Renan Lima

“The Perfect Crime” – Peter Bozzo

                The essay written by Peter Bozzo, called “The Perfect Crime”, is an argumentative essay that can help us to build our research paper in terms of structure.  It possesses many elements that are required for a successful essay. Therefore, it may be used as a source of clarification of how to develop our arguments, and how to support them by using evidences.

            The essay basically develops itself by analyzing the movie Paradise Lost. The movie portrays the murder of three children in the Robin Hood Hills in Memphis by three teenagers. Peter analyzes every aspect of how the film was created and its purpose.  According to the producers, they wanted to be impartial. They wanted the audience to draw their own conclusions about what happened in Robin Hood Hills. Since the whole community believed in the guilt of the teenagers, the film makers created a totally new environment for a murder movie case, which could persuade the people of the innocence of the young boys. The author says that the purpose of the movie was to present facts from the bourgeois public sphere, which would be to evaluate private information by the usage of reason. However the producers fail to do so. Instead, they approach the pathological public sphere, meaning that they expose violence to the public. But in the overall, the producers were able to create a surprisingly persuasive story of the innocence of the teenagers, even though they exacerbated some of the aspects of the murder case.

            The structure of the essay is very simple. The author gives a brief introduction and starts talking about how the media is used to portray and twist such cases. He then introduces the audience to what might be unusual, or technical, terms. By doing so, the audience is able to follow his thoughts throughout the paper, since he goes back and forth on these terms.  He mentions them all the time, because his argument was built around the meaning of bourgeois and pathological spheres. Then, he talks about how the movie was designed to make the people think the teenagers were innocent.

            The way the essay was structured, allows the audience to follow the authors thoughts in a simple manner. The evidences are often presented to support the main points of view. I also noticed that there aren’t many counterarguments, which would yield an even richer work.

            Finally, I want to use this sort of structure for my paper. I want to convey only important things without mentioning unnecessary phrases. By doing so, I think I would be able to keep my audience more interested in my work.

A Hollow World: World of Warcraft as Spatial Practice

            In the article written by Espen Aarseth, “A Hollow World: World of Warcraft as Spatial Practice, he talks about how the game of World of Warcraft has a lot of success among the videogame players throughout the world. The graphics are not as good as other games, and that the purpose of it is somewhat hollow, however, it is one of the most MMOGs played.

            It is importance to notice that Espen gives tremendous importance to the size of the virtual world. The world of Azeroth is made of roughly 8 miles. Due to this reason, it becomes perfectly playable. The player can explore the many places presented in the game without getting bored. The distance seems long, but it is actually not. During the way, many things happen and different types of situations experienced. Besides that, World of Warcraft represents a huge platform in which the player can socially interact with other people. The game itself, instigates the player to become part of groups (guilds), and being part of a group is what matters for you to have success and the guild to develop. In the other hand, games such as Everquest 2, has the idea of collective punishment. That means that if a single player of that guild die, the whole group is punished in a certain way. Thus, it leads to some kind of discrimination. The new, or weak players, have to work harder in order to achieve success. In the World of Warcraft, besides the lack of collective punishment, the player can explore the world that is about right. A world that is neither too big, nor too small as said before. A world that may be compared to an amusement park. For instance, according to Espen, Disney and Azeroth have the same layout: “In fact, if we compare the 50 square miles area of

Florida’s Disneyworld to Azeroth, they not only serve a similar purpose, but are also

quite comparable in both size and layout. Both contain different thematic zones

connected by paths, roads, and rail-based transportation, catering to differing tastes,

age groups or level groups, respectively”.

            The World of Warcraft is just a place for the people to escape from the boredom of the real world. The game is more like a playground and a big social channel tool.

This article certainly helps me to identify cultural associations to my videogame. I realize that people have the necessity of escaping of their stressed reality for a while. In my videogame for instance, the player can have control over magic. Across cultures, humans always had an inner desire of having control of the elementals of nature, thus, games like these ones; allow us to feel a little bit more powerful. Also, the fact that we can be part of a group, gives us a sense of belonging, and we often try to find where we fit in this world, and understand who we are.

Define Real, Moron; The Sims Medieval; Gamer Theory.

