Chapter Five

Cognitive Identification and Character Interest

It is generally accepted that the marketing of Lara Croft, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Mario was a large factor in the popularity of Sony, Sega and Nintendo respectively (Berger, 2002; Poole, 2000). More than that, the marketing of games in general has frequently emphasised known and likeable characters drawn from print or film texts. It may therefore seem logical to start with the assumption that if one likes a character one is likely to be interested in any game in which that character appears. However, characters are not usually seen as having a role in regulating interest, in that, as Skirrow (1980) has observed, there is “no [psychological] development of character as [a video] game progresses” (p. 331). Fuller and Jenkins (1995) similarly argue that characters:

play a minimal role, displaying traits that are largely capacities for action: fighting skills, modes of transportation, preestablished goals. The game's dependence on characters . . . . borrowed from other media allows them to simply evoke those characters rather than fully develop them. The character is little more than a cursor that mediates the player's relationship to the story world. Activity drains away the character's strength as measured by an ever-shifting graph at the top of the screen, but it cannot build character, since these figures lack even the most minimal interiority. (p. 61)

This position reaches its extreme in Stallabras' (1996) analogy to commodification, according to which “digital objects encountered in the game [are] types . . . ranked on a common arithmetical scale in which every quality is tradeable” (p. 90). Here characters are figured merely as the player's gaming assets, and any psychological drama lies solely in the player's experience of the rise and fall of his/her fortunes.

While video game characters do sometimes function as simply a familiar face or a tool of the player (see Chapter Eight), early researchers tended to generalise from kinaesthetic or puzzle games in which the use of narrative was limited to cut-scenes which represented character goals. By contrast, adventure and role-playing games like FFX have made ongoing use of narratives in which characters have a complexity equal to characters in film and undergo psychological development. This chapter is concerned with the way players produce a model of such complexity, drawing upon Tan's (1997) argument that, if interest is governed by dynamics of anticipation and outcomes, another source of investment and return lies “in the expectations and anticipations that are rooted in the viewer's knowledge of, and feelings toward, the characters of a film” (p. 154). Whereas later chapters address the “feelings” towards characters in FFX , this chapter addresses players' “knowledge of” them, or what Grodal calls “cognitive identification” of character traits, and the consequent expectations that regulate interest. After considering the limitations of early models of character, it analyses players' cognitive processing of what Barthes (1975a) calls semic codes across narrative and game macrostructures.

Narrative Macrostructures

Actantial Model

Aristotle (trans. 1965), in his analysis of Greek tragedy, began from the premise that “Artists imitate men in action,” and went on to distinguish between “agents” ( pratton ), referring to figures who function merely to perform actions required by the narrative, and “characters” ( ethos ), referring to figures traited in such a way that they have personhood. In practice, many narratives have characters that do little more than perform a function that advances the narrative, and early narratological theory paid much attention to these functions. Since some critics regard video game characters as functional, without any psychological complexity or depth, it becomes necessary to address the implication, which Berger (2002, pp. 45-47, 78-79) makes explicit, that early structuralist models of narrative (Barthes, 1966/1988, 1975a; Chatman, 1978; Genette, 1980; Propp, 1968; Todorov, 1977, 1981) have renewed relevance to video games.

Vladimir Propp (1968) identified seven roles that characters in folktales may take up—villain, helper, donor, sought-for-person, dispatcher, hero and false hero—and which were distributed across a fixed sequence of thirty-one functions (supposedly) common to all fairy tales. The problem with this model is that non-fairy tale narratives (novels, films, video games) rarely conform to Propp's structure, either in terms of the sequence or number of functions at the level of fabula or syuzhet . In video games, Propp's functions may be manifested in some form, but video games have a repetitive (non-linear) structure, and draw upon various genres, from fantasy, through horror, to film noir, each with its own structural distinctiveness. Consequently, systematically applying his functions would be to subsume video games to one genre in another medium (the print fairy-tale). Propp's model also is, needless to say, insensitive to historical context, reader competence, and the poststructuralist recognition that meaning is read into , or from , the text.

If any use is to be made of Propp (1968), then, the appropriate departure point would be Anton Greimas' (1987) “fertile and inaugural rewriting of Propp” (Jameson, in Greimas, 1987, p. xi). This extrapolates from sentence grammar by way of the semiotic square to identify six categories of “actants,” which are only intelligible when grasped as a total structure:

This structure is understood as a form of exchange between the subject ( sujet ) who desires the object ( objet ), and its terms may be translated as follows (with the analogous Proppian terms in brackets):

While this model of actantial relations describes a basic grammar which governs the logic of narrative transformations, it does not (like Propp's) rely on a fixed sequence of narrative functions. Rather, a sequence of narrative functions may be seen as an “effect” of these actantial relations through a particular act of reading.

If we apply this actantial model to FFX 's narrative macrostructure, Tidus would seem to be the subject (hero) because he is the first figure represented in the manual, the first and last figure players control, and other characters under the player's control are absorbed into him during many navigation sequences (Tidus also states “This is my story” on several occasions). Jecht, having given Auron his mission to retrieve Tidus to defeat him, would seem to be the sender. The object of the quest, not realised until near the end, is the defeat of Yu Yevon, who resides in Sin. Since the quest to defeat Yu Yevon relieves Spira of Sin's oppression, Spira is the receiver (of liberation). The Guardians are the helpers, in that they accompany Tidus through the entire quest. On this basis, it is possible to nominate the following general actantial system:

If this is accepted as the actantial system that dominates the narrative macrostructure then the sequence of the fabula and the meaning of the narrative may be seen as organised around the actions of characters. That is, Jecht sends for Tidus (who is helped by Yuna and the other Guardians) to destroy Yu Yevon (who is helped by Sin and Seymour ) and, thereby, free Spira. A strict structuralist may conclude that a player's narrative competence would be reflected in his/her ability to generate a summary (no doubt with variations or differing degrees of emphasis) using this basic actantial grammar.

A more diligent structuralist enquiry might elaborate upon which characters function as supplements or intermediaries of these actantial roles. Auron could be seen as an intermediate sender between Jecht and Tidus, given that Jecht gives him the mission to send for Tidus. Sin and Jecht (or at least Braska's Final Aeon, his alter ego ) are indexical of Yu Yevon, and for much of the narrative function as supplement objects. The initial receiver seems to be Tidus, then Zanarkand or Yuna, but later in the narrative Spira becomes the pre-eminent receiver, as is evident in Yuna's address to the stadium in Luca. While the other Guardians may be seen as Tidus' primary helpers, Spira may collectively function as the helper given that its citizens provide knowledge or resources and unite to sing the Hymn of the Fayth that calms Sin. While Yu Yevon is the primary opponent, all the monsters encountered are opponents, but since most monsters are random encounters the “boss” monsters may be seen as supplementary opponents, with Seymour the pre-eminent supplement given his intention to usurp Sin's power.

The most obvious problem with such an account is that it is only relative to a generalised epic or quest macrostructure, when, as Chapter Three indicated, FFX shifts between film and print fantasy, science-fiction, romance, adventure/role-playing game, and tragedy. In the romantic macrostructure, Tidus may still be the subject, but Yu Yevon becomes an obstacle to the higher-order object of love with Yuna, and Tidus' subsequent dispersal as an Aeon makes this a tragic romance: Yuna receives love from Tidus, but not a loving union. Alternately, since Yuna is the survivor and authorised voice who speaks at the end of the game as the living leader or figurehead of Spira, players may see her less as taking over the narrative from Tidus and more as having focalised his narrative from the beginning, with Tidus the (tragically lost) love object. (Indeed, in a final scene allegedly edited out of the game, Yuna makes this reversal explicit, saying: “ I know it's selfish but this is my story” ). As a consequence of the tragic nature of the romance, the reader may take the moment when Yuna intends to sacrifice love (for Tidus) by marrying Seymour to unite Bevelle and Guado as the key dramatic point, with public duty the higher-order object. Since defeating Sin permanently means that Tidus will disappear, Sin and Yu Yevon function less as obstacles in the way of romantic love than as necessary actants in a plot that dramatises Yuna as performing the public duty of sacrificing one's hope for love (which she was prepared to make with Seymour but could not because he was a “false hero”). In this reading, Tidus may be seen as the helper and Spira is at once the sender and receiver.

