Abstract
Different from a surprising plot twist, narrative dissonance pertains to narrative syntax. Like music, where dissonance is evident even to the completely untrained ear, narrative dissonance marks a narrative encounter that “feels off,” and in that sense stupid. The authors take Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time as their primary example. Episodes might end abruptly, feeling incomplete. The program also draws from Bakhtinian principles, including what is termed, “adventure time”—internal-diegetic moments where characters embark on various quests, but these individuated episodes have no bearing on the overarching narrative. And these quests, because they have no bearing on the narrative writ-large, might be considered stupid. The chapter also reviews the videogame Gone Home, and its reliance on spatialized storytelling, which strike some as dissonant—stupid.
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Notes
- 1.
Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, trans. and eds. Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 110.
- 2.
“Dissonant,” s. v., OED.
- 3.
Suzanne Keen, “A Theory of Narrative Empathy,” Narrative vol. 14, no. 3 (2006), 224.
- 4.
Daniel C. Melnick, Fullness of Dissonance: Modern Fiction and the Aesthetic of Music (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994), 74.
- 5.
Ibid., 55–56.
- 6.
Adorno, 46.
- 7.
Ibid., 40.
- 8.
Ibid., 110.
- 9.
“Although art revolts against its neutralization as an object of contemplation, insisting on the most extreme incoherence and dissonance, these elements are those of unity; without this unity they would not even be dissonant.” Ibid., 157.
- 10.
Michel Foucault, “Theatrum Philosophicum,” Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, ed. Donald F. Bouchard, trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), 189.
- 11.
In later seasons, other human beings are discovered.
- 12.
Slavoj Zizek, “Camp Comedy,” Sight and Sound vol. 10, no. 4 (April, 2000), 29.
- 13.
Neda Ulaby, “An Adventure for Kids And Maybe For Their Parents, Too,” Morning Edition, NPR, June 17, 2013, accessed November 10, 2018, http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2013/06/17/192385255/an-adventure-for-kids-and-maybe-for-their-parents-too.
- 14.
The episode “King Worm” might be equally bizarre, with multi-level dreamscapes.
- 15.
Maria Bustillos, “It’s Adventure Time,” The Awl, April 15, 2014, accessed November 10, 2018, http://theholenearthecenteroftheworld.com/.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, Michael Holquist ed., and trans. by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 84.
- 18.
Ibid. The bracketed text is in the original.
- 19.
Ibid., 87.
- 20.
Ibid., 89.
- 21.
Some might argue here that the median act where the character (or characters) is challenged, perhaps even tempted by another’s affection “changes” the character, and thus leads to the negotiated resolution, Bakhtin has this to say: “What is important here is not only the organization of separate adventures. The novel as a whole is conceived precisely as a test of the heroes. Greek adventure-time, as we already know, leaves no traces-neither in the world nor in human beings. No changes of any consequence occur, internal or external, as a result of the events recounted in the novel. At the end of the novel that initial equilibrium that had been destroyed by chance is restored once again. Everything returns to its source, everything returns to its own place. The result of this whole lengthy novel is that—the hero marries his sweetheart. And yet people and things have gone through something, something that did not, indeed, change them but that did (in a manner of speaking) affirm what they, and precisely they, were as individuals, something that did verify and establish their identity, their durability and continuity. The hammer of events shatters nothing and forges nothing—it merely tries the durability of an already finished product. And the product passes the test. Thus, is constituted the artistic and ideological meaning of the Greek romance” (Bakhtin , 106–107). Although Bakhtin is speaking here of ancient Greek romance narratives, the same might be said of contemporary romantic comedies .
- 22.
Bakhtin, 88.
- 23.
Ibid., 89.
- 24.
There appears to be a clear nod to this Greek heritage in the 8-part Island series, where Finn, Jake, Susan Strong, and BMO go on an adventure across the seas, wherein Finn actually finds his mother, and all the other humans that survived the Mushroom War. There are sea monsters, Siren-like-hallucinations, and other echoes of the Odyssey.
- 25.
Bakhtin, 91.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
Ibid., 94.
- 28.
Ibid., 95.
- 29.
Beaton Roderick, “Historical Poetics: Chronotopes in Leucippe and Clitophon and Tom Jones,” in Bart Keunen et al. eds. Bakhtin’s Theory of the Literary Chronotope: Reflections, Applications, Perspectives (Gent, Belgium: Academia Press, 2010), 63.
- 30.
This passage seems prophetic—written more than a decade prior to the release of Gone Home . Henry Jenkin, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” in First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004), 128.
- 31.
Discussed in another chapter, Bioshock has also been reviewed in the London Review of Books, Felan Parker, similarly notes that it is not common for a videogame to be reviewed in the company of literature, “which speaks to Bioshock’s prestige status.” Drawing from John Lanchester’s review of Bioshock , Parker summarizes, “the game presents a timely critique of Randian objectivism, free-market capitalism, and individualism in an era when these ideologies are not often subject to scrutiny.” Felan Parker, “Canonizing Bioshock : Cultural Value and the Prestige Game,” Games and Culture vol. 12, nos. 7–8 (2015), 748. See John Lanchester, “Is It Art?” London Review of Books vol. 31, no. 1 (January 2009): 18–20. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/john-lanchester/is-it-art.
- 32.
