just to have more interaction with our books and movies? 

Further, when we have those books and movies, really what we’re doing is playing those books and movies.  We are, in a way, the people moving the action.  Thus, a video game.  Isn’t that what a video game is?  A story where the player moves the story along, often with multiple lines through which the story can move and with great graphics?  Isn’t that all an interactive book or movie is? 
Well, I’ve had my Mickey Rooney rant of the day.  See you all in class. 

Reactions to Ryan.

And no, I don’t mean myself.  I mean the Ryan we read for class. 

I was thinking quite a bit about the things we discussed yesterday in class, about VR and the ramifications thereof.  It occurred to me that we discussed both VR as a concept, as a limitless pursuit of dream and imagination and the creation thereof, and as a physical manifestation of a virtual world.  That had me thinking quite a bit about the holodeck from Star Trek and where it fit into yesterday’s presentation. 

Learning that I may well be the only Trekkie (former, but still a fan) in the class made me realize that the holodeck and the use of the holodeck as a representative metaphor may not be the best for this class’ understanding of VR.  In Star Trek, the holodeck acts as an advanced entertainment center.  The room functions on the basis of being programmed and then being adaptable, much like the Primer in The Diamond Age.  To begin with, a  user enters the holodeck, basically a square room, often black with yellow lines creating grids along the walls and floor, though sometimes (in the god-awful redesign done for Star Trek: Voyager, the poorly constructed fourth Star Trek series) it is built of reflecting lights and metallic beams running the length of the room.  Once inside the holodeck, the user calls up the computer and specifies perameters for the program they wish to create.  Star Trek shows everything from a simple location (the character Geordi La Forge goes on a date with a woman where they use the holodeck to go to the beach) to well known theatrical works (the characters Data and Captain Picard both use the holodeck to act in Shakespearian plays- Tempest and Henry IV spring to mind)  to completely imagined worlds (one crewman creates new adventures of the Three Musketeers, with him as the main character, while Data uses it to play out new Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and the captain actually creates an old-style pulp detective setting for himself).  The holodeck can also, through accessing psychological and personality records, create a myriad of realistic people with completely realistic responses, and in some cases can create a historical person whose personality comes extremely close to the actual.  Finally, there are numerous “holodeck episodes” where holodeck characters achieve self-awareness.  They actually come into being and exist.  They cannot leave the holodeck as they are only “phased light representations,” but they can feel, think, deduce, and actually have a full understanding of the world around them.  It occurs to me that this is similar to the idea of having a VR house.  It isn’t the code of a house, or the idea of a house, or the symbol of a house.  It is a house.  It exists because the virtual world is all about possibility.  If the possibility can be, the reality can be.  I think this is where Ryan presents the most interesting theory.  But the thing of it is, virtual reality is hard to wrap one’s brain around.  Even I, after that whole explanation I gave, can’t fully understand what is being talked about as the pure potential aspect of VR.  I can see how there is VR that can become real, created, but I cannot conceive of it as an idea that becomes reality through the idea, if that makes sense.  It’s a fascinating subject, and one I would hope to explore more in the future.  Hopefully, by the time I’m sixty, we’ll have holodecks.  Wouldn’t that be fun? 

From Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Way of the Warrior

As we hear Dax and Kira arguing as they come down the
spiral stairs near the board. They’re dressed like
princesses from a medieval fairy tale, complete
with pointed hats and veils.

DAX
I can’t believe you did that.

KIRA
He didn’t leave me any choice.

BASHIR
What did she do?

DAX
She knocked out Lancelot.

KIRA
He kissed me.

DAX
He’s supposed to kiss you.

KIRA
But I was playing a married woman.

What’s your thought of… (Paper Ideas)

Okay, so I’ve heard that you guys talked papers while I wasn’t there last week and that for this week we’re supposed to be coming up with ideas for paper topics.  Great.  I can do that. 

