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The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: TheFly22284 on January 19, 2017, 07:31:08 AM

Title: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: TheFly22284 on January 19, 2017, 07:31:08 AM
So, I'm an English professor and have been allowed to teach a course on Narrative and Gaming. We're playing six games (Brothers, Jade Empire, Gone Home, Valiant Hearts, The Walking Dead: Season One, and Undertale), but I'm supplementing with gameplay videos.

After a brief history of narratology and ludology, we're looking at elements of fiction and plot structures in games before moving on to film studies approaches and finally the thing that makes games so different - identification and player co-authorship (as well as the moral implications thereof).

For the first unit, I'm using videos of LoS 1 and Mirror of Fate and portions of LoS 2. While the games are not everyone's favorite, I do think this will be a great way of using one character to study hero, villian, and anti-hero as well as archetypes. Should be fun.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: X on January 19, 2017, 09:36:54 AM
Welcome aboard TheFly22284  :)

Actually I would find using the LoS games to be very insightful about games. In general; 'How not to make games 101', lol.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: TheFly22284 on January 19, 2017, 12:07:29 PM
I have mixed feelings about them as games. I loved the first one, I won't lie, but the other two were definitely flawed. I had a lot of fun with them, but I won't pretend that they're than mediocre. That's one of the core tenets of analysis, though; any text can make for a productive and interesting close-reading. We're not really evaluating quality, but studying the choices that game developers make that help to create meaning.

The reason I went with LoS is because the characters are fairly broadly written, I know it very well, and we're talking about the monomyth and its influence on gaming early on. The beginning of the semester really is focused on narratives as a whole; we're doing conflict and plot tomorrow and Monday, and I'm using the whole of Rise of the Tomb Raider. After that, though, we'll be looking at narrower-scope stuff. I'm using a few sections of Bioshock to talk about level design and its relationship to story, for example, and the first levels of a few earlier games (including Castlevania) to talk about extradiegetic sound (soundtrack) vs. diagetic sound (sound effects and music coming from in-game sources, etc.)

As I said, Lords of Shadow just works well because Gabriel takes on a distinctive role in each game, and it allows me to bring in Alucard's arc as a foil, etc. It's in no way an original story, but the familiar beats are what make it accessible.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: TheFly22284 on January 19, 2017, 12:08:37 PM
Thanks for the welcome - I've been on the board for years and years, but graduate school and now professorship and fatherhood keep me from being consistently active.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: PFG9000 on January 19, 2017, 07:24:24 PM
Very cool.  I wish a course like this had been offered when I was in college.  Then again, I wouldn't have time to play through all those games in one semester.

Tomb Raider: Legend deals with the monomyth in an interesting way.  It ties the Arthur story in with myths from other cultures and tries to argue that they're all derivatives of one original event.  It also has a heavily dialogue-based story, and it's fairly short, so it might make for good material in future courses, if you're interested.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Flame on January 19, 2017, 07:32:19 PM
I do think this will be a great way of using one character to study hero, villian, and anti-hero as well as archetypes. Should be fun.
That's actually pretty clever

Good luck.

Lords of Shadow may be polarizing, but I think it's narrative, (at least for the first 2 games) is actually really good.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Dracula9 on January 19, 2017, 08:07:50 PM
You certainly have all the "Zobek was the bad guy all along if you paid attention" aspects that can be broken down, to say nothing of deconstructing and analyzing Gabe's mental states throughout.

Game might not be perfect and it might piss off a lot of people, but there's definitely a lot of stuff there, for better or worse, so I think this is a really neat idea (wish I'd had something like it in college) and I commend you for the efforts.

Be sure to devote an entire class towards making fun of Pro Wrestler Satan.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: AlexCalvo on January 19, 2017, 09:00:15 PM
Hopefully you'll spend a class or two going over how schizophrenic Gabriel's characterization is from game to game.  He really is a distinctly different character in each game, and not in an interestingly developed dynamic way.  But in a completely disjointed/conflicting way that really is chalked up to inconsistent writing, and poor character continuity.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Laina on January 19, 2017, 11:17:50 PM
I must admit, I'm a little jealous that someone beat me to the punch on using a Castlevania game as a teaching tool in an educational setting. lol ;3 But I'm not even attending graduate school until 2018, so the sooner someone gets it out there, the better I think. Keep us updated on how things progress, if you can! I've focused heavily on the work of C.G. Jung during the course of obtaining my bachelor's in psychology, so I was even more onboard when you brought up Gabriel & crew's role as archetypes.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Shiroi Koumori on January 20, 2017, 12:40:20 AM
It would have been so cool to have that class as an undergrad, but then again I wouldn't have time to play everything.

