Chapter Seven
Character Empathy
“Empathy” is often understood as the projection of oneself into another's emotional and conceptual perspective. The modern term can be traced to Johann Gottfried Herder's German term “ Einfuhlen ,” which was later developed by R. H. Lotze, and roughly translates as “to feel into” or “to feel within.” It is supposed that Herder's concept entered Anglo-American psychology in the work of Dilthey and Lipps, and E. B. Titchener (Meares, 1992), but other theorists like Kohut (1971, 1977) elaborated upon the concept, which now occupies an important theoretical and practical role in the clinical process. Two aspects of the present understanding of empathy are of particular pertinence. First, empathy is not a simple or single process, but an aggregate one with separable affective and cognitive dimensions (Berger, 1982; Davis, 1980; Richendoller & Weavver, 1994; Stiff, Dillard, Somera, Kim, & Sleight, 1988). Second, we are capable of empathising with people with whom we are have little or no sense of identity; indeed, even when identification exists, the motives and emotional state of an empathiser are often different from that of the person being empathised with (Basch, 1983; Kohut, 1977).
This understanding is reflected in Grodal's (1997) and Tan's (1997) analyses of viewer's empathy towards characters in feature films, which this chapter uses as a basis for addressing empathetic emotions directed towards characters in FFX . It begins by addressing empathy's affective dimensions in terms of unlearned stimulus and nonverbal expressions. It then addresses empathy's cognitive dimensions in terms of situational contexts, emphasising the disparity between the emotions of players and characters. It argues that while FFX may elicit a range of emotions, such as happiness, anger and fear, the game may be characterised by a mood of sadness linked to a dominant hermeneutic code of tragedy. The chapter concludes by considering how empathy is reinforced by players' investment in, and moral allegiance with, characters, but may be blocked by impressions of inhumanity and personal distress.
Affective Dimensions of Empathy
The affective dimension of empathy is usually seen in negative terms, in the sense that we feel “sensitivity to the misfortune of others and feelings of compassion for their plight at seeing their pain, ill-treatment, loneliness, crying and helplessness” (Tamborini, 1996, p. 111). This sensitivity to affects of fear and distress has been referred to as “sympathy” (Bennet, 1979) or “sympathetic arousal” (Hoffman, 1977). For Grodal (1997), “empathy has a genetic basis caused by the clear survival-value of social bonding resulting from emotional ties” (p. 94), in that it motivates the defense of another and the subsequent formation, preservation, and consolidation of sociality (Izard, 1991, p. 395).
However, stimuli related to mating- or rearing-behaviour, which similarly serve a social purpose, may produce positive arousal that motivates or reinforces action tendencies of seeking intimacy, care and protection. In acknowledging both negative and positive sympathetic arousal, it is useful to turn to what Frijda (1986) calls “unlearned emotional stimuli” (p. 162), which Tan (1997) discusses in terms of “innate releasers” (p. 160). These are unlearned types that have an adaptive or survival value for the species by causing the automatic attribution of intentions to another, and an action tendency towards them. Movement, attractiveness, and vulnerability are three dominant groups of innate releasers cued by visual representations of fictional characters, including those in FFX .
Movement
Grodal (1998, p. 87) points to research (Perret, Harries, Mistlin & Chitty, 1990) which suggests that there is a neurological sensitivity to the perception of living beings, cued principally in terms of their moving forwards, or moving their arms away from, their body (as opposed to moving backwards and moving their arms towards the body, which cues a less marked cognitive and affective response). Consequently, if a fictional character in a film or video game begins moving, players automatically perceive this movement as more important than other movement in one's immediate field of vision, in that the movement may be intentional , and the player (or character) may be the (threatened) object of this intention. The animation of most figures in FFX , especially in cut-scenes, may be seen as especially fascinating because of the smooth precision of the movement, derived from vectors on actors in body suits. The reality-status of this movement conflicts with the lower reality-status of crude graphical textures and cartoon-like faces, which may give it additional salience.
Innate releasers of movement may be seen as having the general function of reinforcing the readerly practice whereby the activity of a narrative is seen as a consequence of the actions of individual characters (Bordwell, 1986; Tan, 1997). However, they apply in a more obvious way to kinaesthetic game macrostructures, especially first person shooters (FPSs) of the Doom (1994) mould, in which reflexive attention to movement is part of the aesthetic. In FPSs, play is polarised around rapid-fire evaluation of the sudden movement of fictional characters (or monsters) according to basic affordances of fight/flight, the prior state of arousal being especially determined by the player's current level of health and amount of ammunition. Indeed, a state of high arousal cued by the game (and this arousal in many cases being central to the game's aesthetic) usually means that any movement (be it non-human or non-living in origin) will be perceived as the motivated (threatening) movement of an opponent. In games based on horror movies, such as Aliens vs Predator (1999), any sudden movement (such as the sudden hissing of gas escaping a broken pipe) may be sufficient stimulus for players to automatically presume it to be the intentional movement of a goal-directed being and move or fire, revealing their character's position and wasting ammunition. The same holds for games with tactical or hostage-rescue scenarios, such as Counterstrike (2000), in that players must inhibit this innate response to the sudden appearance of a living being so that they do not act counter to their goal of protecting civilians.
Since the combat game macrostructures in FFX operate on a turn-based system, in which the player can enter non-diegetic time while selecting a menu option, player responses are rarely time-pressured in this way. Nonetheless, the Chocobo Eater encountered on the Mi'ihen Highroad, is notable not just because of its oversized mouth but its enormous arms, wide-open and held apart from the body in a pose of threat. This threat is made manifest during its Charge attack, which push the player's characters back until, after three successive charges, they are pushed off a cliff. However, since the player can only control his/her characters when their turn arrives, and the Chocobo Eater's charge is only an occasional attack, the innate releaser functions less to cue an immediate response than as a background of arousal: during the delays between the charge attacks, and when the player chooses an option, the potential danger is manifested as suspense in the game macrostructure.
The animation of the slowly grasping hands of Iron Giants and the jerky movements of Ochu tentacles similarly cue an affective alertness: a sense of dangerous proximity, intention and/or capability. However, the perceived danger in these cases has a less pronounced relationship to the danger actually posed to characters during battle, since these monsters are less powerful and/or characters develop their powers until these monsters pose (almost) no threat. When characters come to kill such monsters easily and routinely, such that they become a reliable source of experience and items, this animation may function like the non-threatening tentacles of a sea-anemone, cuing a kind of hypnotic interest in ceaseless movement without (apparent) purpose or danger. That is, on the one hand, there is a recurring and highly-valanced innate releaser of ceaseless movement, cuing interest and anxiety about intention. On the other hand, players have a cognitive evaluation that the movement is automatic or non-intentional and that they are safe. This tension between cognitive and emotional evaluations may incite a self-amplifying cycle that may cue excessive excitement: a kind of suspense without structure or closure in which players feel a creepy awareness of danger until the movement is withdrawn.
The perception of movement is significantly affected by the size of the moving being, both because the mass of the movement itself is a more prominent stimulus and because the correlation of size and intention poses greater potential danger. Relatively large beings, then, are likely to cue avoidance or hesitation. The initial appearance of such enormous opponents as Geosgeano, the Chocobo Eater, Sinspawn Gui, the Omega Weapon, Sin and Braska's Final Aeon requires a moment's pause and cognitive evaluation to overcome the initial uncertainty and anxiety about the threat posed. Indeed, given that many of the larger opponents central to the narrative macrostructure are inescapable, one is precisely forced to act against the action tendency to flee.
It might be presumed, then, that small subjects simply cue less arousal. However, in the context of a game-macrostructure, the secondary appraisal of small monsters, like Bite Bugs, Funguar and Killer Bees, involves a cognitive evaluation of a low reward for the expense of time and effort: an unproductive interruption of either the narrative macrostructure or rewarding game encounters. This sudden (cognitive) anticipation of wasted energy may elicit anger, and likely will be aggravated by the helplessness of the player to over-ride the minimal time required to deal with it. This recognition may become so routine that the player is primed for small size as a cue for an anticipated, and anticipatory, negative arousal, the degree of which is relative to the interest invested in the macrostructure that is interrupted.
Innate releasers of movement may also operate in another way, in that empathy may be traced back to genetic cues for co-ordinated group fight/flight activity, or “motor empathy” (Michotte, 1948/1991) , in which one imitates the movements of another. This can be seen in animals, in which aggression, retreat, or a change of direction in a group cues other individuals in that group to respond similarly. It is also obvious in a minimal sense in video games when there are parallel movements between characters and players. As Poole (2002) observes, part of the pleasure of interaction comes “through a joyously exaggerated sense of control, or amplification of input” (p. 148) focused around movement, as when one accelerates or turns a corner in a virtual car. However, while the Chocobo races in FFX offer something of this amplification, the characters of the game offer no dynamic and responsive amplification of player movement. Direct control is limited to a single-speed navigation of Tidus across a 3D landscape, or menu-options, such as when one pauses to consider and select an attack type, and Tidus subsequently leaps into a sword attack.
Attractiveness/unattractiveness
Physical attractiveness is a dominant innate releaser which gives rise to an action tendency to seek and/or maintain proximity/intimacy. To a large extent, beauty is equated with average or similar facial and body forms within a population (Langlois & Roggman, 1990; Light, Hollander & Kayra-Stuart, 1981) and its appearance may involve the release of opioids which promote a positive state and motivate mating behaviour. Of course, since what one finds attractive is also determined by the imprinting of primary caregivers (Schore, 1994), and innate releasers for beauty are often stimuli learned from personal experience and cultural types (Carello, Grosotsky, Shaw, Pittenger & Mark, 1989), referring to them as “innate” does not mean that they are genetic, merely archaic and/or habituated.
In many anime-style television shows and movies, Japanese people are represented as wide-eyed and white-skinned, such that some Europeans mistake them as European (Herz, 1997). It is here significant that FFX is the first Final Fantasy title with such resolution and realism that Tidus' and the other characters' epicanthic folds are signs of racial difference for European players. However, these racial markers are only evident in the highest-quality FMV sequences, and since the realism of the clean-skinned physical beauty and health of the characters is coupled with (epicanthic folds not withstanding) wide-eyed, youthful vulnerability, it can generally be expect a minimally positive primary appraisal, and action tendencies of protectiveness and seeking intimacy, in players of both European and Oriental race/ethnicity.
Innate releasers of physical attractiveness include genetic sensitivity to secondary sexual characteristics. Many video games deliberately over-emphasise these characteristics to the point of physical impossibility: Lara Croft's thin, pinch-waisted and top-heavy deformity is the classic example of the hyper-female; muscle-bound mesomorphs like Rastan, Hercules, and Duke Nukem are representative of the hyper-male. In FFX , the emphasis does not reach the point of unrealistic deformity, but Yuna and Lulu have pronounced breasts and hips, and Tidus, Wakka and Kimahri have broad shoulders, deep chests (especially Kimahri) and high-muscle tone. These characteristics are often emphasised by optical perspective, in the sense of breast, chest and hip shots, and clothes which either reveal more than everyday clothing (Lulu's cleavage and dress and Yuna's upper arms) or hide it in such a way that imitates the smoothness of skin (Yuna's near-skin-white tunic and Rikku's tight leather top). For Occidental players, the main characters' innate releasers of physical attractiveness and sexual characteristics are likely to exceed racial traits.
Figure 7.1. (a) Yuna's epicanthic folds are clearly visible within the high-resolution cut-scenes. (b) Lula's customarily exposed cleavage.
If epicanthic folds give pause to some Occidental players in their evaluation of a character's likeness and desirability, this is because ab normal, un attractive forms often produce negative arousal, and in extreme cases lead to action tendencies of avoidance, sometimes reinforced by affects of disgust (see Carrol, 1990). As Tan (1997) notes:
Antagonists . . . [are often] characterized by means of innate releasers of aversion and fear. These include such things as a slight deformity, a rasping voice, a perpetual expression of anger, or—less commonly perhaps—a remote physical resemblance to animals that generally call up a reaction of fear, such as rats, snakes, and scorpions. (p. 162)
In other words, innate releasers of extreme (sudden or massive) movement and unattractiveness inherent in the enormous, insectile, deformed and other qualities of most monsters cue action tendencies of fight/flight or avoidance which oppose empathy and sympathy. Notably, players may have some reserve towards Seymour because of the blue veins on his face, and his indeterminate character traiting. This cues uncertainty as to whether he expresses casual, youthful irreverence combined with duty, or devious, arrogant design.
