Chapter Six

Psychoanalytic Identification

The previous chapters have addressed some of the codes that structure players' interest in terms of expectations about, and the outcome of, narrative and game events. However, while the confirmation of a hermeneutic code may afford pleasure in and of itself, the interest players have in a sequence depends upon the relationships they have been formed with the subject-actants, or characters, in that sequence. In accounting for these relationships, recent researchers have drawn from the psychoanalytic model of identification initially used in film theory in the late 1960s. However, this account sits uneasily alongside recent cognitive work on film. While Bordwell (1986, p. 30) argues that the psychoanalytic model, with its emphasis on sexuality, gender, and the unconscious, does have a limited, or specialised, role in film theory, Carrol (1990) and Grodal (1997) argue that psychoanalysis is a flawed basis for film theory, since many of the basic processes of film reception are non-sexual, trans-gendered and conscious. It suffices to say that the pre-eminence of psychoanalytic theory in Cultural Studies means that it cannot be easily dismissed, and this chapter draws from Cowie's (1997) account to suggest what the psychoanalytic model of identification offers a theory of video gameplay in general and an analysis of FFX in particular.

From Primary to Partial, Multiple and Transitive Identification(s)

During the late 1960s, film theory began to draw upon Althussurian Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis to argue that the film screen operated much like ideology itself. For Baudry:

the spectator in the cinema ‘identifies with the camera' and perceives the events that are depicted in the image in the manner of a transcendental subject. That is, the spectator is not simply positioned by the image but assimilates her own vision to that of a camera-eye with limitless powers of vision and sees the world viewed through this eye in a way that appears unmediated. (1974, p. 20)

Metz (1975) referred to this as “the thesis of primary cinematic identification” (p. 20), arguing that the viewer was ideologically positioned at the centre of the visual field. The screen was here seen as an “imaginary signifier,” in the sense that no matter how realistic the images onscreen might have seemed, they were not produced from light reflected from an actual object but from a projector: that is, the light reflected off the screen was phenomenologically “real” but signified what was not present. As Tan (1997) summarises, this postulated a “tragic viewer” assuming:

the reflection of an imaginary, absent object, based on a lack of some kind, a shortcoming that is at once compensated for and constantly recalled. Film technique denies the existence of this lack, creating the illusion of presence; in this sense it is a fetish, a surrogate. (p. 155)

The cinematic viewer, then, uses a voyeuristic gaze, seeking wholeness in an image that is a fetish for its own absence, misrecognising his/her ideological position in relation to the images onscreen (Dayan, 1974; Heath, 1981; Oudart, 1977). The “cinematic apparatus” was therefore defined in terms of the way primary identification naturalised a false and unconscious ideological position for a subject, and Metz (1975) dismissed all other forms of identification, especially those with characters, as intermittent, referring to them collectively as “secondary identifications” (p. 58).

Oudart (1977) referred to the positioning of the subject as “suturing,” and Dayan (1974) argued that the shot/reverse shot sequence provided a space for the absent viewer relative to the multiple point of view onscreen shots. However, Rothman (1975) argued that Dayan (1974) too readily identified the operations of the cinematic apparatus with bourgeois ideology, and that what Dayan was referring to was a shot/reverse shot/shot sequence, which occurred less frequently than was asserted. Theorists such as Heath (1981) subsequently went on to argue that (the viewer's) space was governed by such cinematic codes and conventions as framing, cutting on action, eyeline match and the 180º and 30º rules. These are, of course, the dominant codes of the traditional realist feature film (Bordwell, 1986), and it was generally accepted that realism was the dominant mode that naturalised the interpellative process of the cinematic apparatus. Indeed, what Donald (1989) calls the “ Screen project” involved exposing or breaking primary identification through social criticism, or privileging Brechtian conventions of “alienation” or “distanciation” which made the viewer aware of how cinematic conventions positioned them.

This model has serious problems. Feminists criticized the Freudian/Lacanian model for presuming a male subject, though they corrected for this by analysing how female viewers identify with characters (Cowie, 1997; Mulvey, 1975/1992). More importantly, the cognitive account suggests that gendered and sexualised modes of gazing and identification must be taken as special cases of general perceptual, cognitive and affective processes. In terms of the previous chapter, identification may occur on the most minimal basis with any subject-actant which fulfils Bordwell's (1986) “person” schemata. This recognition is at the basis of Cowie's (1997) and Allen's (1997) position that viewers are often indifferent to the gender of characters: viewers identify with characters as humans with goals and motives that are being frustrated or fulfilled. So w hile gender may frequently be a significant factor in how viewers relate to characters it is not necessarily the basis for identification. Grodal (1997) acknowledges that some films employ “voyeurism in the trivial sense” (p. 105) of visual inspection, and that some films may explore issues of castration, but he argues vision has a broader ecological function of gaining information. For Grodal, reducing the cinematic gaze to voyeurism and fetishism gives an undue and over-generalised precedence to the sexual drive and castration anxieties.

