any case, the music suggests that you’re being offered an event and a mood; if there is
any trace of demand, the modality is that of the weakened form of enticement. This
musical enticement, though part of the guise of the game, operates in tandem with the
system, which invites you to make a move.
Similarly, you explore and progress through the gameworld in a fixed camera
environment. Here, you are positioned above the action, with the avatar and other
characters rendered as chunky, polygonal figures. This design distances them from the
player; or perhaps, during these parts of the game, makes them more puppet or doll-
like, developing a tamagotchi-like relationship in which the player trains and nurtures
the avatar like a pet (one the teenagers interviewed at the same time as Rachel draws
this comparison). You are linked to Cloud by your control of his movements, but look
down on him as the Olympian gods look down on Achilles and Hector, controlling
their actions from above. (Fig. 4) This is quite distinct, as we have seen, from the
battle mode, which is temporally fixed but characterised by swooping camera
movements, locating you much closer to the avatar, as if fighting alongside him. It
may be worth remarking that this mode was also available to the gods of the Iliad, as
they could send their avatar to earth in disguise to intervene in the action, as Athene
tricks Hector while disguised as his brother Deiphobus. The Olympian position, by
contrast, is a spatial and visual reinforcement of the offer mode - it detaches the
player a little, and offers stability, unlike the destabilizing battle camera, buttressing
the demand acts of the system.
[INSERT FIGURE 4 ABOUT HERE]