Perpetrator Trauma in Video Games: Dan Salvato’s Doki Doki Literature Club and Toby Fox’s Undertale

Abstract

This chapter investigates the transmission of perpetrator trauma in two metafictional games: Dan Salvato’s Doki Doki Literature Club and Toby Fox’s Undertale. Dominant trauma theory valorises the practice of transmission to represent trauma victims, meaning to simulate in readers protagonists’ traumatic symptoms through formal techniques. However, how symptoms specific to trauma perpetrators, including feelings of responsibility, guilt and moral contradiction, are conveyed in this way is often overlooked. Conversely, certain games employ their increased level of interactivity in an attempt to transmit to players perpetrator trauma symptoms, granting players agency to virtually perpetrate immoral acts. However, the concept of transmission is increasingly subject to criticism, while games’ interrogation of players’ moral frameworks does not translate to a real-world context. Responding to these issues, this chapter examines games that employ metafiction as a means of exploring player immorality in relation to the game medium specifically. Doki Doki Literature Club and Undertale interrogate players’ culpability in the medium’s sensationalism of violence and expected play patterns of replayability.KeywordsPerpetrator traumaVideo gamesMetafictionTransmission