When strong enough, these cues may give rise to a reflexive and energetic attempt to remove the offending object. However, while many of the monsters in FFX are abnormal, they are also unrealistic, drawing from stereotypical types in European and Japanese mythology, fantasy, science fiction and horror. Consequently, the insectile qualities of a Varuna, the gastropod form of a Marlboro, the deformity of an Ochu, or the hybridity of a Chimera Brain, primarily cue an interest in monstrosity as a marvellous spectacle . Nonetheless, a genuinely abnormal form with sufficient reality-status may coincide with a prior state of high arousal and sense of threat. This might include the appearance of Anima (see Figure 7.2a), the oddly deformed Sin (see Figure 7.2b), or Yunalesca's hideous, giant head, with its lolling red tongue and Hellbite attacks. No doubt innate releasers which do not have a corresponding effect in the game macrostructure may be suppressed as irrelevant, but these releasers may produce or reinforce a global, generalised (virtual) fight/flight response (“I don't want to fight this thing! Flee!”), or even a minimal pause (sensorimotor paralysis) if the player is unable to find immediate cognitive closure in its attempt to accommodate the form (“What is this thing?”). However, this last instance may be no more significant than the pause of reflection when we wonder if Disney's Goofy is a horse or a dog.
Figure 7.2. (a) Anima and (b) Sin.
Vulnerability, perceived in terms of megalocephaly, overlarge/widened eyes and sensorimotor clumsiness, is another dominant innate releaser, and cues action tendencies of sympathy and protection which may be seen in evolutionary terms as linked to parental and mating behaviour (Alley, 1983, 1986; Brooks & Hochberg, 1960). Many video game characters are “cute” as a consequence of their overlarge eyes and heads, small, child-like bodies (see Poole, 2000, pp. 139-142; 151-152), and movement characterised by a seeming clumsy, sensorimotor retardation. Poole (2000, p. 140) notes that the small bodies and big heads in earlier games was a consequence of the technological limit on the available number of pixels onscreen, in that by reducing the size of the body, programmer's maximised screen space. Yet megalocephaly persists despite technological advances. In many respects, the Final Fantasy series has always conformed to the cute Japanese anime style, as is most evident in the cartoon exaggeration of the female form in Sailor Moon (2000) and of the male form in Dragonball Z (2001). In FFX , these innate releasers are evident in the cartoon portraits of the characters in the character screens, in Lulu's “Moggie”—which is, after all, a toy bear—as well as the youthfulness and wide-eyed naïveté of Tidus, Yuna, Rikku, and the villagers of Spira (see Figure 7.3a). The coding of such characters as cute or vulnerable means that they may function as “safe” transitional objects (Winnicott, 1971), that is, a familiar, non-threatening point of identification for children. Indeed, since, as Poole (2002) suggests, “large heads and limitless curiosity remind us of children” (p. 150), in marketing terms they may provide an idea of what is safe and suitable for children for parents as consumers. Given the popular anxiety about the influence of video games, it may be presumed that parents who know nothing of a game's content are more likely to purchase a cartoon-style game over a realistic one.
Figure 7.3. Innate releasers of vulnerability: (a) Rikku as startled child and (b) Yuna's entreaty as she falls from the tower at Bevelle.
Innate releasers of infantile or child-like vulnerability—large eyes, clear skin, innocence, and naïveté—are often seen as feminine. That is, if we bypass the issue of the genetic origins of the correlation between them, feminine features are coded in terms of these innate releasers. Furthermore, in video games, irrespective of their physical representation (as children, princesses, and/or virgins), female characters are often represented as victims in situations which require the performance of actions of sympathy/protection associated with vulnerability, irrespective of whether this is experienced as an (emotionally motivated) action tendency. This was more pronounced in early, rudimentary video games in which the princess or maiden was kidnapped and needed to be rescued, such as Donkey Kong (1981). However, it persists in games like FFX , in which Yuna (despite being the “saviour” of Spira) requires an entire complement of Guardians, some (Auron and Kimahri) dutifully parental, others (Wakka and Lulu) like protective elder siblings, and still others (Tidus and Seymour) potential mates. Despite this protection, she is kidnapped, and must be rescued (see Figure 7.3b). Of course, Yuna's role as saviour is related to her holy purity—her sacred quest requires that she remain holy—and this holiness is coded in terms of child-like or feminine innocence and asexuality. She becomes more like the figure of Tripitaka in Monkey (1978): her sexual innocence becomes the virtue that must be protected, whereby one's own desire is an internal warning of a potential external threat, and its repression a sign of one's purity relative to those who threaten her.
Traits of vulnerability are also evident in Tidus, whose prettiness, high-pitched voice, slight physique (compared with the other males), and tendency to cry, trait him as both child-like and feminine. Tidus' bravado—evident in his desire to become a Guardian and such plucky but nervous comments as: “See you next time!” when he retreats from battle—may be seen as either/both a manifestation of his childish high-spirits and naïveté, and/or as the bluff of a tiger cub baring its claws. The player, then, may be cued to take on a protective relationship to Tidus, even if this relationship will be undermined as his character develops and he functions more effectively in combat.
Facial and other non-verbal expressions
Facial expressions may be seen at a basic level as more specific forms of innate-releasers, in that humans not only possess a universal set of facial expressions—Frijda (1986) includes happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, disgust/contempt, and attention—the face is the primary site in which affect is experienced and communicated (Darwin, 1900/1965; Ekman, 1973; Ekman, Friesan & Ellsworth, 1972; Ekman & Rosenberg, 1997; Fridja, 1986; Tomkins, 1976). Facial expressions are a primary way in which visual texts make the emotional states of characters accessible, and may be seen as a significant basis for “emotional contagion” (Stiff, Dillard, Somera, Kim & Sleight, 1988), which refers to the process whereby individuals involuntarily imitate or adopt the emotions of someone being observed.
Digital technologies are, of course, opening up channels of access to interior states found in other forms of communication, and PS2 's so-called “emotion engine” allows for quite clear facial expressions during narrative sequences (see Figure 7.4a). However, historically speaking, video games have been too limited to provide detailed facial expressions readily mapped onto basic affective states. In FFX , the facial expressions are often as poorly timed as the lip-synch in a badly dubbed Martial Arts film, and in the low-resolution cut-scenes and in-game cut-scenes and sequences, expressions are static and pixelated. Even in the high-resolution cut-scenes there is a blankness which underlies the facial expressions, given the limited ability to perceive minimal eye and muscle movements. It might be presumed, then, that video game characters are incapable of activating some affective dimensions of empathetic behaviour through the display of character emotion.
Figure 7.4. (a) Tidus' anguish when confronting his father near the end of the game. (b) Yuna's blank expression in the game engine (“I will defeat Sin . . . I must defeat Sin”).
Several arguments can be made against this presumption. W hile players may sometimes read the blank, jerky, or rigid expressions of characters as non-diegetic signs of FFX 's limited graphical engine, such expressions can be interpreted in diegetic terms. Players might perceive blankness as disinterest, which may be true enough in the case of Auron, who, having previously completed the quest to defeat Sin with Braska, may be relatively bored (he usually limits himself to occasional grunts of effort when fighting unexpectedly powerful monsters). Players might also interpret blankness as unhappiness or depression. This would seem to describe Yuna, who Tidus occasionally watches stare inscrutably into space, eventually realising that she expects to die and is saying goodbye to each place. Consequently, her blankness may also be read as sadness and depression. In other instances, however, her blankness may sometimes be read as a form of quiet determination (see Figure 7.4b). Indeed, players may generally read jerky or rigid expressiveness as a sign of anxiety or repressed emotion. For example, players might see Tidus' blankness in relation to his high-pitched voice and infer nervous tension (as when he offers a scratchy “Hi!” upon reuniting with his father). However, sometimes the jerky animation of all expressions from a state of underlying blankness has a creepy quality, as if a ghost were using its fingers to move a dead person's face into a smile or frown, creating an impression of inhumanity or pathological instability. This kind of impression is likely to be appropriate in the case of Seymour, who progressively reveals his deranged nature.
It also is obvious that video games have developed conventions for expressing emotional states in the absence of facial expressions. Within computer-mediated communication, it has been argued that “emoticons” such a :) and :( within the ASCII character set compensate for absent channels and allow for the formation of genuine emotional relationships and community ( Baym, 1995; Beaubien, 1996; Danet, 1998; Kolko, 1998; McRae, 1997; Reid, 1994; Stone, 1995 ). The same can be said of the symbolic signs derived from cartoons, for example, the use of a light bulb to express an idea, an exclamation mark to express surprise, and wavy lines to represent anger (McCloud, 1990). In FFX , this kind of convention exists through the use of an exclamation mark to signal when something has been stolen from a character within the Battle Screen.
Such expressiveness is more clearly compensated for by emphasised and/or stylised nonverbal gestures. In FF7 , gestures are clearly over-emphasised: when Cloud is depressed, frustrated or ashamed his entire upper body flops forward and his arms hang free; when Barret is embarrassed he drags and kicks his feet; when Cait Sith is happy he jumps up and down with flapping feet; and when Tifa is embarrassed at having been seen with Cloud, she runs into a corner and covers her face with her hands. When signs and nonverbal over-emphasis become familiar enough, they may activate networks of association associated with affect, much like un-mediated expressions, and may therefore be sufficient to produce emotional contagion. Of course, when seen out of context, the above kinds of expressions are readily perceived as not only excessive, but absurd or comical. This is exploited in FF9 , when the exaggerated gestures of Captain Albeit Steiner complement his bumbling antics, running back and forth through Lindblum castle, punctuated by his clanking armour, creating the caricature of a frustrated egotist.
In any case, compared with earlier games in which the face is a fixed sprite or has no movement, FFX presents more realistic expressions, and its relatively pronounced graphical expressiveness defines a change in the experience of empathy. As Bela Belasz (1952/1999) has argued in relation to film, the tiniest facial movement reveal internal drama, and the microcosmic details of facial movement seen in close-up provides for an emotional intensity that is not dependant upon the rest of the body or any context. An entire emotional exchange can be conveyed simply by cutting between different faces, devoid of body gesture or an informing narrative frame. FFX 's capacity to create extremely minor facial movements provides for explicit revelations of inner life, a real-time, suspensive fascination with how the character's emotional state will be expressed and resolved.
However, facial expressions are easily (and routinely) misperceived without knowledge of the context (Ekman, 1977). Consequently, expression must be linked to the cognitive evaluation of the context in which it occurs. Indeed, the face does not usually simply communicate basic affects, nor is it necessarily an object of fascination in itself. A face may function as a marker or index, pointing to an object, or, like focalisation, may simply define relationships within a dramatic situation, in the sense of partaking of a network of signification or causation (see Deleuze, 1986, 1988). In considering the actual emotional response of the viewer, then, it is not possible to rely upon the innate releasers, and facial or other nonverbal expressions, which constitute primary appraisal. Since true emotions in Frijda's (1986) model require secondary appraisal, it is necessary to address the cognitive dimensions of empathy.
Cognitive Dimensions of Empathy
Empathetic emotions , as opposed to “sympathetic arousal,” require secondary appraisal, or cognitive evaluation, of another's mental, physical and emotional state ( Coke, Batson & McDavis, 1978; Feshback, 1975; Grodal, 1998; Stiff, Dillard, Somera, Kim & Sleight, 1988; Tan, 1997). However, it is useful to distinguish between empathy and empathetic emotions. Tan (1997) defines “empathy” as “all the cognitive operations on the part of the viewer that lead to a more complete understanding of the situational meaning for the character [italics added]” (p. 172). This includes processes of cognitive identification and may be linked to accounts of the ability to “imaginatively” inhabit the minds or perspectives of others, otherwise known as “perspective taking” (Coke, Batson, McDavis, 1978; Davis, 1980, 1983; Deutsch & Madle, 1975; Dymond, 1949; Feshbach, 1975; Krebs, 1975; Mead, 1934/1972).
By contrast, “empathetic emotions” are “characterized by the fact that the situational meaning structure of the situation for the character is part of the meaning for the viewer [ italics added]” (Tan, 1997, p. 174). That is, both character and viewer share , and have an emotional response to, some of the same concerns (though, again, the character's and viewer's understanding of, and emotional response to, these may differ). This may be linked to “fictional involvement,” in which one emotionally projects oneself into the feelings and actions of others (Stotland, Mathews, Cherman, Hansson, & Richardson, 1978).
