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How we use Immersive Fantasy to Fabricate Escapism Narratives...

Updated: Dec 16, 2023

Genre within storytelling is the many ways that a story is portrayed. The elements will vary from genre to genre, so its visual aesthetics, mise-en-scene and narrative will be different depending on the genre. So, fantasy compared to horror has more whimsical or magical elements compared to horror that would have dark atmospheres with eerie environments and antagonists.

Fantasy genre is often used within immersion to make interactive elements such as portals, dragons or supernatural environments that draws an audience in but can often take glimpses of the real world to connect to the audience but not take away from the escapism or immersion. Emotions are often involved when it comes to immersion and theorists suggest that ‘the promise of becoming a part of a story by either re-living a familiar scene or taking a protagonist's place and changing the narrative is evidently a seductive one.' (Alke Gröppel-Wegener and Kidd, 2019).


Often fantasy, especially within games, involves interactive elements. This is often done with branching narrative choices that allows the audience to feel as though they are or have contributed towards the narrative, within key theories of gaming narrative this suggests that it will allow the player to feel powerful, due to the fact that “if you can choose which parts of the story you experience and which you avoid, you have enormous power over the game's narrative, even if the choices you're given and their outcomes are all predetermined” (Neeves, 2016).


AI Generated Fantasy World

Fantasy games and narrative often involve quests within its narrative, some that contribute majorly to the story and others that have subtleties made to build up the world. Although there is always a main story, and thus, main missions that must be followed and executed, the biggest part of the games consists of side missions and exploration. Players choose where to go, what to explore and which missions to accept or reject. (Torres Pernas, 2020)


So, often in this style of gaming, instead of being passive receivers of stories, they become virtually embodied in the game world, even if just in the theatre of the imagination. And therefore when it comes to even more immersive softwares such as VR experiences players become more invested due to it being ‘set in transmedia storyworlds are an attractive prospect for fans and creators alike.' (Hergenrader, 2020)

While in other narratives it could be defined as the feeling of reality disappearing and the assimilation of the fictional world, in interactive fiction immersion reaches deeper; it is the transportation of the reader as an agent to the fictional world. Interactivity and agency, as we have seen, allow readers to take a much more personal and direct approach to the narrative. (Torres Pernas, 2020)

Everything surrounding the playing of the game itself somehow relates to the game.(Sullivan, 2010) This applies to the concept of using the entire environment as part of the story, along with characters and creatures to form this own little world within the game.


Dragon/ Wyvern From The Hobbit - Motion Capture (Literary Hub, 2022)

Other media that uses fantasy to form stories and immerse their audiences: 

However, fantasy interactive narratives  and immersive storytelling is done through other mediums as well. In fact one of the most immersive games/ narratives that is fantasy based would be Dungeons and Dragons. This is evident with how popularised it has become from having its own movie, series and now video game adaptation Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios, 2023). This allows the play to almost take full charge of the narrative, what their character is and how they interact with everyone and everything. This is a fully immersive style of narrative and even when you, the audience, are not playing it often watching a dnd campaign can get you hooked and involved, teams such as Critical Role (2018) who have done several engaging campaigns over man years and Rooster Teeth’s (2023) Grotethe which is a podcast dnd session where they immerse their listeners and even get them involved. 




Creatures and Characters


How characters can create emotion and immersion?


The creation of myths, creatures and creatures within immersive storytelling have always been an important aspect of immersing an audience. This is due to giving them someone that they can feel represented in or empathise with. This is shown with the fact that having characters and creatures give the player an aspect to interact and connect with. This is shown within DnD often to create or move along a storyline, quest or adventure. Due to the popularisation of the character concepts, interactive narrative, non-linear storytelling and gameplay allows series such as Vox Machina (that started from a DnD campaign from Critical Role)  to exist.



The Brilliance of Portals within Storytelling


Portals are used within fantasy and sci fi stories often and have become popular in many ways from using door ways to each's characters own universe in novels such as Everyhearts a Doorway to animations such as Caroline or Alice in wonderland where they lead you to a whole new universe, good or bad. Portals have even been used to create sci-fi or fantasy feel to a stylised world such as in Oxenfree (Night School Studios, 2016) they use audio and visuals to create this supernatural portal feel to it. 


