Interrepting the story aka FFVIII Rinoa syndrome

[Clord]

For decades people have pushed that video games are form of art. Art is something is considered open for interpretation no matter what the guy who made the art says.


So, interpreting video game story is not a cardinal sin in my book, especially when it comes to stories like Final Fantasy VIII and its Rinoa-Ultimecia theories.


Many oppose the idea that you should interpret the story and instead treat the storyteller as a world of god who dictates all aspects of it. So if something is not told, you are not supposed to make conjectures.

 

[bgillisp]

In my game, I have one character that constantly likes to interrupt the game and story, and even goes down tangents. It's part of her personality and the way she is. Some will think she talks too much, but is everyone supposed to be perfect in our games? I don't believe so.

 

[StarkinGyra]

I can see it both ways. Sometimes I like the story to be clear and other times I want to draw my own theories on it.

If done right both can make the game very enjoyable.

Interrupting the story can make the game unique and add twist and turns to the game.

That is my opinion. My buddy and me like to talk about games a lot so this has come up a few times. Sometimes we are on opposite sides. Makes it all the more fun.

 

[Athryl]

I always feel as one partaking in art you're certainly allowed/welcome to interpret it in your own way. That "participation" for lack of a better word is often what makes art such a powerful expression, because it can communicate even more than what the original artist perhaps intended.

With that said, there are certainly pieces of art that encourage being open to interpretation far more than others and there's also nothing wrong with that. I think the difficulty arises (from an artist's perspective anyway) when these interpretations are so far from what you intended that it might almost seem to diminish your work. 

So when it comes to video games I am all for interpretation. I personally am not one to look for the "conspiracy theories" so to speak, but I still find them interesting and like to hear about them...and then wonder how the heck they thought of all that! I like games that are more straight forward (I like the feeling of having long held questions answered) but an ambiguous story that makes you think is good in my book too.

 

[Liak]

Huh? You should absolutely be able to interpret a game's story the way you want to.

 

[Warpmind]

Huh? You should absolutely be able to interpret a game's story the way you want to.

Well, within reason.

I mean, you'd be hard pressed to justify, say, Doom as a parable of the proletariat's struggle against the bourgeois.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

There is a difference between being able to interpret the MEANING of art, and determining what happened in the story. Especially if the writer has said what has actually happened.

The meaning of a piece of work is usually personal to the person viewing it. The factual plot line, isn't.

 

[Tsukihime]

What is rinoa syndrome? lol

 

[Clord]

What is rinoa syndrome? lol

I like to coin weird terms like that.

 

[_Shadow_]

@Clord this is a fantastic thread for conversation.

This happens everywhere. In EVERY form of art, at every age of mankind.

For instance:

A famous painter was accused as blasphemous and heretic, because he painted angel wings "bigger that they were supposed to be".

He was interpreting religion in a bad way it seems.So he replied to the Inquisitors : "Well I apologize for this, can someone who has actually seen such wings describe them to me, so I can make them right?".And of course nobody could say he had seen any, thus the painter was left alone.

Let's now go to the modern age.

What is a piece of art to begin with?

Let's get a book or a canvas with a painting on it.

Roll the canvas, and store it into a basement. Or throw it into the ocean. Is it art?

Close the book and put it into a library shelf. Leave it alone collecting dust. Is it art?

Hmm maybe no.

But we say that a book or a painting IS a piece of art. Right?

Perhaps we ask the wrong question.

So the right question should be "When is something a piece of art" and not "what is art".

So art, IN MY OPINION AND INTERPRETATION, is something that the human brain is interpreting, in a way it can create thoughts and emotions and maybe memories in an entertaining or educational way.

Now when someone says that an artist demanded his/her work to be interpreted in a specific manner, well that is the artist's problem.

A piece of art is like a mental child. It has its own personality IN MY OPINION AND INTERPRETATION OF REALITY.

A story book or a novel or a prose, or just a poem, is not what is written but what happens to all the minds of all the people, that are a collective who experienced reading it. Conversations started for that book IS a part of the piece of art that book is.  It is ALL the interpretations of all those minds and still none of them. It is something different for everyone  IN MY OPINION AND INTERPRETATION OF REALITY

In order to be the exact same interpretation for everyone, it is not  a piece of art anymore. This is called propaganda.

Propaganda could be called maybe what leads to opposite direction art leads.

That's why good artists avoid any propaganda.

And that is why propaganda prohibits art in the name of <add something here>.

That's why good artists let the brain of the person who will experience the art, do the work. IN MY OPINION AND INTERPRETATION OF REALITY.

The piece of art happens in the brain.