Cowie (1997) offers a further qualification in her revision of the psychoanalytic position . Cowie cites Laplanche & Pontalis (1988) definition of identification as a:

psychological process whereby the subject assimilates an aspect, property or attribute of the other and is transformed, wholly or partially, after the model the other provides. (p. 205)

The important qualification here is “partially,” since identification is never total or timeless. As Cowie (1997) emphasises, there is a distinction between identification of something, as in: “I identify that figure as Tidus,” and identification with or as something, as in: “ I identify with Tidus.” Cowie argues that “these two processes involve a common element” (p. 72), which, in the above example, would take the form: “I am not Tidus”:

In order to identify, to make the same, an acknowledgement of difference is required, implying a separation prior to any assimilation with the object of identification. As a result, and in this gap, a psychological process comes into play. (p. 72)

Within the Lacanian (1977/2001) model, of course, what is born in this gap is desire itself, that is, a sense of lack born from the insufficiency one feels when faced with an image.

Upon this basis Cowie (1997) critiques Metz ' (1975) distinction between primary and secondary identifications. Cowie (1997) argues that w e may occasionally identify with the camera's perspective, but there is also a sense in which we do not identify with the camera. Whenever we are aware of the camera, or digital equivalent, panning, but are also aware that our head has not turned, there is a sense that a gaze has been provided for us. For Cowie, cinema constantly shifts between a mode in which it seems we are seeing things for the first time and a mode in which we are aware that what we are about to see has already been produced and therefore has already happened (p. 101). Indeed, suspense is often predicated upon the fact of an audience's awareness that certain events will (or have ) happened (pp. 101-102).

Identification with characters, which Metz ' dismisses as “secondary,” similarly is variable. There is always a general spatial and temporal gap, or distance, between the viewer/player and character. This idea finds its most complex elaboration in Lacan's (1977) “ graphe complet” (p. 348), according to which what we identify with is always somewhere else (“I am Tidus, but Tidus is there, and I am here”) and the act of representing it displaces it into the past (“Tidus is there , but the ‘is' I just referred to is prior to the moment I referred to it”) and the abstract play of language (“the word ‘Tidus' and the image of Tidus are not the Tidus I spoke of”). There are also particular physical and psychological differences between players and the characters with whom they identify. In FFX , Tidus is 17, but the player may be 30; Tidus is blonde, but the player may have brown hair; Tidus is high spirited, but the player may be withdrawn; Tidus' motivation includes the desire for intimacy with Yuna, but the player may be homosexual and desire Tidus. These physical and psychological differences extend to players' and characters' sensory modalities. If we emphasise that Tidus' sensory modalities are not realistically represented, and that players can therefore only imagine the “reality” of his experience, then we can acknowledge that: players do not taste or smell Tidus' blood, sweat and dirt; players' hearing is displaced by the television's speakers; the natural relationship between saccades and head movements is mediated by the way the program, or player, changes the “camera” perspective; and players do not physically move, walk, swing a sword, or dodge blows in the way that Tidus would experience.

Cowie (1997) concludes that Metz ' distinction between primary and secondary identifications is a false distinction, because transitory identifications “signify the incompleteness and insufficiency of the constitutive identifications” (p. 76), and in this respect it offers an artificial hierarchy of identification (p. 102). It is now accepted that viewers may identify with multiple positions in a dynamic progression, and that no one type of identification can be seen as pre-eminent in and of itself. One basis for this is Freud's (1919) “A Child is Being Beaten,” which: “demonstrates the possibilities for the subject of fantasy to participate in a variety of roles – sliding, exchanging and doubling in the interchangeable positions of the subject, object and observer” (Stam, Burgoyne and Flitterman-Lewis, 1992, p. 154). For example, players of FFX may, at one time, or over time, speak of, or perceive, Tidus as an external figure (“ He is attractive”), as oneself in the present (“ I am attractive”), as a future-self (“I will be attractive”), as a threat to oneself (“He is more attractive than me”), and so on. In this respect, what Metz (1975) dismissed as “secondary identifications” cannot be dismissed as posterior or inferior to “primary identification.”

Even with the qualification that identification is partial and transitory, Bordwell (1986) and Branigan (1991) argue that the psychoanalytic tradition makes undue presumptions about the relationship between point of view as optical perspective and point of view as a symbolic structure or set of values (a subject position). For Bordwell and Branigan, space is a device of narration, part of the total form of the filmic text, and affects the dissemination of information by concealing, revealing or framing certain objects and events. If narrative comprehension occurs by way of cognitive processes of deduction and inference about the causal logic of events, then focalisation has less to do with constituting subjectivity than regulating curiosity, suspense, and surprise. Grodal (1997) makes clear that focalisation does not in itself determine identification: that is, changing the optical (perceptual) point of view from one character to that of another does not necessarily mean that viewers shift their (conceptual) identification from one to the other. If the “camera” in FFX aligned itself with Seymour's optical perspective, that would hardly be sufficient for players to abandon their allegiance to Tidus in favour of Seymour's conceptual perspective: identification is conserved in ways that optical variations may jar, but do not usually sever.