There is a general reason why the cognitive and emotional aspects of empathy may act in concert with one another. As Grodal (1997) argues:
The mental apparatus is primarily developed as a tool for implementing the preferences of the subject. The senses safeguard us against danger and register possible objectives, such as food or mating, which are then transformed into plans and goals and carried out by the motor system. There will therefore be a very strong relationship between motivation and cognitive activities. If a given preference finds its way into the consciousness, the consciousness will immediately begin to seek scripts for implementing that preference. Conversely, cognitive scripts will activate the corresponding emotions and preferences if these are previously known by the subject. (p. 93)
According to this model, the most minimal or general cognitive identification of a character as a protagonist with a goal may be sufficient to define preferences that a viewer may take up. This creates a figure-ground relation in the sense that the world and its objects only become significant in terms of their significance for the fictional being. However, the migration of a character's preference into the player's own preference-seeking system “will very often be the consequence of a prolonged cognitive identification” (p. 93), because of the close relationship between cognition, emotion and motivation. In FFX , characters offer persistent points of identification for the ninety or more hours of play, and have complex and developing backstories. This, and the corresponding effort of typing of characters discussed in Chapter Four, constitutes not only the cognitive component of empathy, but also an investment which provides the basis for a tonic attitude of interest in, and sympathy for, characters.
However, the distinction between empathy and empathetic emotions remains important because the cognitive work of empathy may sometimes be devoid of the feeling which laypersons might associate with the word. As Kohut (1977) and Basch (1983) have argued, while there is a clear survival or adaptive value in being able to evaluate another's intentions and emotional state (or “perspective”) as a basis for determining our interaction with them, the cognitive component of empathy is value-free. Basch (1983) observes:
Much of the time we are empathically attuned to the affective states of others primarily to fulfill our own needs and to spare ourselves pain . . . some of the world's greatest scoundrels have been exquisitely and unerringly attuned to grasping the significance of the unconscious and unspoken affective communications of others and have used that knowledge to achieve base aims. (pp. 119-120)
In short, we may empathise with another without sympathising with them; or, rather, we may have cognitive empathy (understanding) of another's mental/physical state while remaining sympathetic to our own needs. In fact, the understanding of another, and a manipulative attitude, may give rise to negative empathetic emotions of superiority and contempt.
Even when we are sympathetic to the plight of the other, and understand the key determinants which govern a character's internal state and behaviour, empathy is premised upon limited identification of another character's internal state. Most of the empathetic emotions experienced in fiction depend upon the difference in situation between the person empathising and the person with whom they are empathising. As is evident from Tan's (1997) and Grodal's (1997) accounts, the viewer takes an observational attitude such that instead of feeling the same emotion as a character, such as fear, we may feel a witness emotion, such as suspense. In video games, we may also feel witness emotions, but the player's emotional response will also be affected by their position as player.
Since the player's position as a player is addressed in Chapter Eight, the following focuses on witness emotions in FFX . However, even witness emotions may be experienced from the perspective of the self (“imagine-self” empathy) or from the perspective of another (“imagine-other” empathy) (Davis, Hull, Young & Warren, 1987; Hoffman, 1982; Stotland, Mathews, Sherman, Hansson & Richardson, 1978). McCloud (1993) argues that a simple visual representation provides more space to project one's self. That is, unlike a realistic face, a blank face does not present us with differences which mark an Other and so provides fewer blocks for projection. By way of parallel it can be argued that the more generic a situation the greater the opportunity there is for the individual to draw upon his/her own experiences and traits in defining the significance of that situation, and in hypothesising possible affordances and outcomes. As Tan (1997) argues, the mere mention of a character type, such as “racist dictator,” may elicit an emotional response; the same may be said of typed situation , such as Tan's “thematic structures.” As is evident in Carrol's (1990) account of the emotions experienced by film viewers, one may feel anger at the very idea of something, for example, a “selfish person about to realise the consequences of selfishness,” or of a “villain getting away with villainy.” That is, the more general a situation the more we may simulate it from our own perspective, recruiting concrete content from our own experience, promoting imagine-self empathy.
Of course, situations may be described with concrete detail, such as “a child putting up poster of lost dog (who is dead),” or “a wife about to discover her husband has left her (on her birthday).” These situations may, by virtue of their specificity, add salience to the type, increasing its reality status, and thereby its poignancy. Indeed, the more particular the situational type, and the more particular the traiting of characters in the type, the more one is inclined to evaluate the situation on behalf of one of the characters, and the greater the likelihood of imagine-other empathy. That is, the increasing particularity of a situation may complement psychological verisimilitude and facilitate increased interest in both what happens to characters and in how characters evaluate and experience what happens to them.
Tan (1997), it should be noted, makes the competing argument that the complex, individuated appraisal of a character encourages an imagine-self attitude. For him, this is because the self “displays a similarly complex and flexible organisation” (p. 187) and in such cases “there are so few schemas available that support the elaboration and organization of the information provided by the film” (p. 188). That is, the complexity of the character suggests that the actions in the narrative world will be as complex as those in real life, and will not conform to any simple narrative schemata; consequently, the viewer is encouraged or required use his/her own inferential capacity on behalf of the character to entertain future possibilities. In the absence of empirical confirmation of Tan's (1997) account it suffices to suggest that a concrete situation may have salience either because we identify with the particularity of the situation from the perspective of a character (imagine-other empathy), or because the complexity of the situation resonates with the complexity of our reality, and thereby cues our (simulated) responsiveness to the situation (imagine-self empathy).
Empathetic Emotions and Situational Context s
Just as interest is the basic emotion that operates during film viewing and video gameplay, Tan (1997) argues that “sympathy” may be the basic empathetic emotion, polarising viewer interest in favour of a protagonist overcoming a complication. Sympathy is characterised by a sense of equality and reciprocity, and its action tendency “may be an inclination to seek proximity and intimacy, a sharing of thoughts and feelings, and a sense of cherishing and being cherished” (p. 178). This usually involves a character being weaker than an opponent but relatively equal to a player, and its action tendency is seeking intimacy, giving and receiving, and sharing.
Tan (1997) places sympathy between “admiration” and “compassion.” For him, admiration usually involves the admired character being perceived as superior, at least in regards to the particular quality being admired. This superiority may elicit action tendencies involving the seeking of proximity, receiving and giving (p. 180), but it is premised upon a certain distance between oneself and the desired character. The implicit distance involved in admiration makes difficult the giving and receiving which characterises sympathy; indeed, it may involve us seeking to prolong complications so that characters can continue to perform their admirable qualities for our benefit. With compassion , the character becomes inferior to the player, if only in terms of their relative vulnerability, and the action tendency is one of protection, helping and/or consolation: “a form of giving, a willingness to go more deeply into the unpleasant significance of the situation, to seek hope and grounds for defence or resignation” (p. 180).
Innate releasers of attractiveness and vulnerability predispose one to sympathy, admiration and compassion in that they elicit reflexive action tendencies of seeking proximity/intimacy, seeking sexual engagement, and protectiveness. This not only creates a desire for continued (phatic) contact, either in the form of witnessing them onscreen or controlling them through the interface , it reinforces partial identification with them as ego ideals. However, what especially promotes empathy is our expectation that a narrative will reward the protagonist. T he misfortunes of the protagonists are unwelcome (and t he misfortunes of the antagonists are welcome) precisely because they do not reward our prior investment in their wellbeing. It is, in short, in our interest to sympathise with the protagonist's interests.
In defining the key components of a situation, and how it guides empathetic emotions, Tan (1997) argues that:
To [the three major empathetic emotions: sympathy, admiration and compassion] may be added others, such as gratitude, anger, envy, contempt, and embarrassment. These often complement the first three, forming a response to attendant features of the situation that evoke sympathy, compassion, or admiration. The fate of the protagonist is, as we know, bound up with the actions of the other characters. When the protagonist reaches his goal, this delights the viewers; when that goal is attained thanks to someone else, they feel gratitude as well. (p. 181)
This constitutes the extent of Tan's discussion of more complex empathetic emotions; Grodal (1997) similarly avoids the diversity of empathetic emotions in favour of how different genres elicit particular types of arousal or emotions. However, Tan's (1997) mention of “attendant features of the situation” (p. 181) suggests that his account may be translated into Greimas' (1987) actantial model. That is, it might seem useful to map empathetic emotions onto actantial transactions:
If we follow the terms in Figure 7.5 the following provisional notation could be used to denote the relationships between Greimas' (1987) terms: “+” could indicate a transaction, “=” could indicate the result of the transaction, “-” could indicate the loss of the subsequent term. Furthermore, “ ? ” could indicate a weakened or blocked relationship with the subsequent term, “ ^ ” could indicate a strengthened relationship to the subsequent term, and “/” could separate possible, exchangeable, and cumulative terms. On this basis it is possible to derive a formula for each situational context. S ympathy, and compassion, could be seen as the consequence of a transaction in which the subject-actant's access to the object is delayed, weakened, or blocked (S?B). Anger could be seen as the consequence of transactions in which a subject-actant loses (access to) an object because of an opponent ((S+O)=-B). Happiness could be the consequence when a subject-actant acquires its object, or is helped (C/+H/+B), and admiration could be the response when a subject-actant acts as his/her own helper ((C=H)^O). Gratitude could be seen as occurring when a subject-actant is strengthened by the sender, object, receiver, or helper ((C/+S/+O/+R/+H)=^O), or when transactions between helpers and subjects block or reduce the power of the opponent ((S+H)=?O). Fear could be seen as the consequence of transactions in which a subject-actant is in a position to be diminished or defeated by an opponent ((C+O)=?B), and sadness could be seen as a result of a transaction in which a subject-actant loses an object or helper (S/-B/-H).
Of course, a more elaborate notation could be developed, but the one above suffices to demonstrate the problem with such notation: not every transaction of this type produces an emotional response. Not only is the actantial structure dependant upon the players interpretation of the situational context, the mere labelling of, say, “anger” on the basis of a transaction in which a subject-actant is blocked by an opponent is hardly a guarantee that the player experiences arousal and that this arousal may be described as anger. This discrepancy is evident in Tan's (1997) distinction between the “situational meaning context,” which may simply be a cognitive construction of the “text base,” and an “emotional situational context,” which refers to that aspect of the situational meaning context that provides the basis for an emotional response (p. 197). Many transactions may form part of the situational context, but are of little or no emotional relevance.
An emotional response to a situation also is affected by the progress and outcome of a sequence, since situational contexts change during the course of a transaction . S ympathy frequently gives way to compassion and admiration as a character navigates the obstacles of a plot, alternating between moments of defeat and triumph; envy may give way to anger; gratitude may give way to resentment at any obligation. I f Tidus is evaluated as a victim player are likely to offer virtual support and wish for his triumph. If Tidus then triumphs players are likely to re-evaluate the situation and feel triumph on his behalf. However, if Tidus is subsequently defeated the resulting sense of defeat may be worse, relative to the former sense of triumph.
Indeed, emotions often work in a complementary fashion to define what we can call an “emotional dynamic.” As Tan observes:
A situation that arouses compassion for the hero may at the same time evoke anger directed towards the villain or envy at his success. But it is also possible to experience a combination of compassion and anger, for instance, when the protagonist suffers a reversal that is in some way his own fault. Admiration for the hero can go hand in hand with contempt for the antagonist. Empathetic embarrassment often accompanies failures of the protagonist whereby he loses face (Miller, 1987). In short, empathetic emotions occur in regular configurations that reflect the mutual relationships – and in particular the conflict – between various characters. (p. 181)
Given that the same type of arousal may be labelled in different ways (Grodal, 1997, p. 96), and it is possible to evaluate a situation in different ways (Fridja, 1997, p. 375), it can be said that an “emotional dynamic” describes the basis for a variety of emotional responses to different subject-actants within a situational context. That is, just as each character may be the hero of his own sequence (Barthes, 1966/1988, p. 119), so too may players interpret each situation from a different perspective. For example, a character's situation may prompt the player to oscillate between anger towards the antagonist and joy for the protagonist, depending upon the player's cognitive position and/or the game's cues. Together, the two (or more) emotions that the player experiences may be said to constitute the emotional dynamic for that situation.
Yet, even with these qualifications, the actantial model's concern with textual structures is less sensitive to the physiological and psychological bases of emotion than Frijda's (1986) model of situational contexts. Fridja differentiates between ten “core components” of a situation: objectivity, relevance, reality level, difficulty, urgency, seriousness, valence, demand character, clarity, and multiplicity (p. 204). In the absence of experimentation there is no need not elaborate upon, or apply, all of these parameters. It suffices to emphasise that, for Frijda:
Each emotion corresponds to a different appraisal – a different situational meaning structure – and is characterized by it. . . . Different situational meaning structures map onto different modes of action readiness. (p. 195)
Frijda subsequently provides a “profile” for each emotion, and, drawing from his account, it is possible to define a basic situational structure in terms of particular cognitive appraisal and an accompanying action tendency. The rest of this chapter indicates some pertinent aspects of the dominant emotions as they pertain to FFX , arguing that while the game offers situations likely to elicit happiness, fear, and anger, it may be characterised by a dominant mood of sadness.