A detailed structuralist analysis of the dominant actantial relations of the various macrostructures, and the superimposition of these actantial systems, would provide some useful departure points in correlating the readings provided by players. For example, one player may emphasise the fantasy, romance and epic macrostructures and ignore the tragic macrostructure, suggesting a preference for narratives that articulate a faith in the transcendental unity of the self and its integration with society: a happy ending. Another player may emphasise tragic macrostructures, suggesting a preference for narratives that express the fragmentation and alienation of the self: ambivalent or sad endings. Such a player may perceive the subject as being excluded from the actantial role of receiver, revealing at once a liberal faith in the capacity of the individual to change the world, but a tragic perception that an individual's suffering is in direct proportion to the benefit of others. The same player may consistently verbalise macrostructures around Tidus, even those in which he is not the character being controlled, such that using Yuna in combat is still just “helping” Tidus. The narrative's attention to Yuna rescuing Spira may therefore function to make a hero of the tragic self. These interpretations might be correlated with a player's personality (low self-esteem), social position (the absence of filial affection), and/or gaming history (a tendency towards solitary gameplay).

However, if the structure of actantial relations extrapolates from the sentence, the above accounts do not do justice to the grammatical variation and flexibility of sentences and sequences of sentences. The actantial roles of successive sentences may be performed by different subjects and vary from scene to scene. Not only are other characters often the subjects, each game and narrative sequence has its own object (rescuing Tidus, escaping Geosgaeno, rescuing Yuna, and so on). Barthes' (1966/1988) summarises:

every character (even secondary) can be the agent of sequences, of actions which belong to him . . . when a single sequence involves two characters (as is usual), it comprises two perspectives, two names [for example, the “opponent” of one may be the “helper” of the other]; in short, every character (even secondary) is the hero of his own sequence (p. 119).

It is, then, not sufficient to simply identify an end-state. Just as real-time interest cannot be understood retrospectively, comprehension and emotional response to characters in any particular sequence will depend upon dynamic changes in and across various macrostructures, including the complexities of focalisation and related mediations of spatial and attitudinal perspective. Indeed, the final structural arrangement may be highly un-representative of the meaning taken away from it and the experience of watching it, as is evident when we consider the process of character typing.

Cognitive Identification: Semic Codes and Types

Psychoanalysis tends to emphasise the ways in which individuals identify (or do not identify) with something (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1988, p. 205). However, it is only possible to identify with something, or to resist such identification, after identification of it, that is, after it has been identified . In this sense, psychoanalytic accounts of identification marginalize the issue of how viewers construct the identity of the subject-actants with whom they identify. The narratological model of actantial relations is inadequate in providing a model of identification since it focuses on narrative structures, not the dynamic perceptual, cognitive and emotional activity of players. Here we can turn to Tan (1997) and Grodal (1997). For Tan (1997), impression formation directed towards fictional characters follows the same patterns as with real people, and research suggests that cognitive evaluation of people is initially top-down (pp. 163-164) (see also Brewer, 1988; Wyer and Gordon, 1984). That is, upon observing a person's traits, one will attempt to categorise him/her according to well-known types: “hierarchical combinations of roles, features and behavioural characteristics” (Tan, 1997, p. 164). Grodal (1997) refers to this process as “cognitive identification” and argues that:

the most basic levels are the most general. They only presuppose abilities such as the ability to perceive remote objects, to experience tactile and interoceptive sensation, to feel simple motives, affects, and emotions, and to understand uncomplicated plans, goals and acts. (p. 92)

Indeed, Bordwell (1989) identifies a generic “person schemata” (p. 152) characterised by:

• a human body, presumed to be singular and unified;
• perceptual activity, including self-awareness;
• thoughts, including beliefs;
• feelings or emotions;
• traits, or persisting dispositional qualities;
• the capacity for self-impelled actions, such as communication, goal-formation and –achievement, and so on.

According to this model, all these features are attributed the moment we identify a person or subject-actant. That is, the moment we see a character we automatically accept a range of potential capabilities that will affect our evaluation of previous, present and future narrative/game events. Consequently, narratives can be sparse in their description of characters: there is no need to specify the existence of limbs, the ability to perceive and be self-aware, the capacity for reflection and emotional responses, or that characters are motivated in particular ways.

As Eco (1979, p. 23) notes, a text may make some of these “properties” more textually relevant and/or may narcotise others. In FFX , the existence of Tidus' “body” presumes the existence of the full complement of organs, including the facility for ingestion, respiration, defecation and sexual intercourse. However, not all of these organs have equal significance in terms of their effect on the unfolding of narrative or game macrostructures. The relevance of ingestion is only manifested during both navigation and combat sequences when players access the party's items and “use” potions, and the only representation offered is the stylised action of a character bringing a potion into the vicinity of his/her face. The ability to respire is not only narcotised but abolished, since characters in FFX seem incapable of drowning: at the start of the game, Tidus plays blitzball underwater without artificial aids; later on other characters swim underwater for indefinite periods. Defecation is narcotised in that it is not represented and has no narrative import, unless one sees some monsters' attacks (such as the Marlboro's squirted excretions) as a form of defecation. The potential relevance of primary sexual functions (the possibility of sexual intercourse between characters) is partially narcotised by the game's rating and its platonic emphasis on romantic love and friendship. However, the narrative does promote an adolescent voyeurism based on secondary sexual characteristics, such that players may be cued towards sexual fantasy, even if they do not expect the game to fulfil them.

Once a player has identified a general “person type,” more complex typing may occur which allows for more complex expectations about a character's future behaviour or fate. Tan (1997) draws from Andersen and Klatsky (1987) to differentiate between simple and generic “trait types”—such as “outgoing, socially skilled, friendly, nutty, power-loving, self-confident, knowledgeable, and intelligent” (p. 165)—and more detailed “social stereotypes”—such as “mafioso, clown/comedian, politician/diplomat, bully/gang member, brain/genius, depressed/suicidal, wise man/guru” (p. 165), including specific person stereotypes, such as “Ronald Reagan, Woody Allen, and Ghandi” (p. 165). An actantial type may function as the basis for organising these trait-, social- and person- types. For example, Belgemine consistently performs the function of “helper,” and this type is reinforced by specific traiting of her as female, beautiful, more experienced (older) and more powerful (a guardian). Even when she functions as an opponent by pitting her Aeons against Yuna's, she is testing players, helping them to better understand the difficulties of their quest.

However, structuralist accounts of characterisation tend to recognise that characters are not types: “they are simply subjects of a group of predicates which the reader adds up as he goes along” (Culler, 1975, p. 235). This is clearly articulated in Barthes' (1975a) account of the “semic code,” which refers to the provision “of the basis of character traits” (p. 19). For Barthes, reading involves a constant process of naming, but, as Culler (1975) summarises:

naming is always approximate and uncertain. One slides from name to name as the texts throw up more semantic features and invite one to group and compose them. . . . When one succeeds in naming a series of semes a pattern is established and a character formed. (pp. 236-237)

Tan (1997) similarly argues that much mental modelling in feature films is a matter of trying out different schemata and discarding them as the narrative offers new or contradictory information about characters (p. 164). In cognitive terms, the top-down assignment of types is repeatedly revised through ongoing bottom-up processing of new information that is inconsistent with the existing type(s). At the same time, viewers tend not to hypothesise connections beyond an immediate scene, and that when they have arrived at a particular view of a character they only reappraise it when new (inconsistent) information arrives (Tan, 1997, p. 105). Consequently, the necessity of reappraisal—such as discovering that Jecht is Sin, that Yuna is tragically aware that she is about to die, and that Tidus and Auron are Aeons—is often cued through surprise.

