Supernarratives and superheroes

I described in my other blog how cultures use supernarrative structures to define hero archetypes, and so lay out a pattern for such myths to follow.

Video games, as reflections of the same supernarratives as other art forms, are subject to the same patterns. In particular, the two central heroic supernarratives (called "monomyths") are:

• Classical: a hero leaves his community, conquers some challenge, and returns to the community to lead it with his newfound strength
• American/Christian: a hero sacrificially intervenes to save a community from an evil and then leaves it

For classical myths, see Odysseus or Jason; for American myths, see Batman or Gladiator. My other post contains several familiar examples of those types.

In any case, these monomyths are instantiated in narrative video games as well. Consider the following (very brief) lists:

• Classical: Gears of War, Fable 1 and 2, Mass Effect, Oblivion
  
• American: Bioshock, Deus Ex, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Far Cry 2

Some games are rather more gray. Should we consider Master Chief in the Halo trilogy classical, because he leaves his civilization to fight an enemy far away and return triumphant, or American, because he is not really a part of the civilization he is fighting to save and in some sense sacrifices himself in the process? Is the player in Morrowind part of the American myth because she is a foreigner arriving to save the island from evil, or classical because she is adopted into the culture and otherwise follows the path of the classical hero (including finding a guide and magical artifacts for the quest)?

Either way, the two monomythological structures imply differing philosophical interactions with the player. American-type stories add narrative distance to the game: as the player-character is separated in some way from the community to be saved, so can we, as the players, enter the game with no previous knowledge of its world. We are playing the game so that we can save the community, with no intention of living there long-term.

Classical stories, on the other hand, integrate the player-character into a context of the story, and typically allow for a richer set of interactions with NPCs. Note that hypernarrative games are closely related to the classical monomyth; it is easier to ignore the main quest, for instance, when the character begins already integrated into the in-game community.

Throughout discussions of individual games on this blog, I will refer to these myth structures as an integral part of understanding the games' supernarrative content.


Next: Below the surface of BioShock