Happiness
Gameplay is often seen as intrinsically motivating, or as producing Csikszentmihalyi's (1975, 1990, 1993) happy state of flow, but little attention is usually paid to narrative situations that elicit happiness. The situational profile of happiness (or joy) may be described as the positive (labelling of) arousal, involving the attainment, possession or engagement with a desired object, person, quality or state. Its action tendency may be seen as either a passive desire to enjoy one's happiness, or a particular object of happiness, or it may be a kind of global vitality which reinforces interest-excitement directed to anything within our immediate experience. From the perspective of a viewer, the action tendency is to enjoy and prolong the present state of the character, albeit with the expectation that the narrative will threaten it. In FFX happiness within the narrative macrostructure might be seen as a likely response to those situations in which Tidus meets, befriends, socialises, and bonds with the other Guardians. Tidus' happiness at the security of this surrogate family is especially pronounced given that Yuna offers the happy prospect of love. Here players experience not only the ideal-ego of Tidus' lovability confirmed and self-esteem gratified, but also the contagion of Tidus' concomitant joy.
Figure 7.6. Tidus' (a) and Yuna's (b) complementary happiness during their romantic dalliance in Macalania Woods.
However, for Tomkins (1962), the underlying affect of happiness, or what he calls the “smiling response,” is the sudden relief from a prior state of high arousal—or the smile of triumph that follows from a reduction of anger (p. 371). As Frijda (1986) says, “it is achievement of positive outcomes rather than having them that generates positive emotion” (p. 187). In other words, the situations of greatest happiness are those which occur after, or are won from, some struggle with an un happy situation. Of course, the player may be primarily happy for him or herself upon completing the Trials, sub-quests, and/or traversing a territory like the Calm Lands (see Chapter Eight). However, players are inclined to feel happy when Tidus re-encounters Rikku at the Moonflow; when Tidus rescues Yuna at Bevelle and realises that she will not willingly marry Seymour ; and during the ensuing moment when Yuna forgives Tidus for having spoken glibly about what they could do after the quest (not knowing that she was destined to die). Tidus' and Yuna's expression of love in Macalania Woods is joyous precisely because it is amplified by relief from their prior uncertainty and restraint (see Figure 7.6). Indeed, FFX spends a great deal of time cultivating the bonds between the main players, principally through intimate exchanges (Wakka and Lulu on the S.S. Winno), gradual disclosures of background (Lulu speaking of the death of Chappu), growing loyalties (Kimahri finally talking to Tidus) and mutual dependence (Yuna's need for protection, Spira's need for Yuna). This happiness, or its promise, is particularly significant because it provides a basis for negative emotional responses.
Anger and Contempt
Anger's situational meaning structure may be seen as negative arousal that occurs when desire, or telos, is blocked by a voluntary external agent (Frijda, 1986; Griffin and Mascolo, 1998; Tomkins, 1991). It is generally argued that an intentional and voluntary slight or hurt maximises anger. As Tan (1997) says, paraphrasing Spinoza (trans. 1994): “The more the other is free, the more we hate him if he is a cause of our pain” (p. 198). Such intentional and voluntary obstruction by someone allows for a sense of anger, or, indeed, righteous outrage (“How dare you! You should know better!”). When Seymour repeatedly attacks the characters, kidnaps Yuna, sets the Guado and the authority of Spira against them, and destroys the Ronso race, players are likely to see this as not merely immoral and inhuman, but as a wilful attempt to destroy another's happiness. This is especially evident when, while forcing Yuna to marry and kiss him, Seymour acknowledges Tidus (see Figure 7.7). The action tendency when we empathise with a character's anger is clear enough: we hope for, hypothesise the means of, and fantasise about, revenge on the character's behalf. At the same time, we may remain alert to the character's admirable qualities, since these diminish the relative success of the opponent. Consequently, we are likely to experience angry fantasising in response to the Maester's participation in the lie about Sin and the Summoning, as well as Kinoc's and Seymour 's callous disregard for those they supposedly protect.
Figure 7.7. (a) Seymour 's confident acknowledgement of Tidus while forcing Yuna to marry him. (b) Tidus' initial dismay at Yuna's false marriage turns into anger at Seymour 's wilfulness.
Conversely, when blocking is seen as semi-voluntary, or involuntary, anger may blur into frustration or impatience, in that a certain inevitability is accepted that we cannot control and the anger becomes more global in its appraisal. This may extend to the a moral animals, plant-animals, robots and so on mentioned above, in that their automatic and routine nature means they are not always experienced as wilful (though players may become genuinely angry at the constant interruptions posed by amoral beings, or may see them as an extension of a wilful agency that has sent or placed them). A telling example is when Wakka shows angry contempt at Rikku for being Al-Bhed, creating tension between the Guardians. Wakka's prejudice results from his belief that the Al-Bhed Machina were responsible for his brother's death, which he cannot accept. Consequently, the player's action tendency is less likely to involve fantasising revenge and more a hope that Wakka will come to some realisation and become capable of choosing to act differently. A similar frustration may exist towards Mika, who participates in the lie of the Maesters and the Spiral of Death because he believes that it is in the interests of those in Spira, and that there is no alternative. For both Wakka and Mika, it is not their wilfulness but their narrow-mindedness that is the salient aspect of the situation.
Frustration is also likely when others refuse to believe Tidus when he claims to come from Zanarkand. For much of the game both Wakka and Lulu do not believe him, and while Rikku and Yuna are open-minded they advise Tidus not to tell anyone what he thinks because they know many would not believe him. Tidus' position may be seen in terms of Carrol's (1990) argument that horror films often utilise a macrostructure in which children or teenagers try to convince credulous adults about the impending danger posed by ghosts, monsters or other supernatural beings. Of course, everyone in Spira knows that Sin exists, and is dangerous, but players may see other characters' refusal to believe Tidus as a basis for suspense in that it generates the prospect of what will happen if others do not believe him (for example, the Guardians may ignore clues that could help them to defeat Sin). However, even if this is not the case, Wakka's and Lulu's refusal to accept Tidus' “reality” may activate the same anger and pity as is experienced when someone is blamed, shamed and/or punished for a crime they did not commit. That is, their denial reinforces players' sympathy with Tidus.
Even though we may understand Wakka's and Lulu's denial, the player may feel sadistic pleasure at the anticipated moment of their comeuppance, that is, the moment when both characters are forced to confront the “reality” that the player has already accepted. Certainly, Wakka's initial rough treatment of Tidus (putting Tidus' in a headlock, like a condescending big brother), and Lulu's detachment, cynicism and pragmatic criticism, may both invite such petty retribution. More importantly, when players realise that Tidus can never return home their sympathy may motivate resentment or anger towards those who do not believe him (because in refusing to believe him they deny the validity of his pain). The longer the denial is drawn out the more the player can relish the possibility of a comeuppance, through either/both the possibility of withholding forgiveness and/or the possibility of the other's subsequent pity and guilt.
It is notable, then, that Lulu's belief in Tidus is revealed by casual comment on the sled over Lake Macalania . Tidus is able to say: “So you believe me now?” but there is no drama about it. By retaining her aloofness, and confronting the truth on her own, she effectively robs Tidus (and the player) of the pleasure of seeing her arrogance challenged; this may reinforce players' sense of distance from, and/or dislike for, her. Wakka, on the other hand, is made to look idiotic for not believing Tidus, for his prejudices against Rikku, and for his slow recognition of the corruption of the Maesters he has always respected. He subsequently apologises, contritely, offering players the satisfaction of another's unjust attitude being reprimanded, and reversing the position of Wakka as older brother and Tidus as the ignorant newcomer.
Anger often may accompany contempt, or disgust, which results from the presence of negative attributes in another. Contempt's situational profile may be described as negative arousal produced by another's misconduct, especially when the other does not feel shame for him/herself (Frijda, 1986, p. 73). Its action tendency may be to make the other aware of, and feel, our contempt, usually by hoping that another character will express it, or through fantasising about ill-fortune which will force them to re-evaluate themselves. For example, players may feel contempt for Wakka when he is ineffective in battle, or when he expresses prejudice against Rikku, undermining the harmony of the Guardians. However, once Wakka shows contriteness for his prejudice against Rikku, players no longer need to communicate their contempt since he is embarrassed for himself. At this point, his prejudice seems less wilful and more a matter of a character flaw, allowing players to feel compassion for him. Nonetheless, since the blocking of a protagonist's actions is often the result of contemptible qualities in an antagonist, such as Seymour 's arrogance, angry fantasising is likely to accompany contempt.
Fear and Taboos
When one is angry, the danger faced is not usually part of one's evaluation of the situation. By contrast, fear involves a heightened awareness of danger perceived in proximity to the self, often accompanied by uncertainty as to one's ability to cope. When fear operates as an empathetic emotion that a player feels on behalf of a character, its action tendency is likely to be to direct that character to safety (Frijda, 1986, p. 197). In FFX , the most obvious assertion might be that players experience fear when characters enter into new and unknown environments, which holds the promise of new threats, necessitating some degree of caution.
Of course, if there is anything to be afraid of during navigation of Spira's wilderness it is encounters with fierce opponents. However, while t he random and therefore unexpected entry into combat may be startling, combat is usually routine and not really a cause for threat. It is more likely, then, that most new environments give rise to suspense rather than fear. Where a pronounced suspense or fear is likely to occur is during encounters with new, over-sized and/or unknown monsters, and/or when characters are weak and low on healing potions or magic points. This suspense or fear may be reinforced by countdowns, as when Sin, Anima and Jecht gradually charge their devastating Overdrives, or when opponents like Seymour alternate between different attacks for which players may not have been able to prepare. Any suspense or fear may also be reinforced whenever the Flee option is disabled and there is no affordance for escape, as is the case with most Boss monsters, including Seymour and Sin. In these situations, players may see no way for the characters to survive, and can only fantasise about some impossible escape or protective force.
However, as the next chapter argues, emotions within game macrostructures are more likely to be experienced from the perspective of the player , not a character. The implication is that empathetic fear, in the sense discussed here, is less likely to occur in the Field or Battle screens, and more likely to occur as a witness emotion felt towards characters during narrative sequences, including cut-scenes. Indeed, the inability to act during such sequences may be a significant parameter of empathetic fear. As Grodal (1997) argues, when there is no affordance for voluntary action all that is left is an involuntary autonomic response of fear, pity and/or horror. Perhaps the clearest example of this is during Sin's attack on Kilika, which brings forth an enormous, advancing wave. The close-up on the faces of the village folk, especially the mother and child, elicits compassion and protectiveness, but, more than this, the immobility of the viewer as witness reinforces the sense of helplessness (see Figure 7.8).
Figure 7.8. (a) A mother and child in the shadow of Sin in Kilika. (b) The folk of Kilika helpless before the advance of Sin.
It also can be argued that FFX makes systematic use of taboos, and their violation, as a way of evoking a sense of dread and danger. Here it is relevant that Besaid, Tidus' departure point in Spira, connotes the kind of tribal life often associated with taboos: a primitive world stripped of civilising masks, naked in its sex, death, and ritual. Certainly, Besaid is an idealised village, and the tribal connotations may derive less from FFX than from stereotyped representations of “primitives” in colonialist-styled texts, such as Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885/1956), or Indiana Jones: Raider's of the Lost Ark (1981). Nonetheless, FFX 's representations of “primitive” rituals (the “blitzball” prayer, the Summoning, and Sendings) and taboos (not entering the Trials of the Fayth, praying at the standing stone before leaving Besaid island, and not using Machina) suggests the potential relevance of taboos to player's hermeneutic expectations (see Figure 7.9).
Figure 7.9. (a) Yuna shows respect to the imposing Temple in Besaid. (b) Wakka prays to the standing stone before leaving Besaid (“It's an ancient custom. People leaving the island pray here for a safe trip”).
Freud (1913/1950) defined taboos as social prohibitions that have their origin in group survival, and anthropologists have elaborated upon the formation and function of the major taboos, such as incest or marriage within families, eating one's totem animal, speaking of the dead, and observance of caste (Evans-Pritchard, 1937/1985; Frazer, 1912/1993; Levi-Strauss, 1963, 1966/1976; Malinowski, 1926, 1927, 1954, 1963). The issue here is that, following Jackson (1988), it can be argued that fear, or at least suspense, may be elicited when characters in FFX violate social prohibitions.
