fiction and reality, part 2

What role does fiction have in one’s reality? That is the the central question I previously stumbled upon, revealing more and more unending strands while trying to untangle it. Triggered by finishing the Netflix series Snowpiercer, my instinctive reaction towards the apparent interaction between fiction and reality was reserved, even negative. The character portrayals, their interactions, the scenario and atmosphere - while captivating at first, their obvious yet simultaneously illusive fictitiousness made me recoil and critically question the interplay of fiction and reality.

Before I had a change to investigate my reaction to that series further, I recalled a discussion I’ve had with a good friend of mine on a rather related topic: immersion. Fiction can provide a powerful landscape to immerse oneself in, to escape reality. One source of such escapism and immersion is offered by video games. And I have to admit, that even though I just critically questioned the interplay between fiction and reality, there have been video games in my life that have left a lasting, positive impact which I neither questioned at the time nor question now - unlike my reaction towards Snowpiercer.

I think of Disco Elysium (2019) and its brilliant portrayal of the self through individually voiced facets such as Logic, Empathy, Electro-Chemistry, Composure or Savoir Faire, each being a distinct entity, yet their collective constituting the protagonist’s self. Or the Thought Cabinet, a place to stash away begun yet unfinished thoughts, like an incubator for ideas. While deliberately caricatured in the striking and painted world of Disco Elysium, it still made me reflect on these concepts of self and thought, less in a structured, philosophical and more in an ‘artistic’ way.¹ I think of SOMA (2015) and its unsettling enquiries into the ideas surrounding consciousness and humanity. Paired with an incredibly dense atmosphere, it formed an excellent companion to the discussions on very similar topics in the Philosophy class I took at the time. I think of Mass Effect 2 (2010) and its literally unreal scenario and setting, quite beautifully matching the irreality of the first pandemic winter, during which I’ve played it.

These examples for fiction in video games all provided a space for escapism and, crucially, did not leave that odd sensation of having consumed something foreign, something I recoil from. So I cannot with full force claim that I consider the interplay between fiction and reality categorically problematic.

Coincidentally, I recently stumbled upon an essay about this interplay: In their essay “There is an unseen smuggling operation between fiction and reality”², Molinari et al. introduce a trade metaphor to describe the interplay between fiction and reality. We import our beliefs, desires, and biases from reality into a fictional world and, conversely, export ideas, world views, and perspectives from fiction back into reality. This trade exchange may happen consciously: In the case of export from fiction to reality, we might reference fictional works of art for example through aesthetic citations, such as imitating the fashion style of a movie protagonist during cosplay. In the case of import to fiction, we might expect a certain type of story arc or game play in a genre-adherent movie or video game. Yet this exchange may also evade conscious observation, leading to smuggling of information from one side to the other. Biases we hold in the real world may be imported into fiction and impact our perception of it, or biases in the fictional work may be exported and subtly reinforce our existing ones.

Returning to the previous thought on fiction and reality in movies and video games, this idea may aid in catching a red piece of twine in this big tangle of open questions.

When investigating the interplay of fiction and reality and the trade exchange between, it may be worth considering the role played by the fiction medium. Video games and movies both provide a type of immersion with similar characteristics. In literature, the reader themself has to assemble the literary pieces into a cohesive inner representation of the fictional story through imagination. In music, the listener may not even necessary experience an explicit story conveyed through lyrics, but instead may empathically engage with that fiction solely through the device of sound. In visual arts, the viewer visually engages with an idea or message, but is confined to an atemporal, static piece of fiction.³ Video games and movies however both tell a story visually, sonically, and temporally. With these three aspects, they cover a sizeable part of our high-bandwidth senses. Due to the similarity of the two fiction media and due to their resemblance to the regular perception of reality, the immersion offered by video games and movies have a similar characteristic.⁴ Given my lack of a pronounced, critical reaction to the exchange between my reality and the fiction of video games, as opposed to my initially observed critical reaction to the exchange caused by movies, the similarity of these two media and their provided immersion comes as a surprise, begging for further investigation.

While video games and movies have a lot in common regarding their form, they differ in one primary aspect, unmentioned as of yet: agency. In video games, I as a player shape the story by making decisions.⁵ In the 2016 paper “Video games as self-involving interactive fictions”⁶, J. Robson and A. Meskin investigate interactive forms of fiction and introduce the concept of Self-Involving Interactive Fiction (SIIF). Starting with the second half of this concept, Interactive Fictions are defined to be fictional artefacts whose “structural properties are (partly) determined by the interactor’s actions” (Lopes, 2001⁷). Self-involving interactive fictions additionally require that a “player’s actions genuinely make things about the player true in the fiction” (Robson et al., 2016), leading to players themselves getting involved and thusly becoming characters within the fiction due to their actions.