I agree with Laina, keep us updated on the class. :)
If only I could use video games in my classes....  :'(
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: TheFly22284 on January 20, 2017, 07:36:32 AM
Hopefully you'll spend a class or two going over how schizophrenic Gabriel's characterization is from game to game.  He really is a distinctly different character in each game, and not in an interestingly developed dynamic way.  But in a completely disjointed/conflicting way that really is chalked up to inconsistent writing, and poor character continuity.

I know you're being flippant, but I probably will address this to some extent. I almost think it would work better if Mirror of Fate were not in the picture and there was more mystery between installments. I can accept significant change over 1,000 years. Unfortunately, I also think Mirror of Fate has the best narrative of the three, because it's focused so tightly.

Truthfully, for me, the biggest thing I have issue with is Gabriel's remorse. Literally every "evil" thing he does before becoming a vampire - including becoming a vampire - is because he is made to do so by external forces or because there are no other options. It's kind of like Angel on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love the show and character, but Liam (the human soul of Angel) should not feel remorse for the actions of the demon who set up shop in his body when his soul vacated.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: TheFly22284 on January 20, 2017, 07:38:58 AM
Since several people have brought up time playing - the games we are playing are mostly in the four hour range, and I've given two or so weeks on each of those. The others are around 10-12, and they have longer. If students lack access to the tech or the skills to play, I'm fine with them watching walkthroughs as long as they give some consideration to gameplay.

The rest of the game discussion will be drawn from all material posted on Youtube or online elsewhere. 1-2 hours of viewing a week is significantly less than the time one would spend reading for a literature course, even if you add in 2-3 hours of playing.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: TheFly22284 on January 20, 2017, 07:41:03 AM
I must admit, I'm a little jealous that someone beat me to the punch on using a Castlevania game as a teaching tool in an educational setting. lol ;3 But I'm not even attending graduate school until 2018, so the sooner someone gets it out there, the better I think. Keep us updated on how things progress, if you can! I've focused heavily on the work of C.G. Jung during the course of obtaining my bachelor's in psychology, so I was even more onboard when you brought up Gabriel & crew's role as archetypes.

The interesting thing about LoS is that, like most narratives, it doesn't follow the hero's quest exactly nor does it have a perfect 1:1 correlation between character and archetype. They shift quite a bit. Evan Skolnick's book Video Game Storytelling lays out the slightly complicated relationship between games and the monomyth (not to mention traditional 3 act narratives) really well.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: zangetsu468 on January 20, 2017, 08:42:53 AM
I don't think MoF's narrative elements were particularly strong at all. However, I will say that I find comparing it to previous CV games which featured Simon and Trevor in particular, interesting. In CoD, Trevor is quite arrogant the first time he encounters Hector. His temperament is firey, as it is in MoF, when the MoF told him that he would not succeed, he slung his combat cross directly at it and exclaimed that it was "quite enough" (something to this effect). I actually thought that out of all the cutscenes in MoF, that was by far my favourite. This is coming from someone who played the game, thought it was average and wouldn't bother playing it again. I suppose my point with all of this is, what was Trevor's part, what was he to the story and why was his narrative played out the way that it was?

Although I haven't played LOS2, I know a fair bit about it and I can understand what AlexCalvo is saying. For a period of time that long, things are bound to have changed, particularly when someone has been "dormant" for that time. It's kind of like putting an interquel between CVI and Simon's Quest. The two are games with similar fundamentally, but both are such different games which play out differently, that even if two such games involved character development, then it may be more forgiving.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Flame on January 20, 2017, 10:32:12 AM
LoS2 is also an example at poor storytelling. it sets everything up for a redemption narrative. Gabriel as the anti-hero evil vampire is tired of his immortal existence and sets out to finish the job he started when he was a knight of the order, which is defeat satan.

there's the stuff with his family in 2, which really makes for compelling redemption stuff, but the shift between modern day and castle segments is so dramatic, and in the end, the plot has no resolution.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: KaZudra on January 20, 2017, 04:45:21 PM
You'll have a nice presentation if you leave LoS2 out, that game was a plot-hole generator.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: e105beta on January 25, 2017, 03:06:19 PM
Truthfully, for me, the biggest thing I have issue with is Gabriel's remorse. Literally every "evil" thing he does before becoming a vampire - including becoming a vampire - is because he is made to do so by external forces or because there are no other options. It's kind of like Angel on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love the show and character, but Liam (the human soul of Angel) should not feel remorse for the actions of the demon who set up shop in his body when his soul vacated.

