this is tangentially related to my final project but i've been thinking a lot lately about intentionality of story and relevancy of death as it pertains to narratives in mcrp. specifically bridging between hermitcraft third life dream smp and empires smp. does this make sense
guess who's writing a critical analysis college level paper on 3rd life as a perfect Aristotelian tragedy
i went to look for your paper to use as a potential source, vaguely remembering the thesis, then realized yours is also through the aristotelian lens aiofwnaofiwnaofnwiao
i somehow never saw or responded to this but OH MY GOD. YES. YES. did you finish it? did you post it? can i read it? oh my god
actually since everyone’s around right now — tap in. Can i post an academic paper on third life & theatre to ao3? thoughts? like logistically is that allowed
we don't know each other but I just saw your post about academic mcyt and I neeeeed those papers you took screenshots of pretty please
and when you finish the final project I would very much like to read it :]
hiii oh my god post reached target audience... hello!!
i can send you some of the papers i've been reading because they are FASCINATINGGG unfortunately i'm unable to send my favorite one due to internet safety. but i can flip you some of the other ones!!! i'm sending them without my third-life-focused annotations because nobody wants to read all that (unless you do? i'd have to erase some bc again internet safety) but. here's basically a very short annotated bib. under the cut
^ this is a link to the pdf that was the first screenshot; it's about how videogames fit into schecner's performance study model. i'm using it mostly as a base for the argument that third life counts as performance and more specifically theater. it's from 2009 so minecraft was barely even in its alpha stages. anyway basically this was kinda a meh read but is useful
^ i didn't take any screenshots of this one, but i had SUCH a good time reading it. it's about how adding in perma-death gives videogames narrative weight, which i think is a really really good way of summing up why third life works, like, lore-wise. people enjoy picking apart third life because it has Stakes. that's not to say that something like hermitcraft doesn't have stakes, but the fact is that fundamentally hermitcraft is just a bunch of ppl playing genuine vanilla minecraft together in a long term format. there's story arcs, sure (i'm thinking of the civil war and the mycelium war and the rift, specifically) but otherwise it's audience stringing together watcher lore and whatever. the only penalty for death in hermitcraft exists in a minigame or it's simply just loss of Stuff. (season eight is the exception to this, i would argue, but for the same reasons: death/server deletion gives hc that same narrative weight). ANYWAY so basically i think the life series gains narrative weight because it takes basic minecraft rules and Alters them, raising the stakes. when players have death to fear, they end up playing characters with values. or something. Anyway. also the same argument can be made for dream smp; major difference being that it's scripted-ish. but it still gained narrative weight when they had canon lives. OHH that would also be a fascinating research paper
here is the only other screenshot of the essay i can't share that i feel comfortable sharing. i'm sharing it because this is the basic tragic structure i've been following/analyzing 3L through; it's sort of aristotelian in nature. but i've mapped it out sort of as follows:
disharmony/tense atmosphere: they enter third life and nobody knows what to expect from the series. death looms - "careful! you're sounding like you want to lose a life!" scar dying has weight. nobody knows what to expect.
irreconcilable conflict: everyone wants to live. only one person Can live. conflict/violence/death is inevitable. also general conflict starts when people start factioning off and it becomes us vs them instead of just u vs me
reversal/recognition (described as a sort of "tacking of a ship" -- the winds of conflict have been consistent throughout the story, but Things Change when the characters change course against the conflict) to me in scott's pov is two things: firstly, the burning of the dogwarts banner, which is a recognition that this is war and they're "on the list," so to speak. secondly i think it's when jimmy goes red and scott must protect him -- again this is a recognition that death is inevitable
the reversal/recognition leads to More Suffering (death follows death): this is the battle of the red desert. this is jimmy dying. this is scott dying. this is the grief. from grian's pov it's him killinig scar, it's his allies dying, etc etc etc. it's a tragedy
and then tragedies either end with a restoration of order (in this case, scott meeting jimmy "in heaven" for the home scene at the end) or revelation of chaos (grian announces queerbait death games season 2).
Anyway that was very long-winded; i'm sort of using this post as an opportunity to continue outlining my thoughts. because i need to do that. to actually. write this paper. GOOODDDDD. uhm anyway if i had a higher word count and also more time i'd probably do a whole thing also analyzing dsmp and like, empires. Also. and just like minecraft as a medium for theatrical storytelling. and why it works so well. i'm going to do some more research into something called the rashomon effect which has to do with seeing the same event from different persepctives and i'm hopeful that will be helpful!
as for reading the final paper, provided i'm able to do so safely, i plan to post it. maybe to ao3 i think that would be very very funny.
