If you haven’t yet, scroll down to get the low-down on this series of posts. Basically, I am exploring why Dr. Edward Castronova, one of the country’s leading experts on virtual environments, would say that people who play Horde characters on World of Warcraft are engaging in “a mildly wicked act,” and whether he’s right. I think he’s mostly wrong, but is slightly justified in a few limited ways that are worth talking about.
But first, why he’s wrong :). To help me, I’m going to use a literary critic my the name of Mikhail Bakhtin. I’m going to try and keep this unpomous and unstupid, but I am dealing with literary criticism here; sorry in advance if I occasionally fail. :) But I think Bakhtin’s a smart and interesting thinker, so hopefully things will stay light ‘n’ lively.
Here again is Castronova’s thesis:
“There are good reasons for playing evil characters — to give others an opportunity to be good, to help tell a story, to explore the nature of evil. But when the avatar is a considered [sic] an expression of self, in a social environment, then deliberately choosing a wicked character is itself a (modestly) wicked act.”
In my last post, I took issue with the “deliberately choosing a wicked character” part of his definition. You might deliberately choose to play the “evil” side of a game for a bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with “being” evil: whatever “evil” means (and which Castronova never defines). Hell, Castronova even stipulates a few of the reasons at the beginning of his post, and I give two big ones in my previous post. But I want to explore a different aspect of Castronova’s argument: the “when the avatar is considered an expression of self.” Because it most definitely is not always an expression of self. Sometimes it is a purposeful expression something outside the self.
In other words, I humbly submit that virtual environments constitute a modern-day carnival.
So what’s a carnival? This is where I turn to Bakhtin for some very interesting insights:
“Carnival festivities and the comic spectacles and ritual connected with them had an important place in the life of medieval man. Besides carnivals proper, with their long and complex pageants and processions, there was the ‘feast of fools’ (festa stultorum) and the ‘feast of the ass’; there was a special free ‘Easter laughter’ (risus paschalis), consecrated by tradition. Moreover, nearly every Church feast had its comic folk aspect, which was also traditionally recognized. Such, for instance, were the parish feasts, usually marked by fairs and varied open-air amusements, with the participation of giants, dwarfs, monsters, and trained animals. A carnival atmosphere reigned on days when mysteries and soties [short super-sarcastic plays] were produced. This atmosphere also pervaded such agricultural feasts as the harvesting of grapes (vendange) which was celebrated also in the city. Civil and social ceremonies and rituals took on a comic aspect as clowns and fools, constant participants in these festivals, mimicked serious rituals such as the tribute rendered to the victors at tournaments, the transfer of feudal rights, or the initiation of a knight. Minor occasions were also marked by comic protocol, as for instance the election of a king and queen to preside at a banquet ‘for laughter’s sake’ (roi pour rire)” (6).
(By the way, I am getting my quotes from this page, which in turning is quoting from: Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. by Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Note to self: verify all quotes before presenting at conference!)
In sum, almost every important festival that Catholicism/Christianity sponsored was satirized by its comic-folk-tradition correlative. Note especially the “giants, dwarfs, monsters, and trained animals” comment: these festivals were grotesqueries and exaggerations designed to lampoon hieratic traditions. WoW has plenty of giants, dwarves, monsters, and animals. Coincidence? I think not. :)
But why were these comic rituals so important to medieval culture? Along with the official Church rituals, they were a stabilizing force for the society. While the “serious” rituals reiterated the status quo ideology of God and Country, carnivals provided a uniquely democratic counterpoint to the highly caste-regulated social hierarchy.
“Rank was especially evident during official feasts; everyone was expected to appear in the full regalia of his calling… and to take the place corresponding to his position. It was a consecration of inequality. On the contrary, all were considered equal during carnival. Here, in the town square, a special form of free and familiar contact reigned among people who were usually divided by the barriers of caste, property, profession, and age. The hierarchical background and the extreme corporative and caste divisions of the medieval social order were exceptionally strong. Therefore such free, familiar contacts were deeply felt and formed an essential element of the carnival spirit. People were, so to speak, reborn for new, purely human relations. These truly human relations were not only a fruit of imagination or abstract thought; they were experienced. The utopian ideal and the realistic merged in this carnival experience, unique of its kind” (10).
I hope you’re seeing already how these statements readily apply to virtual environments. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in real life when you begin to play WoW; it doesn’t matter if you are a successful investment banker or a 13-year-old kid; it doesn’t matter what your gender or age is, or with what ethnicities you identify. In the “carnival” world of WoW, the relations in the context of the game are purely human ones. Other traditional social markers are mutable, protean, and even purchasable via the game’s local economy.
(Caveat: Real money, real gender, real ethnicity, etc. actually do matter to a degree in WoW; the fact that 3rd-world players can make a real-life living in WoW by farming gold shows just how permeable the line between reality and play can be. But there is no doubt that WoW lends a degree of anonymity to its players that allows players to easily engage in carnivalesque, role-violating behavior.)
Even with the above caveat, however, I think even the greatest naysayers would have trouble denying that virtual environments like WoW provide an alternate reality that rejuggles life’s social and economic hierarchies. In fact, that is part of the fun, part of their raison d’être: you don’t have to be who you are in your ordinary life when you play this game. You can be a hero, a powerful being in control of uncanny superhuman abilities. Or you can be a monster. And being a monster during carnival is permitted, even encouraged. The Grotesque is celebrated during carnival as a necessary part of life; it is part of the truth of reality and the cyclical nature of life.
Okay, next post, more on the Grotesque. In the mean time, this was a long post: go outside and get some sun!
