Gris, Grief and the Heroine’s Journey

Abstract

The online American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology defines grief as ‘the anguish experienced after significant loss, usually the death of a beloved person.’ Grief is a difficult emotion to represent because of its complexity. When it comes to the rich cultural texts of videogames, the mechanism of death as loss is interwoven into most win-lose games. However, the topic and trauma of death is not dealt with the same sensitivity and care as it is dealt with in real life. More often than not, a death in a videogame simply hints at ‘try again’. Such a cold impersonal message on the screen fails to affect the player. One might lose their progress in the game and may have to replay a level, but this frustration is nothing like losing a loved one in real life. As pointed out by Sabine Harrer in her seminal book Games and Bereavement, ‘if loss is a structural affordance of games in that it is the logical opposite of winning, this version of loss does little to acknowledge the reality of lived grief as it occurs in human life.’ She further argues that loss in games needs to be dealt with attachment and care instead of mastery and success.