What is an Avatar?

An avatar is a digital body that exists within the video game environment and is controlled by the player (Burkle).  Video games also have characters, which also exist within the video game environment, but it is not controlled by the player.  Characters are allies, enemies, or even ‘people’ who sell items.

The word avatar is from the Sanskrit word avatarah  which translates as a “descent” of a deity from the heavens (Burkle).  this comes from the Hindu myth of Rama an incarnation of the god Vishnu.  Rama’s purpose as the incarnations of Vishnu was to battle an evil demon.  After this purpose was fulfilled Rama continued his life as a human, and even presents weaknesses, which indicates that the avatarah is not only an incarnation, but also human.  During the story of the battle Rama’s army is helped by the Gods, one of which is Vishnu himself, and so the two beings exist at the same time.

This story is similar to the situation between the avatar and the player.  The player has their own identity within reality, and the avatar has an identity within the diegesis of the video game.  What needs to be explored is what happens when the two combine.

Assigning Meaning

One important aspect of video games is how players assign meaning to what they are seeing on the tv screen.  In our lives we assign meaning to everything. The items that surround us do not come with their names already inscribed on them; for example the couch that I am sitting on is called something different in every language (Lacan 416). Humans are the ones that assign names to things, and when do this we are assigning meaning to them. The item also derives its meaning from the word we assign it; a couch is an item that is soft and I can sit on it along with three other people. This item I am sitting on fits this description, so I call it a couch and use it in a way that fits its definition. But what if I called it a table and placed a lamp on it and ate my dinner off of it? It is still the same object, but its meaning and use has changed just because I have changed the word I have assigned to it.

This relationship between the signifier (the word ‘couch’) and the signified (the object that we call a couch) makes an appearance in every aspect of our lives because we assign meaning and language to everything that surrounds us. So how do we assign meaning to what we experience when we play video games? In the horror survival genre of video games often we do not know even how to assign meaning because everything is distorted or unrecognizable to us, which is the point. In Silent Hill 3 what do you call the enemies that you have just encountered? Video games in this genre affect us because we don’t know what to call them. They are outside of our scope of language and meaning. When we have no word or meaning for what is happening on the TV screen we are involved in a new and disorienting experience because we have to create meaning out of the environment ourselves.  Part of the survival horror genre is figuring out what is happening.  This unknown creates agency for the player.

 

Meaning is also created out of signifying chains, where meanings are derived from everything that is connected to an an object (Lacan 420). Context makes a difference in the meaning of something. In the screenshot above from Silent Hill 3 the character is in a mall hallway, she is wearing a white vest, and she has blonde hair. Once something that does not have meaning to us is introduced, this ordinary description changes. Where is this mall? Why is this thing here? What is the character wearing? Does it protect her? Is she human? Is that really hair? The signifying chain of mall, white vest, and blonde hair changes and we have no true meaning associated with anything because of the introduction of one unknown object into our chain.  It allows us to become involved in the video game because we are busy trying find definitions for everything we see.

This idea of assigning meaning is also related to Lacan’s mirror stage. In the mirror stage, as an infant we look into the mirror and realize that the image we see is ourselves and not a separate entity from ourselves (Grosz 48). Before this moment the infant experiences its body in pieces; arm, leg, finger, ear. By recognizing the image in the mirror as ourselves, we also recognize that we are a whole and not pieces, and our experience changes. Within video games we are converted to a confusing mix of pre and post mirror stage identity. We move a joystick and the avatar walks on the screen, press a button and it jumps, hit another button and it draws a gun. The picture here shows the many functions of a controller in Grand Theft Auto IV for the Playstation 3. Our own physical movements are fragmented; running happens on this joystick, where the avatar is looking happens on this one. Yet, when we look on the screen the avatar does not act in this fragmented way. Our individual button presses and joystick moves are translated into the fluid movements of the avatar. We are physically experiencing our own fragmented actions and seeing a cohesive whole on the TV screen.  This is why when people are playing video games they sometimes move their bodies along with the button presses to the direction they want the avatar to travel in.  They are associating their physical movements with the avatar on the screen.  People feel this connection with the avatar, and when they jerk their bodies to one side, while moving a joystick, and see the avatar move on the screen they recognize the avatar as something that is not a complete individual from themselves.

Here is a video of a man playing Halo.  He is using the controller to play the game by pushing the buttons.  He is experiencing his actions in a fragmented way.  Please excuse his language.

These conflicting experiences also change how we assign meaning to the video game ‘world’ that we experience. We identify the avatar on the screen as ourselves because they act when we act, yet we identify the actions not as leg movement but as pushing x. My friend is being attacked by something and I start to yell at him “Press x, press x!” I am not yelling at him to shoot the enemy. I have changed the meaning of the action. Pulling a gun in a video game is not called that because that is not what we are doing.  So we experience the avatar as ourselves, yet we experience the physical movements of using a controller our own individual selves and the avatar as a two connected individuals with separate movements, but the same identity and agency.

