Heavy Hero or Digital Dummy: multimodal player-avatar relations in FINAL FANTASY 7



transitive sequences of the narrative; while this experience, adrenalin-fuelled through
the time-pressure and the urgent economies of the system, is imaginatively infused by
imaginative engagement with the character as image, sound, dialogue, and popular
narrative type.

This mutual infusion, however, is not the kind we find in films or books, where a
more intense engagement would imply a deeper psychological grasp of the character -
there is no evidence that fan commitment to Cloud is any more profound in that
respect than fan art or literature devoted to Buffy the Vampire-Slayer. The difference
is in the play, where rule-based system of the game and the dramatic, performative
engagement of a secondary orality energise the familiar semiotics of the narrative
character. The system brings the kinaesthetic dynamic of play to the engagement with
the character; the guise brings the semblance of dramatic protagonist to engagement
with the avatar. We continue to read; but we make material signs in the text-event of
the game, signs which are a kind of language, a kind of action; but the language and
action of play.

References

Allison, Anne (2000) ‘A Challenge to Hollywood? Japanese Character Goods Hit the

US’, Japanese Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp 67-88

Anderson, Perry (1980) Arguments within English Marxism, London: Verso

Burn, Andrew & Parker, David (2001) ‘Making your Mark: Digital Inscription and

Animation, a New Visual Semiotic’, Education, Communication, Information, Vol. 1,
No. 2, Autumn 2001

Burn, Andrew & Parker, David Parker (2002) ‘Tiger’s Big Plan: multimodality and
the moving image’, in Kress & Jewitt (eds)
Moving Beyond Language: explorations
of learning in a multimodal environment
, New York: Peter Lang (in press)

Carr, Diane (2003) ‘Play Dead: genre and affect in Silent Hill and

Planescape Torment’, Game Studies, Vol. 3, issue 1, May 2003

Genette, Gerard (1980) Narrative Discourse, Oxford: Blackwell



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