Literature in Games, and the Rhythm of mankind
When I first read Lacoue-Labarthe’s reference to what Friedrich Hölderlin had stated, namely, “All is rhythm [Rhythmus]; the entire destiny of man is one celestial rhythm, just as the work of art is a unique rhythm” (33), I had to disagree on the part about the destiny of man. I don’t see humankind as one rhythm in the celestial cosmos. Even as we all travel the same comic course. For each of us, the journey is unique. There is a long quote from one of Carlos Castenada’s books The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge that says the goal of life isn’t about the destination, it’s about taking the path filled with heart (82). Not all of us follow the same destination, even when playing the same games. Some of us will play the game for it’s hand holding experience. some of us will never complete the game. And some of us will embody something in that game and make it a part of who we are as a person. It becomes a path of heart, and we draw out of the experience something that is in harmony with who we are.
For myself, my first real literary experience came from a game titled ‘Planescape: Torment’. You begin the game in a mortuary. You awake from death, explore your massively scarred body, and learn that you’ve lived many lives. Each time you die, you awake as a new personality, until now. For some reason, death is no longer the reset switch it used to be. Knowing nothing about who you are, you set out on a journey of self discovery.
Being immortal makes for fluid game mechanics. It allows a player to explore death as something to be okay with, and not one of frustration. In other games, after you lose a battle and have to reload from some earlier save point in the game, you’re forced to repeat the same dialog and cutscene sequences as if you had never experienced them. One of the most significant memories of this game is at a seedy bar in one of the lower wards of the game. You could offer someone a unique experience, if they paid you, they could have the honor of killing you. The guy says sure, he’ll stab you, and when you’re dead, he’ll get to keep his money. The dialog that follows after you walk back from the dead into the bar seeking your payment, it was something I never imagined I would experience. Only in a video game could you go on such a journey. For me, the video game is the only place where someone can explore possibilities that are beyond our singular life experiences. This video game in particular, where dying and immortality are fundamental parts of the story, it is a treasured literary experience for many.
The game Torment is reported to have over 800,000 words. Like Cortazár’s Hopscotch it’s not a linear story, as a game it allows the player to explore multiple branching paths in every dialog encounter you engage in. This allows a player to act as whomever they like in any given situation; be it helpful, rude, threatening, or intelligently creative. Under the skin of a person who had lived multiple lives, was someone that could be whomever they wanted. This dialog set me on a journey to explore different ways of thought about the person under my own skin. Before this game, I often opted for high physical attributes. The mental attributes offered little advantage when it came to how these games approached combat. But in Torment, some of the best dialog options were hidden behind having a high intelligence and wisdom attribute. It wasn’t just interesting dialog, but interesting thoughts that I had never imagined. It was something I only discovered after playing this game in its entirety on my second, or perhaps third play through.
I had changed who I was as a player. I was having characters in the game tell me about their sudden lack of faith in the faction they followed. I was able to defuse tense situations without resorting to combat. I was able to discover additional game content about my characters past life experiences that came with unique in-game rewards. But most valuable as the dialog, and the thoughts I could explore that led me to challenge what I thought about myself. Things that changed who I was as a person outside of the game.
The main plot of the game asks it’s famous question, ‘What can change the nature of a man?’ This was one of the first games that challenged me to think in such a way, and I responded. I wasn’t playing this game as I had played others. I was searching for secrets that led me to new self discoveries. I had put my life into the literature.
Torment can teach us a lot by the numerous factions it has. There are five factions you can join, and ten others that you hear about that other characters in the game follow. Each faction has its own theory of reaching ‘Enlightenment’ or rather, what life is after death. Even though they are all about the same destination, each one follows a unique path to get there. None more ‘right’ than any other. Personally, I enjoy seeing multiple perspectives of the same thing. By having a broad vision, we can see things for what they really are.
I can illustrate the idea with this stereoscopic image. It is not a ‘crosseyed’ type of image where you narrow your focus. It is the opposite, you will need to look at a point beyond the computer screen until the images cross, and overlay into a single image. When it does, you will see the depth of the image as if you were there. You could only do this by having multiple perspectives.
This broad vision, for me this is what Lacoue-Labarthe refers to with rhythm. “…the entire destiny of man is one celestial rhythm…” That rhythm encompasses all of the possibilities that mankind is capable of. I think I finally understand.
In video games, is the opportunity to play as someone else, a different ‘us’ which allows us to expand our perspective, gain a broader vision, and re-evaluate what our path of heart looks like.
Works Cited:
Castaneda, Carlos. The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. United Kingdom, University of California Press, 2008.
Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe. Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics. United States, Stanford University Press, 1998.
