THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21153/cinder2019art863Keywords:
interactive narrative, agency, tropes, genre, video gamesAbstract
Interactive narratives—such as story-driven, choice-based video games—provide a space for playing with tropes and genre. Players are invited to collaborate in the creation of these stories, and can thus exercise their agency to interact with and subvert, harmful tropes and genre conventions. Here I specifically explore the use—and potential subversion—of problematic conventions regarding character death, such as the conflation of queerness and tragedy commonly known as ‘Bury Your Gays’ as explored in Life is Strange (DontNod 2015), and Carol J. Clover’s concept of ‘The Final Girl’ in the horror genre as explored in Until Dawn (Supermassive 2015).
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