I can understand his remorse. It's easy to play the game and say "Well Gabriel, it wasn't your fault, Zobek made you do it" but if I take a second to put myself in Gabriel's shoes, it becomes less simple.

If I woke up one day and my wife was dead, I'd be heartbroken, devastated, and furious. I'd want answers. I'd want revenge. I'd have so much grief, anguish, and hatred, and I'd want to direct it all at someone. Now I personally have a daughter, which would give me a really good reason not to fall off the deep end, but Gabriel doesn't have that. When Marie dies, he has essentially lost everything. So Gabriel takes all of his hate and his rage and he goes on a monster killing quest. He vows to bring the Lords of Shadow, who create the monsters that he assumes killed his wife, to justice, and he does so with the vain hope that he might bring his wife back to life. He braves hell and high water to do so, and he does do some "questionable things" while doing it.

Let's look at some examples:
First, the Black Knight. It's Claudia's guardian. Well, Gabriel goes to sleep one night, has a dream about killing Claudia, wakes up and Claudia is dead. The Black Knight, which up until this point has done nothing in Gabriel's presence but show good will to Gabriel and Claudia, flips out and tries to kill who he assumes killed Claudia. And at that point, Gabriel can't even tell himself "Hey, I didn't do it!" because he's probably sitting there thinking "SHIT, DID I DO IT?" So he fights for his life, likely driven by a mix of self-preservation and a desire to finish his mission, and kills something that has up until that moment been entirely benevolent towards him.

Second, Vincent Dorin. Whatever you think about his deeds, or the concept of "the greater good", Gabriel essentially took the one thing keeping an obviously crazy man alive and left him for dead. And for someone who expresses a vested belief in the concept of mercy and forgiveness (to Satan, no less) that's not a casual act. As the player, we sit there and say, "Yeah, he got what was coming to him" but if/when Vincent dies, Gabriel is at least in part responsible.

Third, Pan. This one is pretty obvious in the game. Gabriel is upset at killing Pan. He does not like doing this, but is forced by Pan to accept it as necessary. Pan sees himself as a sacrifice made so that Gabriel can reach the Lord of the Necromancers and defeat the Lords of Shadow. Pan even tells Gabriel "I've accepted my fate" and asks him "Can you accept yours?" and Gabriel replies "I am not worthy. I am not of pure heart." So right then, it's not a stretch that Gabriel just feels like a straight up murderer.

So after the world's most grueling journey and some tough decisions, he finally gets to the Lord of the Necromancers, no doubt filled with self-doubt only overridden by the desire to see his wife, his everything, again. He gets there and Zobek is like "Hey, you know me, the guy that helped you succeed? Yeah, I'm a bad guy and I killed your wife. Actually, you killed your wife. I made you kill your wife."

At this point, Gabriel is emotionally unstable and is hit with a megaton bomb "You killed your wife." Honestly, it doesn't really matter that Zobek made him do it. I imagine myself in that scenario, and ask myself "If I knew I had been the one who had killed my wife all those days/weeks/months ago, would it really matter if I knew I was mind controlled?" It's like a band-aid on a missing limb. Ok, yeah, Zobek made me do it, but my wife was alive, was forced to suffer through her own husband killing her. And me or Zobek, either way she's still dead. I can only imagine what that must be like. And that Claudia girl I met? She was fine and I came along and killed her too. And the creature that tried to bring her killer to justice? I killed him too. It was my body, my self, that killed them, and had I not been there they might still be alive. And that crazy priest, well he was bad, sure, but I killed him too with the "help" of the Lord of the Necromancers. And Pan? I killed him, he let me kill him, so that I could come here, learn that Zobek made me kill a bunch of people, and that the Lord of the Necromancers was helping me the whole time. All these people are dead in some way because of me. If I had never existed, they all might still be alive. That's heavy shit.