            Games nowadays are much more complex. It is hard to define what a game is and how to classify it based upon its characteristics. Their complexity is up to a point that their meaning varies from one individual to another, archetypes can be identified, and allegories can be drawn. In the article written by Espen Aarseth, “Define Real, Moron”, he talks how the virtual worlds can sometimes interpose to our real world. Now the article written by Kevin van Ord, “The Sims Medieval”, talks about how we have limited choices on the new The Sims game compared to the previous ones. The gamer theory written by Wark, portrays allegories that are embedded in the The Sims game and she also presents arguments and counterarguments that ironize the American consumerist society.

            According to Aarseth, the game’s world can many times overlap to our own world. Besides providing fun, they also provide a new metaphysical experience for the player. However, game experience is something highly subjective. Different people have different perception of games, and that is what it should be. Similarly enough, that is our society dilemma. We want to know what life is. For each person it has a different meaning. Some people will rely just in science, others in religion. At the same time, Wark defines us as Gods of the characters in the game. They cannot perform any action without the action of the player. If something goes wrong, the character will turn the face to you, as if they were turning their face to God, as in real life. Ord has a similar perspective, but he criticizes the new The Sims game. According to him, the game presents new features that are fun up to a point. After that, it just becomes tedious enough. The fun thing on the other Sims games was the possibility that we could act as Wark says, as Gods. Now, we have to be stuck with the game set up plot. We cannot even build our own castles, by tearing and rising walls. There is no freedom. And freedom is something that we, humans, seek.

            In my opinion, Wark’s argument are more persuasive that Ord’s. Because as Aarseth said, different people have different perspective and experiences of a game. Is just not because someone has negative thoughts regarding the game, that this game is unworthy playing. Other people might enjoy. If by one side it is hard to define whether the game is good or not, by other we can for sure, find allegories and archetypes in the game that tells much about our society. For instance, Wark comes up with the idea that in The Sims, the character just becomes happy after buying a certain thing. Not long enough, the character will seek for more; exactly the way it happens with this consumerist American society.

            As a conclusion I agree with Aaseth. Our gameplay is ambiguous. So is life. We cannot find a simple formula to describe how it works: we cannot predict its mechanics, we cannot predict the way it is going to shift, and we cannot predict the actions we are going to take.

Grayson and Eliza project critique

            After having the chance of looking over both Grayson’s and Eliza’s projects, I realized how a well-organized thought must be. Both students do an excellent job in their website. The information is clear, and they were able to pass to their audience the information they wanted to convey. I also had the chance to see how different, innovative and creative you can be when building your project. Now I am starting to have an idea of how I want the structure of my web site to look like. I will try to convey important messages and match my videogame experience with it.

            First of all, I would like to begin talking about Grayson’s web site. Right on the beginning he has a good title, and specially an amazing subtitle. It already indicates that some research was done, and that he is portraying a very serious work. On the top, all the tabs are clear and organized, what certainly helps the reader to navigate and find the things he is curious about. Besides that is important to mention that his background totally matched his videogame experience. Since Skyrim is a game that deals with lots of magic, nothing would be better than a supernatural background. Also, he begins right on the home page with the abstract of the project, followed by his organized thoughts and conclusion. They were really good. It is possible to see what the project is all about and it gives the reader a good sense of what he might expect when going through all the other tabs. However, in my opinion, he didn’t need to put the conclusion on the home page. Once you have the possibility of knowing the author’s finals thoughts about his findings and interpretations, there is no point in going till the final of the project to figure out other important messages.

            The other project was the one made by Eliza. It presents many strong arguments, and she makes a really good job when creating her dream book journal. But, since you play such big and meaningful games, I don’t believe that a white background combined well with her thoughts, the same way Grayson’s did. A plain white background would indicate a vague project. However, as you go through, you realize how great the project is. Thus, if I could, I would just switch that misleading color and utilize perhaps, an image or color that had something to do with the games I played. Moreover as well as Grayson, Eliza’s project is very dynamic. It contains music, a lot of images and videos that help the audience to experience the same feelings as both students did. Also, it is very easy to navigate through her website. The only thing that I didn’t understand is that she made cultural connections to one narrative, but she didn’t do one for the other. The same thing happened to themes and personal connections. Personally, I think that was a little bit confusing.

            Finally, I think that both projects were very organized and thoughtful. I will try to bring some of the techniques they used to improve my project. These kinds of examples are crucial. In this way, we have good sources to get inspiration from.