Zizek says that “the real that serves as support for our symbolic reality must appear to be found and not produced” (Zizek 32). What he means is that if we are to accept what happens as real, we must stumble upon it and not create it. In Little Big Planet levels can be created by players. If I were to play this level that I have just created I would not even attempt to assign meaning to it or question its reality; to me its singular meaning is I have created it, it is not real. I would not ask why something is happening. The answer is always I put it there. This is why video games have story lines. We must have a reason for why something is happening, or it does not seem real enough to engage us. If I started playing a game where the character was fighting strange enemies on a white plain where there was no background or other objects and characters to create meaning within this video game world, I would ask “Why am I doing this?” If the answer was that someone made it and I am just supposed to play I would get bored pretty quickly. The story line acts as a way to give us an initial meaning and agency to what we are doing (though it does not create meaning for the entire game) and to make our actions seem natural. Part of the fun of video games is trying to derive meaning from what is happening, the action of playing is not enough on its own.

So if we don’t want to play games because some told just to play it, why do people play puzzle games like Tetris, where there is no visible goal, end to the game, or story-line?   The score in this case acts as the reward and agency for the game.  There is a goal, and that is to see how high the player can score.  This aspect of games  is not about assigning meaning to video games, but about competing with the computer.  The aspect of assigning meaning and how agency is created within video games is part of the reason why there are different genres.

Meaning is important in our lives and in video games. We construct meaning in our lives from everything. We do the same in video games. When meaning cannot be constructed the elements in our signifying chains all change. This forces us to question the meaning of everything. This questioning is what makes up the bulk of video games and what causes them to entertain us.  If there is no meaning in a video game then agency at least must exist so that the player has a reason to play.

 

atal Frame 2 and the Mirror Stage

Fatal Frame 2 is a good example of Lacan’s mirror stage within video games, and of doubling.  In this game the avatar has a twin who follows her around for part of the game, and spend part of the game search for her twin.  There are also references to  other twins within the game.

 

Here is a clip of one sister following the other.

In this game the twin, or the mirror of your self provides the agency.  The game provides clues to the fact that the twins fates are intertwined.  At several points the twin is following the avatar, which suggests that she and the avatar are the same character.  At several points in the game the play can control this second twin.  They also look almost exactly the same.  

This all creates a doubling affect within the game.  It is as if the avatar is looking in a mirror a realizing that the person looking back is themselves and not another person.  This creates a dual agency for the player, where the player has the agency of the avatar and the agency of the twin sister.

Video Games and Shared/Unshared Genders

One way to connect psychoanalysis to video games is to look at film and television studies to see how these theorists apply psychoanalytic theories. This is relevant because both are a visual representations. Video game studies take film and television studies a step further because of the added component of viewer/player interaction along with that visual representation.

One important aspect of video games is the connection between the player and the avatar. Avatars obviously have a sex, but do they have a gender? Gender is a binary that is created by the existence of an opposite. Feminine is created by the existence of masculine, masculine by the existence of feminine (Mellencamp 157). In horror survival games there is often a lack of the other gender while the character is playable. Other characters are often enemies with distorted bodies that can create the appearance of no gender, or at least we do not think of them as so specifically gendered as we do ourselves.

Since there is this lack of a definition for gender within the video game worlds of horror survival, the player feels compelled to create one. The player superimposes their own gender onto the character. This is why males can play horror survival games with a female avatar; the avatar has adopted a masculine gender. If a person is playing and is attacked their friends might start yelling at him or her “Shoot it!” and their answer would probably be along the lines of “I’m trying” or “I can’t pull a gun that fast.” The player is not referencing the avatar but themselves. Yet the player’s gender has not changed, but the avatar’s has.

When the player does not have control of the movements and actions of the avatar, such as when there is a cut scene, the avatar loses the gender of the player. During many cut scenes in Clock Tower 3 Alyssa is confronted with the figure of her grandfather. In these situations there is a masculine presence to be the binary to her femininity. At this point the avatar’s gender changes and becomes feminine. Once the game play resumes the player’s gender is superimposed onto the avatar again. The avatar’s gender is fluid, and depends upon who has control of it. This idea of lack of gender also leads into the idea of the lack of sexuality. In our culture we understand gender and sex to be the same things, even though gender refers to whether a person is masculine or feminine, and sex refers to whether a person is biologically male or female. Within video games gender definitions are fluid, though the sex of the avatar is not.  Above Alyssa is seen as more feminine and ‘girlish’ in the cut scene not only because of the presence of a masculine figure, but a male masculine figure. In Silent Hill 3 Heather does not have the stereotypical feminine outfit, and since there are very few actual male figures within the game, her lack sexulity is established by transforming her outfit to reveal more of her body outside of the game. This also establishes the male other and male gaze. She has become a sexual figure in a world lacking solid sexual definitions, and by establishing that she is looking at us as a female then we are the masculine gaze looking back.

In this scene the player has control over the avatar in the beginning so their gender is superimposed onto the avatar.  Once control is taken away from the player by triggering the cutscene the avatar obtains the gender associated with their sex.