My first idea is actually to do an extension of my project for class.  My project, when we get to it, will be an exploration of video game literature.  My idea for a paper is how video games have become a form of storytelling in and of themselves.  It would probably be a close analysis of the Final Fantasy Series, a group of games near and dear to my heart, and how an entire sub-culture has grown up around these games and their stories.  How, in the late ’80’s, early ’90’s, more children, teens, and many adults, read the text of these games than read novels.  I want to delve into how the games have become full-scale movies and novels combined, with both reading and watching as the player also gets to interact with the world of the game.  Therefore, it becomes a completely immersed reality.  The player is the reader, the audience, and the actor of the piece. 

I am also debating that old debate Movie VS. Book.  I want to write a paper on the transitory state of text in this day and age.  It used to be that good books were turned into movies.  Now mediocre books are turned into mediocre movies.  Good books are turned into movies of various levels.  And sometimes, rare but true, bad books make good movies.  I want to explore this.  Why does our culture feel the need to create a visual/audio medium of every written word?  What does this do to the book?  Does it change it at some sort of primordial level?  Do covers featuring the newest big name actor and with a sticker saying, “Now a Major Motion Picture” somehow change a book?  I, for one, know that I prefer NON-Hollywood covers on my books.  I actually go out of my way to buy older editions.  After all, Beowulf was a poem for 1,000 years prior to Neil Gaiman and his Beowulf.  So why is an electronic rendering of Ray Winstone pasted all over every damn copy of that poem?  Why is it on the famous Heaney translation?  Heaney had nothing to do with that movie.  Indeed, if he saw it, he was probably horrified at the vast number of changes in it.  Which is my point.  Movies alter books to fit the wishes of the audience.  They bastardize the text.  What does that do to the creative culture?  Is a book just the non-diluted movie but in words or is it something more?  Does the making of a movie somehow enhance a book?  Are they intertwined or are they very different things all together? 

As you can see, I have two topics that fascinate me verily…  dropping Ye Olde English…  Let me know what you think, please.

You guys saw Tron clips without me?

Man, did I pick a bad day to be Fluish.  Yes.  I have coined that phrase.  Fluish is officially a word. 

So, it sounds like I missed quite a bit.  Well, I’ll do my best at giving final opinions of The Diamond Age from what I have and what I got from many of you as to what happened in last evening’s class. 

First off, I stand by my original point.  The Diamond Age is heavily influenced by what came before.  I go back to this point because I’ve been doing some research into the Cyber-Punk motif and have found even more examples of how the book is not, as the critics would like us to believe, “staggeringly inventive” (Kirkus Review), “the top echelon of cyberpunk” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) “the most influential book since William Gibson’s 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer” (Seattle Weekly), or “masterfully conceived” (San Francisco Bay Guardian).   Now, I will be charitable.  When discussing this book with a cyberpunk author and friend, Neuromancer was brought up.  What was also brought up were the number of books that have followed.  Yes, this book might land in the Cyberpunk Top 10, but it’s the bottom of that last.  You know, number 9 or 10.  So, I suppose we could see it as the top echelon of cyberpunk.  But that doesn’t seem to do justice to what else is out there.  Fora book that reminds us very heavily that there are many other forms of media, it was as if none of the critics of this book wanted to bring up that it takes off from other modes and other means.  Yes, it is cyberpunk.  And very good cyberpunk at that.  But I fail to see what hasn’t been done before.  Holographic and terraformed islands of fantasy creatures?  Star Trek called it the holodeck.  Guns popping out of skulls?  I believe I saw things like that in Terminator I, II, and III.  Nanites and machines that can reprogram the body and force mankind to do whatever is deemed necessary?  That was called The Matrix.  Oh, and again, there’s Star Trek.   And what about Nell?  Nell isn’t something new and exciting.  She’s cyberpunk Alice and she’s going right through that looking glass.  Or better yet, Dickens The Old Curiosity Shop Little Nell.  Yes, this is actually an allusion, but still…  And look at Bud.  I hate to say I found this particular criticism on Wikipedia, but I did.  Yes, I know it can’t be trusted, but it makes a very good point here, in a statement that Bud is drawn right out of cyberpunk stock-characters.  “He is a career criminal (though not a particularly skilled or high-ranking one) with various surgically implanted devices to aid him in his ‘work’. Stephenson attempts to establish The Diamond Age as a “post-cyberpunk” book by killing this character early on, while acknowledging the influence of that genre.”  So, yeah.  There’s that.  Or, another thing.  How incredibly steampunk is this book?  What is steampunk?  Steampunk is the anime-invented, now spreading to mainstream, concept of creating a Victorian world where cyberpunkesque (another invented word) rules apply.  Technology is more advanced, but the society is Victorian.  Yet, The Diamond Age steals credit for something that the Japanese were writing about as early as Final Fantasy II in ‘86.  The old White Wolf roleplaying game series Mage had two groups fighting for supremacy of the world.  One was the stylized, often Victorian wizards living a punk-like existence in a rundown world and the other was the Technocracy, a shadowy, hidden group of people trying to instill one world order over everything.  Often they had mechanical implants built right into their bodies.  In fact, one picture from the early ’90’s release of the rule book shows a man with a gun popping out of his head.  So…  while I loved The Diamond Age, I must say outright, I don’t buy the hype. 