Jackson (1988), like Freud (1919/1990) and Todorov (1973), sees taboos as contributing to a sense of the uncanny, which is a specialised form of fear. She argues that representions of the unspeakable, the nameless, and the taboo, express resistence to the dominant cultural order, “truth” or “reality.” We may see this as significant both because it troubles the epistomological certainties of a narrative, suggesting some “other” reality, and because the violation of a cultural order invites fear of punitive consequences, promoting a vigilant search for hidden threats. Of course, just as the experience of trauma cannot be generalised, the experience of the uncanny depends upon the taboo in question. Nonetheless, it is possible to argue that any anxiety or fear exists largely in relation to the prohibition itself. That is, one may be horrified at a taboo act, such as murder, putrefaction, or rape, but this horror may overlap with fear of the prohibitive force that prevents its expression. If the taboo exists through our prior acceptance of the prohibition at the level of the super-ego, then its violation may resonate through our moral being. Our pursuant anxiety about the consequences of transgression may be globally projected as a vague, but overwhelming, fear of wrongness, deviance, and punishment. There is no need to fall back on the Freudian equation of punishment with castration; it suffices to say that what one fears is the punishment itself and/or the emotions associated with the punishment (such as fear and shame). The uncanny therefore may be regarded less in terms of repressed trauma and more in terms of a learned anxiety about a prohibitive/punitive force. In regards to fictional texts, the sense of dread about some hidden trauma or violation in a character's past, and/or some unspeakable taboo in the present, creates a sense that there is an anterior “reality” beneath the appearance of reality. With this qualification, it is possible to focus on which taboos are represented in FFX , the extent to which the narrative preserves the force of prohibition, and therefore the extent to which they may elicit anxiety and fear.
While many psychologists have rejected or reworked Freud's (1920) dual-instinct theory (Mitchell & Black, 1995; Stein, 1991; Tomkins, 1962), the terms Thanatos (death-drive) and Eros (sex-drive), as used by Todorov (1973) and Jackson (1988), usefully point to two clusters of taboos in FFX . In regards to the taboos associated with death (Thanatos), taboos of patricide, suicide and matricide can be observed in the game. P atricide, as mentioned in Chapter Six, may be the most prominent taboo in FFX , in that both Tidus and Seymour slay their own fathers. However, while Seymour 's blasé acknowledgement of patricide shocks the other Maesters, there is no Oedipal moment of crisis during which Tidus states: “I can't kill my own father” or “I have just killed my father!” Despite Tidus' growing recognition that he must defeat his father he never verbalises the problem as one of patricide, nor is patricide the explicit basis of narrative suspense (except perhaps before the fight with Braska's Final Aeon, when Tidus says “let's get this over with”).
Nonetheless, there is a definite sense in which Tidus wishes to escape or conquer the influence of his father. In one notable sequence, the player is asked to try and perform Jecht's trademark kick while “bad memories,” in the form of Jecht's discouraging voice, keep appearing on the screen: the player must strike the appropriate keys quickly enough to “banish” them. If the player does not “banish” the bad memories, Tidus does not make the kick and keeps living in Jecht's shadow. Furthermore, the silence in regards to patricide may be seen as analogous to Yuna's silent awareness of her impending death through self-sacrifice. Yuna's fate is not spoken of because, as Lulu says, “some things are too painful.” Similarly, Tidus may be unable to speak of the impending murder because he is repressing the pain of it, such that his silence bespeaks the force of the taboo.
However, given the Japanese concern with filial piety, it is more likely that the taboo in question is a verbal one against speaking ill of one's father or family. Tidus' anger at his father is largely represented while he is narrating to himself, or alone. Yuna is shocked when Tidus expresses hate for Jecht, especially given her positive memories of Jecht and the enormous public respect accorded to both Jecht and her father, Braska, for defeating Sin. Indeed, Tidus' disrespect for Jecht is an indirect disrespect for the pilgrimage itself, and is therefore sacrilegious. When, in Macalania Woods, Auron tells Tidus that Jecht loved him, observing that “it had to be said,” Tidus' suppression of his anger may be read as reflecting his own (need for) love. In light of this, Tidus' real confrontation with Jecht may be seen, not as any act of violence, but the verbalisation of “I hate you” to his father's face. This verbal acknowledgement, within the context of mutual understanding of their love (evident in Jecht's gently laughed “I know”), is the true moment of resolution between child and primary caregiver: the moment in which Tidus acknowledges not only his mixed love and hate for his father, but his father's love for him.
It is significant that, even though Tidus subsequently fights Jecht's form in Braska's Final Aeon, Jecht is being transformed into something other than a father (Braska's Final Aeon) and he organised for Tidus to kill him. Indeed, Tidus rescues his father from being confined to the cursed form of the monster he no longer represents. The murder, then, is an act of love. Indeed, part of the tragedy of the game is that at the moment he realises that Jecht is not the monster that Tidus thought he was, Jecht turns into a monster in the literal sense, and Tidus must kill him. There is a kind of dreadful wish-fulfilment in this, a parody of the id's drama being realised to punish the ego that has exorcised it. This diffuses the sense that Tidus (intentionally) commits patricide, yet retains a sense of the horror, or tragedy, of the act.
Suicide as a taboo is implicit in the Summoners' (including Yuna's) quest to kill Sin, despite knowing it will lead to their death. Within the religious discourse of Yevon, spoken by Yuna, this is self-sacrifice for the sake of those in Spira: the highest act of altruism, supported and respected by the majority of those in Spira. However, that this self-sacrifice violates the sanctity of human life is represented by the Al Bhed, who kidnap the Summoners to prevent them going to their deaths. For them, the Summoner's deaths is not a case of self-sacrifice but of being sacrificed to preserve a god (Sin, Yu Yevon) or a system (rule by the dead Maesters) which is itself unjust. Volunteering to be a sacrifice to Sin crosses the taboo of suicide because such an act perpetuates the Spiral of Death. The dramatic refusal of the Guardians to sacrifice one of themselves to Yunalesca to become a Final Aeon is the definitive moment when suicide is preserved as a taboo, when the liberal rights of the individual are held above Spira's tradition of sacrifice. Suicide also is made explicit in the cut-scene in which Seymour 's mother gives her life to become an Aeon, the horror of which is represented by Seymour as a crying child, dramatising a prohibition against mothers abandoning their children. This suicide is supposedly a compassionate act of motherly self-sacrifice, in that Anima hoped the power she could give Seymour might help him overcome his difficulties as a taunted, half-breed Guado. However, when the characters reach Baaj Temple and talk to Anima in her human form, she acknowledges that her sacrifice was a mistake because it denied Seymour a mother's love and facilitated his compensatory greed for power.
A subtext of matricide may be perceived in the way Seymour embraces the power of his dead mother. While Seymour did not kill her and suffered her loss as a child, players may infer that he has come to see her death as necessary, and, were he given a choice between keeping her alive and killing her to receive Anima's power, he would choose to kill her (as he killed his father). Her death precipitates his goal to release everyone from suffering by murder: a murder of all life ( vitalis - cide?) which subsumes all variations of murder; or, perhaps, gyno-cide, in the sense of killing the womb, that which gives life. Players might perceive deeper motives in Seymour 's character. By killing everyone, his mother's death may be rendered meaningless and in some sense nullified, leading to a kind of reunion with her. Nonetheless, Seymour 's disregard for, and illicit exploitation of, his mother's death connotes matricide, or at least the taboo against hating or disrespecting one's family.
If we consider the taboos associated with sex (Eros), it is possible to observe taboos of voyeurism, incest, necrophilia, homosexuality and miscegenation in FFX . Most trivially, FFX 's emphasis on visual spectacle gives way to focalisation on (especially) Yuna's and Lulu's secondary sexual characteristics, promoting the paradoxically safe and legitimate taboo of voyeurism . At the same time, the G-rated FFX lacks direct or explicit representations of sexual intercourse, and the romance between Yuna and Tidus is represented in the manner of coy romanticism. FFX 's gameplay, being a private act before a television, may be negatively structured as a private, guilty act of voyeurism, but no other aspect of the game structures this voyeurism as prohibited: the player may wait for and relish the exhibitionism. Nonetheless, the sexualization of Yuna may be seen as structured as a taboo for several reasons: her virginal purity as a Summoner; her role as a Guardian of social virtue (and therefore as prohibitive in herself); and Tidus' status as Aeon (in that any suggestion of sex with Tidus might connote a sexualization of death).
Tidus's love for Yuna may also be interpreted as symbolically prevented by an incest taboo, through her sisterly qualities as wiser, sibling guide, and the subtext of the Guardians as an extended/surrogate family, with Tidus and Yuna as brother and sister, or cousins (especially given that their fathers both knew one another, literalising the metaphor “brothers by the sword”). This taboo may also be seen as occurring between Wakka and Lulu, given that Lulu was initially attached to Wakka's brother, Chappu, or at least their relationship may be seen as connoting the possible violation of the biblical prohibition against coveting another's wife. Through the majority of the game, Lulu's waspishness and criticism of Wakka place their relationship in negative terms. However, when Tidus overhears them talk through a tent flap in Besaid, and then, later, while sitting on a staircase on the S. S. Winno, his voyeuristic eavesdropping may re-position the two characters' relationship in terms of not just some hidden secret, but forbidden desire, and some after-hours romantic tryst.
Necrophilia might be seen as a weak, flickering subtext of Tidus' and Yuna's romance given Tidus' status as an Aeon, a spirit of the dead. Of course, Tidus is not represented (like Anima) as a decayed corpse, but as a normal, young male, and his ultimate dissipation into spirit dust on the deck of the Airship is more akin to transcendence. Ultimately, his and Yuna's romance is represented not as necrophilia, but as love that—foreshadowed by Seymour 's proposal—is doomed. Thematically, it is tragic, not taboo, and the taboos derive from the qualities indicated above. However, necrophilia may be read as a stronger subtext of Seymour 's union with his dead mother's Aeon. The figure of Anima, as a grotesque image of Seymour's mother chained and tortured in bondage, is sexually unattractive, yet Seymour is sexualised by the casual display of his chest and his proposal to Yuna, with the unstated but inferred promise of connubial obligations. If Seymour is sexualised, this sexualises his drive for power, and the player may characterise him in terms of some transfer of desire between Seymour and Anima.
A minor taboo of miscegenation may be observed in FFX in that Seymour is half human and half Guado. While players eventually discover that Yuna is half Al Bhed, the Al Bhed seem to be a different race of humans, whereas the Guado, with their larger size, bestial manes, and long claws, seem to be a different species. The blurring of categories associated with miscegenation might be linked to a minor taboo of homosexuality, given Seymour 's sexually ambiguous self-presentation. That is, Seymour 's trans-gendered appearance, which violates the expectations of clearly gendered roles set up by the clearly heterosexual protagonists, marks the absence of simplicity or wholeness. He is marked by complexity, some tension (or pathology) under the surface of his image, which can later be interpreted as a sign of his subterfuge, treachery and patricide.
Despite the weakness of some of the taboos noted above, collectively all the taboos represented in FFX connote a trespass upon the forbidden, and all of these taboos may be seen as embodied in the prohibitive force of Sin. Sin is initially perceived as collective guilt, humanity's punishment for its arrogance. He may be profaned (defeated), yet only within the ritual defined by the Maesters as acceptable (the pilgrimage), and he always returns: an eternal fetish of veneration, of fear and awe, unwanted yet accepted. When the Guardians defeat Seymour and attack Yunalesca in the hope of defeating Sin once and for all, they commit an act of blasphemy against the Law of Yevon that preserves Sin. When Maester Mika hears of Yunalesca's death he is so dismayed at the sacrilege and its potential consequences that he chooses to end his undead existence and dissipate. Even though he serves the Spiral of Death, which the Guardian's have chosen to attack, Mika's dismay expresses the Guardians' fears about the consequences of their actions. As traitors they are scapegoats, inheriting all the fear and guilt of taboo, fostering not only sympathy for them as victims of injustice, but an uncanny feeling that anything and anyone could be an agent of their punishment.
However, players later learn that Sin is not, literally, the embodiment of human sin. Rather, Sin is the armour of a god, Yu Yevon, who witnessed Bevelle's destruction of Zanarkand a thousand years earlier and wished to defend himself against the threat of technologically-empowered humans. While the people of Bevelle were arrogant and justly punished, the punishment of Spira a thousand years afterwards is a consequence not of the stain of that Sin, but the fear and vengeance of Yu Yevon. It is only when Sin's sacred nature itself is bravely defiled—when Sin is revealed to be neither natural, moral, nor divine, but merely the armour of a fearful supernatural being—that he becomes truly profane, something to be hated, cursed and purged in the name of sacred life. Indeed, the ritual of the Summoner's quest retrospectively may be seen as a neurotic script which ultimately preserves the affect (fear) it tries to repress, and which the Guardians must banish. Certainly, t he defeat of Sin not only reprieves Yuna and her Guardians, it also allows for the inauguration of a new order, of the son (Tidus) over the father (Jecht), and the daughter (Yuna) over the mother (Yunalesca). This retrospectively legitimates the Guardians' taboo-breaking. To kill the already-dead is not a crime against life. A situation in which the dead rule the living is the trauma, the taboo, which must be brought to consciousness and undone.