 Gender within video games is fluid to allow the player’s gender to remain stable and unchangeable. Since sex and gender in our society are often considered interchangeable, the lack of the other when there is a female avatar means that its gender is interchangeable with a male, masculine player. Some other situations involving gender to consider would be a female player and female avatar, female player and male avatar, feminine male and female avatar, feminine male and male avatar, and player and avatar connections in non horror survival games.

Here Heather has been turned into a parody of an anime.

The girls from Fatal Frame 2 are also not sexualized in the same way as Lara Croft.  There bodies are not emphasized, but their weapon, the camera is.  And finally in Clock Tower 3 Alyssa has no weapon (well she has holy water, but you almost never actually see it).  She runs away and hides.  A lot of the pictures I found where of her cowering in a corner.  She is almost never seen as a sex object, but she is seen as being chased, followed, hunted, and weak, which is what gives the game its agency because the player is constantly trying to get away.  When I searched for pictures there were almost none of her looking sexual, though there are pictures of her drawn as a henti character.  Since her character is not sexualized in the same way, the media format had to be changed.

 

Gendered Situations

There are several components to the survival horror genre that are generally recognized by the gaming community as keystones of the genre.  The avatars are often very weak and slow.  Their weapons are minimal, such as a gun or knife that take a fairly long time to use, the lighting is dark, and the monsters are often distorted human bodies or something unrecognizable.  

This genre consists of what I call gendered situations.  This does not mean that the character is female, but that the entirety of what is seen on the screen is feminine.  Often the avatars are slowing moving and weak, whether they are male or female; the best way to use them is in survival, or running away.  The situations are dark, and there is always the aspect of the unknown.

In our society today women are treated as if they are part of the unknown, or they are considered an other.  Their menstruation is considered disgusting or strange.  Childbirth is watched in high school classrooms around the country, and in my experience the teenagers often cringe or moan at the site of childbirth.  This type of reaction is imbedded in the video game.  We also consider females to be weaker, and in a situation calling for bravery America portrays women as cowering and afraid.  We cringe when we think something might be about to come up, or the avatar is cringing on screen.  The situation of fear at the unknown is inherently gendered.

This tactic of creating gendered situations in video games is what creates the experience of playing a survival horror.  We feel horror at the unknown, even if there is nothing there.  Even though the player’s gender is superimposed upon the character, since the entire situation is gendered, the feminine character helps create this visual image.  This scene from Fatal Frame 2 is effective because it is a feminine avatar cowering, whether they are male or female.  But what happens if the avatar is not feminine in this situation?   This picture is funny to us, and does not cause a feeling of horror within us.  This is because the avatar is extremely masculine.  Even if we did not know who Duke Nukem was it would still be funny because his large muscles, facial expression, and even haircut tell us as Americans that he is masculine and that he wouldn’t be a afraid, wouldn’t be cowering; instead he would be pumping that ghost full of bullets (probably even if it didn’t work).  Duke Nukem just doesn’t belong in this situation.

 

Here is a video of Mayu being attacked by a ghost. This situation is gendered because of the fear it is meant to cause in the player. If Duke was in this situation struggling it would be funny.

The feminine in the these games creates what Freud called the uncanny.  The uncanny is the opposite of the familiar.  In America women are usually considered the other.  Having video games based around women or girls automatically creates an environment that has an aspect of the unknown and uncanny.  Women are also considered the nurturers, mothers and ‘fairer sex’ in America.  Women in this sense would be considered uncanny if they did none of this.  Fatal Frame 2 uses images of bloody women surrounded by bodies, attacking female ghosts who cause harm, and the killing of one sister by another to create the environment of horror.  

This video of Sae laughing while surrounded by the bodies of the people she killed. This is scary not only because of the dead bodies, but the realization that she killed them and the blood on her kimono is from her victims. She is supposed to be a calm traditional Japanese daughter, but she is the uncanny in this game, or what women are not supposed to be.

Since the situations in survival horror are inherently a feminine situation, there needs to be some aspect of the masculine present to create an opposition and definition.  Phallic symbols do this. Often it is the weapon that serves as a phallic symbol.  These weapons themselves are masculine because they penetrate, such as a bullet in Silent Hill 3, holy water in Clock Tower 3, or the camera in Fatal Frame 2.  The only means of hurting others, which is considered a masculine act, are with these weapons.

Further Investigations

I have focused this paper around the avatar in one genre of video games, survival horror games.  Gender is important in these games because there are complex relationships between the avatar and the player.  this connection not only has implications for the fluid gender of the avatar, but the also the gender assumptions of the player.  Video games play off of gender stereotypes that exist within the real world and not just on a tv or computer screen.  Other aspects of video games and the avatar that could be studied are how other genres portray gender relationships, what happens when the avatar interacts with a player of a different gender (such as when the avatar addresses the player), and if gender relationships between avatar and player are changed because of other people being present in the room when someone is playing a video game.