We had a lecture today about narrative within games, more specifically, about Vladimir Propp's 'Morphology of the Folktale'. The book discussesthe study of the structure within fairtales and how a sphere of action describes each character based on their actions. The list of spheres is below
The Villain:
The villian struggles against the hero.
The Dispatcher:
The dispatcher is the character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
The (magical) Helper:
The helper helps the hero in their quest.
The Princess or Prize:
The hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, thereby beating the villain.
The Princess Father:
The father gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father cannot be clearly distinguished.
The Donor:
The Donor prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
The Hero or Victim/Seeker Hero:
The hero reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
False Hero:
The false hero takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.
Following on from the lecture a task was set. The task was to select a number of games and apply Propp's Spheres to the game. We chose Assassins Creed and Portal. Below is a link to our presentation as well as the script:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NvBAZyuiFGi0HN7eOPlbXWX6CbboJhg7Z7yYdoPuQ5g/edit
Assassins Creed: The Villain/False Hero:
The Villain in a game is essentially a character who opposes and blocks nearly all of the main characters active moves. Within Assassins Creed the Villain essentially " Antagonist would be the " megacorporation " Abstergo industries " whom force Desmond Miles into using the Animus to track several different artefacts against his own will.
The False Hero – The False Hero is the character who disrupts the hero’s success by making false claims. The corporation who run the Animus " Astergo Industries " would seemingly take some of the credit as they have created the Animus and the software to enter the dream states and retrieve the ancient relics.
Assassins Creed: The Donor:
Regarding fairy tale characters, the donor is essentially the character that challenges or tests the hero as well as rendering assistance when needed. In the storyline of Assassins creed there are multiple people who assist and test your character throughout, however, there are also many world objects/assets that perform in the same way. Take for example the View Points in Assassins Creed. The Viewpoints are structures high enough for an observer positioned on its tallest point to view the surrounding terrain. They ranged from church towers and roof beams on a city's landmarks, to watchtowers and guard posts.
The challenge or test presented to the hero is to climb to the viewpoint, often involving long jumps and strategically placed handholds. Once the hero/player has reached this viewpoint, points of interest (POI’s) are discovered and displayed on the minimap (this is the reward/assistance).
Assassins Creed: The Helper:
Simply put the helper is there to assist the player/hero throughout their journey. In Assassins Creed there are many helpers in characters and environment. I will explain two, character and non-character because they are relatively simple to explain. The first of the two, characters would be Scholars. Scholars in the game are “Holy Men” that walk around the cities normally deep in prayer; They wear similar attire to the hero which allows him to hide amongst them to lose interest of any enemies following him. The second of the two, the non-character, could be the piles of hay (sometimes in carts). The hero can either perform a leap of faith (a special move in the game) or simply jump in to them when being chased by enemies to hide, allowing a clean getaway.
Both of these two helpers perform the same function, the ability to conceal/hide in plain sight. They are there simply to help the hero throughout the game to hide himself when in trouble.
Assassins Creed: The Princess:
The Princess - whom acts as a reward for the hero and is the object of the villains scheming would be the artefacts " Apples of Eden" and would be his family and his rich lineage of Assassins that he has been from. His satisfaction is upholding the honour of his family and keeping the protagonist from getting what they so dearly want. Knowledge of knowing about his ancestors and being to go back and live as them in dream state is also
Assassins Creed: The Dispatcher:
The Dispatcher is a character that essentially explains the story and sets the hero off on their journey. In some ways the white feather in Assassins Creed represents the dispatcher character, it is the object you must obtain to set you off on your mission to assassinate your target. Feathers were markers used by the Assassins to prove that they had successfully assassinated their targets.
To get the white feather and assign your target you must first find out about your target, this to some degree explains the story. Once you have obtained information on your target you are then given the feather which in turn gives you permission to kill your target. Obtaining the feather essentially sets the hero off on their journey throughout the game.
Assassins Creed: The Hero:
The Hero is the main character, the one that the player/view roots for. If the hero was anything other than a playable character in the game then it would simply not make sense. It is the first person in the first person shooter, the character that you control and want to be the best. In the case of Assassins Creed this is Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad.
Altaïr was a Syrian Assassin during the Middle Ages, raised to be an assassin from birth. Tasked with the deaths of nine individuals, who, unbeknown to him, made up the ranks of the Templar Order in the Holy Land, Altaïr began a quest to change his ways and liberate the Kingdom from the corruption of the nine.
Portal: The Villain:
Portal was developed by valve, and is a game that has a simple narrative surrounding the escape of the games protagonist
The story uses the “character” of GlaDOS (genetic life-form and disk operating system) as the antagonist or “The Villain”, as well as fulfilling other roles presented in Propp’s theory GlaDOS is an inanimate object. It is by the placing of these dramatis persona on her that she/ it becomes a Character in her own right.
Glados is the villain because she appears as the voice and enforcer of the company (aperture science) that is holding and testing on the player’s character. She is the one that is testing chell using a series of physics puzzles
Portal: The Dispatcher:
In a way, this is what also makes glados the dispatcher also Chell wakes up in her cell at the start off the game. there is no obvious dispatcher, as the only way that a player can complete the game is by completing the challenges posed by “the villain”.
This is what leads me to deduce that in this instance the actual dispatcher in the game is in fact the player, they become the dispatcher of their own “quest” by choosing to play and to continue to play the game.
This is what immerses the player into the game word and allows them to connect more with (and in many instances impose themselves into the position of) the hero
Portal: The Helper:
As for the helper, in portal there can be none of greater help than the “aperture weighted storage cube” or “companion cube”. The cube is the key to many of the puzzles in the game, it is what allows you to keep buttons pressed down, doors open, and complimentary victory lifts active. The helper could also be considered to be the portal gun itself, it is the portal gun that allows the player to manipulate the environment and its objects.
The gun however is not used in the first level, and the player must complete the puzzle without this aid. In this respect it could be argued that (from the perspective of the game mechanics) “the helper” is once again the player, or more specifically the players own ability to solve puzzles.
Portal: The Princess:
“The princess” in portal cannot be an object or a person. “the princess” effectively symbolising the goal or reward is the completion of the game, which, in narrative terms simply means finishing the story. In the context of a novel, this would be finishing reading to the end of a book. Not often worthy of much note.
The act itself gives the player no sense of accomplishment (unless perhaps the book in question is war and peace) but in a game, that is the reward in itself. And this goes for many games regardless of narrative.
Portal: The Donor:
The donor once again is a combination (glados representing aperture science), who gifts Chell with the portal gun upon completing certain puzzles
While traditionally the donor is a helping character (the fairy godmother in Cinderella for example) in portal, the donor and villain are one in the same as glados is providing chell and the player with tools to complete the puzzle tests (which are her agenda)
Portal: The Hero:
The last of propp’s dramatis persona is the hero. Chell is the heroin of portal, the antagonist. But isn’t that too obvious don’t games want something more?
In a fairy-tale the hero is one of the most easily identifiable characters. In portal as with so many video games this is the same... The player?
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