Injustice in the Ruins and a Disordered Post-Apocalypse: Gothic Ideology in the Digital Game World of Fallout 3

Sari Piittinen

doi:10.18573/sgf.34

Abstract

The Gothic is an influential source for storytelling in a wide range of digital games. Thus far, interpreting it in games and how they are informed by Gothic ideology has been little studied. This study seeks to address this gap in research by investigating these issues in the narrative of the action role-playing game, Fallout 3. More specifically, through a close reading of the game narrative and by drawing on theories of the Gothic, ideological aspects of the Gothic are analyzed in detail with specific reference to non-player characters and their actions and dialogue along with elements of the mise-en-scene, style, and simulation. Results show how classic Gothic ideology is reproduced in games by multimodal means and how, as in Gothic novels, their production and interpretation is linked to real-life contexts. The involvement of the player in these games means that a Gothic hero is not of necessity helpless, but instead bears a responsibility to make decisions in ideologically complex and ambivalent situations.

Highlights

The Gothic is an influential source for storytelling in a wide range of digital games
Through a close reading of the game narrative and by drawing on theories of the Gothic, ideological aspects of the Gothic are analyzed in detail with specific reference to non-player characters and their actions and dialogue along with elements of the mise-en-scéne, style, and simulation
Results show how classic Gothic ideology is reproduced in games by multimodal means and how, as in Gothic novels, their production and interpretation is linked to real-life contexts

Summary

Ideology and Gothic ideology

Ideology refers to forms of thought and behavior that are inherent in our political and social worlds and offer means for making sense of the worlds that we inhabit (Freeden 2). Ideology can refer to partisan views and opinions that represent bias and characterize specific social formations with their specific interests This aspect of the concept includes the political “-isms” by which specific groups and their ideologies, via a specific set of symbolic representations that serve a specific purpose, become recognizable (Blommaert, “Discourse” 158). The present study discusses modern digital games, while it indicates how “later use of Gothicism will necessarily bear a significant relationship to the original generic ideology” of the historical period from 1764 to 1820, “whether through duplication or inversion” (Bernstein 5) An example of this is the dominant ideological positioning of the Catholic as “other” during the Enlightenment period, which is echoed in Gothic games in how they depict specific groups or belief-systems as “other” by representing them as somehow negative (Hoeveler 13). In line with critical approaches to investigating ideologies as materially mediated ideational phenomena, and within the framework provided by a characterization of typical ideological aspects of the Gothic, the purpose of this study is to conduct a detailed analysis – a close reading – of the game discourse and the game world, for identifying and evaluating ways in which the ideology of the Gothic is taken up and used in a game like Fallout 3

The Gothic Ideology and Games

Disorder and Discipline

Deception Leading to Moral Dilemmas

Gothic Uncertainty and the Weight of Responsibility