The Abyss Gazes Also: The Psychological Journey of a Mentally-tormented Soldier in Spec Ops: The Line

1024x768 ABSTRACT Gunawan, Akbar Endarto. 2016. The Abyss Gazes Also: The Psychological Journey of a Mentally-tormented Soldier in Spec Ops: The Line. Thesis, English Department, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Thesis Advisors: (I) Drs. Kukuh Prayitno S., M.A, (II) Drs. Arif Subiyanto, M.A. Keywords: Video Game, Verbal Narrative, Cinematic Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, Spec Ops: The Line, Literary Theory. Framework of psychoanalysis within literary discourse has become a staple among other literary analyses along the past century due to its capability to establish psychological understanding of a literary text. One objective of literary psychoanalysis is to uncover a fictional character’s mental process by subjecting the character to a specific psychological theory. The more closely the theory seems to apply to the character, the more realistic the literary text as a whole appears to be. Meanwhile, video game over the last decade has steadily been regarded as a plausible literary medium by academics due to its capacity to present a coherent narrative structure. With the game’s cinematic portrayal and verbal narrative woven together into an interactive medium, the video game’s gameplay enjoyment leads to an experience broadly similar to one’s enjoyment of drama or novel. A recent example of video game narrative appropriate to be psychoanalyzed is found in Yager Development’s 2012 Spec Ops: The Line, wherein Captain Martin Walker and his small Delta squad are assigned to investigate a distress signal in sand-sunken, believed-to-be inhabitable Dubai. Via numerous subtle alterations in Captain Walker’s range of idiosyncrasy hinted from the game’s verbal and cinematic narrative, Spec Ops: The Line reveals many believable psychological evidences suggesting one subtle alteration after another in his mental process. First apparent evidence comes from Walker’s initial moral disengagement—pacifying any moral repercussion in momentous times when he kills multiple armed hostiles threatening to shoot him. The second notable evidence is Walker’s embodiment of uncanny effect, exhibiting unreasonable fear towards wild self-speculation. The third one, defense mechanism, comes prevalent once Walker’s self-intentions and expectations are contradictory to what he has visually witnessed in the course of his mission. Once a large number of innocent casualties are caught in the crossfire between Walker and the American battalion, it results in Walker suffering from condition mildly similar to Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Walker begins to experience acute hallucinations as a result of the stress he endures throughout the conflict, yet remains unabated to keep on venturing further into Dubai’s inner-parts to fulfill his contrived objective. In the final culmination of his journey, Walker ends his mission by committing suicide.  Normal 0 false false false IN X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Table Normal; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}