Modern representation of ancient tales is common within contemporary media. One of the most frequently depicted are those of historical Greco-Roman gods and heroes. From Zeus and Achilles to Hercules and Bacchus, characters of this era are found as titular figures of film and tv but also video games. The way these characters are designed as narrators, NPCs (non-playable characters), or playable protagonists is crucial not only to understanding the general public’s perception of these names but also for the advocacy of their continued study.
Alexander Vandewalle, a joint PhD student from the University of Antwerp and Ghent University in Belgium researches just that: the reception of mythological characters in classical antiquity games, i.e. games set in ancient Greece or Rome, or in a Greco-Roman mythological story world. Combining both an MA in Linguistics and Literature (Latin and Greek) and an MSc in Film Studies and Visual Culture, Alex continues to develop his love of storytelling within fictional worlds, be it through studying Greek epics or contemporary media.
“We don’t really know what accurate means”
I discussed with Alex the work of his PhD and the role his research plays in considering the historical accuracy of games and introspective looks at modern and ancient society. For a short time, Alex taught Latin, Greek and History in secondary education and once asked his students to give an accurate account of the day before, as an exercise to teach them what being ‘accurate’ to the historical past practically entails. As expected, many of the students struggled to recount events happening in their own daily recent lives – now imagine the difficulties of giving an ‘accurate’ account of events that transpired two thousand years ago. This allowed students to get a better handle of how difficult perceiving ancient history is, and provided context to what ‘accuracy’ really implies.
Alex prefers asking the question of “does it have to be accurate?” instead of “is it accurate?”. He does not necessarily disagree with Robert Lane Fox (2008, p. 6) who argued that “If a film or play directly messes up what we would know from historical evidence, historians are right to clamour”, but feels that the question of historical ‘accuracy’ should be an analytical starting-off point, rather than a goal in itself. It is much more interesting, he claims, to look at transformations between the source material and the contemporary reworking, instead of criticizing every major or minor ‘mistake’ made by game developers. That way, researchers not only acquire insight into the messages a game conveys, but also into present-day sensibilities that drive the reception or adaptation process.
“How classics stand in analogue and are expressed in the modern world”
Looking at contemporary texts and video games allows for fresh and new perspectives on the ancient world. But the inverse is also true: considering modern characterisations of such characters offers an introspection on our society today. Over the past, almost, twenty years, reimagined classical female perspectives and stories are being told to modern audiences. For example, The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (2005), was a book that Alex notes as an early example of interest towards the representation of non-male characters in contemporary literary myth retelling – a starting point for a movement of feminist revisionism that is thriving in bookstores today. Atwood retells Homer’s Odyssey through the eyes of Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, focusing on her feelings and thoughts instead of on the mythical exploits of her husband. Such stories have begun to be told in games, too: the imaginative retelling of The Next Penelope (2015) gives Penelope increased agency in her quest to find Odysseus, albeit within a decidedly futuristic setting where she races her way through the world of Greek myth in her own spaceship, demonstrating not only the changing perceptions of gender from classical storytelling to modern day, but also the exciting possibilities that emerge once we stop considering such retellings from the ‘accuracy’ standpoint.
Characterisation theory
More specifically, Alex investigates characterisation within videogames, a concept originally from literary studies, referring to the attribution of character traits to characters within a text. This becomes more complicated when considering modern representations of classical stories where cultures and societies can clash but also blend together. This is especially so in video games, where players are empowered to alter the character not only in presentation but also in how they interact with the world, and the minor and critical decisions they make.
In one case study, Alex has tested this variety in characterisation by asking Classics students to play the game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018, Ubisoft Quebec), and periodically asking them further questions about their choices within the game. This not only offered insight into characterisation theory, but also the way in which players engage with the virtual worlds that their character is living in, as well as the role that considerations of history play in these processes.
Alex @Alex_Vandewalle, also co-runs the Save Ancient Studies Alliance @AncientSave, Archaeogaming streams, where he, along with Dr. Kate Minniti @ammit_, plays games with classical, historical, mythological, or archaeological themes with guest gamers each week.
Alex has recently published on characterization in video games in the journal Games and Culture, in an article that proposes an analytical framework through which different types or sources of characterization can be studied: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15554120231179496. He is now in the process of applying this framework to a set of different antiquity games to acquire more insight into how such games remediate characters from ancient mythology.
MultiPlay 