Then literally Satan comes down from the sky, and is like "I did this." Ok, well I can imagine that if Satan's standing right in front of me, no matter how bad I was, I'm still better than Satan, right? God will grant me mercy. God will grant me justice. So Satan gets fought, Gabriel finally gets his hands on the mask that he's been tearing everything apart for, as is sitting there thinking "I'm forgiven. God gave me this mask so I can bring Marie back."

AND THEN MARIE STAYS DEAD.

Gabriel doesn't even get to die and join her, and Marie tells him he was brought back to life to repent for his sins. Gabriel's probably thinking "Haven't I done enough, Lord? What was the point of all of this?" So he's feeling like a huge piece of shit, angry at God, and then a little vampire girl tells him "Hey, I need your help to stop the end of the world". Gabriel's probably thinking, "Ok, here's my chance. I either earn my redemption or die trying. Either way I get Marie back." Turns out, though, that he still has to kill one more person, throw away his humanity, so even after he's saved the world, he's an immortal monster.

I realize I've deviated a bit, but I think his remorse is incredibly understandable, which makes his Dracula make plenty of sense. If anything, the story tellers are at fault for trying to make Gabriel too much of a stoic badass between certain cutscenes.

Then Lords of Shadow 2 just takes a big, semi-solid, smelly, pea-green dump all over everything.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: VladCT on January 26, 2017, 08:30:37 AM
Then Lords of Shadow 2 just takes a big, semi-solid, smelly, pea-green dump all over everything.
Y'know what, I'mma quote that in my sig, if you don't mind.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Dracula9 on January 29, 2017, 04:54:34 PM
Quote
Then Lords of Shadow 2 just takes a big, semi-solid, smelly, pea-green dump all over everything.

I blame Pro Wrestler Satan.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Flame on January 29, 2017, 06:43:07 PM
I blame Pro Wrestler Satan.

NANOMACHINES SON, Satan was fine. His complete waste, was what wasn't fine.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Dracula9 on January 29, 2017, 06:58:12 PM
Naw bruh, Pro Wrestler Satan is a terrible redesign of a previously perfect design that serves no purpose other than to look cool for cool's sake.

Not like you fight the beefcake in his own body anyway, so I guess his bench-pressing was wasted.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: TatteredSeraph on January 30, 2017, 11:08:40 AM
Naw bruh, Pro Wrestler Satan is a terrible redesign of a previously perfect design that serves no purpose other than to look cool for cool's sake.

Not like you fight the beefcake in his own body anyway, so I guess his bench-pressing was wasted.

It wasn't even cool though!  Just terrible, as you say.  More interesting would be to have him as he was in LoS1, perhaps in a long black robe, and then take on a draconic/shining serpent seraph form, with six wings.  Even the Leviathan was fug in its design.  There was just so much wasted potential... :(
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Lumi Kløvstad on January 30, 2017, 04:35:04 PM
I get that Satan lost to Gabe before and has been apparently doing some serious time that the Hellsville Gymnasium and Hellth Club while preparing for a rematch, but did they HAVE TO GIVE HIM CHICKEN LEGS?!
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: X on January 30, 2017, 05:54:08 PM
Quote
I get that Satan lost to Gabe before and has been apparently doing some serious time that the Hellsville Gymnasium and Hellth Club while preparing for a rematch, but did they HAVE TO GIVE HIM CHICKEN LEGS?!

So Satan needed some more Cock in his design ;D
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Dracula9 on January 30, 2017, 06:49:50 PM
So Satan needed some more Cock in his design ;D

Well, Nergal does say his father's thirst for Gabriel knows no limits.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: SecretWeapon on January 30, 2017, 07:56:17 PM
Satan teached me to incorporate big black cock in my body....design. Satan is wise
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: zangetsu468 on January 31, 2017, 03:03:07 AM
Satan teached me to incorporate big black cock in my body....design. Satan is wise

"..... Be Satan"
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: e105beta on February 06, 2017, 01:54:52 PM
Naw bruh, Pro Wrestler Satan is a terrible redesign of a previously perfect design that serves no purpose other than to look cool for cool's sake.

Not like you fight the beefcake in his own body anyway, so I guess his bench-pressing was wasted.

I played LoS after playing Dante's Inferno earlier that year, and the Satan design stood out to me how accurate it was to the Satan mythos. He wasn't some big burly dude with goat legs and massive horns; he was lithe and fair, and literally clothed in darkness. He looked like the greatest of angels albeit fallen from grace, rather than a satyr with a giant horse dong flailing around in my face.

