During my first couple of reading of Jeffrey Cohen's "Monster Culture: Seven Theses" I was not very interested in the content. It does present a good number of ideas and theories to ponder on with a healthy selections of examples but my only interest in any of them was simply to get whatever assignment done so I can focus on whatever "more important" code I had to write or problem set I had to finish. It was not until Sunday, after reading Lytton Smith's poem "Monster Theory" and the discussion with him on Monday that I finally grew honestly interested in the theses. Of course, in traditional Stephanie fashion it took video games to do it.
I touched briefly on the topic of monsters in video games during my group presentation with Sheldon and Ridwan, but never actually thought to pull back from the Dracula monster and look at the horde of video game monsters and how they relate to each of Cohen's theses. The discussion on Monday caused me to return to "Monster Culture" and search for which theses related to the various video game monsters I could think of. Immediately I could relate "Thesis II: The Monster Always Escapes" and "Thesis III: The Monster is the Harbinger of Category Crisis" to the Flood from Halo, "Thesis VII: The Monster Stands at the Threshold... of Becoming" to Lord Vayne of Final Fantasy XII, and "Thesis VI: Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desire" to Riku's relationship with the Heartless of Kingdom Hearts, just to name a few.
I guess my question to you is what other video game villains or monsters have you encountered and how do they relate to Cohen's theses? And, if you are not as intense of a gamer as I am (and I would hope not for the safety of your social life) what monsters in current television, particularly cartoons (I would name a few in that category but I do not want to take them away from you), do you see and how do those relate to Cohen's theses? The major requirement I want to place though, is that these monster not be historically prevalent monsters, but newly established monsters. I know this moves away from Cohen's monster which is historically grounded, but that is my objective.
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Well Stephanie, I’m afraid that I cannot offer any insight or information concerning monsters in neither video games nor cartoons. I can say that it seems to me that the monsters depicted in video games and cartoons are reflective of the culture of the times, and can thus be reflective of the monsters faced by society itself. Just because these two means of communication are geared towards a certain group of people or target audience doesn’t mean that it isn’t drawing on factors seen in society. I think that as culture changes and new monsters appear, these changes can be noted in the changes in the video games. This is a guess, but it seems to me that with the times the monsters in these games change as the issues that society is facing, and its monsters, change over time.
The last video game I played was about three years ago. It was Grand Theft Auto and the only thing I remember is that if you put in a certain cheat you could make pink elephants run around. When I was younger I played Super Mario Brothers a bit. I remember that there were evil turtles of all kinds (sometimes they could fly!). I don't think that these turtles can relate to Cohen at all. However, there also are some levels with ghosts and skeletons and these could relate in that they are evil and monsters because they represent death and the unknown. In all cultures there are stories of ghosts and people coming back from the dead. Many are told as haunting stories, but they also have an alluring aspect, we want to know if they have messages for us, if they can help us figure out our problems, if they can tell us what death is like, etc. The dead are scary because they remind us that we will die, but are fascinating because they can reveal to use the secrets of what's after death.
Sort of connected to the "Undead" idea in Ridwan's response. I do in fact play a lot of video games, mostly computer. The Diablo Series, the Starcraft Series, all the Command & Conquers. Add in all Star Wars video games in existence, oh and the Hitman genre and you have basically what I love when I'm on a computer and have nothing else to do (or lots to do depending on the day and time).
So let's look at Diablo. The main monsters in this series are in fact the Undead and the Demons and Hordes associated with the religious ideas of hell and evil. Diablo is in fact the Lord of Terror, his brothers Mephisto and Baal are the Lords of Chaos and Destruction respectively and each has a means of unleashing complete horror in the world of man. The game has many religious undertones to it, incorporating what can be considered "medieval" time period churches and priests as central characters in the lore. I think this makes for a unique persona of monster because religion in of itself is its own unique concept. When monsters are simply detached from any set standard of ideas and are simply made to be scary or frightening it seems very simple. However, when you add in religion it adds another factor. Religion can in fact make a monster more frightening as if connected to religious ideas, maybe afterlife and eternal damnation in the case of Diablo. There is also a contrast between good and evil and the falling of good to evil. All these and more lend to a very unique kind of monster, especially in a game such as Diablo.
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