Contextual Studies Session from October
17th
Sharon gave us a presentation following various theories
and ideas behind narrative paying particular attention to Vladimir Propp. Here are the notes
and subsequent tasks that I produced during the session.
Vladimir Propp, The 7 Spheres of Action
Vladimir
Propp: The Morphology of Folktales/The 7 Spheres of Action in Fairytales, those
spheres are:
1: The Villain: Struggles against the hero.
2: Dispatcher: Sends the hero on their way.
2: Dispatcher: Sends the hero on their way.
3: The Helper: Helps the hero in the main quest.
4: The Princess/Her Father: Possible love interest or
goal acquired at the “end”.
5: The Donor: Prepares the hero/gives them a magical
objects.
6: The Hero: The main hero who usually reacts to the
donor/weds the princess.
7: The False Hero: Can take credit for the hero’s
actions or try to marry the princess.
Vladimir Propp, 7 Spheres of Action
task 1
Apply the Spheres to a Video Game – Uncharted 1: Drakes
Fortune (Naughty Dog, 2007)
As a quick task to further our understanding of Propp’s theory of narrative,
we were asked to chose a game and try to apply the spheres to the characters
within that game. I chose Uncharted: Drakes Fortune because I really love the game and the
characters are very distinguishable.
1 - The Hero: Nathan
Drake
This would be Nathan Drake because he “gets the girl“ (princess/Elena) at the
end of the game as well as being the main protagonist.
2 - The Donor: Sir
Francis Drakes Coffin
This would be Francis Drakes coffin which is found at the
beginning of the game by Elena & Nate thanks to Nates ring, it gives them a
diary written by Sir Francis Drake pointing them to the location of El Dorado,
a fabled city of gold which Francis Drake sought after.
3 - The Villain(s):
Raja, Roman & Navarro
This
could be either Eddy Raja, Gabriel Roman or Atoq
Navarro.
Gabriel Roman is a competitive treasure hunter who has hired mercenaries led by
Narravo and pirates led by Raja. They all seek the treasure of El Dorado and
they all “struggle” against Nate throughout the game
4 - The Helper: Victor
“Sully” Sullivan
This would be Victor “goddamn/sully” Sullivan. He is Nathan
Drake’s (the hero) mentor and side kick throughout the entire game, constantly
helping him out of sticky situations.
5 - The Princess: Elena Fisher
This would be Elena Fisher (the girl mentioned
earlier as the hero Nathan Drakes love interest).
6 – The Dispatcher: Nathan Drakes Ring
This one sounds strange but the dispatcher is the
element that “sends the hero on their journey” so in this case the dispatcher is Nathan Drakes Ring because it had the
co ordinate location for finding Sir Francis Drakes coffin in the sea, thus
sending them on their quest.
7: The False Hero: Sir Francis Drake
The false hero is Sir Francis Drake. I am not 100% sure
on this one however. His body is found during the game and suggests that he
knew the dangers ahead but wasn’t heroic enough to “win” therefore, her died,
leaving it up to Nathan Drake to be the hero.
Propp’s 7
Spheres of Action, Task 2
Once we had allocated the 7 spheres of action to our
desired game during the session we were set another task, this time one which
we were to prepare to present in the next session as a group presentation. We
have to chose 2 games and this time, instead of allocating the spheres to
actual characters, we must try to apply them to the games world. We have to
consider how the game world affects the player/playing character and see if the
7 spheres of action can be appropriately handed out to elements of the world.
I am in my usual team, team MOUSTACHE with Stacey and
Olive. The first game I thought of when thinking about this was Journey, the
recent (2012)Thatgamecompany title for the PS3,
which might I add, was perfection. As this was my initial idea I felt it was
only fair I dive right in and “study it”.
Tonight I did an entire play through of the game, not
hard considering you can complete it in roughly 2 hours, but at least I got a
refresher of the game for this task. I got into a bit of a pickle writing this
up because of the severe cross over's and the inevitability of posting an image
of the same area of the world more than once was becoming apparent. Therefore
the way I have decided to do this task is to list the part of the world and
then describe its possible sphere of action as then I can post the cross over
under the same image so I don’t confused people.
Shooting Star – The Dispatcher
The main dispatcher in JOURNEY is the ”Shooting Star” seen at both the
beginning and at the end of the game. The star signifies new life and a new
JOURNEY to begin. It is also how the game starts for you, so in theory, it
is dispatching you on your journey (see what I did there?!) The
shooting star isn’t a playable character, it is a visual part of the game world
and therefore I hope it is acceptable
for this task.
Meditation Posts – The Donor, The Dispatcher
The Dispatcher: Another possible dispatcher could be the meditation posts. These are small
symbolic posts usually placed before entering the next large area of the game.
The player must activate them and in return they open a door/pathway to the
next area, therefore becoming a dispatcher, as they dispatch the player into the next area.
