Using Literary Theory to Read Games: Power, Ideology, and Repression in Atlus’ Growlanser: Heritage of War

Abstract

This article argues that although many people state that literary theorists are attempting to take over the field of game studies, there has yet to be a real attempt to apply literary theory to a close reading of specific games. The article then proceeds to apply Althusser's and Foucault's ideas of power and state aparatuses to Growlanser: Heritage of War in an attempt to demonstrate that to find out the messages that games are proposing literary theory could be applied.