Expansive Writing

Expanding upon the idea of commercial fiction vs literary fiction, the main point that the textbook Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense emphasized was the mastery of theme. Throughout the section, the author discusses theme as being a unifying element that reveals an inherent truth or theory about life.

Haruki Murakami notes an interesting trend: contrary to Perrine's bias that literary authors intentionally spread glitters of 'literature' throughout their works, more often literary fiction is just aged writing that have withstood the test of time. In Murakami's Norwegian Wood, the character Nagasawa refuses to read authors that have long since been dead, believing that time is the best judge of quality. 

Calling into question the value of the concept of "literary fiction" in general is John Updike, who claimed that the term suffocated him by placing expectations and generalizations on his writing. Do writers who write commercial fiction have to write commercial fiction? It has long been noted that Shakespeare's plays are clearly commercialized to appeal to a lower class but contain complex themes and layers that can intrigue the more educated.

In particular, I note that worlds that are expansively and creatively built oftentimes fall under the catch-all definition of commercial fiction as defined by Perrine. By no means do action and adventure detract from a story's literary value, but we tend to consider it as such. In particular, the Lore of a particular story tends to convolute the potential themes of a story, as it does in the world of League of Legends.

League of Legends is an extremely popular video game

League of Legends has already attained a vast fanbase- over its gameplay that is. Each player plays as a unique "Champion" with his or her original lore, stats, and skills (sounds like D&D, except in real time). I want to focus on the evolution of the League of Legends Lore as it progressed from its early beta phase into the international phenomenon as recognized sport it is today.

In the early beta-days, the Lore was shoddy and unoriginal, featuring 100% commercialized writing about dwarfs renamed as Yordles to appeal to small children (see lower left corner of the image), random fighting city-states, other worlds that nonsensically intrude on Runeterra, and characters that just... join the League of Legends for whatever reason they have. Compared to characters as simplistic with bare minimums complex layers like Superman (yes, Superman is pretty barebones), a character like Cho'Gath, Terror of the Void is but a butterfly in a hurricane. There seemed to be almost no attempt at complex Lore and every character felt like a means to an end.

As the game moved out of its beta stage, three major changes occurred to the Lore. First, serious characters like Vayne, The Night Hunter (who is a fusion of Bruce Wayne of Batman and Abraham Van Helsing of Dracula) who hunts creatures of the night began to be added. Second, The Journal of Justice, a fictional newspaper in the realm of League of Legends began to describe "current events" as they occurred in Runeterra was introduced. Third, Champion Judgements that described the moment in which a Champion was admitted to the League by confronting their past from a third person standpoint was briefly done for a select number of champions. These elements were Riot Games' attempt at conveying serious Lore that told an ever evolving story compared to the static nature that character bios provided, effectively evolving the characters from one dimensional... to two dimensional.

As Riot admits, this method of conveying Lore has extreme limitations. Characters are very surface-based and lack the depth that we generally associate with literature. So what did they do? They scrapped it all. 

One of the major weaknesses of Champion Lore was that every champion Lore ended with some line about "Why They Joined the League of Legends", making it appear as if the Champion had no meaningful interaction in current life past the League. As such, Riot began removing that clause in their current interaction of Champions as they wanted to focus on "personality and motivation", "more relationships", and "closer ties in the world." Since then, Riot has been finding more creative ways to communicate Lore through interactive comic books, report documents, wanted posters, and websites. But one underlying factor still detracts from the Lore:

It's too straightforward.

Everything that Riot has done up until now is quite amicable as they have successfully expanded their world to accommodate vivid locations, deeper character back stories, and stronger character relations. However, they have actually fallen into a commercial trap- their new characters are actually built completely on their relationship with another champion.

Lucian, The Purifier is defined by his love for his wife, Senna, and her death by the Champion Threshhttp://gameinfo.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/champions/lucian/

The most recently released Champion; Lucian, The Purifier; seems to be an Vayne with a hatred for Thresh, the undead man that sealed his wife in a spectral lantern. It seems that Riot has actually lost Lore complexity due to this relentless focus on improved character interactions. For example, the next Champion to be released; Jinx, The Loose Cannon; is a child that loves destroying things and has a random grudge with Vi, The Piltover Enforcer. 

Jinx is a one dimensional Champion that has little to no complex motivations
http://beta.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/champion-reveal/jinx-loose-cannon-revealed

Riot is completely missing the point of character interactions. They seemed to have tunneled on rivalry as a generic method of garnering intrigue. But the problem that Riot fails to address every time with their Lore is the character complexity- the layers, the depth, the theme. 

What is Jinx supposed to want? What are her goals? I know her personality well enough- on the surface. But what are the deeper, intertwining and often contradictory emotions that she suppresses on the inside? Surely, there must be some sort of underlying trauma that drove her to this?

Why does Ahri want to be human?

Why does Kha'Zix endlessly pursue evolution?