The Diamond Age

Okay- so, welcome back.  Hope everyone liked their week off. 

So, yeah, I’m reading The Diamond Age and all I can think is that, while I’m loving every second and am glad that we’re reading something this science fiction-based, it’s far from an original story.  Here’s the thing; everything I’ve read in here, I’ve seen or read elsewhere.  And from before The Diamond Age was ever published.  Think about it, we’ve seen androids and cyborgs before.  The movie Blade Runner and the book of the same name, as well as the short story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on which both were based, are loaded with humans connected to mechanical devices and with robots that seem more like humans.  Like the stereo system that some members of The Diamond Age‘s societies have in their heads, citizens in Blade Runner used a special stereo to give their lives a soundtrack to live to.  Further, Star Trek introduced the cyborg Borg in ‘91.  Airships, the royalty’s main mode of transportation, has also been the main mode of transportation of Final Fantasy characters for years.  In fact, including the  obvious fact that the story takes place in Shanghai, the entire story seems influenced by Asian styles of storytelling.  Cyber-punk has been a mainstream staple of anime, the Japanese animated form of storytelling that has dominated a small, but growing group for generations.  ’88’s Akira tells the story of roving gangs, reminiscent of The Diamond Age’s various sects, religions, and political movements.  Half of the gang members are cyborgs and the fate of the world is trusted to youths who stumble onto that which they shouldn’t.  By 1995, the Wachowski brothers already had their first drafts of the Matrix complete.  Indeed, how many times have they said that they based the Matrix on the anime styles of Japan?  Of course, for the violent gangs, Stephenson might have just as easily turned to A Clockwork Orange.  After all, how much more creepily Victorian does it get?  At times, the novel is reminiscent of the dystopia found in 1984.  At other points, one feels as if they have stumbled into the world of Metropolis.  My point in listing these is not to say that Stephenson has ripped off his plot, because, so far, I haven’t shown any plot points directly stolen, but to show that what he wrote is not as original as the critics seemed intent on making it out to be.  Really, all Stephenson did was bring anime style to America in a form that would be taken seriously, the novel.  I actually deeply respect him for that.  But, given a few weeks, I think I’ll be able to prove to all of you just how much was alreadt there.  My eventual presentation on video game literature will be focusing highly on the Japanese style games like Final Fantasy, created in the mid-80’s and highly influential within Stephenson’s work. 

Galatea 2.2

I can’t say that I’m not fascinated by Galatea 2.2.  In fact, I’m very interested in the novel.  I’m still fairly early into it, having not had much time to read, yet I am intrigued by it. 