The literary and cognitive accounts may be seen as emphasising different aspects of this process. In semiotic terms, semes may be grouped into “types,” but these are unstable, not only because of new disclosures, but also because of polysemy. Consequently, the emphasis is on variations within or between types and/or the formation of new types. In cognitive terms, a type is synonymous with a schemata, either a “prototype” schemata (an established set of contents) or a “template” schemata (an established form which readily assimilates new content). While accommodating new information is a dynamic activity, the cognitive model may be seen as emphasising prior types through its concern with the stability of schemata. While the cognitive account distinguishes between top-down and bottom-up processing, the semiotic account better accounts for the dynamic exchange between the two. So, a s FFX develops, characters accrue semes, and the player attempts to “group and compose them” according to some perceived association (explicit or connoted) and/or a well-known type. This typing may be relatively automatic, providing a quick and coarse way of defining and anticipating character behaviour, but new information will cue players to re-type characters or to provide new semic groupings, and, by implication, new types.

The process of re-typing means that relationships between actantial roles and more particular types become increasingly complex. In the beginning of FFX , Tidus is the focaliser, so players are likely to type him according to his dominant actantial role as the subject (“hero” or “protagonist”). This generic type will be reinforced as players type his thoughts, feelings, traits and goals in more detail. When Tidus receives adulation from fans prior to a blitzball game, players may type him as an “exceptional person”; when he obligingly signs his name we might type him as “modest celebrity.” This provides some expectation that his object, as subject (hero), will involve him using his skills as a blitzball player. This is confirmed when he takes the sword from Auron and his prowess as a (modern-style) celebrity translates into (old-fashioned) heroic prowess. This holds open the threat that he will lose his celebrity status, as he does when the Maester brands him and Yuna's other Guardians as traitors. When players see Tidus think reflectively about his father they may type him as a “troubled young man,” with the possibility that his goal will involve finding or confronting his father. When players later hear him speak in an upbeat manner in his oddly high-pitched voice they may type him as, at heart, “plucky and high-spirited,” who must attempt to maintain this upbeat nature and/or “youthful innocence” in the face of what the world has in store for him.

As was discussed in Chapter Four, FFX plays with the possibility that events are an uncanny projection of Tidus' anxieties of abandonment. However, after his early typing Tidus is a relatively consistent character until it is revealed that he is an Aeon and will disappear upon the completion of the quest. This forces players to re-type him as a “tragic hero” and re-categorise his moody introspection, less as a sign of immaturity and more as a response to his loss. Players also are likely to re-type his upbeat attitude not as just naive, immature or youthfully excessive, but as a poignant attempt to make the most of the time he has left. This may resonate with the earlier recognition that Yuna seeks Tidus' light-hearted company to distract her from the knowledge of her impending death. When Tidus and Yuna talk after entering the Temple at Luca and deal with their fears by voluntarily laughing, Tidus' high-spirits may be read as a human response to the certainty of death. However, what is particularly important is that this may lead the player to recognise a disjunction between Tidus' general actantial type and his specific type: he becomes less a tragic hero than a martyr and, being a martyr, others must take up the cause. In short, he becomes a helper to Yuna and the other Guardians, who survive as the primary (retrospective, end-state) subjects.

A more complex example of the ongoing revision of type-attribution that is central to the dramatic articulation of FFX , is the characterisation of Maester Seymour Guado. Tidus' companions describe him as the new Maester: the authorised voice of Yevon and “spiritual leader” of Spira. Players might anticipate from the gravity of his reception at Luca that he will be a key character who may use his authority to help Tidus, or that he may become an opponent who will entangle Tidus in some spiritual or political macrosequence. When he first descends from his boat and shares a meaningful glance with Yuna the specific type of “romantic competitor” cues players' expectations that, later in the narrative, he will try to seduce or kidnap her. However, his appearance is not so easy to type. His robes may suggest a “wizard” and his seeming grace and gentleness suggest more a “monk,” yet the casual and stylish exposure of his toned (muscular) chest is contrary to both types. His ridiculous coiffure, soft voice, and display of flesh mark him as fashionable or effeminate, but his obvious confidence and control, the acclaim and respect he has from others, and his self-knowing manner and political savvy, suggest masculine authority (see Figure 5.1a). This showy mix of masculinity and femininity may lead players to type him as “unconventional,” “homosexual,” and/or a kind of “transvestite.”

Figure 5.1. (a) Seymour and Yuna. (b) Seymour and his Aeon Anima.

When Fiends interrupt the blitzball game at Luca, Seymour summons his Aeon Anima: a seemingly male (but actually female) cross between a corpse, sea-creature and bat, imprisoned by an anchored chain. That the word “anima” is the passive, female principle in Jung's (1978) terms may confuse players' typing, unless they see the inner-feminine (or unbalanced lack thereof) as the source of Anima's power (perhaps in the fashion of a “terrible mother” or “raging goddess”). The term also might be mistaken, as by a layperson, for the active, male principle, or simply be interpreted as connoting psychic or spiritual power. In any case, players may read Anima as an external representation of Seymour 's inner state (see Figure 5.1b). This may mean seeing him as evil, with the anticipation that he will turn upon the player's characters. It may also mean seeing Seymour as good precisely because he has confronted and tamed the forces that threaten Spira (albeit with the possibility that he will lose control of those forces).

This reading of Seymour 's power and mystery as a sign of potential danger governed by potentially malevolent motives will be reinforced by players of Final Fantasy , who may observe that Seymour resembles Sephiroth in FFVII and Seifer Ansaly in FFVIII . Both Sephiroth and Seifer are powerful role models for the younger main characters, Cloud and Squall, but eventually betray them and embark upon crusades of power. In either case, players are likely to type Seymour's civilised exterior as a figurative chain over his (repressed or suppressed) true nature, but do not yet have a signifier for this nature in the same way that they have signifiers for Anima's power: dazzling explosions and damage whose ridiculous magnitude is quantified by numbers onscreen. Consequently, Seymour 's ambiguity is reinforced and players can only hesitantly attribute types to him.

When the characters next meet Seymour on the Mi'ihen Highroad he uses his authority to allow the characters to pass a guard post, and reveals a casual defiance of the musty traditions of Yevon by supporting the blasphemous use of Machina against Sin. Here players are cued to type Seymour as a “young leader” who will bring a new era and revitalise Spira, and so players are likely to type him as a helper. However, when the characters meet Seymour again he asks Yuna to marry him for political reasons (to unite Bevelle with Guado), and so players are inclined to abandon any romanticism attributed to him. He is more likely to become typed as a “politician,” caught up in the petty, effeminate machinations of diplomatic intrigue. At the same time, his justification for wanting to marry Yuna does have a practical and moral basis and initiates the major narrative conflict between public duty and romantic love. This may incline players to re-evaluate not only his character, but the narrative macrostructure itself: perhaps the game is not a romance but a tragedy about self-sacrifice? If players evaluate the macrostructure in terms of public duty, then Seymour may still be a helper, but relative to the romantic macrostructure he is an opponent. In either case, he still seems to be a helper in the epic macrostructure, the quest to kill Sin.