Despite Riot's attempts at improving the Lore, League of Legends lacks depth because its Champions' Lore is too simplistic, too commercialized per say. I want to think that Riot wants to make an effort at creating complex Lore that doesn't just interest people but entices them. The questions I ask above are very, very basic questions that don't even come close to nitpicking a theme out of a Champion story. 

It's very easy to get caught up in building a world to simply be cool or interesting rather than complex or have depth, as in League of Legends and Eragon. It is not always necessary to tell a story to have depth, but the character bios of League of Legends are so incredibly straightforward and devoid of any indirect characterization that it is impossible to call it anything other than commercial fiction.

But even seemingly childish concepts and worlds can have complexity to them. If League of Legends were to convey character emotions on a higher level compared to this flimsy work and shabby attempt at a character relation, then it can easily become a mixture of both literary and commercial fiction.

My point is that expansive worlds are dangerous because they are susceptible to falling into meaningless rabble. Not every aspect of a world needs a purpose to be there, but the characters that live in it are paramount to its depth. Oftentimes, commercial fiction merely has characters that explore and interact with their world on a surface level, riding the "cool" train that is their world. This is the case with League of Legends and if Riot Games wants the Lore to improve, then they are going to have to feature character interactions as being more than just one-dimensional rivalries. 

Commercial/Literary Fiction - Shiki

Shiki (translated as 'Corpse Demon') is a Japanese horror novel written by Ono, Fuyumi in 1998 which was published in two separate volumes (later reprinted into five in 2002).

The cover of the first Shiki reprint volume

If I had to categorize Shiki as either commercial or literary fiction, I would without a doubt deem it literary. Before one can review Shiki, it is important to take note of its setting. Shiki takes place in the village of Sotoba, which begins to see an epidemic kill the young and old alike in the dark of night. However, the true culprit are the Shiki, essentially classical vampires who are slowly increasing in number as a select few begin to rise from the dead. The Kirishiki family, a wealthy lot who established an ominous castle towering above the village, strangely almost never leave their house until dusk. 

If this sounds familiar, it is because Shiki clearly draws a significant amount of influence from Dracula. Like Dracula, the climax of the film cumulates with the villagers, armed with wooden stakes, banding together to brutally annihilate the Shiki. 

See title

Unlike Dracula, whose themes are questionable as evidenced by the numerous valid interpretations of homosexuality and feminism, Shiki primarily calls into question the morality and nature of the Shiki. Ono begins the story by the strange and emotionally straining terrorism that came about from the Shiki. The villagers are distressed by the sudden deaths of their children and of the elderly. Dr. Toshio Ozaki is frustrated as he is unable to save any of his patients, suspecting the presence of an epidemic. As the story continues, he realizes that his patients are dying of hemorrhagic shock and comes to the conclusion that there were vampires in the village. 

Toshio's best friend, Seishun Muroi, becomes a Shiki sympathizer, believing that Shiki eventually have to feed on humans in order to survive and tolerates them. He is frankly disgusted with Ozaki's obsession to eradicate the Shiki.

"What would you have preferred me to do? I made a decision. I cannot allow this contamination to keep growing, so I'll hunt the Shiki. This is justice to me."

-Toshio Ozaki

The moral controversy is that in the second half of the novel, there is a complete reversal, where the humans band together and ruthlessly murder the Shiki. In one scene, a pile of staked Shiki are hauled on a truck to be cremated by a group of everyday women. At this point, one of the bodies begins to squirm, prompting one of the women to very quickly claim that she "will handle it" and rams the stake in deeper with a smile on her face, after which the women collectively eat sandwiches while drenched in blood. In this half of the book, the humans are portrayed as relentless, unforgiving, genocidal, and unsympathizing. Keep in mind that the Shiki did not chose to be Shiki but have received a second chance at life through reanimation. They cling to their second life by feeding and though they feed on their loved ones, they do so with the vague consolation that they may rise.

However, I would like the focus on the the novel and compare it to the anime/manga adaptations, which take a stance closer to that of commercial fiction. Seishun and Toshio are the main characters of Shiki the novel and they express deeply contrasting viewpoints about the Shiki, where Seishun believes that the reason they can't coexist in only because of how humans are quick to vindicate the Shiki. However, there is another character known as Natsuno Yuuki, an introverted teenager who is determined to leave the village. He dies halfway through the story when he encounters his only friend, Toru, as a Shiki, and loses the willpower to fight back. Natsuno desperately wants to believe that Toru will spare him despite his numerous opportunities to stake him and willingly offers up his blood to him as a friend who understands, only to die. 

Natsuno Yuuki is a main character in the anime adaptation

In the manga and the anime, Natsuno revives as a Shiki that does not need to drink blood, much like two other Shiki in the original series, and plays a background role by targeting the biggest threats of the Kirishikis and reverse-hypnotizing Ozaki. Why would the creators drastically modify the plot this way? This is due to the nature of television and comic media as having to be profitable endeavors. Animation primarily appeals to a teenage audience and so Natsuno was selected to be revived for little reason other than allow the viewers a younger character to sympathize. And the result was clear- Natsuno had nearly no symbolic significance and was more of a character that was just 'there'. 