Modes of Identification

The qualifications above undermine the possibility of analysing processes of identification and subjectification without closer analysis of a wide range of filmic and cognitive processes. W hat remains particularly useful in the psychoanalytic account, however, is its distinction between the “ ideal ego,” “ ego-ideals,” and the “ super-ego” (Cowie, 1977; Freud, 1921/1985; Lacan, 1977/2001). T hese three types of identification do not occur in a fixed order or hierarchy: they are all transitory and dynamic. While particular texts or media may motivate certain types more than others, no type can be exclusively identified with a text or medium, since they may operate simultaneously, in co-operation, or in conflict with one another. Indeed, it is precisely the inter-relationships between these identifications that is revealing, in that they foreground the dynamics of desire. As is argued below, these categories are useful in suggesting some of the ways players engage with video games in general, and FFX in particular.

Ideal Ego: The Indestructible Self

The first mode of identification with the ideal ego in the register of the real relates to “an image which restores to the subject its original narcissism, of being without flaw, omnipotent” (Cowie, 1997, p. 103). This is referred to as “primary narcissism,” even though the putative restoration of the subject is partial and nostalgic, since the desired state—of completeness and unity, of solipsism prior to the recognition of the Other—is already lost. As Cowie argues, the ideal ego “is not a set of ideal contents so much as a position, the place in which the subject is beyond reproach and, therefore, in a sense super-human” (p. 103). Consequently, identification with the ideal ego emerges not simply because of a character's traiting but because a character (or player) functions as omnipotent and/or invincible.

In FFX , certain characters offer fairly pronounced representations of the ideal ego in this sense. Auron's age, wisdom, mystery, legendary status, and power (and the fact that he has previously completed the quest to defeat Sin with Yuna's father) may be taken as a guarantee of his invulnerability and inevitable triumph over adversity (see Figure 6.1a). While FFX 's narrative tends to align the player with Tidus, as apart from and inferior to Auron, players regularly gain control of Auron during combat. However, Tidus himself performs some seemingly impossible tasks that position him as indestructible, such as sliding down the Airship's anchor cables over Bevelle while trying to rescue Yuna (see Figure 6.1b). The victory sequences at the end of each battle, which offer swinging camera views and close-ups of the victors to the accompaniment of triumphant music, may also be seen as offering phatic contact with the ideal ego. Furthermore, since the game's major opponents, such as Seymour , Sin, and Jecht, have powers on a scale beyond normal comprehension and constitute an aggressive challenge to the player's ego, their defeat may be seen as offering a sudden regression to the ideal position of primary narcisism.

Figure 6.1. (a) Auron as ideal ego, calmly walking through the hysterical crowd to confront the Fiends that disrupt the blitzball game at Luca. (b) Tidus about to rescue Yuna from Bevelle, performing the seemingly impossible feat of sliding down the Airship's anchor cables high over the city.

However, Yuna's Aeons (Valefor, Ifrit, Ixion, Shiva, Bahamut, Yohimbo, the Magus Sisters and Anima) offer an especially pronounced and routine form of the ideal ego. The constantly repeated sequences in which they are summoned function much like the transformation sequences found in superhero and anime television shows and films, such as Batman (1989) and Sailor Moon (2000), by staging an energetic anticipation of the indestructible force of the ideal ego. This anticipation is (usually) justified in that the Aeons do more damage than most characters and monsters, and, in their Overdrive mode, inflict 1000s of points of damage, devastating opponents with spectacles of elemental abandon (for example, the graphical sequences for Sonic Wings, Energy Ray, Meteor Strike, Hellfire, Heavenly Strike and Oblivion). Despite being Summoned, and therefore being positioned as subservient, the player directly controls Aeons, and is thereby given access to their power, which is beyond that of any human or mortal. After all, up until the final battle with Yu Yevon when all the Aeons are banished, it does not matter how often they are killed, they may be re-Summoned, offering the position of a metaphysical ego, beyond life and death, indestructible.

Since FFX is not just a narrative, but a game, the ideal ego is produced not simply through representations of characters with whom player are encouraged to identify, and/or control, but through the player entering into a confident state of mastery, either in terms of the performance of procedural schemata (the easy grace of the expert player navigating a game environment or mastering the game controls) or the abstract mastery associated with strategic cognitive operations (the player who has “demystified” a game so that s/he knows which strategies guarantee triumph). This confident mastery and identification with the ideal ego would initially seem to emerge from a state of flow ( Csikszentmihalyi, 1992). However, identification with the ideal ego is accompanied by self-grandeur and motivated by an anxiety about separation from a prior solipsistic sense of selfhood. By contrast, in a state of flow one is engaged in the present without any sense of self. Consequently, it could be said that identification with the ideal ego may emerge from a state of flow, but its emergence may mark the border of a state of flow: a conscious recognition of one's alienation from the process in which one was previously immersed.