The perception of movies may also be considered interactive since any type of engagement, such as fright in the case of horror movies, or excitement in the case of thrillers can be considered as an interaction. Further drilling down on the terminology though might suggest that these are re-actions, or “one-directional interactions”. More importantly though, movies are not self-involving: Neither do I as a viewer determine the structural properties of a movie⁸, nor does any facet of my self become part of the fiction. In comparison, video games, especially role-play games, offer at least some form of interactivity⁹ and allow parts of me to “materialise” within the fictional world by choosing certain actions over others, saying certain things instead of others, and so on. Through my actions, I can make an impact on the fictional world, and in doing so, I myself as a player become part of the fiction, albeit in a limited way. If I choose for example to shut down the life-support systems keeping one of the characters in SOMA alive, then that choice will manifest itself in the fictional world through my avatar acting it out. Within the fictional world it is then true that I have chosen to act this way, not my avatar. Following the argument of Robson et al., when telling someone about my playthrough, I would explain that “I shut down the life-support system”, not “my avatar shut down the life-support system”. In this way, a part of my self becomes true in fiction.

It must be noted that video games do not offer full freedom and thereby necessarily limit the possible self-involvement. I can think of several dialogues in which I have considered every last one of the possible choices to be stupid and where I would have preferred to say nothing. Yet the limited number of dialouge choices, pre-designed by story writers, constrained my agency. But video games nevertheless allow for interactivity and due to the direct agency, they allow for self-involvement, they allow the self to become, in a limited sense, part of the fictive world.

Based on this observation, the difference in interactivity and self-involvement between video games and movies (and therefore the difference in the characteristics of their fiction) is a convincing candidate for the source of my observed differing reception of Snowpiercer.

The logical next step is to ask the following question: Does self-involvement in fictional works change the trade exchange between fiction and reality, and if so, in which way? I argue that SIIFs indeed change the way in which goods are exchanged between fiction and reality.

All goods we typically import into movie fiction, such as biases, world views, and beliefs, are at the very least similarly imported into video game fiction, since both movies and video games usually display some form of fictional world designed to be engage-able and thus candidates for import. After all, video games and movies are similar media for fiction. With video games however critically differing in terms of interactivity and agency, the act of importing goods can become more explicit through our actions. Molinari et al. briefly touch upon the trade exchange in video games by mentioning Detroit: Become Human (2018) and the sense of moral wrong-doing when committing a morally questionable act inside the fictive world. In this case we import our beliefs regarding moral understanding into the fictional world, yet we simultaneously make this explicit by acting either in accordance with or against it. Conversely though, I cannot act morally or immorally in a movie, for I cannot act in a movie at all. Due to interactivity and agency, the import of goods into video game fiction therefore differs from that into movie fiction.¹⁰

Arguing for a differing export of goods is less straight-forward and certainly even more dependant on the recipient as compared to import. Again due to self-involving interactivity, I argue that export from video game fiction to reality is “easier” as it is possible for me as player to become part of the fictional world, to grow close to certain aspects of it such as its characters, its world, its aesthetics, and so on. Going back to the original observation after me watching Snowpiercer and contrasting my unexpected recoil from it to my seamless acceptance of my reception of Disco Elysium or SOMA, it may be argued that the difference lies in customs rejecting goods in the former and accepting goods in the latter case. It may even be argued that in the case of Snowpiercer, goods have been outright smuggled around customs and were later perceived as foreign and unknown. Due to the self-involvement in SIIFs, I accept my experiences in these fictional worlds as part of my own and easily integrate these back into reality. When perceiving movie fiction however, I experience a foreign story in a foreign world, a world that unfolds entirely without me.

This argued difference in video games without question highly depends on the recipient. Some may struggle to engage and exchange goods with video games or perfectly validly claim that they form a stronger engagement and trade exchange with movie fiction. I do not wish to argue that video games offer a “better” fiction or “better” trade exchange. They simply offer a different fiction and trade exchange.

In an attempt to conclude my thoughts, I summarise that there exists a trade exchange between reality and fiction. Due to the self-involved, interactive nature of video games, the trade exchange with video game fiction differs to that with movie fiction, which may explain my originally observed reaction towards Snowpiercer.

So, what role does fiction have in one’s reality? An answer to that question is still not even visible on the horizon. Yet it may be worth to further investigate the trade exchange between!