More Emotions from Video Games

+Paul Bills posted recently about video games' potential to evoke emotional response from players, and this was something that I wanted to touch upon a little bit. I've played video games almost all of my life; my family got a SuperNintendo when I was like three, but even before that, my dad had an old Commodore computer with such thrilling adventures as pixel Olympics or, later, Frogger. Now, we have stunning, million-dollar productions with complex themes and characters, stunning scenery, moving soundtracks, and design teams in the hundreds and thousands. The point I'm trying to get at, though, is that games have come a long way in the past twenty or so years. They still have "a lot of growing up to do," as Grant Tavinor puts it in The Art of Video Games, but they are coming into their maturity and are becoming a powerful tool for influencing the human psyche and emotional state.

Paul mentioned a number of emotions, and I wanted to build on his list in contributing what I feel to be paramount pieces in the history of video games.

1. Longing - Final Fantasy

First off, I'll admit that I've played only five or six of the games in the Final Fantasy series (there have been, as I recall, something like 15 *Final* Fantasies to date), but they have nonetheless had a profound impact on me and on my development as a gamer, a thinker, and a creator. In my mind, these games are the most emotionally complex and evocative games on the market, conveying a diversity of profound messages about humanity and the world. For me, though, the most powerful of emotions in the series is that of longing. I don't know that I can pinpoint exactly what it is that so draws the player into the Final Fantasy realm--a rich and immersive world, a profound sense of connection to the divine, a strong ideal of personal agency and potential to change the world, or just sheer awesomeness in fighting monsters and calling on arcane magics--but the longing for that world, for its vitality, is very real. The series has been the subject of an enormous volume of fan fiction, and deviantArt is plastered with thousands upon thousands of examples of art inspired by the fantastical and beautiful world of Final Fantasy. I honestly feel like Final Fantasy is responsible for the aesthetic and thematic qualities of the JRPG genre as a whole and has served as a model for most major modern story games.

My Girl Em

I say this all the time but....

I always tell people that I chose to teach English

because literature holds a power within us.

It is this power that always helps me come to terms 

with life,

with struggles,

with my mind's worries.

Take this for example:

Awesome Literature

This list in chronological order of my first experience with each work. The colors of the title are just colors that have come to reflect those works in my mind for reasons I do not always understand (but probably just because of their covers).

1. The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady by Gerald Morris. This book literally caused puberty in me and is the direct cause for the first moment I realized I was in love with a girl. And even today I think this series has the most believable, human characters in all of literature.
2. The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander. Part of the Prydain Chronicles (The Black Cauldron Series), this book is the first time I ever felt the awful sting of betrayal, and realized the true power of human relationships.
3. "The Wind" by Ray Bradbury. Really all of Ray Bradbury showed me a new world of the possibility of language, but this story in particular has stayed most with me as causing the kind of awe Edmund Burke talked about that is so wrapped up in terror.
4. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Not literature, but still words that opened up an entire new paradigm of how the world works. This book left an impression that continues to shape my worldview today.
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The astoundingly accurate reflection of my world that was written over 70 years before it happened.
6. "The Year of Silence" by Kevin Brockmeier. A familiar idea taken to surreal extremes turned in on itself to bring about a simplistic message in an unforgettable way. The first time form mattered to me in literature.
7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. The struggle of a genius I could appreciate against immorality I perhaps shouldn't have tolerated ending in "The beauty! The beauty!" that spoke to me in a way no other book ever has.
8. "A Small Part" by Stephen Dunn. My late adolescence explained to me in a poem by a man I've never met.
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (play seen at British National Theatre). A play I literally stood through that turned me to hug another dude next to me in tears at the end. "Does that mean that I can do anything, Siobhan? Does that mean that I can do anything? The two look at each other for awhile. Lights black."
10. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin. Currently reading this for my American Lit 1960-Present class. Proof that there's still plot premises out there beyond anything I've ever even imagined, blended with philosophy I must have been secretly yearning for based on how strongly I've reacted to it.

A Few Monumental Literary Sources of Awe

You may want to skip past all of this commentary. Although, there is some explanation of my though process which may be beneficial or it may just be all too complicated which I understand if you choose to avoid. 

<rant> I suppose I had a hard time making a list of more high brow (or what BYU may name high brow) literary things that inspired awe in me. I am including some YA lit thing in this list though because I am at a time in my life where 1) I need to get more into YA lit because that may be what is most important for my future career and 2) because of that I have been reading a lot of YA lit and it is what is most fresh. Also, because I think Dr Crowe would push for YA lit to be on a list.

While this list is definitely not comprehensive and definitely does not include some of the largest sources of awe in my life, I tried to focus solely on things that seemed monumental in my life. Those were really the only things that I could look back on without over analyzing and eventually taking off my list. 

Recollections of Awe

I've been thinking about different literary works that have had a profound influence on me over the years, and I've come up with a list of 10 or so works that have introduced me to awe for one reason or another. So, without further ado (and in no particular order)

The Chosen, by Chaim Potok

I came across this book at a time in my life when I didn't have a ton of faith in humanity (or in God, for that matter), and I felt like it renewed my view of others and the world.

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

I get a lot of flak for loving Ayn Rand's books, especially since I don't share in many her views on ethics and politics, but she was the first writer who made me feel like writing could be powerful because one willed it so. And who can't be in awe at 1400 pages of beautiful writing?