Indeed, the principal relevance of the ideal ego to gameplay is the consequence of its loss whenever the limits of the player undermine identification with the ideal. The limits in question may relate to the player's sensorimotor coordination, his/her mastery of the interface/game, or his/her recognition of other characters and the game as separate entities (minds, narrative agents, narrators) that withhold information. That is, identification with ideal ego is lost every time the player is unable to advance in the game, for example, when s/he cannot work out where to go or how to advance in the Trials; it is lost every time the player loses in battle, leaving Tidus and the other characters dead; and it is lost every time the player becomes aware that the characters know more than s/he, for example, when players sense, but are not quite conscious of, Wakka's relationship to Lulu, Yuna's feelings for Tidus, and Auron's knowledge about the fate of Jecht. Indeed, the ideal ego is lost every time a player becomes conscious of salient physical or mental limits to his/her activities vis-a-vis the narrative/game world.

The significance of this loss is that identification with the ideal ego presumes a state of complete mastery, and any threat to it may be seen as cueing an action tendency to (re-) gain mastery. When this action tendency is frustrated, the player may fall into an aggressive pattern of trying to reassert his/her will, and each subsequent frustration may lead to a more pronounced and aggressive denial, leading to a cycle of affective amplification which may quickly pass from anger to rage. Indeed, it is such frustration of the ideal ego that is the basis of narcissistic rage in general (Lacan, 1977/2001), and an inability to reconcile with the reality of one's limitations is, developmentally and clinically speaking, the basis of a narcissistic pathology (Schore, 1994). Of course, the issue here is not pathology, but how sustained aggression towards a perceived source of frustration may lead to sadism as an active coping strategy. In other words, the repeated frustration of the ideal ego may be seen as a motivation for sadistic play, a point that will be elaborated in Chapter Eight in terms of the empathy players feel for themselves.

Ego-Ideals: The Desired and Desirable Self

The second form of identification pertains to ego-ideals in the register of the imaginary. It involves the subject identifying with an external image arising from the demands of others so that it can be lovable by the Other. This happens when “we identify with an image for the gaze of the Other, as the space from which we are desired by the other” (Cowie, 1997, p. 93). This is referred to as “secondary narcissism,” and Cowie suggests that it is invoked by cinematic close-ups, which (like mirrors or photographic images) promote that fundamental mode of identification in which “I am what I see.” However, identification with an ego-ideal is produced whenever an image is offered to a subject who interprets it as desirable (and seeks such desirability), and this may occur across the range of cinematic perspectives.

This is evident when we consider the two main psychoanalytic types of desirability. The first, the “narcissistic type,” includes love of what one is , love of what one was , love of what one would like to be , and love of what was once a part of oneself (Cowie, 1997, p. 80). It is generally concerned with relations to the self. The second, the “anaclitic type,” is directed towards the primary caregivers, usually the mother and father who feed, care and protect the self, and those who subsequently take on this role (p. 81). It is, then, generally concerned with one's relations with others. Laplanche (1976) sees the narcissistic-type as metaphoric, in that the narcissistic object-choice is made on the basis of similarity (p. 80). We may love our perceived imago , those that resemble that imago , or those that resemble others we would like to be. Since the perceived similarities may appear in a spatially, temporally, and causally separate image, this involves a transportation of desire. The anaclitic type, by contrast, is metonymic, in that it follows from a series of slippages, from breast, to milk, to nurturer, such that there is a greater spatial and causal connection between its objects. This involves a displacement of desire onto that which we perceive to be part of, or complementary to, us. However, in practice, identification with an ego-ideal may involve complex combinations or operations of both these types, the simplest case being that we often love what resembles our caregivers and we often love our caregivers as lost parts of ourselves. In terms of visual (photographic or cinematic) representation, the operation of metaphor and metonymy mean that not only close ups, but also partial, displaced or figurative images of body parts and objects may be taken as desirable if they are perceived as similar or related to an ego-ideal.

To take an extended example, Tidus' and Yuna's similar age (17), attractiveness, adolescent uncertainty, and role as public figures (blitzball star and Summoner) make the two mirrors of what the other is and desires to be. If a well-defined Other motivates narcissistic rage, then Yuna's familiarity marks her as not-Other, as part of Tidus (see Figure 6.2a). Certainly, because of Tidus' abandonment by his primary caregivers, Yuna, the hope and potential savoir of Spira, presents as a pre-eminent surrogate caregiver, in the sense of making Tidus feel loved and important. Of course, within a traditionally gendered social context Yuna's vulnerable femininity also implies the need for Tidus to take on the masculine role of Guardian. The image of a positive likeness is thereby complemented by traditional gender roles and an equation of mutual desirability in which the differences between Tidus and Yuna are part of a larger unity. Tidus' gaze in Figure 6.2b therefore may be read as betraying a mixture of admiration, a desire for intimacy, and protectiveness.

Figure 6.2. (a) Tidus and Yuna Sin together. (b) Tidus steals a glance at Yuna.