The concept of: Portals tend to fall into two basic varieties: the ones where the traveller has some idea what is on the other side and the ones where they do not. (Nicoll, 2020) This concept could lead to leaving the audience to feel an unsettling, transformative potential is equally true of the act of (re)reading itself. (Gomel and Gurevitch, 2023)



Portal fantasy allows a reader to move between the known into a place of fantastic unknown. They are as lost as the characters and can place themselves more easily into a character who, like them, is a stranger to this new world system. (Watkins, 2020)

So, using this we can create an immersive aspect by involving the audience in being around the portal. The idea of virtual portals into real world environments have been becoming more of an immersive element in storytelling mediums. Portals, especially in VR, 'In the beginning, crude mixtures of purely visceral mechanical rides and the newly invented moving image projector provided novel and stimulating, but unreal, experiences.' (Trowbridge and Stapleton, 2009)


One of the ways Portals have been used in Media (Review Flow and Google Images, n.d.)

The concept of portals have become so popularised as a subgenre through their unique ability to get us to escape reality into this completely different environment. Where there may be a whole subgenre there are many ways that portals can and are turned immersive (Gamehelper, 2006).




Looking at portals in our real life reality.


Conclusion:

On a final note, fantasy is a phenomenal genre when it comes to immersing their audience in a range of different ways. Due to how complex and environmentally driven fantasy can be it has allowed sub-genres and other aspects, for instance mythical creatures, to become creative aspects of not only the story but the immersion within it. These aspects have begun to be the way of combining creative visuals, animations and new environmental worlds into different types of stories that an audience can engage and be captivated by.


References:

Alke Gröppel-Wegener and Kidd, J. (2019). Critical encounters with immersive storytelling. [online] New York ; London Routledge, Taylor Et Francis Group. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=STeDDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT8&dq=immersive+storytelling&ots=rw3_c4i0qa&sig=d_pQY6QJw5Xnoq-LWTgU62ybImE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=immersive%20storytelling&f=false [Accessed 8 Dec. 2023].

Captured in Words (2023). What is Portal Fantasy / Isekai? | Subgenres EXPLAINED. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://youtu.be/DYscek9-oFg?si=yQ9BNbgoudm5BnBV [Accessed 5 Dec. 2023]

Critical Role (2018). Critical Role. [online] Critical Role. Available at: https://critrole.com/ [Accessed 7 Dec. 2023].

 Gamehelper (2006). Portal Teaser Trailer. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://youtu.be/TluRVBhmf8w?si=g4jTaAI0GV40C2dh [Accessed 7 Dec. 2023].

Gomel, E. and Gurevitch, D. (2023). The Palgrave Handbook of Global Fantasy. [online] Springer Nature. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26397-2_6 [Accessed 9 Dec. 2023].

Hergenrader, T. (2020). Transmedia Storytelling, Immersive Storyworlds, and Virtual Reality. Rochester Institute of Technology [online] Frameless 2(1). Available at: https://scholarworks.rit.edu/frameless/vol2/iss1/5/ [Accessed 9 Dec. 2023].

HISTORY (2023). PORTAL to Parallel Universe Opens Through Mirror | The Proof Is Out There: Bermuda Triangle Edition. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://youtu.be/nMyFqX4b9CU?si=ZPjM7mKZR6BQo_yd [Accessed 5 Dec. 2023].

Larian Studios (2023). Baldur’s Gate 3. [online] baldursgate3.game. Available at: https://baldursgate3.game/ [Accessed 6 Dec. 2023].

Lisson Gallery (2022). Portals | Exhibitions. [online] Lisson Gallery. Available at: https://www.lissongallery.com/exhibitions/portals [Accessed 5 Dec. 2023].

Literary Hub (2022). How a Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons Crossover Almost Happened. [online] Literary Hub. Available at: https://lithub.com/how-a-lord-of-the-rings-and-dungeons-dragons-crossover-almost-happened/ [Accessed 7 Dec. 2023].

Neeves, J. (2016). How Does the Use of Narrative Affect the Interactivity of Video Games? - WRITING & SPEAKING. [online] Joe Neeves. Available at: https://www.limonium.co.uk/writing [Accessed 9 Dec. 2023].

Nicoll, J.D. (2020). Exploring the Four Types of Portal Narratives. [online] Tor.com. Available at: https://www.tor.com/2020/04/01/exploring-the-four-types-of-portal-narratives/. [Accessed 5 Dec. 2023].

Night School Studios (2016). Night School Studio Oxenfree | Night School Studio. [online] nightschoolstudio.com. Available at: https://nightschoolstudio.com/oxenfree/ [Accessed 6 Dec. 2023].

Prime Video (2022). The Legend of Vox Machina - Trailer (Red Band Trailer) | Prime Video. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://youtu.be/JvwxQSc-3os?si=3NzobHGcyd0GULPC [Accessed 15 Dec. 2023].

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