Related Papers
From Rolling to Reading: An Analysis of the Adaptation of Narrative Between Role-Playing Games and Novels
2018 •
Nikolai Bjädefors Butler
Narratives are present throughout media, ranging from its traditional point of study, literature, to newer media such as films, graphic novels and video games. While these narratives have always transcended barriers to some degree today we find that the concept of transmedial narratives has become more relevant via the interconnected storyworlds established throughout popular culture. This increased transmediality has also lead to a larger variance in adaptations than the traditional novel to film adaptation. This thesis seeks to further explore how narratives can transcend barriers by examining the adaptation of narratives between the traditional novel and a largely unexplored form of media, namely role-playing games. By analyzing how role-playing games and novels have been adapted between one another we can begin to glean new insights into narrative studies as well as aspects of reader-author relationships, agency and performativity. As such this thesis analyzes how narratives are...
An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklor
Mai Hàn
Fantasy and Medievalism in Role-Playing Games
Lars Konzack
Extrapolation
2017 •
Ryan Vu
My essay is premised on the observation that while canonical theories of fantastic genre fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror) proposed by critics such as Tzetvan Todorov and Darko Suvin center on epistemic aporia, most recent examples in popular culture reject fundamental difference, alterity, and the unknown in favor of postmodern play within a limited set of generic conventions. I argue that today, tabletop roleplaying game systems (RPGs) provide a superior hermeneutic for understanding how the fantasy genre operates in mass culture than does traditional genre theory. After providing a brief overview of the historical development of fantasy gaming out of wargaming and mass market fantasy literature in the 1970s, I show how RPGs formalized fantasy's generic tropes into a modular system that enabled participants to produce fictions across and between genres. Through a reading of Poul Anderson's use of the " multiverse " trope in his novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, the notion that reality consists of an infinite number of interconnected worlds, I argue RPGs completed a reorientation toward the fantastic begun by mass-market fantasy literature. Epistemological concerns, distinctions between fantastic genres, and individual authorship are de-emphasized in favor of established formal conventions, a shift which encourages a participatory model of consumption and ease of transmission across diverse media. I then use the HBO adaptation of George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones novels as an example of how this paradigmatic shift in the fantastic has moved beyond the niche markets of fantasy fiction and roleplaying games to manifest itself today as a hegemonic cultural norm.
Fantastika Journal
Review of 'Horizon Zero Dawn'
2017 •
Molly Cobb
Fantastika
On Placing the Grotesque.pdf
2017 •
Nahid Shahbazi
Throughout its long history, the grotesque has been mostly been discussed for the various, even opposing, types of representation it has been depicted and traced through. As an aesthetic category of art and literature, it has constantly given rise to critical studies of both diverse and complementary nature about a mode which is very often taken to be incomprehensible, misunderstood, absurd, or appalling. While a considerable amount of misunderstanding is related to the definition of the mode, the inherent confusion has to do with different categories of the grotesque as well as overlaps with similar modes and genres. As such, the grotesque has been debated not only in relation to other modes and genres but also with regard its own varying types of representation. Reviewing some of the relevant works and key notions, I initially focus on the definition of the grotesque by reviewing major elements of the mode and then make a proposition regarding the categories of the grotesque. Sketching out earlier studies, I discuss the grotesque with regard to certain distinguishing features which help to categorise its varying types and situate it among neighbouring modes.
The Functions of Role-Playing Games
LORENA REYES AGUILAR
Cinematic Discourse: Deconstructing Modes of Gender and Time in James Bobin's Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
Jade Dillon Craig
Author: Jade Dillon Publisher: Fantastika Press Publication Date: 24th April 2017 Publication Title: Fantastika Journal; Volume 1, Issue 1
Fantastika Journal
A Monster Calls Review: A Visit from our Inner Demons
2017 •
Adele Hannon
In this disconcerting and multifaceted film, A Monster Calls, the director J. A. Bayona explores the monster as a means to understand suppressed socio-cultural issues; the title itself echoes a return of the repressed. Bayona effectively carries on the work of Patrick Ness, showing how the monster works as an allegory to discuss the psychological process of repression. The film draws on metaphorical devices from Gothic fiction and monster theory to portray an unsettling narrative involving a child’s preoccupation with mortality. Bayona’s treatment of social issues in A Monster Calls transcends visual gratification, becoming instead a platform that facilitates the discussion of darker themes and repressed cultural anxieties. What is most captivating about this film is how it contradicts the traditional observation of the Gothic villain, examining the monster as a projection of our inhibited subconscious.
The Middle Ages in Modern Games: Conference Proceedings, Vol. 3, pp. 37-39
Christian and Muslim mentalities during the Third Crusade in Acre, Damascus, and Jerusalem, represented in Assassin’s Creed
2022 •
Ricardo Santana
Assassin's Creed games have always been partially intended to represent a fictionalized version of various religious, political, and multicultural beliefs. The first title in the franchise, 2007's Assassin's Creed, is no different. In this article, we will briefly analyze the possible perspectives that the Levantine populations had on the Third Crusade through the rhetoric used by some heralds represented in this game, and how their interpretations can mirror or contradict specific historical facts.