In Macalania it is disclosed that Seymour killed his father and that his ambitions are self-interested; the characters also must confront him in battle. Here the specific type-attributions are stabilised around the actantial type of opponent as well as the more specific-type of “treacherous tyrant,” in the sense of someone who misrepresents himself when it furthers his own end of dominating others. This type persists when he kidnaps Yuna in order to marry her and, in rescuing her, characters fight his second incarnation as Seymour Natus (with Mortibody). However, when Seymour catches up with the characters on Mount Gagazet in the form of Seymour Flux (with Multiorchis), and, later, in his final form of Seymour Omnis, players learn that he has personally exterminated the Ronso race and wishes to become and control Sin to dominate Spira. Here players are cued to trait him not just as a self-interested tyrant, but as downright evil. At the same time, the extremity of his evil seems deranged, and during the short narrative sequences in Macalania and Zanarkand it is revealed that Seymour , like Tidus, was tormented for being a Guado half-breed and suffered the absence of his mother, suggesting that his evil is pathological. Consequently, players may type Seymour as “psychologically disturbed,” a trait ratified when Seymour , with his final words, recognises his defeat and death, and perhaps implicitly acknowledges his misguided grandiosity (mirroring Tidus' renunciation of Yuna and life).

This constant re-typing of Seymour is central to FFX 's hermeneutics. Initially players are likely to be curious as to his motives (compassionate rule or tyranny?) Players are likely to be surprised when new information about him or his actions is disclosed, which cues re-typing him (“romantic competitor,” “young leader,” “politician,” “teacherous tyrant,” “patricide,” “genocidal lunatic”). Lastly, players are also likely to experience suspense when they realise Seymour 's intentions to destroy Spira and await the outcome. However, since Seymour 's characterisation requires so much re-typing, players may begin to get the sense that their current, or anticipatory, typing cannot be relied upon to provide adequate expectations about him.

Indeed, the revision of types attributed to Rikku and her race, the Al Bhed, dramatises the limitations of (stereo-) typing. Rikku and several other Al Bhed are first encountered after Tidus is teleported by Sin and pulled from the sea onto their salvage boat. Because of their clothing (goggles, robes and veils), their aggressive actions (seeming slavers) and harsh, alien language (which characters learn by picking up Al Bhed language spheres), the most obvious type from which a player will draw is that of a radical/military “Muslim terrorist”: as “violent,” “inflexible” and/or “ruthless” (see Figure 5.2a) This type is undermined by Rikku's friendliness (see Figure 5.2b), but seems to be confirmed when the Al Bhed attack the Guardians on the Shoopuff and kidnap Yuna in Macalania. The player's evaluation of the Al Bhed as characters also is played out through Wakka, who keeps espousing his hatred and distrust of them, to the extent that Tidus does not reveal that Rikku is an Al Bhed. When Wakka does finally learn the truth, he snubs Rikku.

Figure 5.2. (a) Tidus' first encounter with the Al Bhed. (b) Tidus' gets to know Rikku (“You . . . You understand me?”)

Later, when the party goes to the Al Bhed home in Sanubia Sands, it is revealed that the Al Bhed were victims of racism. The people of Spira hate the Al Bhed because of their association with Machina and all but drove them from the continent. The Al Bhed therefore were forced to find sanctuary in the desert. Their earlier attempt to enslave Tidus on their boat therefore may be re-read in terms of survival under harsh conditions: those who do not contribute to the group must expect nothing from the group. Furthermore, players soon learn that the Al Bhed's motive for kidnapping the Summoners was that they did not want them to be killed trying to defeat Sin, who always reappears after twenty years. They are, then, more morally informed than Tidus, who had not known that Yuna expected to die fighting Sin and that, consequently, as Guardian, he had been guiding her to her death. Worse, after visiting the Temple at Kilika, he had spoken flippantly about the quest and its end. Consequently, players are likely to not only reclassify the Al Bhed in general terms (as helpers rather than opponents) and specific terms (as “hardy and desperate” rather than “aggressive and cruel”), but also to transfer some of their traits (as “outcasts,” “revolutionaries,” and “terrorists”) to Tidus and the other Guardians, who similarly come to act against the teachings of Yu Yevon and the authority of Bevelle. Indeed, players may perceive that, up until this point, Tidus was not the subject or hero at all: the motivating subjects were the Al Bhed, whose quest Tidus appropriates.

Wakka's response to Rikku is of special note. Tidus, without prior knowledge of the Al Bhed, types her according to her actions as “helper” and “young, friendly, reliable companion”; when he realises that she is an Al Bhed he still merely types her as a “Guardian.” However, since Wakka hates the Al Bhed his initial acceptance of Rikku involves, from the player's perspective, a denial of the obvious, since Rikku's race is evident from her clothing, accent, and eyes (pure Al Bhed have spiral irises). In this respect, it seems that Wakka's inability to reconcile Rikku as person and her racial type leads to a refusal to confront the disparity. When forced to confront the disparity between person and type, he creates unnecessary tension amongst the Guardians.

Wakka's prejudice derives from his faith in Yevon, according to whose teachings Sin is punishment for the arrogance of the humans in the past who used Machina. Consequently, he sees the Al Bhed's use of Machina and the attempt to defeat Sin at the Mi'ihen Highroad as blasphemous, a view made particularly salient because his brother, Chappu, died trying to kill Sin with such Machina. Wakka is, then, shocked to learn that Seymour, who is supposed to represent Yevon's authority, does not object to Operation Mi'ihen. However, it is only when the characters reach Macalania and fight Seymour that Wakka realises his faith was misplaced. If Wakka comes to (eventually) revise his perception of the Al Bhed, this is in part because he is also forced to revise his perception of Yevon, against whom he presumes the Al Bhed are blaspheming. Wakka's revision parallels, and is a prescription for, the player's revision of types, and dramatises the player's difficulties in typing certain characters. That is, if players become aware that their typing has, or may, lead to false expectations about characters and events, they may become more cautious or flexible in their attribution of types.

It might be presumed that this constant revision of semic structures through the bottom-up processing of new information leads to more detailed and precise typing of characters and facilitates more precise expectations about character's behaviour and fate. However, while ongoing traiting may affect players' interpretation of, and investment in, certain characters, its absence would not much alter actantial relations or narrative functions at the highest levels of FFX 's macrostructures. If players, like viewers, do not read far beyond the present scene (Tan, 1997; Vorderer, 1996), then detailed traits may function less to help players anticipate what will happen and more to allow players to retrospectively recognise the intelligibility and coherence of revealed behaviour. In this respect, the general significance of detailed traiting is the evocation of “roundedness” (Foster, 1927/1949), of complex motives and the inner life of an individual responding to events within the diegesis. As Tan (1997) argues:

The more depth there is to the individuation of a character, that is, the sharper the differentiation in terms of subtypes [and, we might add], the more real the character is and the higher the reality parameter of the situational meaning structure. (p. 171)

Character believability and psychological coherence are also governed by a readerly practice governed by the ideological tenet of individualism: the unity of the subject. As Barthes (1966/1988) argues, the proper name of a character provides a kind of assurance that, as the reader selects and organises semes scattered throughout the text, they will cohere, and this may be the case even if the representation is not in itself realistic, in that (as is evident in much modernist fiction) realistic representation is not necessarily consistent with psychological verisimilitude. In this respect, as Culler (1975) argues:

The process of selecting and organizing semes is governed by an ideology of character, implicit models of psychological coherence which indicate what sorts of things are possible as character traits, how these traits can coexist and form wholes, or at least which traits coexist without difficulty and which are necessarily opposed in ways that produce tension and ambiguity. (pp. 236-237)

Figure 5.4. Character summaries from FFX Game Manual (2001, p. 7). The pictures of Tidus, Yuna, Lulu and Auron are not identical to those in the manual.