LoS 2 Satan was just a step in the direction of Dante's Inferno Satan, and was, for some reason, missing his legs.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Dracula9 on February 07, 2017, 12:06:31 AM
No, I actually like Dante's Satan (yes that includes the BFDD--it's so ridiculous it's enjoyable to think someone had to animate that)--there's just enough weird shit going on in the design and it's ridiculously over-the-top, but on closer inspection (especially in DI's ending cutscenes when it's in glorious FMV quality) there are some pretty clear elements of the design meant as "this part of the dude USED to be pretty and shit. It ain't anymore, but it used to be!" sort of things. Dante's Inferno game Satan feels like the warped-beauty aspect taken to an extreme, since once that end cutscene plays I found myself going "oh, he's MUCH less ugly than the game model suggests!" Plus I really liked the ripped/stump wings, thought those were a seriously nice touch.

It's over-the-top and crazy from the start and seems to be MEANT as an extreme end of the design concept. It didn't take a design that was already both really solid aesthetically and perfectly fit the narrative role and take it to an extreme for no reason other than "why not?"

Sure, the argument could be made that LOS2 Satan's design fits 2's narrative role, but let's be fair here (and by fair I mean it is time for a shitty overextended D9 metaphor):

Imagine taking the smoothest, most perfect shit you've ever taken. Hardly any exertion, was over quickly, and it looks like it fits in the bowl just right so as to go down without any trouble. You dare say it almost looks rather nice, for a lump of waste that came out of you. For the briefest of moments you become Randy Marsh, and contemplate taking photographs and framing and preserving your incredibly good-looking shit for all the world to see and know your pride. Imagine a shit like that.

Guess what though it's still just shit and the thing it fits into so nicely was made at its core to hold such pieces of shit and eventually be used to dispose of them.

Oh, and it streaked the hell out of the bowl interior and clogged the U-pipe so severely it almost flooded the bathroom. The smell lingered for months. Multiple bleach bottles still weren't enough to remove the stains left by the shitstreaks. You consider a new toilet altogether, but the manufacturers decide that urinals shaped like a pair of tits with little nipple tassels that spin around and flash and play catchy pop jingles if you hit all five mini-targets in the bowl before time runs out were a better business venture than standard household toilets.

You look back, through the slightly cracked bathroom door, at your forever-stained toilet and think of the shit that did it in.

You weep.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: e105beta on February 07, 2017, 02:34:12 PM
I liked the torn wings. Other than that the design seemed pretty derivative to me. I agree with your take on LoS2 Satan, though, and I like the metaphor, haha.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: KaZudra on February 07, 2017, 03:33:51 PM
I liked the torn wings. Other than that the design seemed pretty derivative to me. I agree with your take on LoS2 Satan, though, and I like the metaphor, haha.
Source inspiration of LoS2 Satan
(https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fvignette1.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fmetalocalypse%2Fimages%2F5%2F59%2FNathan002.jpg%2Frevision%2Flatest%3Fcb%3D20140115012411&hash=ac2b443556453dd4274c792e7bbc2dcb)

Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: X on February 07, 2017, 08:47:53 PM
That would have made the game better if it was Nathan Explosion.
Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: Dracula9 on February 07, 2017, 09:24:26 PM
*summoning Leviathan*
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/6c/91/0b/6c910bc96776972cc995ece035f93b40.jpg)

*Leviathan gets killed*
(https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F68.media.tumblr.com%2F03a1b22cd242a47f47453c60b49816ab%2Ftumblr_inline_mu8zcd3Vqo1qg3jn1.gif&hash=d2857463af7ba87e4997b4e3a4b852e7)

*fully appears to be willing to murder own son to kill foe*
(https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F1WqSKJU.jpg&hash=2806d6ab3a5d4ca2546ed3093538cf61)

*murders Satan with a slightly pointy stick*
(https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdata.whicdn.com%2Fimages%2F161967658%2Fsuperthumb.jpg&hash=3c359e4f5b7b731a98891510bd4502b0)

Title: Re: Teaching Lords of Shadow in a college course
Post by: TatteredSeraph on February 08, 2017, 03:26:38 AM
Thanks for that.... Now it's been seen, I don't think that it can be unseen. :P