Medborgaren som hittade kontrollen. Svenskämnet och den intermedierade kontrollen i spelen Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice och What remains of Edith Finch

Abstract

This paper analyses sequences from the games Hellblade: Senuas sacrifice and What remains of Edith Finch. This paper investigates how the games promote what Martha Nussbaum calls narrative imagination, it also examines the relevancy of using narrative computer games alongside literature in the school subject of Swedish in the Swedish upper secondary school. The paper stipulates a terminology for situations within games where the intermediated control enhances the experience or applies meaning: Control enhanced affect, Control enhanced immersion, Control enhanced meaning and Control situated metaphor. Through these terms and Keens terminology surrounding strategic empathy the paper finds that the games studied has potential to promote narrative imagination and that it is enhanced through the medium specific intermediated control. The magnitude of the potential remains unknown. The paper poses an argument for narrative games relevancy to the Swedish school subject that considers the large medial shift in society during recent years and the weight of multiple narrative experiences in the class room.