However, as is evident from their conversation at Kilika, what Yuna especially desires from Tidus is his cheerfulness, his ability to make her laugh in the face of impending death. This morale-boosting role is metonymic of the moral support provided by many of the citizens of Spira, through which the party pass on their journey, and which finds its most utopian moment when the population of Spira all start singing “The Hymn of the Fayth” to help calm Sin. Indeed, while Tidus' role as an ego-ideal may depend upon his role of protecting and supporting Yuna, she is Spira's protector and saviour. It is her unique power as a Summoner that is capable of defeating Sin and bringing the Great Calm. Furthermore, the people of Spira offer support for both Yuna and Tidus. Besides overt compliments and encouragement, passers-by offer free items, such as healing potions. The protection of Yuna and saving of Spira therefore may be seen as a means of achieving a deferred state in which one is protected and provided for by Spira, a form of desirability-in-perpetuity. Yuna is metonymic of Spira and her gaze stands in for that of Spira's in defining what one would like to be. In this case, one's desire to be desired by Yuna, and one's subsequent identification with an ego-ideal associated with the trait of cheerfulness, involves providing for and protecting Yuna whilst being protected by her in the hope that Spira will provide for and protect oneself in the future.

These transitive identifications are, of course, ruptured whenever the partiality of identification (the disparity between ego-ideal and self) becomes evident, or when Tidus conducts himself in a way that affects his desirability (when he does something shameful or embarrassing). For example, in Sanubia Sands, after Yuna is kidnapped by the Al Bhed, Tidus learns that Yuna must die if she is to be successful in her quest to kill Sin, and that the Al Bhed kidnapped her precisely to protect her from such a fate. He also learns that everyone but he knew this, and is ashamed that his upbeat talk about the end of the quest hurt her. At this moment, Tidus role as ego-ideal is undermined. However, transitive identification is resumed when the desire of the Other is reconstituted. When the other characters finally rescue Yuna in Bevelle, and Tidus takes her to one side to apologise for his inconsiderate comments, her acceptance of him suggests that their relationship has in fact deepened, and Tidus is recuperated as an ego-ideal.

We also can argue that, if the ideal ego may be constituted by a position rather than a set of contents, then similarly a character onscreen may become a desirable ego-ideal because of the way the game positions it and the player. As in many video games, Tidus is a desirable ego-ideal simply on the basis that he, in particular, is requested and needed by the Other, constituted by a relay of signifiers ranging from individual characters, such as Auron, Wakka and Yuna, through to the collective of Spira, or all humanity. That is, the game indirectly recruits the player as the displaced ego of Tidus to rescue the helpless (the people of Spira), kill monsters (wandering monsters, the Chocobo Eater, key opponents such as Seymour ), and free the land (Spira). In doing so, Tidus is loved and rewarded with gratitude from the Other (the population of Spira, Yuna, and the other Guardians) and a love-object (wealth, power, Yuna, the extended family of the Guardians). That is, the entire world of Spira is under threat from Sin, and the fate of Spira depends upon the actions of the player as Tidus' displaced ego, or, conversely, Tidus as the player's principal alter ego.

It is precisely because the entire game world is under threat and no one else can (or is available to) perform the task that we can thoroughly accept our role. The Other's demand for the hero's performance is itself a last hope, and may be read in two ways. First, we may see the individual as the last choice: no one else is available, which may be taken as an affront or as an opportunity to prove oneself a hero that has been previously unrecognised. Second, we may see the hero as the first and only choice: no one else is important or special enough, in which case the hero will perform and confirm an already-acknowledged heroism. The latter impression may be seen as facilitating identification with the ideal ego in the register of the real, but within the register of the imaginary the special status of the hero is significant as a basis for desirability, in that it points to a particular ego-ideal that is desired by the other. Lastly, while the hoped-for love from the other is at its most pronounced when the call is made (each time a character states how much the hero is needed) the player may see this desirability reinforced by the simple act of survival and may feel that even in failure one is loved, at least temporarily or partially, because no one else got so far. One may remain a hero, relative to other failures.

The distinctiveness of identification with ego-ideals, compared with identification with the ideal ego, is particularly revealing when we consider the dual coding of characters across narrative- and game macrostructures, as addressed in Chapter Five. We might restate this dual coding in terms of, on the one hand, the representational coding of characters for observation (primarily in narrative sequences), and, on the other hand, the functional coding of characters for ergodic purposes (primarily determining a character's effectiveness in combat). This can lead to two opposing attitudes towards the same character. For example, a player might find Wakka desirable because his physical appearance connotes physical strength, health and exoticism. However, Wakka's low hit points and un-masculine attack of throwing a blitzball may cue the player to reappraise him, or to experience a dual or ambivalent identification with him as an ideal ego and/or ego-ideal.