Sadness, and Tragedy
Despite the prevalence of cues for fear in FFX it can be argued that the emotion that especially characterises the game is sadness. Sadness may be characterised as negative arousal resulting from the overwhelming loss of desired object or state without prospect of recovery, or at least of likely or easy recovery (Frijda, 1986, p. 199). Its action tendency is a withdrawal which provides the space to work through one's sadness and accept the loss in the present, leading either to a renewed hope for (eventual) recovery of the object, or to a more complete acceptance of the irrevocable nature of the loss. FFX represents many profound losses experience by characters: Tidus' father dies; his mother dies; his home is destroyed. He meets Yuna, whose parents are dead, and Wakka, whose brother, Chappu, is dead. Tidus later learns that his father is still alive, but must be killed. Worse, Tidus learns that he is already dead and that his desire for a loving union with Yuna is an impossible dream.
Many of these losses, and the losses experienced by other characters in FFX , are disclosed retrospectively, such that the player is forced to recognise the previously unperceived sadness of characters. Rikku is initially represented as exuberantly happy, but we later are told that she and her race have suffered prejudice and violence, including exile from Spira. Her new home in Sanubia Sands is subsequently destroyed. Players learn that Kimahri was exiled from the Ronso home in Mount Gagazet , and that his broken horn is a sign of his lost honour. Although Kimahri returns home and reclaims his honour by beating Biran and Yenke in a fight, Seymour subsequently exterminates the entire Ronso race. Lulu, while initially represented as coldly indifferent, suffers from the death of her lover Chappu. She is also revealed to have failed an earlier Summoner, who died before the completion of her pilgrimage. Worse, Tidus learns that everyone but him was aware that Yuna was expected to die if her pilgrimage was successful. This means that he had not shown sympathy where it was due, and t he player may also sense a lost opportunity for consolation, here and whenever a formerly hidden loss is represented. This progression of retrospective disclosures of loss culminates near the end of the game when it is revealed that Auron is not only dead but knew the entire tragic story of the Spiral of Death all along, and was prevented from his final rest because he had promised Jecht that he would bring Tidus to Spira. His formerly mysterious and distant manner therefore may be re-read as a sign of the burden he has carried: the secret of the suffering that his companions had already experienced or had yet to endure.
Indeed, part of the tragedy in FFX is that characters' emotions, honest expressions of sadness as well as happiness, are repressed. From the character's perspective we might say that this repression compounds any loss by taking away the promise of emotional release and consolation. Perhaps the clearest instance of this is the drawn out silence between Yuna and her Uncle Cid after she is rescued from Bevelle. When Cid turns away and the external focalisation closes in to reveal his suddenly stricken face, the combination of surprise at the ability of a video game character to present such an expression is combined with surprise at the extremity of Cid's grief/relief. The visibility of this expression is likely to be perceived as a form of inhibition because the object of the expression, Yuna, does not see it. Consequently, players may see this expression not simply as a sign of Cid's inner life or of the intimacy of Cid's and Yuna's relationship, but as a sign of the repression, or inhibition, of feelings in general. Cid's expression may make players more aware of the feeling-world beneath the digital representations of the characters and beneath the surface of characters' casual transactions.
This restraint or helplessness is evident elsewhere in FFX . Tidus must restrain his love for Yuna because he does not believe she reciprocates; later they both must restrain their mutual love because of their duties to Spira; then their love is denied through Tidus' death. Tidus must restrain his anger towards his father because Jecht is respected in Spira and liked by Yuna, who he does not wish to alienate. Yuna must restrain her anger when Seymour forces her to marry him, as is evident in her clenched, but impotent, fist (see Figure 7.10). Kimahri, being hyper-masculine, also constantly restrains his emotions; Lulu represses her feelings at Chappu's death (only truly showing her weakness at Mushroom Rock); and all the Guardians restrain their emotion about Yuna's impending death (“some things are too painful to talk about”). This restraint is evident even in Tidus and Wakka's frequent qualifying use of “well,” “then,” “you know?” and “ya,” which may sometimes be read as indexical of an idea or emotion that is simply too overwhelming to express. Lastly, Tidus' forced smile and laughter is likely to be perceived more as a way of dealing with an underlying fear than as a sign of happiness.
Figure 7.10. (a) Seymour forces Yuna to kiss him. (b) Yuna, having been warned that resistance will lead to her friends' execution, clenches her fist in her effort to restrain herself.
This restraint could, given Squaresoft's Japanese heritage, be explained in terms of stereotypical representations of the Chinese and Japanese (Occidentals are liable to conflate them) as restrained and inscrutable. However, it is more likely that restraint is interpreted in terms of characters being afraid to lose affection or the possibility of affection. If Tidus takes on the role of Yuna's Guardian as a means of indirectly expressing his love, this is because he fears she does not feel the same. When Wakka punches Tidus' shoulder and gets him in a headlock, this is meaningful because both of them have both lost loved ones: the aggression is an indirect expression of affection that holds at bay the possibility of rejection or further loss. Players may also see restraint in terms of characters' super-egos. For example, Cid's and Wakka' masculinity makes any expression of emotion a sign of weakness. The issue here, then, is not that players identify with the prohibitive force of a super-ego accepted by a character, but that a player may perceive a prohibition as a regrettable force which holds a character back, and which the character is helpless to overcome. That is, players may feel compassion towards characters who are prevented by their own fear or other traits from realising their happiness, and the loss of this potential happiness has a tragic quality.
Of course, restraint may also be seen as a sign of external forces in that, for the Al Bhed, who are constantly persecuted and must struggle against adversity to survive, their masculine super-egos have an adaptive function. Indeed, it is likely that the various exhibitions of restraint in FFX generally may be coded in terms of the characters as helpless victims of the events in which they find themselves. Tidus' love of Yuna is threatened by Seymour 's proposal, his kidnapping of Yuna, and his threat to her life, and their romance is doomed by Tidus' knowledge of his death. Tidus may spend one evening with Yuna in Macalania Forest during which they express their love for each other, but only in the awareness that Yuna may die. When Tidus runs after Jecht following their conversation in the City of the Dead, he betrays his true goal, his desire to be re-united with his father. The final moment of Tidus' departure is one of desire frustrated. He and Yuna reach towards one another from opposed realms: the living, material and present world of Yuna versus the dead, immaterial, past world of Tidus. Consequently, as Tidus attempts to embrace Yuna he simply passes right through her (see Figure 7.11).
Figure 7.11. (a) Tidus attempts to embrace Yuna but (b) passes right through her.
The tragic quality of FFX especially lies in characters' helplessness at the possibility, or inevitability , of loss. If we define tragedy in the limited sense of characters caught up in an unfavourable chain of events they cannot control, and which arouse in viewers fear ( phobos ) and pity ( eleos ), then many of the macrostructures discussed above are tragic (see Abrams, 1988; Aristotle, trans. 1965; Kaufmann, 1969; Leech, 1969; Lucas, 1966). Notably, Tidus appears in Besaid only to be caught up in conflicts whose momentum is beyond his ability to (initially) alter, much less understand, and all his hopes and loves are tragic because he is already dead and they can never be realised.
Indeed it can be argued that, by occasionally or eventually making most characters' motives accessible, and/or making them seem inevitable as a consequence each character's hamartia , empathetic fear and sadness is distributed across many characters. This is not simply because multiple characters suffer their respective losses, but because characters share the same loss and/or are helpless victims of the same circumstances. For example, the moment when Tidus interrupts Yuna with the recording sphere at Rin's Travel Agency at the Mi'ihen Highroad is narrated a second time later in the game, with internal focalisation that allows the player to appreciate Yuna's feelings for Tidus, which she had hidden at the time. This is likely to reinforce the player's empathy towards both Tidus and Yuna as victims of a situation that keeps them apart.
More generally, all the characters in FFX are caught up in the wake of Bevelle's sins, the follies of human nature, and the chaos and violence at loose in the world. It is significant that Yu Yevon is such a weird and inhuman being, for as a visual representation he cannot support all the villainy that players have witnessed throughout the game. Yu Yevon resembles nothing more than a ball of elemental fear and/or rage. His violent conduct is an ongoing reaction to the threat posed by the Machina wielded by Bevelle a 1000 years ago when it destroyed Zanarkand, and because this attack is represented so far in the past, almost as timeless as legend, Yu Yevon may be read as a projection of universal negative attributes of human nature: selfishness, intolerance, fear, and the hunger for power. Since these attributes are evident in the actions of the Seymour, the Maesters, and even Wakka, it is possible that players may see Yu Yevon as the face of human nature and may see susceptibility to this nature as the hamartia of humans in general. This means that players may pity not only individual characters, but many, or all of, the game's characters.
These arguments can be linked to the shifts between observational and enactive attitudes discussed in Chapter Three. When viewing a canonical narrative we usually identify and empathise with a voluntary, self-impelled protagonist acting towards a particular goal, and, as a result, experience motor-oriented tensities in the form of suspense. This requires, of course, a sense that the character (or, in the case of game, the player), has a choice to act, or not to act, or to choose from one of several actions, suggesting a decision-making process embedded in a living individual (pp. 116-122). When a character's “capacity for voluntary acts and thinking is blocked it usually leads to a feeling of alienation, strangeness, and unreality in the viewer” (p. 120), a kind of impenetrable detachment. The consequence of subject-actants being controlled or manipulated by forces of nature, superhuman agents, social institutions, or “phenomena representing metaphysical agents, like Destiny or God” (p. 170), is “passive-introjection” (p. 160), in the sense that a viewer can only identify with the passive position of the subject-actant as object.
Figure 7.12. (a) A blitzball floats through the debris of Kilika and then (b) floats out of the frame.
Since, in Grodal's (1997) account, “reality” is usually characterised by the capacity for agency, the passive position may create connotations of unreality. It may also create more disturbing sensations in that the subtraction of a future in which choices and possibilities are held open produces an impression of pastness, inevitability, and deadness. As Grodal argues of Terminator II (1997), viewers witness an horrific future in which a nuclear war destroys much of the planet and leaving the rest of humanity to be hunted by mercenary robots:
The viewer is put into a state of high arousal, labelled fear and grief. But voluntary reactions seem to be totally blocked, because we are told that this is a precise recording of a future event in the history of mankind. . . . Logically there can be no teleological and voluntary acts, no guesses of outcomes. Everything is preprogrammed and causal. We can only shiver, cry, or react with various types of involuntary reactions of the nervous system. (p. 122)
Similarly, in FFX the player is repeatedly placed in a position of helpless witness to tragedy. Perhaps the most effective example of this occurs after Sin's destruction of the village of Kilika . Here the “camera” focuses in on the water and a blitzball bobs into view, only to pass out of the frame (see Figure 7.12). This blitzball is, given the devastation, likely to be read as metonymic of the dead at Kilika. The resulting transfer of significance and affect may mean that it is anthropomorphised and given a vulnerable, pathetic quality. This places the player in the passive position in a quite literal sense, because the player empathises with an object manipulated by natural forces: its movement across the debris-strewn water both restages, and makes more poignant, the player's helplessness. Furthermore, the metonymic operation itself constitutes a form of inhibition by making the dead bodies invisible. This is not merely a polite censorship that allows the dead to preserve their dignity, it signifies the inexpressible horror of their pointless and unpreventable death. It is also significant that the ball floats away and refuses the more obvious and contrived representation of the ball sinking below the surface. The ball is not merely a signifier of loss or grief, it testifies to the reality that it survives while people have not.
While gameplay is frequently disrupted and each player will have distinctive emotional responses, it is possible that these recurring situational meaning structures may give way to a “mood.” Moods are of more enduring quality than emotions, and characterised by “the absence of an object” and an appraisal that is of a “highly global nature” (Tan, 1997, p. 204). If this is the case, then the tragic elements of FFX may, in conjunction with the ambivalent reality-status, lead to a tonic tone of sadness or melancholy characterised by a passive position. Indeed, when players witness characters caught up in a tragic sequence of events beyond their control, this may resonate with the inability of the player to alter events in the context of enaction. The player's limited interactions in a linear narrative only serve to advance the tragedy, producing a seemingly paradoxical emphasis on involuntary autonomic responses (sadness and pity) from a passive position.
Frijda also identifies ten “context” or “action-relevant components” (p. 208): presence/absence, (un)certainty, change, open-ness/closed-ness, intentionality, controllability, modifiability, object versus event evaluation, focality-globality, strangeness-familiarity. He also identifies four “object components” (p. 214): ego as constituent, ego as object, object versus subject fate, and value relevance versus contingency.