	Tidus: Tidus is a cheerful, rising blitzball star playing for the Zanarkand Abes. He has long resented his father, who was a renowned player himself before his untimely death. Tidus's quick moves allow him to attack even the swiftest foes with ease.
	Yuna: Daughter of High Summoner Braska. Honest and determined, Yuna embarks on a pilgrimage to obtain the Final Aeon and defeat Sin. Yuna is learning the mystical art of summoning aeons – spirits of yore.
	Wakka: Coach and captain of the local blitzball team, the Besaid Aurochs. Wakka plans to retire from the sport after this year's tournament, so that he can dedicate himself fully to serving as Yuna's guardian. His deadly blitzball is especially useful for shooting down aerial enemies.
	Lulu: One of Yuna's guardians. She and Wakka think of Yuna as a younger sister. Lulu's stoic and self-possessed nature makes her appear insensitive at times. She specialises in the art of black magic.
	Kimahri Ronso: A young warrior of the Ronso tribe, Kimahri has watched over Yuna from her youngest days. He speaks little, but is deeply devoted to Yuna and serves her loyally as a guardian. Kimahri can learn enemy skills with his Lancet ability.
	Auron: The legendary guardian who, together with High Summoner Braska, defeated Sin ten years before. A man of few words, he guides Yuna and Tidus on their mission to vanquish Sin once more. He swings his gigantic sword with such power that even the toughest fiends are cut asunder.
	Rikku: A young Al Bhed girl. Her personality is upbeat, and she is not afraid to speak her mind. She works hard to restore her outcast people to their former glory. Rikku handles mechanical devices with ease, and can steal items from enemies too.

Barthes (1966/1988) uses the term “indices” (p. 106) to refer to narrative information whose function is principally the signification of “being,” or, more broadly, “reality.” Where these indices are associated with a character, they function less to guide functional transformations of the narrative macrostructure than to construct a sense that the characters have a psychology and to evoke the sense of a habitable diegesis. This kind of information is evident in the summaries that FFX 's manual provides for the main characters (see Figure 5.4).

Tidus' “cheerful”-ness may be retrospectively significant if players realise that it is a way of staving off his fear and abandonment. This is made explicit in his discussion with Yuna at Luca, when they agree to laugh in the face of their unhappiness, partly for the sake of others. Yuna's beauty and innocence make it unlikely that the player will expect that Yuna is knowingly going towards her death. However, when this fact is revealed, the earlier traiting of her as “honest and determined,” as well as compassionate and committed to public duty, make this surprise intelligible and logical.

That Wakka “plans to retire” will gain significance if the player realises that Wakka is, in effect, giving up because his team has never won a game and wants revenge against Sin for the death of his brother. That Lulu's “stoic and self-possessed nature makes her appear insensitive” facilitates players' impression of Tidus' surprise when he overhears her talking with Wakka on the bridge of the S. S. Kilika. Here Lulu betrays the feelings beneath her sharp cynicism. Later, in the Calm Lands, Tidus learns that another Summoner died while Lula was acting as her Guardian, which provides an explanation for her attitude. That Kimahri “watched over Yuna from her youngest days” and is “deeply devoted” is later linked to him having found Yuna just after her father, Braska, died defeating Sin. That Kimahri “speaks little” is later given additional meaning because he was exiled from his own race and is in turn protective of new family: Yuna and the other Guardians. It takes Kimahri time to trust, and talk to, Tidus.

Auron's summary functions primarily to reinforce a sense of his distance and mystery, with the implication that, being older and having been on the quest before (a “legend”), he knows more than he is saying. This gains retrospective significance with each of his disclosures: that Jecht is alive; that Jecht is Sin; and that both Auron and Tidus are dead. Finally, that Rikku is “upbeat. . . not afraid to speak her mind [and] . . . works hard to restore her outcast people to their former glory” becomes significant when players discover how greatly her people, the Al Bhed, have suffered. As with Tidus and Yuna, her “upbeat” attitude is not merely a consequence of her youth or immaturity, but is, like Tidus' “cheerfulness,” a way of dealing with deeper sadness, and both she and Tidus form a seemingly over-optimistic pact to find a way to save Yuna.

FFX places much emphasis on the gradual revelation of the history behind, and the implications of, this indicial detail. In this respect, it cannot be charged with Skirrow's (1980) accusation that, because of the constant, first person perspective, “there can be no suspense based on knowing more (having seen more) than the protagonist” (p. 331). FFX functions as a character-centred, or “psychological” narrative, focused on “the protagonist's motives for what he or she does, and on how the protagonist will turn out” (Abrams, 1988, p. 119), and the next few chapters elaborate upon of players' relationships to characters in more detail.

Game Macrostructures

Character Classes and Trait-Dependant Character Types

Figure 5.3. (a) Tidus fights Kimahri in Besaid (“Attack an enemy with equipped weapon”). (b) Tidus fights Sin's fin en route to Kilika (“Attack with magic and Wakka's ball”).

While the narrative macrostructure of FFX may be seen as having the complexity expected of some print and film texts, the game macrostructures would seem more amenable to the criticisms levelled against video game characters. Unlike narrative possibilities, which may be of near-infinite range, anticipation in combat is limited to a character or monster's attacks and defences (Figure 5.3). Having weighed the strategic value of an action, a player's concern is whether it has improved the probability of winning the battle (“Has my character hit? How much damage was inflicted?”). In this respect, many action-based video games may be seen as analogous to the plot-driven “novel of incident,” which is focused not on characters in themselves but on “what the protagonist will do next and on how the story will turn out” (Abrams, 1988, p. 119). In a combat macrostructure, the “characters” are mere agents of a strategy: to win the battle. More detailed characterisation therefore might be seen as impeding the flow of game-events.

If anticipation about character types finds its crudest organization in actantial roles or types, then it can be argued that strategies in combat often find their crudest organization in the typing of a character according to “class” types. The use of “character classes” to define generic ergodic strategies within game macrostructures can be traced back to table-top role-playing games (RPGs), of which Gary Gygax's AD&D (1978) is the archetype. In the first edition of AD&D , the classes and subclasses were: “fighter,” with subclasses of “paladin” and “ranger”; “magic-user,” with the subclass of “illusionist”; “cleric,” with the subclass of “druid”; “thief,” with the subclass of “assassin”; and “monk” (Gygax, 1978, p. 13). Other RPGs and computer role-playing games (CRPGs) offered additional classes; the classes in earlier Final Fantasy included: “knight,” “monk,” “thief,” “dragoon,” “ninja,” “samurai,” “archer,” “berserker,” “mystic knight,” “white mage,” “black mage,” “time mage,” “blue mage,” “red mage,” “chemist,” “elemental,” “bard” and “dancer.” However, most subclasses or variations may be seen as variations or combinations of the main classes of cleric, fighter, magic-user and thief. Furth ermore, while FFX does not specify classes, and has no option for initial character creation, players familiar with (C)RPGs, early Final Fantasy titles, or even fantasy literature, will be predisposed to see characters in terms of these class types on the basis of generic classes of action.

Character classes are primarily determined on the basis of statistics which perform a particular game-function. In AD&D there are six traits: strength (STR), dexterity (DEX), constitution (CON), intelligence (INT), wisdom ( WIS ) and charisma (CHA). As Myers (1992) argues, these statistics determine the (internal) relationship within a character and the (external) relationship between a character and the game world, and are modelled on a rudimentary conception of physics. Characters' defensive capabilities are expressed “as some combination of density (con) and volume (size)” while offensive capabilities “are calculated by (mass x linear velocity), which equals momentum (str), and/or by acceleration, which would add a time factor (dex) to velocity” (p. 423). This reductive “physics” extends to magical and spiritual attacks based on INT and WIS, at least to the extent that intelligence and wisdom function quantitatively as mental density, volume, momentum and speed in the calculation of attack, defence and damage. STR, then, modifies attack, CON modifies hit points, and DEX modifies defence. INT and WIS modifies spell-casting abilities, while CHA modifies interaction with NPCs. For Myers, these statistics provide a consistent representation of “character” in gaming terms across a range of gaming styles: a universal model of ergodic capabilities analogous to Bordwell's (1989) general model of a “folk-psychology” of character traits (pp. 151).