Ian Bogost, “Perpetual Adolescence: The Fullbright Company’s Gone Home,” Los Angeles Review of Books (September 28, 2013): https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/perpetual-adolescence-the-fullbright-companys-gone-home/.
- 33.
Ian Bogost, “Perpetual Adolescence: The Fullbright Company’s Gone Home,” Los Angeles Review of Books, September 28, 2013, accessed November 10, 2018, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/perpetual-adolescence-the-fullbright-companys-gone-home/.
- 34.
Graeme Kirkpatrick makes a similar observation, regarding the fears that the field of ludology might be colonized by other narrative-centered disciplines: “The inauguration of game studies involved violence too. In the first years of video game studies ludologists waged a polemic war against ‘narratologists.’ The latter became a kind of catch-all term for anyone who wanted to study video games but who did not start from the centrality of play and gameness. Thinkers for whom video games represented a new way to tell stories, for example, were viewed as ‘colonising’ the new disciplinary field, notwithstanding Aarseth’s own background in literary studies. Video game studies was forged in the heat of a struggle between these two approaches.” Graeme Kirkpatrick, Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game (New York: Manchester University Press, 2011), 52–53.
- 35.
Janet Murray is often cited as initiating this discussion in her Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (New York: Free Press, 1997). Henry Jenkins also raises the topic in his discussion of the ludologists versus the narratologists in his “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” found in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004), 118–130. Chapter four, “Defining Narrative,” of Michael Nitsche’s book Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008), surveys this very topic.
- 36.
Henry Jenkins, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan (eds.), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004), 121.
- 37.
Don Carson, “Environmental Storytelling: Creating Immersive 3D Worlds Using Lessons Learned from the Theme Park Industry,” Gamasutra, March 1, 2000, accessed November 10, 2018. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131594/environmental_storytelling_.php.
- 38.
Ibid.
- 39.
For a concentrated discussion of nostalgia in videogames including Gone Home see: Robin J. S. Sloan, “Videogames as Remediated Memories: Commodified Nostalgia and Hyperreality in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Gone Home,” Games and Culture vol. 10, no. 6 (November 2014): 1–27.
- 40.
Anonymous, “Gone Home: THIS IS NOT A GAME,” no post date, accessed August 8, 2016. https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Gone_Home.
- 41.
Jenkins, 122.
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
Ibid., 124–125.
- 44.
Ibid., 124.
- 45.
Bustillos.
- 46.
Jenkins, 124.
- 47.
Melnick, 9.
- 48.
“Black Friday,” (episode 7), “A Song of Ass and Fire,” (episode 8) and “Titties and Dragons” (episode 9) aired during season 17 (2013).
- 49.
“Black Friday,” Trey Parker, South Park, Comedy Central, season 17, episode 7 (November 13, 2013).
References
Adorno, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. Translators and editors Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
Anonymous. “Gone Home: THIS IS NOT A GAME.” Encyclopediadramatica (blog). n.d. Accessed August 8, 2016. https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Gone_Home.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, and translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981.
Bogost, Ian. “Perpetual Adolescence: The Fullbright Company’s Gone Home.” Los Angeles Review of Books, September 28, 2013. Accessed November 10, 2018. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/perpetual-adolescence-the-fullbright-companys-gone-home/.
Bustillos, Maria. “It’s Adventure Time.” The Awl, April 15, 2014. Accessed November 10, 2018. http://theholenearthecenteroftheworld.com/.
Carson, Don. “Environmental Storytelling: Creating Immersive 3D Worlds Using Lessons Learned from the Theme Park Industry.” Gamasutra, March 1, 2000. Accessed November 10, 2018. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131594/environmental_storytelling_.php.
Foucault, Michel. “Theatrum Philosophicum.” In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, ed. Donald F. Bouchard, trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon, 165–196. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977.
Jenkins, Henry. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” In First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, 118–130. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004.
Keen, Suzanne. “A Theory of Narrative Empathy.” Narrative vol. 14, no. 3 (2006): 207–236.
Kirkpatrick, Graeme. Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game. New York: Manchester University Press, 2011.
Lanchester, John. “Is It Art?” London Review of Books vol. 31, no. 1 (January 2009): 18–20. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/john-lanchester/is-it-art.
Melnick, Daniel C. Fullness of Dissonance: Modern Fiction and the Aesthetic of Music. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994.
Murray, Janet. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: Free Press, 1997.
Roderick, Beaton. “Historical Poetics: Chronotopes in Leucippe and Clitophon and Tom Jones.” In Bakhtin’s Theory of the Literary Chronotope: Reflections, Applications, Perspectives, eds. Bart Keunen et al., 59–76. Gent, Belgium: Academia Press, 2010.
Sloan, Robin J. S. “Videogames as Remediated Memories: Commodified Nostalgia and Hyperreality in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Gone Home.” Games and Culture vol. 10, no. 6 (November 2014): 1–27.
Ulaby, Neda. “An ‘Adventure’ for Kids And Maybe For Their Parents, Too.” Morning Edition, NPR, June 17, 2013. Accessed November 10, 2018. http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2013/06/17/192385255/an-adventure-for-kids-and-maybe-for-their-parents-too.
Žižek, Slavoj. “Camp Comedy.” Sight and Sound vol. 10, no. 4 (2000): 26–29.
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Kerner, A., Hoxter, J. (2019). The Stupid as Narrative Dissonance. In: Theorizing Stupid Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28176-2_4
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