This problem is most clear when a player deliberately equips his/her character(s) with functionally inferior weapons because of an aesthetic preference, or abandons an aesthetic preference for the sake of functionality. In FFX , a player may choose to give Tidus a different name and/or may choose one weapon over another. For example, a player may choose Tidus' Liquid Steel blade over his Vigilante blade because the former appears more powerful. It is also conceivable that a player may prefer Tidus' Deathbringer blade to his Heartbreaker blade solely on the basis of the connotations of their respective names. Alternately, a player may begrudgingly sacrifice Tidus' Liquid Steel blade for the sake of a better weapon, but may make the point of retaining the item in the inventory such that it retains its indexical relationship to Tidus. This problem is more pronounced in CRPGs which offer greater freedom to customise characters' clothing and weapons. In Daggerfall: The Elder Scrolls (1994), for example, a player may attire his/her character in black skin tights, leather armour and daggers because they conform to a particular ego-ideal: romantic connotations of night-time, thieves, assassins, the underworld and sneaky voyeurism. However, these items have lower statistics than other available items, such as banded armour and double-bladed weapons, in regards to their effect in the game. Players in video games, then, may approach or evaluate their characters in representational and/or functional terms, such that a character may be aesthetically desirable as an ego-ideal (attracting the desire of others) but functionally undesirable and therefore less effective as an ideal ego (it does not have the quantitative power to perform well in the game), or vice versa.

Ideally, and sometimes in practice, these two codes may (come to) coincide. Auron, as a legendary character in the narrative and a powerful character in the game initially offers players an ideal ego and ego-ideal, but as the game progresses he increasingly lives up to these ideals: he ends up with over 4000 hit points and inflicts 9999 or more damage with every hit. Indeed, the character's visual image and cognitive type may be seen not just as the player's ego-ideal, but also as the ideal of the game character , inasmuch as the character is developing towards the maximum statistics of its type. In practice, there may be no such “maximum” since the equipping and development of characters is usually a matter of balancing different choices: one cannot equip all the weapons or forms of armour at once, and even the most powerful weapons are incapable of all the possible effects of that character's weapons. Tidus' Celestial Weapon, the Caladbolg, when completely “unlocked,” has Break Damage Limit, Triple Overdrive, Evade & Counter, and Magic Counter auto-abilities, and does damage relative to Tidus' hit points, but it will not confer every bonus nor allow every magic/status attack. Players may take the functional increase or maximum of damage as a basis for increased identification with the character as an ideal ego, as a relatively super-human figure. Also, players may revisit areas in the game world to better appreciate the enormous (relative) power of their characters. For example, the monsters in Besaid may be killed with a single stroke by characters who have travelled all the way to Zanarkand, developing their statistics all the way.

The disjunction between representational and functional coding may be minimised when players accept the aesthetic distinctiveness of game and narrative macrostructures. As was argued in Chapter Three, one way that players can regulate interest is by voluntarily changing frames when their interest is exhausted, and FFX has various means of allowing the player to shift between game and narrative macrostructures. Inasmuch as voluntarily frame-switching involves a level of meta-gaming, there may simply be a pragmatic “narcotising” (Eco, 1973, p. 23) of the semic codes relating to the previous macrostructure. That is, since the activity of a game macrostructure is usually unaffected by narrative traits and the player is positioned as the strategic agency, players may take for granted that psychological coherence does not extend to game macrostructures. While there may always be a sense of lack in the gap between ideal ego and ego-ideal, any frustration may be attenuated when frame-switching has been adequately achieved.

The disjunction between representational and functional coding may also be actively reconciled by a forced naturalisation of the unity of the ego-ideal through the player's preservation of their investment and positive affect. For example, investment in Tidus may motivate players to narcotise schemata that logically contradict any positive valance towards him. So, as the narrative macrostructure of FFX unfolds, players may overlook Tidus' emotional insecurity—most obviously his tendency to cry, which his father Jecht pokes fun at—as an unnecessary and unwanted addition to the schemata of “exceptional person,” which reinforces Tidus' desirability as an ego-ideal. Furthermore, while players may see Tidus as functionally weak compared to Auron, who at the beginning of the game inflicts about ten times as much damage, they may perceive that: first, Tidus' exceptional status as blitzball player makes him more capable of becoming a Guardian (like Auron) than “others”; and, second, being young, and the functional subject of the narrative, the whole point of the game is to enjoy Tidus becoming a Guardian. In short, he remains an ego-ideal by way of his potential desirability. This expectation is naturalised by hermeneutic codes of rite of passage, bildungsroman, the quest of the unexpected hero (discovering strength inside himself), and character development. However, such a favourable, ongoing investment is also eminently practical , given that the player must interact with and (partially) identify with Tidus for the duration of the game (see Chapters Eight and Nine).

Super-Egos: Shared Prohibitions

The third form of identification with the super-ego occurs in the register of what Lacan calls the Symbolic and involves identification with not only the demand of the Other, but an acceptance of prohibition (and lack) as such. This occurs whenever we internalise “not only [a] prohibition but, more importantly, the point of address, the subject of enunciation of [that] prohibition” (Cowie, 1997, p. 96). That is, we internalise the voice and perspective of an authority that prohibits us. The acceptance of a prohibition is predicated upon the recognition that the prohibition is not imposed just upon ourselves but also upon the Other: it is not just a personal but a social prohibition in that we identify “one's own lack, with the lack in the other” (Cowie, 1997, p. 97). The psychoanalytic model has traditionally elaborated upon this in terms of the Oedipal complex, in which the surrendering of the mother as love-object, and acceptance of the normality of this, marks one's accession to the Law-of-the-Father.

