"Through a Glass, Darkly": The (Im)possibility of Detection in The Black Mirror

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F46747885%3A24510%2F19%3A00007365" target="_blank" >RIV/46747885:24510/19:00007365 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://ebooks.americanaejournal.hu/books/crime-and-detection-2/" target="_blank" >https://ebooks.americanaejournal.hu/books/crime-and-detection-2/</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

"Through a Glass, Darkly": The (Im)possibility of Detection in The Black Mirror

Original language description

In recent years, narratology has mostly been dubbed an outdated approach in computer game studies by the more fashionable schools of ludology, player-response aesthetics, semiotic analysis and fanbase sociology. While, indeed, in many games there is little or no story (cf. Pac-Man or Solitaire), and in others there is rather a narrative potential than a full-fledged narrative, some games can be considered as playable texts, with varying levels of emphasis on the playable or the textual aspect. Many point-and-click adventures, for example, have a strongly predetermined story (cf. Broken Sword), providing a counterpoint to essentially storyless games, and to games where the player has almost unlimited agency in creating her own story (cf. GTA Vice City or The Sims). In my chapter, I focus on the Czech computer game Black Mirror (Posel smrti), and show how it destabilizes the classical detective story through a clever manipulation of the player’s expectations. While at first the playable character, Samuel Gordon, seems to be a typical case of the classical detective, the implied reader’s/player’s expectations are constantly thwarted as he progressively turns into an anti-detective. The game’s narrative effectively questions and undermines the feasibility of empirical observation and logical deduction as methods of detection, the moral and psychological integrity of the detective, and the borderline between detective and murderer. Rather than ending in reassurance, solution and catharsis, the player is alienated from the character she controlled and identified with, and is left to her own devices in making sense of what she has experienced. By doing so, my chapter not only shows that it is possible to fruitfully apply a narratological approach to computer game analysis, but also that even if players typically expect to have a happy ending (since they want to “win” the game), the medium of computer games allows for more complex and (post)modern stories.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50802 - Media and socio-cultural communication

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Crime and Detection in Contemporary Culture

ISBN

9786155423512

Number of pages of the result

14

Pages from-to

108-121

Number of pages of the book

145

Publisher name

Americana eBooks

Place of publication

Szeged

UT code for WoS chapter

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