In AD&D particular traits were seen as “prime requisites” (PR) for a class, that is, certain traits associated with that class were expected to be particularly high. The PR for fighters was STR, but they also tended to have high CON and low INT and WIS. The PR of magic-users was INT ( WIS for a cleric), though a high DEX gave them a chance of casting spells before physical characters could attack them. However, magic-users usually had a very low STR and CON. Since thieves avoided combat like magic-users they also had a low STR and CON; their PR was DEX, which was used to calculate such special actions as lock-picking, moving silently, and firing long-range weapons.

While FFX uses different statistics (table 5.1), some of its statistics perform the same (or component) function(s), and/or statistics which in AD&D were modified by principle statistics, are principle statistics. For example, characters have Strength, which modifies attack damage, but instead of CON (which modified hit points), Hit Points (HP) is a principle statistic, as is Defence (DEF), which reduces the amount of damage taken. CON can only be inferred on the basis of HP and DEF. In place of DEX, characters have Agility (which determines the frequency of attack in the queue of turn-based combat), Evade (which increases the chance of completely evading an attack), and Accuracy (which affects their chances of striking opponents). In many RPGs, these functions are all determined by DEX. Indeed, the role of DEF in the reduction of damage is modified by DEX in some RPGs, owing to the dextrous use of weapon and armour. Instead of INT and WIS as generic modifiers for, respectively, magical and clerical actions, characters in FFX have Magic Attack, Magic Defence, and Mana, which serve for both.

CHA is a significant exception because it is visible through FFX 's visual, dramatic representation. In RPG terms, Yuna would have a high CHA because of her manifest physical attractiveness, the loyalty of her Guardians, and the adoration of the folk of Spira. Wakka, while relatively handsome, is fairly colloquial (his use of “Yah” is, like a Cockney accent, an index of poor education and/or lower-class sensibilities) and inadvertently bullying (putting Tidus in a headlock to convince him to join the Besaid Aurochs). He is also poor at expressing himself (speaking hesitantly with one hand behind his head), and his inflexible faith sometimes makes him antisocial (he is confrontational when the Law of Yevon is challenged). In RPG terms, Wakka would have a low CHA, though in RPGs which make the distinction he might be said to have a high Appearance (APP).

Upon the basis of these statistics and abilities, each character in FFX may be seen as a weighted distribution of the standard character classes. Auron conforms to the fighter type because of his high Strength; Lulu conforms to the magic-user type because of her high Magic Attack; Yuna conforms to the cleric type because of her healing spells (though her Aeons are a cross between the fighter and magic-user type); and Rikku conforms to the thief type because of her high Speed, and Steal and Mix abilities. Wakka may be seen as a “long-range attack” subclass of the fighter type (like an archer), because of his use of blitzballs, and Tidus, while primarily identified with the fighter type, has spells like a magic-user, and a high DEX (as well as a Flee Ability and Haste spells), like a thief. Kimahri, with a smaller personal section on the Grid Sphere, and the capability to learn enemy attacks through his Lancet ability, is the most malleable character, and because of his size and strength might be seen as a fighter multi-class.

Squaresoft's Final Fantasy X: The Official Strategy Guide (2002), like most RPG manuals, includes a bestiary listing each monster's generic statistics. Inasmuch as monsters operate using the same game mechanics and statistics as characters, players may, at a coarse level, type monsters as a variation or combination of character class types. In this respect, an Adamantoise, with great Strength (38), Defence (90) and high Hit Points (54400), may be typed as a fighter. A Dark Element, with its low Strength (1) and Hit Points (1800) but high Magic Points (280) and various magic attacks ( Reflect, Bio, Osmose, Drain), may be typed a magic-user. A Chimera, with its high Strength (25), middling Magic Points (130), and various magic attacks ( Thundara, Aqua Breath, Megiddo Flame, Assault) is a fighter/magic-user multi-class. The Sanctuary Keeper, with its high Strength (37) and Defence (100), its high Hit Points (40000), magical attacks, and Healing ability, might be seen as a fighter/magic-user/cleric multi-class.

Since high-level clerical spells defend against undead but also include spells such as Zombie and Doom associated with and/or used by undead, Yunalesca might be seen as an “evil cleric.” Thief monster types, identified with the possession of high Speed and Steal ability, are relatively rare in FFX , though in FFVII there are duck-billed Bandits that steal items and then disappear in a puff of smoke. We may see the Basilisks disguised as treasure chests in the Omega Ruins as an “anti-thief”-type since they only transform and attack when a character attempts to steal from them. Lastly, whereas Lulu, as magic-user, has access to all elemental spells, many monsters are typed according to a particular element—Fire, Blizzard, Water or Thunder—which affects their attack and defence values. A Grenade, for example, always uses a Fire-based attack. Of course, there are also many multi-elemental-types: the Chimera, for example, is capable of Fire, Water and Thunder elemental attacks.

In this respect, primary attributes guide a rudimentary top-down classification of characters and monsters for the purposes of ergodic capability in combat macrostructures. Once players identify Tidus, Kimahri and Auron as Warriors, they know that their position should always be at the front and that they will do the majority of the fighting. When players encounter an opponent that is immune to, or has protection against, physical attacks, they know that they should use Lulu's mental attacks. When they encounter an opponent that is immune to, or has protection against, a certain element, they know that they should use other, or opposing, elemental attacks. When characters are near death, players know to use Yuna to heal them (though, as a slight deviation from type, Yuna's Aeons are used to weaken or finish off major opponents). When players wish to do damage to a distant opponent, they know to use Wakka, and when they wish to steal or mix items they know to use Rikku. This basic strategy is sufficient to allow the player to defeat most of the game's opponents.

However, even if players learn monster statistics through FAQs and spoilers, the average and Model Player will acquire knowledge about many monster types through experimentation. Indeed, many FAQs, including the relevant Playstation Solutions (Pattison, 2002) magazine, only offer hints, not complete details. Furthermore, the permutations of combat are enormous— Playstation Solutions (pp. 16-27) lists 182 enemies to be found in FFX , which may be combined in combinations of up to three monster types, against three characters (chosen from seven) on a turn-by-turn basis. In any case, many “boss” monsters are the sole instance (token) of their type, and players must construct a new model of their type during the encounter (albeit guided by other types).

Realism in Character Development: Semic Categories

While character classes and monster types may define a general strategy or guide to anticipating future events, in practice the semic attribution of each character is not static. Indeed, players might begin by distinguishing between static and dynamic semes. “ Static semes ” could refer to traits possessed by a character as a linguistic term or quality (“health”), equivalent to the persistent type traits identified above. As stated, each character in FFX has a fixed series of semes, including Hit Points, Mana, Attack, Magic Attack, Defence, and Magic Defence. “ Dynamic semes” could refer to quantitative representations of a static trait, where a trait is assigned a different numerical value. In FFX , each character's numerical trait for HP or MP is represented as a ratio against a (current) maximum. For example, Tidus' HP might be 70/100, and his MP is 80/80, but during a battle, his current HP may drop to 50/100. Yuna then may heal him to 100/100, only for him to be attacked again and for his HP to drop to 20/100. Such numerical variations might be equated with adverbial qualifications, in that, instead of having a series of semes (“seriously injured,” “badly injured,” “slightly injured,” “not injured”) a single seme may be marked by a more precise measure of degree (25, 50, 75 or 100 out of a 100).