The "piece of art" just gives instructions on how to happen.

What the brain will do... well that is another story.

The only thing that must be interpreted correctly and it isn't a propaganda most of the time, is a scientific Thesis. The vocabulary and methodologies used there are specific and lead to a scientifically acceptable conclusion. But that's it.

Let's now see that on video games.

Play "Cave Cave Deus Videt" lol.

Everyone interpretes this game differently.

Play now Transistor.

Yes it has a story all right.

But what you understand, is your business and your responsibility.

Let's go to Final Fantasy 8

Ultimecia - Rinoa theories. Whatever. Everything goes.

All these theories and many more is the FF8 experience.

Without all of these interpretations, through human experience, it would be just plastic disks into cases with manuals.

So I can't understand why people trend to do such a thing.

Art should be free for the mind. Because art has to free your mind.

Limiting interpretation is like locking your mind.

Everyone has the right and full responsibility to interpret a piece of art their own way.

People are different.

You can't expect everyone to be the same.

Thus different interpretations happen.

If an interpretation insults the artist, he/she can go out and make a statement, but THAT'S IT.

Art is free as in freedom (not as in "free beer").

 

[Cozzer]

I think there is a distinction to be made here: if a work (or part of it) is actually open to interpretation, interpretating it is the whole point. Using FF8 as an example, most of the ending sequence is quite abstract and I think everybody gets to have his own opinion about what exactly happened there.

On the other hand there are things that are not explicitly stated but very heavily implied in the story itself (who is Squall's father, for example) or explicitly stated outside of the story by the authors (Artemisia is not Rinoa from the future). In these cases you still get to create your own headcanon, if that makes you enjoy the story more.

 

(Also, I believe Artemisia's case is not about art being open to interpretation, but the story having such a big plot hole that people have to create outlandish theories to fill it, which is sort of a third case).

I'd only say someone is taking "interpretation" too far if he actually tries to justify his headcanon or paint it as the "true meaning" or "true canon" of the story ("if you conveniently ignore those facts, my explanation can be canon!" or "sure, the author said that, but he was joking/mistranslated/actually trying to trick us!").

Personally, I have a couple theories that make the last season of Lost slightly less irritating. Still, I'm perfectly aware they're not part of the authors' vision and I'd never try to argue they are.

 

[_Shadow_]

@Cozzer has a good point.

After all such games profit for being the main subject of conversations all over the internet. When was FF8 released? It was long ago. We still talk about it. This is a product of modern art in my opinion, part of many cultures merged together.

In my opinion such scenario holes exist for two reasons.

1] To create fruitful conversations people will enjoy discussing.

2] To create spinoffs in the future based on the main game. For instance Final Fantasy Crisis Core. We knew nothing about Zack but basic info. Then that game hit the market, BOOM! Success. Everyone wants to know just a little more of what happened back before FF7.

As long as there is not something clearly defined by the artist, it means that the artist lets it loose to interpretation.

She/he probably does that intentionally, so the audience will have to interpret it. That's always my personal opinion I might be wrong here.

But when I wrote one small story, I had described the main character in detail.

Then some side characters were described in general intentionally to make the reader's fantasy play with their mind.

Like:

"Her hair were brown and healthy". Never said long or short.

"Her face was pretty". That's it. Nothing more. I could describe the eyes. But that would be a pre-chewed food for the mind. That way the reader would see clearly what I had in mind. But that wasn't what I liked to happen on that part. I wanted the reader to imagine a brunette as he/she would personally  define as "pretty face with brown healthy hair". The brain interpretation was doing half of the job. What I wanted to set up was there. A pretty face and brown healthy hair. The reader would define what is the form of a pretty face for his/her taste, not my taste. Sometimes less is more.

Never described hairstyle. The reader's mind will also do that. The reader will have space for his/her imagination to imagine that pretty face with brown hair. Imagination playing with the mind.

For instance imagine a brunette with a pretty face.

Imagine her beautiful face looking at you straight in the eyes.

There is a white curtain behind her.

Focus on her face.

Keep that face in your mind.

Memorize it!

You got that pretty face?

Tell you what.

Everyone saw a different face in their mind.

Now imagine this (pardon me English is not my native language, I will do my best):

Imagine:

A pretty woman.

Her brown healthy long hair, are tied as a ponytail.

The hair color shines at the white light that comes out of the roof lights of the Mall.

She has freckles at her cheeks and her thin nose.

What a pretty oval face she has. She is thin and slim.

Her thin lips, open revealing a white smile, while her almond shaped eyes show every expression of that smile around them, as her eyelashes fall to the level of your sight, trying to be as seductive as she can.