I will also play the game "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim"

Can explore games as allegories for the world we live in?

            Yes we can certainly see games as allegories of the real world. As McKenzie Wark says, the gamespace is nothing more than our view of reality. In fact they are derived many times from other media sources: “games mostly just recycle, or ‘remediate’, bits of representation from other media. Bolter & Grusin: “remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media.” In Ward’s game theory of allegory, she illustrates what she wants to say by using a simple example of the game The Sims. In this game you are able to create a character and control this character the way you wish. The person you control also has his necessities and ideally, you have to satisfy his needs and improve his abilities. This can be seen as an allegory for the society we live today. People filled by the consumerism, that often times will dream about “things” that they want to acquire. The gamer on the other hand, needs to make the character work more, and earn more money in order to satisfy his desire. However, as in real life, when we buy a product that we might think that is going to make our lives better, it turns out that it’s not the way it works. We become happy for a little while, but soon enough, it disappears, and we see that we are only filling ourselves with things that are not substantial. “It’s actually kind of a parody of consumerism, in which at some point your stuff takes over your life”.

            Besides that it is important to point out that games only reflect our human desires. In other words, many times the individuals in the game are able to perform actions that us humans, are not able to. So, as a gamer, you have the possibility to control that character and do what you would in that scenario. Thus, we are also some sort of “God”. Another allegory with The Sims according to Wark, is that when things don’t go well, we tend to “blame our superior” and maybe turn our heads away from him: “No wonder the Sim turns in vain to the gamer as a God, for it is the gamer who has turned toward the game as a messianic, reversible time.” Therefore, games are a way to critique, extend, and sometimes scape from our reality.

Critique of others students work

            The first project that I looked was the one made by Tyler Anthony. He was very clear right on the beginning in telling what the purposes of that project were. He was also very concise, saying just what he needed to. In the overall, I think he was able to pass to his audience what he was trying to say. However, his website lacked videos and images. Thus the reader can feel tired of that reading due to the fact he does not have any other sources to interact with. A way to fix that would be by just adding some images, or a gallery tab, and the author’s game experience. It would certainly keep the reader more interest into the project, and add more features to the web site. In the other hand, the web site created by Reid, is very dynamic. It has sources, explanations and many opportunities for the reader to interact with the author’s videogame playing experience. Another thing that I think he did well was choosing the color of his website background. The games he played were all based upon death, killing and blood. Due to this, a deep red color fitted well to the message he wanted to convey. But, the color of the background didn’t blend well with the text format. The text is in small black letters, what makes difficult to keep your eyes on the text, and it makes them tired of trying to discern the letters from the background. So, in terms of structure, I would just try to come up with new kinds of text format.

            Another website that what quite interesting was the on created by Sarah Hicklin. It is very simple and at the same time dynamic. The tabs indicate to the reader exactly what the web site is all about and where the information and message that she wants to pass can be found and analyzed. She also does something that any other student did. She keeps a journal of each day that she played, what makes it easy for us to understand the why of what she wrote. However, in my opinion, the games she played were not as complex as the games Reid and Tyler played. In order to have a nice virtual experience, it is necessary to play games that are capable of bringing a world that is very close to ours. A world that you can actually interact with; and the games she played were interesting, but not able to bring that level of complexity and archetypes.

Carl Jung’s “On the Nature of Dreams”

In Carl Jung’s “On the nature of Dream” he addresses the question of what a dream really means. There is actually not a right answer for that. It is a very hard task to interpret them and it requires specialized knowledge. What we can say is that a dream can tell us about who we are. One interesting point is that it is impossible to interpret a dream without the dreamer. In order to understand a dream, it is necessary to know what is going on in that person’s life, and what they think about it. Therefore, a dream can help that person to find a solution of an issue that he or she might be facing. Through this optic, it helps that person to identify his feelings, and concerns about the problem. Just then, it would be able to find a way out of it. Another thing that he mentions is that a dream is related to unconsciousness. It is a fragment of involuntary psychic activity, and it involves many irrational factors. They aren’t logical and many times have a questionable morality. So again, this just makes it hard to build a meaning for that dream. So, it is necessary to ask the dreamer his own associations among the objects and events in the dream and the things that he experiences in real life. Moreover what we are able to do it to reconstruct past events by just looking at a dream and we can also predict future events if we make a dream-book and analyze the events that happen next. In other words, dreams are a big part of us. It complements our personality, and helps us to build that personality. Many times these kinds of dreams are the ones that stay in our minds for a long period of time, and perhaps, we might never forget it.