Empathetic Emotions, Investment, and Allegiance
Expressions and situational contexts may, in general, be seen as operating along a synchronic axis and as largely regulating phasic emotions. Conversely, investment in, and allegiance to, characters may be seen as operating along a diachronic axis and as regulating tonic emotion towards characters. The usefulness of this distinction is that it emphasizes how, on the one hand, a situational context may have precedence in defining a player's empathetic responses. Even when the antagonist Seymour is killed it is possible to experience empathy with him by identifying with the generic situation of a person experiencing their death . On the other hand, sometimes the tonic sympathy generated through investment in, and allegiance with, a character may be what especially determines the emotional response of the player to a situation, or at least the degree of that response.
As Grodal (1997) notes, interest in, and sympathy with, a character usually results from prolonged cognitive identification; more precisely, investment provides a basis for a tonic attitude of sympathy which functions as an antecedent of other, phasic empathetic emotions. However, this investment may be reinforced by “allegience,” which Murray Smith (1994) defines as the extent to which one cognitively or affectively adheres to a character's values or moral perspective. In identifying the potential allegiance between players' and characters' values it is useful to look at how types of moral agency and values operate, and their relationships with one another. Smith distinguishes between “Manichean moral structures,” in which there is a clear “binary opposition of values,” and “graduated moral structures,” in which characters “occupy a range of positions between the two poles” (p. 207). FFX may be seen as possessing a graduated moral structure, and in elaborating upon it we can turn to Lawrence Kohlberg's (1981) model of moral development. This model is a reworking of Piaget's (1932) model, and attends to the changing relationships between individuals and rules. Without debating the validity of a stage-dependant model or processes of moral reasoning (see Kohlberg, 1976, 1981; Kohlberg, Levine & Hewer, 1983), Kohlberg's (1981) six stage model suggests six broad categories which frame players' differentiation of value systems: amorality, self-serving (or sadistic) immorality, egocentric morality, rigid morality, equal (liberal) morality, and selfless morality. We may see these categories as moral “types” along a spectrum of negative allegiance to total allegiance that define a basis for evaluating and positioning oneself in relationship to conflicts between or within characters, and which frame more subtle distinctions between the values and goals of characters .
First, a type of “amorality” may be identified in the limited sense associated with natural forces, inanimate matter, or beings devoid of conscious awareness or any capacity for empathy. While they may be organised and act strategically as opponents, the activity of amoral beings is akin to the biologically motivated, non-voluntary responses of animals or the programmed agency of machines. As noted above, the significance of this may be to reinforce a sense of frustration, rather than anger, in that any blocking produced by such beings is involuntary. More generally, amorality provides a negative position against which to define a suitable subject of identification and allegiance: in the absence of consciousness there is no basis for allegiance. As is elaborated in the next two chapters, amoral beings, such as robots, may cue a sense of automatic and indifferent assault: a fear of loss or death made poignant by the lack of acknowledgement of our meaningfulness or humanity.
This type may be distinguished from a second type of “self-serving” or “sadistic” “immorality.” Unlike the “amoral” type, the “immoral” type is predicated on a being's awareness of the perspectives and interest of others, but is qualified by that being's willingness to violate others' interests for his/her own ends, or for its own sake. As noted above, anger towards another is greater when that person acts voluntarily, and this is the category in which we position most of the humanoid monsters in FFX : they are attributed with sufficient intention that we can readily perceive them as having made an anti-social choice against us. Seymour embodies this category in that he freely manipulates others for his own ends. Generally, the expectation that villainous or inhuman characters will be punished makes it unproductive, or impractical, to empathise with them in anything other than a transitory way. Once a player knows that a character is an antagonist, or “immoral” or “inhuman,” there is not usually any need for further cognitive identification, except to hypothesise (or, in the case of gameplay, experiment with) the means for their defeat and punishment. Inhumanity, then, allows players to recognise antagonists, provides a target for negative empathetic emotions, and maximises sympathy, compassion, and (potentially) admiration for characters who oppose it.
Both the “amoral” and “immoral” types, which are in some respect “inhuman,” may be reinforced by the distinctive qualities of video game characters. This is evident if we turn to Grodal's (1997) argument that the impression of humanity usually requires an impression of organic unity, a Gestalt of “human-ness,” which is clearly embodied by Bordwell's (1989) “folk-schemata” of “the putatively sane, mentally active and uncoerced human adult,” or generic “person schemata” (p. 152). In narratives, the most minimal description—often merely a name—is sufficient for us to provide a basis for identification with a character, inasmuch as players will infer other basic attributes (Grodal, 1997, p. 92). So long as these traits are projected onto them, even patently inhuman characters—animals, plants, animated objects, and so on—may be identified as human, in that one can empathise with their struggle to attain goals within a diegesis. By implication, human-ness is “often described negatively, as something lacking, in non-human figures of fiction such as robots and monsters” (Grodal, 1997, p. 106). If the subtraction of notably “human” traits is a basis for perceiving deviations from human-ness, then it is likely that the limited coding and ergodic affordances of video games may read as a subtraction of these traits and may contribute to a sense of inhumanity.
Humans are presumed to have a “singular and unified” (Grodal, 1997, p. 152) body, which provides a basis for us to evaluate the intention of a being (“it has teeth and claws, it can injure me if it gets close enough to bite or scratch”). In FFX , a player will usually react to “monsters” onscreen with some sense that their onscreen bodies define the proximity of their actions. Certainly, many robots, notably Defenders, Gemini, and YKT, embody mechanised masculinity, whereby their physical presence has a direct correlation with physical danger. Many monsters also have physical characteristics which correspond with an attack type, as in the YKT's “Kick,” Behemoth's “Heave,” the Sand Worm's “Swallow,” or the Bomb's “Explode.” However, with some opponents the entire form and capabilities may not be immediately apparent from their body, or they may inflict damage beyond the normal range of that body. Yunalesca, for example, sends an enormous tongue out at the characters, and her Hellspite attack involves tentacles burrowing under the ground and up at the characters. Furthermore, several opponents have more than one incarnation. Seymour reappears three times after his initial defeat, taking a different form each time: Seymour Flux, Seymour Natus, and Seymour Omnis. Yunalesca takes three forms during the single battle with her: she is initially a goddess-like figure; she then summons tentacles to her; and then takes the form of an enormous, black, medusa-like head. This body-hopping inclines players to see the perceived body as but part of a larger presence, perhaps suggesting an immaterial body behind the physical one.
Humans are also presumed to have “the ability to perceive remote objects” (Grodal, 1997, p. 92), which allows us to identify another's line of perception (“it has poor vision, I'll be safe if I don't move”). In FFX , it can be said that “monsters” have perceptual activity, but that it is often limited to a (heightened) awareness of characters. In many 3D games, like Doom (1994) or Vampire: The Masquerade (1999), players can see monsters approaching, and are free to attack and run in real-time. In FFX , the only real instance of this real-time action is the escape from Guadosalam where players must guide Tidus to run from the pursuing Guado in the Field Screen. However, each time a Guado comes too close the game jumps to the Combat Screen. During most of FFX players do not even get this much warning: there is a jump from seeing Tidus travelling alone in the Field Screen to seeing Tidus and the other characters fighting a wandering monster in the Combat Screen. Within the Combat Screen characters cannot hide or outmanoeuvre, they can only (try to) flee from the fixed site of battle. Yet trying to flee involves characters running on the spot until they succeed, and escape. This holds for not only seemingly immobile monsters, like Funguar, but fast-moving insects that players might imagine would chase characters across the landscape. In this respect, being perceived by a monster may be experienced as a kind of immobilising force. Characters struggle not so much to escape a monster's proximity, but to escape the irresistible force of its perception and will. Indeed, in some video games, opponents respond before characters move into their line of sight, Gauntlet (1985) being perhaps the most discomforting example. Such opponents respond as if their perception and consciousness are not confined by a physical body, but extend through the software and/hardware with access to the game database.
In addition to a physical body and basic faculties for perception, humans are presumed to have the ability “to experience tactile and interoceptive sensation” (Grodal, 1997, p. 92), and, by extension, “to feel simple motives, affects, and emotions” (p. 92), including self-awareness and empathy for others (p. 109). At this level, we can infer another's state of arousal (“is it hungry?”). As Grodal observes, an impression of inhumanity is often produced through the absence of emotions, or when emotion is not holistically integrated. For example, we might perceive as inhuman: the absence of another's emotional response to an event which we would presume to produce an “emotional” event (such as a violent death); an incongruent emotional response (such as a character's surprise that s/he forgot his/her umbrella while witnessing a violent death); or “odd” emotional responses, such as “weird, psychotic, cold” (p. 31). In FFX there are specific instances of this. When it is revealed that Seymour killed his father and he offers an indifferent: “Didn't you know?” Similarly, Kinoc and Yunalesca express a shocking indifference to the suffering of the people of Spira, given the regard in which both of them are held. In these cases, the absent or inappropriate emotional response is perceived as inhuman, as monstrous. More generally, players may experience the emotions of most monsters as fixed and organised by a pathology of hate and/or fear. While players may accept that robot opponents like the Oblitzerator are simply unemotional, robots may be seen as extensions of human agents, and the distribution of probabilities in a robot's programming may be seen as affective amplifiers, in that a robot may be predisposed towards certain kinds of responses. Alternately, since robot opponents function no differently from other opponents, their perceived absence of emotion may be projected onto other monsters creating a general impression of the un-emotionality of all opponents.
Humans are also presumed to have the ability “to understand uncomplicated plans, goals and acts” (Grodal, 1997, p. 92), including the capacity for flexibility, and “teleological, intentional and voluntary behaviour” (p. 108). This allows us to infer future conduct (“Is it aggressive? Does it see me as food?”). For Grodal, an impression of non-human-ness may be produced through the absence of such intention or mental representations of the goals of others (p. 108). This extends to obviously non-human, amoral opponents who are devoid of conscious awareness or a capacity for empathy, and act according to reflex or programming. In FFX this includes: animals (Achelous, Adamantoise, Bandersnatch, Bite Bug, Cave Iguion and so on), plant-animals (Funguar, Exoray), robots (Mech Guards, Gunners, Hunters and Leaders, Oblitzerator, Yat-99, YKT-63), magically-animated creatures (Defenders), and (arguably) elemental forces (Black, Blue, Dark, Gold, Red, White, Yellow Elements, and the Spherimorph). However, this impression is especially pronounced when one perceives automatism, exemplified by mechanical-like behaviour and/or a lack of characteristically human feedback and adaptability. This includes the tendency to walk rigidly, to gaze implacably, to speak formulaic statements, to possess a generic voice without emotional modulation. It also includes acting according to a mechanised or fixed form of behaviour, in the sense of a narrow motivation or “one-track-mind,” being driven by some program or script, or being impelled by some external force.
Of course, most video game monsters have no, or limited, capacity for self-impelled actions, such as communication, goal-formation, and goal-achievement, other than those associated with its narrative function or its traits for combat. It is only recently that Artificial Intelligence has been sufficiently developed so that enemy characters may, for example, investigate sounds and run to get reinforcements. The only responsiveness of opponents to player strategy in FFX is linked to their current status: some monsters may flee, heal themselves, or use a different attack, after a certain amount of damage is taken. For example, once Seymour Flux's HP drops below 35, 000, his Multiorchis will use Total Annihilation within two attack rounds. Most encounters in FFX are random or fixed to a certain location, and there is no “seeking,” merely a reflexive (reactive) attempt to attack and destroy under the generic semic attribution of “guard,” drawing from programmed strategies of defence and (in rare cases) retreat. If players perceive any motive at all it is likely to be: pathological; blind obedience to the commands of a “boss”; or a biological imperative to survive.
It can be argued, then, that the distinctive or limited qualities of video game characters may be interpreted as a subtraction of human qualities and produce an impression of what can be called a “pathological, physically over-reactive and coerced human” or “an inflexible, non-intelligent, programmed machine” (or “robot schemata”). A t the level of gross typing, to be confronted by that which is “inhuman”—especially if it is coded as monstrous, psychopathic or mechanical—implies a greater expectation of threat. This is not to suggest that every character in a video game who has the above characteristics is perceived as inhuman. Many opponents simply repeat a cycle of action, such as the sharks in Hercules (1997), or pass through programmed or random sequences of fixed functions, such as the bricks in Tetris (1984). It can be presumed that players often regard these not so much as actual opponents, but as agents of a greater opponent: the game itself (see Chapter Eight).