There are, of course, as many problems with the theory of the Oedipal complex as there are with the notion of gendered identification. Freud's Oedipal complex reveals a Victorian sensibility by presuming that the individual grows up in a (petit-) bourgeois family; it naturalises the sexual division of the mother as nurturer and father as protector/competitor; it normalises the phallus and heterosexuality; it can be staged and resolved without direct confrontation with the father (just as the mirror stage need not require an actual mirror); and the Oedipal complex is now used less as a description of a psychological stage than as a metaphor for patriarchy's symbolic division of gender.

Nonetheless, the Oedipal complex is so well known as a stereotype that even those without any salient experience of it may employ a hermeneutic macrostructure focused around parental conflict, the desire for love, and personal identity. In this respect, FFX offers an “Oedipal hermeneutic.” Jecht, the bullying father, continually criticises Tidus for his “crying,” which may be seen as a demand for his mother's attention (see Figure 6.3). Jecht also competes with Tidus for his mother's love and attention, most importantly in the sense that, when Jecht disappears, Tidus' mother becomes even more remote. Consequently, Tidus hates his father, and struggles to surpass him in their shared sport of blitzball. While the bulk of the narrative follows Tidus' tragic love for a new love-object, Yuna, and the replacement/extended family of the other Guardians, the narrative concludes with Tidus confronting and killing his father and dissipating. This not only reminds the player that both actually lived (and died) a millennium ago and are merely spirits (Aeons), it may suggest that Tidus' desire for a new love-object was always-already a belated attempt to acknowledge and resolve a deeper feeling of rejection.

Figure 6.3. (a) Flashback to Tidus' with his mother (“If he dies, you'll never be able to tell him how much you hate him”). (b) Tidus' dream of Jecht at Besaid (“Gonna cry again? Cry, cry. That's the only thing you're good for!”).

Tidus' Oedipal narrative is paralleled, and given additional significance, by Seymour 's. Since Seymour not only possesses his mother in the form of the Aeon, Anima, but also killed his father, players may read his criminal actions in the narrative as stemming from his refusal of the Oedipal prohibition. Given Tidus' anger at his own father, and his bitterness at his own mother, Seymour becomes what Tidus could have been if he had not restrained his anger at his father and developed surrogate attachments to Yuna, the “family” of Guardians, and Spira. In fact, it is because Tidus accepts Spira as the highest order super-ego—a prohibition of his own desire for the sake of the “State”—that he is allowed to confront and murder his father. Jecht, having taken the form of Braska's Final Aeon, has become opposed to Spira, legitimating his murder. Tidus' patricide opens the door to defeating Yu Yevon, and thereby the banishment of all Aeons, including not only Sin, but the ghost of Zanarkand, Auron, and himself.

Players need not, of course, read FFX in terms of the Oedipal complex, since they are free to emphasise other hermeneutic codes, but the game makes a lot of sense when interpreted in such terms. Even if the player adopts a populist or critical rejection of Freud's pan-sexuality, familiarity with the Oedipal complex cues an expectation that Tidus will confront his (feelings about his) father, re-unite with his mother, and find a surrogate love-object, and that Seymour will pay for his patricide. It also provides a basis of surprise as the Oedipal drama unfolds in an unexpected manner.

In any case, identification with a superego operates in far more general terms than Oedipal prohibition. In practice, one can accept any prohibition out of fear, as a means for taking masochistic pleasure in being prohibited, or as a licence to prohibit others sadistically. The point is that we are more likely to voluntarily accede to the voice of authority if a respected person who embodies that authority has him/herself suffered and accepted the force of its prohibition. We might restate this by saying that positive figures of authority tend to act according to the authority they embody, whereas negative figures of authority tend to impose authority on others that they do not accept themselves.

Cowie (1997) illustrates this by recuperating Oedipal connotations, arguing that many figures of authority in cinema are represented as “castrated,” as physically weak or crippled. The best example of this in FFX is Auron, who takes on the role of father-figure, dispenser of wisdom, and guide. Auron has legendary powers and is distinguished from the other characters as “old,” at least in that (at 35), he is twice as old as other characters, has grey-streaks in his hair, and is blind in one eye (a classic psychoanalytic symbol of “castration”). He not only risks his life to go on the quest a second time, it is later revealed that he is an Aeon and will share Tidus' fate of dissipation. Moreover, he knew this all along, and so his voluntary aid is a surrendering of his own freedom (and pseudo-life) in the service of others, reinforcing his authority as the voice of a super-ego. Of course, when players learn that Auron fetched Tidus on Jecht's behalf they may feel that Auron mediates Jecht's voice and therefore stands-in for the father's prohibition. However, Jecht himself is cursed with the inhuman body of Sin, and Tidus' eventually realises that Jecht risked his life on the previous quest to defeat Sin, and that the journey made him recognise his love for Tidus. (Auron relates this in Macalania Woods, though it is also revealed in the Spheres that Jecht used to record moments of his journey and which characters collect during the game).