The Donor: In other ways the meditation spots act as donors because they are in
many ways their own magical object being given (donated) to the main
character by the world. The fact that the character meditates at these areas is
also a more metaphorical way of approaching the donor status, it is a way
of preparing the player for the next area.
The Mountain – The Princess
The princess is supposed to
represent the love interest of the main male protagonist in narratives. She is
usually the one who weds the hero. So, how can we apply this to the game world
and not actual characters? Well, in JOURNEY the whole idea is to reach the
summit of the huge mountain that is always just out of your reach on the horizon.
Perhaps this is the game worlds representation of a love
interest.
Many descriptions of the princess sphere explain that
it’s more the element that the hero deserves throughout the story and that there is
usually some sort of evil stopping them from reaching “her”
(such as
the horrendous weather conditions faced later in the game). It is also
suggested that the story ends for the hero once he has “married the princess” so in this case it
could be suggested that once the player reaches the summit they have
“married the mountain” and then the story can “end”.
Snow, Ice & Brute Force Winds – The
Villain
This one was the most obvious of them all because, sure,
JOURNEY has a small amount of villains who are characters but ultimately the biggest villain comes in the form of bad weather.
During the later half of the game the player will find
themselves battling
against brutal unforgiving weather such as snowy environments, chilling ice and
blast winds.
Each of these elements will cause a struggle for you linking it nicely with the key element to Propp’s villain sphere; it needs to cause a force of struggle for the hero.
In JOURNEY this is experienced in sections of gameplay
where your character needs to hide behind rocks so it doesn’t get blown away by
the brute force
wind gushing towards you.
If you are hit, then you are forced backwards and can often lose your partner
(if you are playing co-op) or you’re left frustrated (there are places where
you can fall off edges)
The snow and icy setting also affect your characters scarf; their key life
line. This
give them their ability to jump and glide and as you push further into the
snowy areas of the game your
scarf becomes frozen and its use is limited. Eventually it gets so cold that it starts to freeze and crack off
altogether making
is harder for your character to move around the game world.
Cloth “Jellyfish” & Cloth “Reeds” – The
Donor & The Helper
This is the second element in JOURNEY that can be
labelled the
donor,
like I said, there would be overlapping spheres! The cloth in the game aren't
characters per say, more entities that inhabit the game world, so I hope this
counts.
The Donor: They look like jellyfish and reeds (as in the reeds you
would find in a lake) and when the player touches them they re ignite their
scarves so that the player can continue to jump higher, therefore preparing the player and also
giving them a
magical ability,
both of which are used to determine the donor sphere of action.
The
Helper: They
also could be classed as helpers as they literally
aid the player in particular areas of gameplay and help them to reach otherwise
out of reach environments.
Flying Cloth Snakes, Cloth Clusters, Sand Dune
Environments & Cloth Bridges – The Helper, The Doner
The helper is pretty self explanatory, it is an element
which helps (really?!) with the player in any way. All of these do varying forms of aiding the gameplay and
helping the player progress.
The Helper: The flying cloth snakes, cloth clusters, sand dune areas and cloth bridges all form a large part
of the gameplay in JOURNEY and all aid the player in various ways
(similarly to the cloth octopus and cloth reeds I wrote about previously).
The main difference is that while the cloth jellyfish and
reeds were attached to the ground/limited to one area of the game world, the
flying cloth snakes and cloth clusters are more animated and move around with
the player. They help
the player because they refill the scarf when touched and can be summoned when close by, by the
player, in order to be given a helpful boost into the air for
extra movement.
The sand dunes help the player move faster because they act as
slides when gliding down them.
The cloth bridges are helpers because they help the player access
areas they
wouldn’t have been able to reach otherwise.
The Donor: The cloth bridges could also be classed
as donors as they give away magical entities for use by the player to create pathways, preparing the player for the next area.
The cloth clusters and flying cloth snakes also
donate magical abilities of movement onto the player.
Golden Mist – The Helper
There is an area of game play in JOURNEY in which you
release this gorgeous “golden mist” which enables you to have a constantly full
scarf power (in other words, unlimited flying) whilst you are within it’s mist.
The Helper: This is obviously a helper because, well,
you can fly constantly, yaaay!
So the only two spheres missing are the hero and the
false hero, I just do not know how to
apply these to elements of the games world. I mean, I had a couple but I was
really clutching at straws trying to fit them onto an element of the world. The
more I would then go on to research those spheres, the less they made sense for
me to be pushing them onto something so for now I have left them black –sad
face-
We did say during our contextual studies class that
sometimes there just might not be a fitting element that matches the sphere and
that this task was to make us think and see if we were missing any elements. I
am going to discuss this with my group and see what they think and if we can
apply anything to the hero and false hero before the presentation then I will
add it in!
Other than that I had a really good time doing this, I
got to replay a master piece game and pick it apart visually which is always a
bonus with a game as stunning as JOURNEY. Just fantastic :D
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