However, character traits are not dynamic solely because they fluctuate within a predefined range. A s characters go up levels, the range of traits may alter (as when maximum health points are increased) and/or characters may gain additional traits, or Abilities (such as Heal, Echo Screen and Zombie). Furthermore, i f psychological coherence is a sign of realism in narrative macrostructures, experience-related character development is a sign of realism in game macrostructures. For example, i n early text- and graphical-CRPGs, like Rogue (1980) and The Bard's Tale (1982), players chose a class for a character during character creation, and this determined the weapons and armour that character could use and a fixed line of development. For example, the experience required to advance a level, and the spells gained with these level, was particular to each class. Later CRPGs, such as Baldur's Gate (1997), allowed for the kind of multi-class characters (such as fighter-druid) found in the AD&D rule system, and some, such as Daggerfall: The Elder Scrolls (1994), have taken up action- or option- based skill development systems. In Daggerfall: The Elder Scrolls (1994) and Everquest (2000), the more frequently a skill (say, 1H Attack or Sense Heading) is used, the more quickly it develops, such that skill development is a crude simulation of real-life experience: practice leads to improvement. In most contemporary CRPGs, the player has some freedom to select which statistics or skills he/she wants to develop. This not only provides for some nominal realism, it offers functional diversity: an individual character can incorporate the characteristics of more than one character class. This is extremely important in long single-character games because options which otherwise would have been regretfully excluded on the basis of the initial character choice remain open to players.

The system of character development in FFX partially reflects this trend. At a certain point, players may choose for their characters to develop skills more “natural” to another type, such that Tidus may learn Lulu's higher-level magical spells. However, each character has a separate paradigm of weapons available to him/her, and each character begins at a certain point on the Grid Sphere, which partially determines the sequence of skill acquisition. The phrase “static semic paradigm (diegetic)” can be used to refer to the set of semes that a character can acquire within the game's diegesis. For example, there are a range of items any character can collect—such as Potions, Elixirs, Phoenix Downs and Grenades—as well as character-specific weapons and armour. All characters can potentially acquire all the Abilities on the Grid Sphere, including new Abilities, but each character's ease or order in acquiring these varies. Other abilities, such as Overdrives and Overdrive Modes, are character-specific. The phrase “dynamic semic range (diegetic)” could be used to refer to the quantitative limits—current and/or absolute (static) minimum and maximum—that are placed on characters' dynamic semes within the diegesis. In FFX , there is a universal 9999 Damage Limit. This prevents characters from becoming too powerful and upsetting the game's balance—though FFX eventually offers players a Limit Break, which allows characters to inflict more than 9999 damage.

Despite the freedom for unique character development on the Grid Sphere, the initial principle statistics mean that characters' functional capabilities do not greatly depart from their class type, at least, not relative to one another. For example, Lulu's physical attacks are never as high as Auron's, just as Auron's mental attacks are never as high as Lulu's. Consequently, “non-natural” skills may only be used in a supplementary fashion when primary attacks are unavailable. When Lulu is suffering from a Silence status and cannot cast spells, players fall back on her minimal physical attacks, and when Auron is suffering from a Darkness status, and keeps missing, players are better served by using one of his spells (if he has any). Lastly, whereas combat in early (C)RPGs yielded generic experience points, FFX has character-specific quests which lead to the acquisition of particular skills, such as finding Jecht's spheres (which allow Auron to learn his Overdrives), and the side quests required to find the Celestial (Ultimate) Weapons of each character. Here narrative development overlaps with character development, offering the minimal realism of experience-based development.

It should be foregrounded that the attribution of static and dynamic semes extends to each item possessed by a character. While some items have a fixed use (especially quest items like the Spheres used in the Trials of the Fayth) most weapons and armour can be “customised” by using up certain items. For example, Tidus' Vigilante sword has two blank slots, and two Ability Spheres can be “spent” to give his Vigilante the Sensor ability. This leads to a cybernetic conjunction of both the item and character: the weapon itself changes the character's statistics, but the character's attack and defence determine the effectiveness of the weapon. Even if the only use of an item is to sell it, this will alter the semic attribution of Gil in the party's and merchant's inventory, which affects the potential items purchased in the future.

Semic Relations in Combat Macrostructures

In RPGs, quantitative semes apply to a wide range of activities, such as forcing open doors, jumping long distances, lifting heavy objects, swimming underwater, picking locks, and so on. In FFX , character semes primarily serve a function in combat. While a suspenseful (blow-by-blow) battle sequence in a film or print narrative may lead to dynamic changes in the level of danger posed to characters, in video games these semes fluctuate in a more quantifiable sense. The related consequence of this semic complexity and dynamism is that any attempt to complete each fight solely on the basis of basic class types would fail in certain battles, or would at least not provide the optimum strategy, since often a specific skill or spell is required to damage an opponent, and it may be necessary to use characters who possess the skill but are not typed by it.

For example, while Tidus is the character whose developmental path leads directly to the spells Haste and Hastega, Rikku might be a better choice to acquire and use those spells, since, being the faster character, she might be able to cast them before a monster has a chance to attack. Similarly, when a character is near death players do not care that Yuna is the prized healer; the only concern is that at least one character has a healing spell or potion. In this respect, despite the generic class-types in FFX , characters are in some respects not just types or classes, since at a certain point of development they may deviate so much from a type that their character becomes their class. More than this, players cannot base their entire strategy upon class types since more specific semic attributions inform player's ergodic choices, such as to which character to rotate into the battle, which attack to use, when to heal, when to cast defensive spells, and so on.

Mapping semic oppositions in combat macrostructures by way of Greimasian squares is useful where it reflects the minimal grammars of game logic coded by the game, and, by implication, the ergodic, semic, and/or symbolic codes that players use to make decisions in combat. That is, while players may sometimes utilise class or character types to make decisions during combat, combat strategy is often based upon a series of significant oppositions that define the effectiveness of a particular attack. For example, certain mental defences block physical attacks, certain monsters are only susceptible to physical attacks, and characters with mental attacks have low physical attacks and defence. Using a physical attack or defence in place of a mental attack or defence, then, is often not a matter of strategy, but necessity.

Care must be taken in using a Greimasian semiotic square to map the confluence of ergodic choices and player schemata since, as Jameson argues, the term which is taken as primary will affect the results (Greimas, 1987, p. xv-xvi). The fighter class, with his physical attributes, is the most logical primary term. The fighter class (or its variation) offers the easiest introduction to most CRPG systems, since fighters do not usually use many spells or class-specific skills, and players can fall back on the basic game mechanics of movement and swinging a blade. Furthermore, as Myers (1992) observes, the statistics in RPGs may often be grouped according to a distinction between “physical” and “mental” characteristics: strength, constitution and dexterity versus intelligence, wisdom and charisma (p. 423). That is, “physical” can be taken as the primary term, S1, identifiable with the attacks of the fighter and thief classes, or, more specifically, with Auron, Kimahri, Tidus, Wakka and Rikku. The second term, S2, “mental,” may be identified with the magician and cleric's magical attacks, or, more specifically, with Yuna and Lulu. The third term, -S1, or not-physical, might be referred to as “immaterial,” where one attacks but misses because of a low attack “roll” (one literally strikes empty air). The fourth or paradoxical term, -S2, or not-mental, might be referred to as “imaginary,” where, because of paralysis or unconsciousness, the attack turn could not be taken in the first place. The utopian term, S, could be identified with “combo” attacks, as when one performs a physical attack with a weapon that also has a mental component (Tidus' Liquid Steel has a Waterstrike ability), or a mental attack that does non-mental damage (Gravity magic does non-elemental damage). The neutral term, –S, could be identified with avoidance of battle.