An impression of “inhumanity” therefore may reinforce, and characterise, the typing of video game characters as “amoral” or “immoral.” Of course, many humans may have limited perception, or be reflexive, inflexible, narrow-minded, obsessive, and so on. The issue is that whenever they act in excessively selfish or immoral ways we are likely to perceive them as less human, or even monstrous, having lost the tolerance and altruism that marks the best of humanity. Indeed, Seymour is perhaps the most monstrous figure in FFX precisely because he is (part) human, and therefore has the capacity to be tolerant and altruistic. His conduct is a sociopathic negation of humanity's highest defining virtues: tolerance, empathy, compassion, altruism, and selflessness. Indeed, while Seymour's ambiguous traiting and miscegenation may foreshadow his madness and treachery, Yuna's parallel miscegenation means that his actions are more likely to be read as a warning of the psychological and social consequences of egocentrism, intolerance, and the inability to forgive: that is, as a warning for humans who act in human.
While all video game characters may have qualities of “inhumanity,” games like FFX mark protagonists by more “moral” types, and/or discourses, as a means of fostering allegiance. Aside from the “amoral” and “immoral” type, it is possible to identify a type of “egocentric morality,” whose basis is self-interested, but more in the liberal sense that people in general are “out for themselves,” and this self-interest is legitimated by an ideology of individualism. It can be argued that allegiance in video games is often based upon this morality in its form as the seemingly “natural” morality or right for individuals to do what is necessary to survive. This extends to Tidus in FFX . A t the beginning of the game, Tidus finds himself an orphan, teleported alone into a strange ocean, attacked by Geosgaeno; he explores the deserted ruins, makes a fire so as not to freeze, then falls asleep, only to be attacked by a giant lizard. Tidus's practical concerns with survival, safety and comfort define an agenda with which to define his other goals in the game (as well as the player's attitude towards gameplay, see Chapter Eight). Tidus' character is forced into a situation which promotes a reflexive individuation, a self-interested one-to-one relationship between self and environment. In this sense, once he has been defined him as the protagonist, a player is likely to persist empathizing with him on the basis of his survival (ironically or tragically, given that Tidus is already dead).
A player's concern for the survival of another may be exploited by games in which characters are self-interested and expiatory to the point of vengeful carnage. Players are unlikely to question Tidus' right to defend himself against the many monsters that attack him: his encounters with wandering monsters are likely to be seen in Darwinian terms as survival of the fittest. (Player's investment in Tidus also is likely to mean that players become concerned with the morality of fair play, in the sense of their right to enjoy a game they paid for; again, see Chapter Eight). Both investment in Tidus' survival and the conservation of gameplay incline players to cultivate a sense of Tidus' moral right to victory: that might makes right (or should). Given the continuity of game mechanics and the fact that Tidus' quest requires him to cross many landscapes and confront countless monsters players also are unlikely to register as morally significant their choice to chase wandering monsters simply for the sake of increasing Tidus' experience (if only because this is part of the game, rather than the story). However, it needs to be emphasised that FFX does not exploit survival in its narrative frame in the same way as FPSs like Doom (1994), which involve a lone protagonist violently destroying hundreds or thousands of foes.
It is possible to distinguish this “egocentric morality” from a type of “rigid morality,” in which a character believes in absolute truth and/or authority and inflexibly follows a particular set of rules as embodiments of this truth and/or authority. In FFX this is most evident in characters who follow the faith of Yevon. I n Besaid, Tidus meets characters who profess obedience and devotion to the Law of Yevon and its priesthood. He also learns that the whole of Spira accepts the Law that states that Sin reappears every thirty years, that Summoners should die on the quest to defeat him, and that one of the Summoner's companions must sacrifice himself to become the next Final Aeon (Sin). Yevon's rigid morality, which is a belief in an absolute truth or authority and whose rules are meant to be followed as a categorical imperative, is most clearly represented by Wakka, for whom actions are (initially) defined as right or wrong according to their adherence to these Laws. For example, the use of Machina to defeat Sin at Mushroom Rock is wrong because it is against Yevon's Law, and Maester Seymour's treachery is incomprehensible because Maester's embody the Law. This leads to a judgemental attitude. While Wakka humbly accepts that all people must “pay” for the sins which gave birth to Sin, he blames those of old Bevelle and those who use Machina.
This type can be distinguished from a fifth type, of “equal morality,” predicated on some degree of understanding and the tolerance of others' moral values. For example, w hen Tidus is abandoned at the beginning of the narrative, his lonely return to the basics of survival functions as a context in which to define the value of sociality. By being helped by the Al Bhed (“You're friends!”), Tidus learns that it is easier to survive in the company of others, with the possible implication that humans are naturally gregarious. This provides a pragmatic basis for empathetic activity: irrespective of racial or cultural difference, those who help us survive are friends, if not our moral kin.
FFX also dramatises a morality based on the fair and tolerant negotiation of different people's values through its representation of inter-racial and inter-cultural interaction. E arly on in a bar at Luca, Tidus witnesses a conflict between Kimahri and two other Ronso. Tidus is told that this is none of his business and, while he has reservations that non-interference is cowardice or a lack of loyalty, he holds back in the awareness that he does not fully understand the situation. Later, when Kimahri has to confront his Ronso brothers, Biran and Yenke, at Mount Gagazet, the other characters respect the honour-bound traditions he lives by, and stand back to let him fight alone. More generally, Yuna, as Summoner, embodies the virtues of harmony, and accepts men, women, human, Al Bhed, and Ronso as her Guardians. Yuna is also willing to marry Seymour, who is half-Guado, for the sake of harmony in Spira. The Al-Bhed are rejected by most of Spira, but Tidus initially accepts Rikku (as does Yuna when she meets her) and eventually all the other characters overcome their prejudice. Indeed, because of Yuna's attractiveness, the love that Tidus, the Guardians, and the people of Spira, feel for her, and her increasing role as a protagonist in whom players have invested, her miscegenation as half-human and half-Al-Bhed forces the characters, and inclines players, to overcome their prejudice against the Al Bhed.
While a type of “equal morality” may be predicated on self-interest, in that acting altruistically holds open the likelihood that others will act altruistically in our interest, it blurs into a sixth type of “selfless morality” that is predicated on not only empathy with the other, but a sense that selfless altruism is its own end. This is expressed in the actions of the Guardians, in that, as the heroes of the land, they precisely endanger themselves for the benefit of others. Tidus transfers the skills which make him a celebrity to the task of helping Yuna, the Guardians, and the community of Spira . Of course, altruism may be seen in cynical terms as a pragmatic way of ensuring one's safety in the sense that we wish well those who wish us well. After all, Tidus is alone in a strange land and needs help to get home. In this respect, “Guardian” is his occupation, and the help he receives from Yuna and the others is his wage. Yuna's quest conveniently leads towards his own destination, Zanarkand, and also allows him to stay close to her.
Nonetheless, FFX occasionally dramatises a selfless morality predicated on the belief that the effacement of one's own interests is its own end. Yuna not only offers a single act of selflessness, of giving up her love for Tidus by promising to marry Seymour , she accepts the ultimate act of self-sacrifice: surrendering her life to Sin for the sake of her people. This self-sacrifice is significant because the empathetic realisation that another is altruistic makes it safer and more productive for one to maintain proximity and allegiance with them. This might be explained in psychoanalytic terms in that the voluntary restraint exhibited by moral characters not only facilitates the player's allegiance with them, it facilitates the player's acceptance of them as a super-ego. More generally, any admiration for another's compassion and sacrifice produces a growing gratitude and obligation, manifested as loyalty and friendship, because most narratives reward virtue, and the more moral the protagonist the more likely one is to expect a reward from investing in them. Certainly, since Yuna is the character with the most effective ability to heal characters and cure status ailments, FFX literally and continually rewards a player's allegiance to her.
The conflict between different moral types is a useful basis for nominating dynamics of empathetic emotions. Generally, characters of equal or selfless morality are seen as justifiably opposing amoral, immoral and rigidly moral characters. However, this tension is not only between obvious opponents, but within or between protagonists. Much of the narrative tension in FFX results from Tidus and Yuna, who are already flexible in their moral attitude, being confronted by those who are closed-minded and oppressive. Indeed, if survival provides a seemingly universal basis for allegiance to characters, then the resistance against the imposition of another's rigid morality is naturalized as an extension of the human right to live in, and fight for, freedom. Throughout the entire Final Fantasy series there is a celebratory disobedience and revolutionary quality against a tyrannical ruler or rulers. In FF7 , Cloud is a member of Avalanche, who commits terrorism against the polluting Shinra Corporation. In FF8 , Squall joins a resistance movement to overthrow the Garabadian government and then challenge a Sorceress bent on world domination. In FFIX , Dagger rebels against her mother, the Queen, who is later seen as a puppet of another Sorcerer. In FFX , Tidus and the Guardians defy the Law of Yevon, and violate a host of taboos, as noted above.
Much of this revolutionary activity finds its subtext in the adolescent drive to find and assert oneself: Final Fantasy 's characters tend to be young (Tidus and Yuna are 17), and the games often narrate a rite-of-passage. If adolescence is about finding one's place in the world, then across the Final Fantasy series there is a subtext of “adults” having not run the world properly and as needing to be overthrown by the “natural” vitality and morality of the protagonists. It is only once a “natural” moral order—in which everyone is freed from (some tyrant's) oppression—that the young can find their place. So, in coming-to-age through service to the state, characters realize that their values are not those of the state, and that they can only realize their selfhood by confronting the corrupt(ed) world of adult power and politics. Here it is significant that the Al Bhed, who are the first to reject Yevon's law in FFX , are initially coded as barbaric, childish, or terroristic (violence and kidnapping), but are later seen as more morally informed. The necessity of acknowledging one's own misjudgement may not only elicit shame, but also allow us to feel that we have both matured and renewed our contact to a more natural morality. Players may not only feel intellectually and morally superior to other characters because of this, they may feel moral outrage when others persist in reversing their initial judgement.
Conclusion
This chapter has argued that FFX positions players to sympathise with Tidus' and Yuna's vulnerability and attractiveness, which may elicit compassion and foster their desirability as ego-ideals. This is likely to be reinforced by players' allegiance with the equal and/or selfless morality of the Guardians, which fosters identification with them as super-egos. Sympathy also will be reinforced through negative arousal towards unattractiveness, threatening and abnormal opponents, which is likely to be reinforced by negative allegiance resulting from their immoral, amoral, or rigidly moral typing. However, FFX also promotes a global sympathy for the population of Spira, including most opponents, as having experienced suffering or loss through the hermeneutic coding of tragedy. The helplessness of the player is partly dependant upon his/her position as a passive witness, but it may also resonate with his/her position as a player whose limited affordance merely serves to advance the tragic hermeneutic, producing not only the withdrawn tonality that Grodal (1997) associates with passive-introjection, but sadness as a dominant empathetic emotion or mood.
Nonetheless, we must make one final qualification. It is possible that Tidus' and Yuna's excessive vulnerability and sadness in the face of such an enormous and hopeless quest may produce “empathic distress” (Frijda, 1986), in the sense of discomfort around, and aversion to, the suffering of others. For example, a player's pleasure at being able to watch Yuna (for males) and/or share in her situation may occasionally be outweighed by the player's frustration at the lack of access to her, the labour of the game (notably rescuing her when she is kidnapped by Seymour), and her ongoing sadness (as a consequence of her self-sacrifice). That is, Yuna is hardly a fun girl. Her tragic air may be alluring, but its poignancy may become excessively painful, especially given that she may die. This anxiety will be greater if players suspect that her function in the story will be like that of Aeris in FFVII : a tragic female who sacrifices her life for others. If this is the case, players may expect that any positive investment in her (as a character in the narrative and as a character in the game) will be wasted. Players similarly may feel personal distress in reaction to Tidus' ongoing lament about his father's mistreatment of him, and, later, from the realisation that he is dead and will not be united with Yuna.
Any such personal distress might manifest itself in a path of minimal investment: players may not let themselves feel too much towards a character, and/or may not spend too much Gil and/or time developing them. It may also manifest as momentary wishes and fantasising. For example, players may wish that Yuna disappear or die sooner rather than later, or that Tidus abandon his interest in her. Players might hold open the possibility of a positive resolution, such as Yuna and Tidus uniting as spirits, or that Tidus will come back from the dead (the premise, it turns out, of FFX-2 ). Alternately, players may displace interest onto other aspects of the character, or other characters entirely, perhaps by attending to Auron's prowess, the bond between Tidus and the Guardians, or the potential romance of Wakka and Lulu. Indeed, personal distress may increase the attractiveness of Seymour , whose easy composure in a position of authority offers an ideal of both autonomy and freedom, reinforcing players' experience of the game as a tragedy in which weak “virtues” are doomed. However, personal distress is significant in a broader sense, since it is metonymic of the general process whereby the player's empathy with characters is affected by, or gives way to, the player's own self-concern.