When I first began the novel, I found that I was left with a sensation of disappointment at the style.  I didn’t enjoy it in the slightest.  It seemed as if I had seen this sort of play on different again and again and, to be frank, I started feeling a bit as if the writers we’ve been reading do things just to be different, not because their writing is different, or that the style of the book just pushed them there.  Yet, the more I read of this particular novel, the more I came to realize that there is something rather fascinating by it.  Perhaps it is the blurring the line between reality and fiction.  Richard Powers is Richard Powers.  He’s an author, a professor, and he really did return to his alma-mater to work.  He has really written four novels.  Yet, Richard Powers the character is not Richard Powers the author.  The fact that they have the same biography is somewhat misleading.  Richard Powers is a character, designed to be a representation of what Richard Powers the writer wants to put forward.  However, Powers the writer chose Powers the character for very specific reasons.  He had to understand that by making this story a biography of sorts, his own autobiography, fictionalized, that he was creating a world that was suddenly that much more believable.  After all, we know that Richard Powers is a real man and we know that he penned the book.  Therefore, when he paints a Powers who is sometimes a deeply flawed character, we believe it.  We believe everything we are told about Powers and we would never question.  Even as we are aware that we are reading fiction, we know that the fiction blends itself into a sort of pseudo-reality and we are fascinated by it.  You chould just imagine the Oprahesque scene that could take place when the readers of this novel in the outside world suddenly came to the understanding that Richard Powers and his association with Philip Lentz is not actually a historical occurance connected with either men, that, indeed there is no Lentz, he is a fictional character occupying the life of a real man who, though the book accurately reflects his backstory, is not the man we think we know by throughout the book. 

One wonders by the end just how much is fact and how much is ficiton.  We know we shouldn’t particularly care, that we should just accept the entire novel, but the question is there, burning into our minds.  We need to know, don’t we?  Is C. real?  Do we want her to be real?  Do we want Richard’s relationship to be real in the same tempestuous manner?  Or would it be better if she were as fictional as Helen?  Indeed, can we even assume Helen to be false.  Yes, she’s a computer program.  But does that mean she doesn’t exist, didn’t exist?  Well, it is a book of fiction, isn’t it?  Slowly lines get blurred. 

Okay- So, closing thoughts about Special Topics…

Yeah, so I wish I was in class last night with all of you.  Honestly, I missed being there.  I hope you all had great conversations and I can’t wait ’til next week.  That being said, I hope I don’t drone on uselessly about something you’ve already discussed. 

Anyway, as I said in my last post, I loved Special Topics in Calamity Physics.  I love the tone of it.  It’s got a dark, almosy brooding, yet highly intellectual sense of humor, fit for a Tim Burton movie.  After examining it again and again to try and figure out what disturbed me the most, I think I finally put my finger on what it is: I’m disturbed outright by the Bluebloods themselves.  Those six children, teenagers, young adults, whatever you want to call them, are incredibly dangerous.  Look at what you have, a charismatic, handsome boy who has no sense of when to say “when,” a socialite in training, complete with Paris Hiltonesque tendancies who rules almost as queen over the group, a devil-may-care free-spirit who delights in wearing dresses inside out, coming onto older men alongside her diva queen and friend, a quiet, somewhat brooding, towering figure, who can make comments one wonders how he can get away with, yet does, and an even quieter boy in glasses, thin ties, and button-up shirts…  One who can be seen as the next Bill Gates.  This is not a group of children, this is Fortune Five-Hundred’s Next Generation.  What you really have are the Errol Flynn/Howard Hughes, the Hilton, the Jane Fonda, the Tim Burton/Marilyn Manson, and the Bill Gates/Donald Trump in the making.  This isn’t normal.  Even in a school that produces such great figures, these six, because, though I haven’t listed her, I believe that Blue is part of it all, stand out.  They are the greatest of the great.  They are giants, titans, gods even, and they know it.  The power they hold is far too vast for children their age.  Even more frightening is their blind devotion to an all-new She, the hidden goddess, beautiful and wonderful, yet filled with secrets.  Hannah, despite being a rather sad character as more and more of her is revealed, is also, like many fallen gods, actually a terrifyingly powerful entity.  Her word is the final one to six brilliant minds.  She cultivates them, stirs things in them that unlocks their brilliance.  Indeed, she chooses them above all other students to become great, to be her personal project and to mold them.  Even her death seems to encourage, pushing Blue to move all the farther into her own journey of self-exploration.  Blue writes and draws out her life in order to better understand the mysteries surrounding Hannah’s death, the destruction of the goddess, and, in many ways, the second disappearance of that goddess from Blue’s life.  Her mother was the first goddess.  The power Hannah has, the power the children grow towards due to their knowledge of, their fascination with, and their connection through Hannah, is terrifying.  They are building themselves to greatness, more greatness than any of their peers, more greatness than those around them.  And really, only their own damage can destroy them (see Jade).