Her eyes are like an asian woman's eyes. Pretty. Grey colored.

But her skin color is more like Scandinavian white.

As you can understand I made a more specific recipe for interpretation.

Your minds can now imagine something more similar.

This is as pretty as it can be, according to this description.

Keep her face in your mind.

Which face was prettier?

Some might say the second.

But I suppose many will chose the first. Because it is near YOUR taste. Because YOUR brain formed it not mine.

Which face seems more friendly and familiar to you?

The second. Because you imagined it. Period.

Tell you what. The second description was also of a pretty woman. 

But I like brunettes with a little Caucasian darker skin, brown eyes, and sexy juicy lips. 

Some people like black skin sexy brunets. 

I tried to make a description alienating everyone's taste, but still being pretty.

All those features merged together, should make maybe something not so pretty.

By defining she was pretty though, we merged all features and interpreted them inside a beauty framework.

So much description was not needed though.

The first example was enough.

A pretty face! BANG!

Healthy brown hair! BOOM!

Thus in my opinion, they know what they are doing.

The more interpretation there is, the better the game is for me. 

I would LOVE to hear your opinions people.

This is a VERY interesting topic.

 

[Clord]

"A woman wearing a leather collar on a street during the night often receives money from a mysterious older man before disappearing to valley's shadows."


At this point you probably assume (interpret) that the woman of the story would be a you-know-what.


Then again, it might be just that they go out to eat and there is nothing "creepy" behind it.

 

[Warpmind]

"A woman wearing a leather collar on a street during the night often receives money from a mysterious older man before disappearing to valley's shadows."

At this point you probably assume (interpret) that the woman of the story would be a you-know-what.

Then again, it might be just that they go out to eat and there is nothing "creepy" behind it.

Yeah, those financial couriers can be scary.

 

[_Shadow_]

Yeah, those financial couriers can be scary.

They are.

Who knows?

They might be also ghouls?

We live in a world of darkness[SIZE=11.6666669845581px] [/SIZE]after all[SIZE=11.6666669845581px].  [/SIZE][SIZE=11.6666669845581px] [/SIZE]

 

[Clord]

"I took my shaved shotgun and went to my desired ambushing place behind the trash cans full of trash."


"As Detective I knew that it would be a long wait until that scum of a man would appear again."


"I don't want to think in what dark hole he is in right now with his forbidden pleasures."


"All I know, that he is going to pay for his murders even if I must drag his dead body to a morgue."

 

[_Shadow_]

Ah! Can't recall! Doesn't ring any bells.

Where is it from? Is it from WOD?

 

[Clord]

Ah! Can't recall! Doesn't ring any bells.


Where is it from? Is it from WOD?

I wrote it.


I have quite knack in storytelling apart of spelling mistakes I tend to make.

 

[_Shadow_]

Keep notes of them.

You never know where you might use them.

 

[Caustic]

**for some reason, my brain read that as "interrupting"; I was like "wut?" XD**

Personally, it depends. 

Interpretation will always be a hot topic because it's based upon opinion. One example would be ICO. We know nothing about the boy whom plays the protagonist in the game, nor about the princess he is trying to rescue. Indeed, the end is so open that it might as well have "To be continued" plastered across the top -- but the developers were bright enough not to do that. They simply left it as it was, and let the player make up their own assumptions as to what might happen to the two.

Hell, Star Wars made its living off of fan theory. 2/3rds of the Expanded Universe wouldn't have existed without so many sharing their own sides of the backstory and possible futures.

To go a different direction form former posts for another example: a good horror game, if played properly (and not like those twits on YT whose squealing is faker than ) will almost never directly show its monster(s), leaving the player to imagine what horrors they will face. Or they know what they're facing, and even that isn't enough to combat what uncertainty and primal terror we feel upon facing something that refuses to leave us alone. For a recent (not!Amnesia) example, Alien: Isolation does the second version brilliantly, especially in the beginning, forcing the player to catch glimpses of things in the shadows, and eventually leading them to become afraid of every dark corner and hole in the ceiling.

Of course, there is always the other end of the scale: leaving gaping holes in the plot. Video games are a visual art form, in part, but interaction is doubly important. So leaving too much to guess-work will simply lead to the player being confused and confounded as to just what in the Hell, Michigan is going on. God help me, but Xenosaga has this issue in spades. Too much technobabble, too many random religious references, too many characters that have "important" parts that are not explained until much, MUCH later...

Point is, there's leaving room for interpretation, and then there's lazy writing. One lets the audience decide for themselves how things have happened, or will happen -- the other forces them to fill in the blanks and make stuff up that may be made mute because it doesn't matter anyway.