The overarching question I wanted to asked here isn't about whether anime or manga stories can be considered as manga nor is it an argument favoring yay or nay. The question I wanted to ask is what factors do not make anime literature and this comparison between the literary fiction of Shiki and the commercial anime of Shiki reveal the limitations of audience. Anime and manga require a far more substantial investment to produce compared to novels and are much more expensive to purchase for viewing pleasure. There is the potential that anime and manga are generally not viewed as literature due to the cluttering of commercial fiction that is required to sustain them.

Neuromancer Online

In 1984, William Gibson wrote the hit science fiction novel Neuromancer, a novel which would later be classified under a new sub-genre of science fiction known as cyberpunk.

Neuromancer tells a tale of Cyberspace and a hacker

Cyberspace is the manifestation of the internet as a virtual reality, a theme that recurs in the Japanese light novel Sword Art Online (which I admit has a much more lackluster plot in comparison). Sword Art Online follows the evolution of gaming into virtual reality massive multiplayer online role playing games (VRMMORPG's) as the latest form of entertainment.

Sword Art Online is currently an ongoing light novel series spawning over 14 volumes at approx. 250 pages each

Past this common connection, the stories are massively divergent from one another, starting with the technological limitations in Sword Art Online where consciousness cannot be saved and artificial intelligence is limited past the presence of outliers here and there. The second key difference is in the general theme and tone of the stories. SAO focuses less on darker present day problems and focuses more on expanding upon youth culture and its heavy influence on cyberspace as well as the way by which relationships develop over a less personal online community (though unfortunately many of these complex themes are obscured by cliches and teen fantasies). 

Neuromancer focuses on the reality portion of its universe and the scarred adults that rule it, where people exploit the Matrix for their personal gain, get high off of cocaine, and lose themselves immersed in the fanciful temptations of cyberspace. As William Gibson describes, Neuromancer was also a novel that was to make room for anti-heroes compared to stereotypical 'good guys' like the protagonist Kazuto Kirigaya is SAO. The main character of Neuromancer, Henry Case, is selfish and seeks nothing but personal gain in order to seclude himself in an Eden of drugs and guilty pleasures, as seen when he easily discards the heroine of the novel to pursue his cocaine addiction. Neuromancer seems to take influence from and add commentary to the self destructive nature of the counter culture.

SAO focuses on way that cyberspace has transformed our relationships with our peers, the meaningless yet quintessential aspects of gaming and the trending teen culture towards gaming as a form of accomplishment, social education/development, and medium for building complex relationships between one another through set goals and artificial adversity. Neuromancer discusses the implications such an internet centered lifestyle has on reality, where harsh truths must be forcibly accepted and naive ideals cannot survive. William Gibson promotes the anti-hero as a wake-up call to escapism and the self-destructive nature of man in the face of overwhelming convenience, perhaps countered by SAO's game-completionist aspect which states that people must overcome problems in order to become stronger?

Alchemical Destructors

                The Destructors by Graham Greene describes the meticulous process of converting a house into a pile of rubble, which reminds me of the popular manga and anime Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA). 

Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA) Anime Poster

                In FMA, there exists a set of principles by which alchemic reactions can take place, the most important and fundamental being that of equivalent exchange- that is, in order to gain, one must first lose. The process of alchemic transmutation involves the deconstruction of the material one wants to use as the base, followed by the construction of new substance. 

The product of Transmutation in FMA

The primary relation here is the parallel between destruction and transmutation. In Fullmetal Alchemist, destruction is a necessary precursor to creation. In the destructors, the destruction of the house represented the usurpation of the new generation and the trend of ‘deconstruction’ advocated by future modernists as the aftermath of World War II slowly faded into the background. Destruction is a necessary step to even generate rubble, the foothold by which a new symbol of the new age will take the place of the proud dwelling that once stood tall and then disappeared in the blink of an eye. This destruction is also portrayed as almost a force of nature, heavy handed where it strikes and impossible to prevent. 

The character Scar ends his Transmutation at destruction and abhors creation as trespassing into the realm of God

In Fullmetal Alchemist, the theme of equivalent exchange is frequently bypassed by the Philosopher’s Stone, a solid mass of human lives which are traded in exchange for boundless energy due to the immeasurable value of something as abstract as life, thus defying the need for destruction to generate creation. The symbolic value is the base substance that was traded to ‘bypass’ these laws; such is a statement of the path towards change. One can take transmutation to be a metaphor of compromises, of adherent to the law, of the essence by which a stagnant society operates. The sacrificing of lives represents change- the blood and sweat and passion, the everything, that a human has to devote in order to evolve into the new age. 

The Philosopher's Stone evolves lives into substance

Both The Destructors and Fullmetal Alchemist establish that destruction is the beginning of creation, but FMA identifies that defying laws of the world comes at the price of lives and all they have to give while The Destructors identify change as an unstoppable force that cannot be stopped once in motion; similar to the reasoning in FMA that one can convert human lives to mass but not mass into human lives.