Second, a distinction between direct and indirect attacks is important in that a long-range attack cannot (usually) be used at close quarters (Wakka's blitzball is an exception), and a hand-to-hand attack cannot be used except at close quarters (as when there are two ranks of opponents, which is frequent with robot opponents). Furthermore, physically weak characters may be held in the second row so that they are protected from direct, physical attack. If “direct” is taken as the primary term, S1, may refer to action in close proximity, associated with the fighter-type. Auron's, Tidus', and Kimahri's physical attacks may be included here, though in practice Wakka's blitzball, and all spells, also operate at close proximity. The second term, S2, “indirect action,” may refer to action-at-a-distance, which is only possible using the long-range attacks of the magic-user, cleric and thief types, including Wakka's blitzball attacks, Lulu's spells, and Rikku's Mix Ability, or throwing an item. The third term, -S1, not-direct action, might be labelled a “circumspect” strategy, referring to when one tries to cycle a character in and out of combat so as to avoid retribution. The fourth term, -S2, not-indirect-action, might be labelled “avoidance” and could refer to when one does not cycle a character into combat. The utopian term, S, might be identified with certain attacks that may be either direct or indirect, including Wakka's blitzball attacks and many of Lulu's spells. The neutral term, -S, could refer to complete inaction: again, completely avoiding battle.

There is also a clear distinction between attacks that inflict damage to an opponent and actions which heal the character being controlled. If “damage other” is taken as the primary term, S1, including the physical and mental attacks of the fighter, magic-user and thief, the second term, S2, “heal self,” could be identified with healing spells of the clerical type. The third term, -S1, not-damage other, could be called “damage self,” and could refer to when one inflicts damage on another friendly character to remove one or both of the status ailments Sleep and Confusion. The fourth or paradoxical term, -S2, not-heal self, or “heal other” could refer to status changes or defence spells, such as Haste, cast upon oneself or a friendly character, or to status changes, such as Curse or Slow, inflicted upon an opponent. The utopian term, S, might be identified with such situations as when characters cast Heal on an opponent with Zombie status and thereby inflict damage by healing their negative health status (being undead), or when a monster tries to Heal itself but characters have inflicted it with a Reflect status such that the healing effect is deflected onto the characters. The neutral term, -S, could be identified with passing, missing, or avoiding an attack.

Players also must pay attention to the elemental attributes of the attacker and defender, which operate as a simplified pair of oppositions: Fire opposes Blizzard, and Thunder opposes Water. A monster is immune to its own element, but takes double damage from its opposing element, such that a strategy often simply requires typing the enemy according to an element. For example, since a Grenade (monster) absorbs Fire magic, players are cued to use characters with Blizzard-based attacks (or, if they are not available, Thunder- or Water-based attacks). However, in some instances the elemental attributes cannot be generalised and depend upon the specific combat turn. T he Spherimorph in the woods of Macalania seems nothing more than a shapeless, watery blob, so players are tempted to use Thunder-based elemental attacks, but these are as likely to heal the monster. Scanning it leads to a Counterattack against all party members, punishing players for not working out its “nature” through experimentation, but trial and error allows players to realise that, while its appearance does not change, the creature periodically transforms into a different elemental form. It is healed by attacks and spells of its current state, and only suffers adequate damage from attacks and spells of the opposing type. Similarly, w hen players first fight Seymour they learn that he casts his elemental attacks in a particular sequence, and by anticipating this sequence players can cast a series of elemental defence spells in the appropriate order. When players encounter Seymour the last time, his elemental attack type cycles according to rotating coloured spheres that surround him, and players need to adapt their elemental attacks to this sequence.

It must be emphasised that the theoretical categories nominated above do not represent actual structures in the game. The game's computation is more complex than this. However, many of the oppositions nominated above are significant in that they represent the game's ergodic codes and constitute a grammar of combat strategy. If we accept that the S and –S positions tend towards abstraction, and that even the –S1 and -S2 positions may only be applicable in certain situations, then players may tend to base their decisions on the basic oppositions nominated by S1 and S2. Nonetheless, even if a general strategy is based upon basic types, each decision is determined through the basis of bottom-up processing of individual semes in relation to the total set of active semes.

Indeed, many battles require not just a cycling through of recurring attack types by particular characters but a step-by-step, goal-driven cognitive strategy. While t here are sometimes several successful strategies in killing boss monsters like Sin, Yunalesca and Braska's Final Aeon, these strategies sometimes require up to an hour to complete, and finding them through experimentation can require many more hours of trial runs. There are, it should be noted, Save Spheres and wandering monsters next to “boss” monsters so that players can pause to develop their characters if they are not strong enough, in the hope that the next Ability acquired may unlock a new strategy. Yet players may not know how long to keep developing their characters, leading to protracted sessions in which they alternate between minor battles and trying to defeat the “boss.”

When players cannot find an appropriate strategy, or do not wish to waste time doing so, they are likely to search out a FAQ document. The Playstation Solutions (2002) guide, for example, offers the following extended strategy for fighting Yunalesca, who has three forms, each with their respective statistics:

Rather than using up your Overdrives on the first form, it's more effective to save them all for the third form. After casting Protect, Shell and Haste, have Yuna back up the attackers by healing everyone is the best way to go. For the first form just keep chipping away at her with the heavy hitters, pausing to cure any status effects Yunalesca tosses your way. During the second form Yunalesca will inflict Zombie status on all the characters. Normally this spell should be countered immediately but the boss also follows this up with Mega Death. While Mega Death usually kills instantly, it has no effect on Zombie characters, so it's a better idea to stay in Zombie status during this battle. When the third form is triggered the boss will hit you with Mega Death and continue to soften you up with Hell Biter. Use your Aeons' Overdrives now. Shiva is the most effective. Attack with Shiva's Diamond Dust first, then follow that up with its Heavenly Strike. The Heavenly Strike can freeze Yunalesca, allowing you to score many hits. After bringing out other heavy hitting Aeons, like Bahamut, Yunalesca should be pretty close to death. (p. 66)

This strategy is governed by class types (“heavy hitters”), spell types (healing), specific spells (anyone with Protect, Shell and Haste), specific characters (Yuna), and specific attacks (Yuna's Aeons), as well as by dynamic semes (health and status). However, while it constitutes a relatively linear sequence it is only a generalised and simplified form of the specific sequence of actions that the player will produce when fighting Yunalesca. That is, as a strategy it consists of a series of interventions during a more aleatory series of strategic choices, and depends less upon what happened than whether or not the present state of the game allows for a present or future action. While a diachronic sense of “what happened” is registered as the vaguely remembered history of inter-related micro-game events that define a strategic trajectory, a player will be more attentive to the synchronic register of game-variables which define current possibilities. A player is less likely to attend to which spell was cast at what exact time earlier in the battle, than they are to be focused on the problem that they have no more Magic Points and cannot (now, or for the remainder of the battle) cast any more spells.

Conclusion

A mixture of structural analysis, ethnography, and/or other empirical research, could produce a more detailed account of the step-by-step process whereby players make decisions, relative to an end-goal, during longer battles (see Loftus & Loftus, 1983). The mathematical tradition of game theory here would be useful in suggesting some of the decision-making processes in terms of risks and pay-offs (see Colman, 1982; Myerson, 1991; Thomas, 1984). However, the above account suffices to redress some of the criticisms made against the role of characters in video games. The player of FFX is likely to be engaged in a top-down attribution of character types in the narrative macrostructure that is equal or superior to many print and film narratives in its complexity, and the game demands constant and complex bottom-up processes of type-revision and semic attribution across both narrative- and ergodic-macrostructures. Both types of coding reinforce interest, either through suspense, surprise or curiosity at the history, motives and fate of characters, or through the development of a strategy in combat through experimenting with ergodic affordances. However, before appreciating the significance of the dual narrative and game coding of characters in any more detail, it is necessary to elaborate upon players' “feelings towards” characters (Tan, 1997, p. 154).

Footnotes

1. This document can be found under the title “Final Fantasy X: The Eternal Calm” at the Final Fantasy Shrine , last accessed January, 1, 2005 (http://www.ffshrine.org/ffx2/ ffx2_ec.php).