Nonetheless, the operation of the superego in FFX principally may be seen in terms of the moral prohibition against surrendering to one's own desires in the face of doing one's public duty. We can see this in the figure of Belgemine, the Summoner who offers to help Yuna. Like Auron, players are likely to respect Belgemine for having been on the quest before, especially given her statement that someone who cannot defeat her “is not ready” to defeat Sin. She and all her Aeons must be defeated on three (or more) occasions before she gives up her Moon Sigil, required for Yuna to acquire her Celestial Weapon: Nirvana. It is only when this has occurred that she offers her full approval and sanction, and this may affect all three modes of identification. At the level of the ideal ego, players are offered the narcissism of defeating a master and occupying her position. At the level of the ego-ideal, players may desire to please or impress her as deserving of the status of saviour of Spira, such that she confirms the player's desirability. At the level of the super-ego, players may see themselves as similarly risking (sacrificing) their own (virtual) lives for the common good of Spira. This may resonate with Yuna's selflessness in having already chosen to confront Sin, despite knowing that it will lead to her death.

The authority of public duty, as opposed to the Law-of-the-Father, is more explicit when Seymour asks Yuna to marry him for the sake of Spira's political stability and morale. At this point, Seymour and Yuna function as the authorised figures of the prohibitive force of public duty (others' needs before one's own), but this conflicts with Tidus' (and later Yuna's) private inner voice of romantic love (do what your heart tells you). When Seymour is revealed as a false image of authority (having, in true Oedipal style, murdered his own father), his image is separated from the voice of duty. However, the hope that the authority of romantic love may win out is undermined by the recognition that Tidus is an Aeon, fated to disappear when Sin is destroyed. Here the discourse of the real encodes the authority of the prohibition: since it is not (meta-) physically possible for Tidus and Yuna to stay together, the prohibition of one's desires in service of the state seems to be a part of the tragic reality of the story, or the tragic nature of life.

Conclusion

This chapter has provided support for Bordwell's (1986, pp. 30-31) argument that psychoanalysis may complement cognitive accounts. In video games with extended narrative macrostructures like FFX , many familiar psychoanalytic processes may be analysed, and psychoanalytic models of identification suggest some interesting dynamics between players and characters in video games in general. Chapter Seven will extend the discussion of the super-ego by analysing how taboos function as a basis for anxiety and fear in FFX and how the representations of a character's self-imposed restraint may function as a basis for sadness. Chapter Eight will consider the appropriateness of psychoanalytic models in accounting for players' aesthetic responses to the play situation. Here it suffices to make the broader assertion that the multiplicity of identifications evident in the psychoanalytic model undermines simplistic assumptions that identification in video games in general is more or less effective or complex than that of other media. T he modes of identification discussed above regulate players' varying levels of investment in characters.

However, the psychoanalytic tradition is not a viable basis for an account of gameplay. As was noted at the beginning of this chapter, viewing is a non-gendered process that has the broad, non-sexual function of acquiring information that viewers use to make conscious inferences about what they are watching. In addition, the cognitive identification of characters, addressed in the last chapter, often occurs prior to identification with them; and that a character has identified with a character as an ideal ego, ego-ideal, or super-ego only explains part of a player's relationship to that character. It may sometimes be useful to emphasise these types of identification, and/or to see some situations as activating, or resonating with, a character's unconscious fears. However, the normal range of emotional responses in Frijda's (1986) model owes to homeostatic responses to situations that cannot be reduced to psychoanalytic terms. Just as not every long, hard object is phallic, not all fear is fear of castration. Generally, fear is an action tendency to avoid the threat of harm. The psychoanalytic model's emphasis on repressed trauma and/or desire in a broad sense therefore is insensitive to the rich affective life of individuals in everyday life and to the emotional dynamics of gameplay. The next chapter pays closer attention to the dynamics of players' emotional responses, arguing that players' emotions result, not from identity between the player and a character, or the desire for such an identity; rather, players' emotional responses are premised upon their distance and difference from characters.

Footnotes

1. Identification is distinct from incorporation, introjection, internalisation, and projection. Laplanche and Pontalis (1988) suggest that incorporation and introjection are “prototypes” of identification in which “the mental process is symbolised as a bodily one (ingesting, devouring, keepings something inside oneself, etc)” (p. 207). They argue that the term internalisation opens up the problematic issue of “what it is that the subject assimilates himself to” (p. 208), suggesting that whereas one identifies with objects one internalises relations. However, they conclude that these terminological distinctions are still not well decided. Projection has already been discussed in chapters three and four.

2. As Schore (1994) argues there seems to be some neurobiological basis for these types of identification (p. 349).