Thus we can use these techniques in order to analyze our playing style. If we treat a videogame like a dream, we can try to understand who we are and why we are acting the way we are. By doing so, it is possible for us to find a relationship about our game playing experience and personality. If we associate similar events in the videogame to similar events in real life, we might be able to predict how we would proceed when facing a hard obstacle in front of us.

Short story analysis

The story that I found is called “The Lady with the Little Dog” written by Anton Chekhov. The story has a love theme that basically portrays a man, Dmitri, which falls in love with a much younger woman, Anna, in the city of Yalta. The story ends in certain ambiguity, in which is possible to interpret the main character as an older man taking advantage of a younger woman naivety; or a man that is enchanted by his new partner personality, and romanticism. One interesting point is that the author is not very descriptive. Instead, he gives more attention to the characters emotions and feelings. By preserving the words, that is, by not saying more than he needs, Chekhov cuts off many details that are unnecessary to understand the short piece.

            Besides that, the author utilizes colors to indicate the mood and the development of the characters. For instance, when describing the main character’s life with his current wife, he utilizes the words gray, and dull. Thus, that was the character’s clothes and hair: “gray”, living in a city that looked dull, as if the air were always heavy, full of fog. This indicates that the character was living a lie for a long time. Along with that, his wife is described as intellectual, tall, and elegant. However, for him, she wasn’t: “he secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant, was afraid of her, and did not like to be at home. He had begun being unfaithful to her long ago -- had been unfaithful to her often, and, probably on that account, almost always spoke ill of women, and when they were talked about in his presence, used to call them the lower race." But, when with Anna, he describes the water of sea as soft and warm, with a lilac hue being hit by the golden color of the moonlight. Now, it is possible to see the development of the character. Dmitri’s words and mood becomes different by the time he starts to spend time with Anna. His life “gets better.”

            Therefore, the author is very effective in this way, because by giving some little description of the character’s surroundings, it is possible to identify the person’s feelings, meaning that we can experience the world in a way similar to the protagonist. Besides that, as mentioned in the beginning, the ambiguity identified allows different interpretations of the story, making it more dynamic for the audience. When that happens, the reader needs to raise some questions, and guess some events that happened before the story, and what is going to happen afterwards.

            By reading this test, I realized that the words you choose define the text. I will try to improve my story by adding some colors to it, and some adjectives to indicate the characters surroundings and feelings. By doing so, I will be able to bring something more concrete to the reader, allowing him to have a better experience of what I am trying to say. Also, I will try to have a slight ambiguity in my story to keep the reader interested.

Structural Analysis

            The method that I tried to use in my short story was the Hierarchical Structure. First, I give to the reader an initial event and where it is taking place. Second, I try to inform the reader what my goals are, and what I expect to happen the day I am describing. Done this, I tried then, to inform the reader what the motivations of the main character were, and develop the idea of why his actions were the way they were. For instance, in my story, the guy in love has the aim of talking to the girl he wants to. Thus, throughout the story, his sensations and feelings are expressed and explained, showing the reader what his motivations were. Then, the complication of the story comes, which was the critical moment of the protagonist facing the goal he wanted to accomplish, however the outcome wasn’t the thing that was predicted. It is a failure. I realized that by employing the hierarchical structure, I would be able to pass to the reader my story in a more systematic way. Also in my opinion, it is easier to understand, write, and follow. As said, the reader usually doesn’t like a story that is hard to understand and hard to follow.

            Another method that I used was the Mental Map. I describe the environment where the conflict takes place, and I also describe the surroundings according to the main character’s view. That was for the reader to experience the day that is being described, the same way the protagonist was, and for him to have a spatial view of the scenario. Moreover, I give physical description of the girl the main character likes, and I try to update the information that is passed to the reader at each paragraph. This method, in my opinion, was a little bit harder to use. In order to describe environment and physical appealing, it requires lots of thought. This is because each word must be chosen carefully to enrich the text.