A Politics of Participation and

Representation in Live Action Roleplaying

by

William James Osmond

Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Guildford School of Acting

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Supervisors:

Dr Adam Alston
Dr Rachel Hann

© Willoh Osmond 2023

1
Declaration of originality

This thesis and the work to which it refers are the results of my own efforts. Any

ideas, data, images or text resulting from the work of others (whether published or

unpublished) are fully identified as such within the work and attributed to their

originator in the text, bibliography or in footnotes. This thesis has not been submitted

in whole or in part for any other academic degree or professional qualification. I

agree that the University has the right to submit my work to the plagiarism detection

service TurnitinUK for originality checks. Whether or not drafts have been so

assessed, the University reserves the right to require an electronic version of the

final document (as submitted) for assessment as above.

Signature: W Osmond

Date: 20.02.2023

2
Abstract

This thesis examines the practice of live action roleplay (larp) in terms of the

distributions of power, agency and authority that inhere to it. It asks how experiences

and stories are constituted in larping through collaborative participation, and what

representations of Others’ experiences have to do with their grounds. It addresses

these concerns by developing an autoethnographic methodology that utilises

practical experiences of larping in analysing the political relationships that become

between the player and both their co-players and those whose experiences they

represent through their play. This analysis uses aspects of Whitehead’s philosophy

of organism as a theoretical framework. The research therefore constitutes a

practice-led theoretical study into the politics of playing together and of playing the

lives of Others. The thesis argues for an interpretation of larping as a ‘methektic’

performance paradigm as well as a practice of ‘listening’ to the experiences of

Others.

Practically, the thesis investigates my experiences of playing in four international

larps: La Sirena Varada, College of Wizardry, Inside Hamlet and Legion: Siberian

Story. In each case study I look at a different aspect of participation and

representation. Firstly, I look at how my experiences are constituted through my

togetherness with other players; secondly, how dramaturgy and its playful

counterpart, ludaturgy, affect experiences of roleplaying and story-making; thirdly,

whether the representation of extreme experience as experience is possible; and

finally, whether larped experience can foster empathy with historical others. Through

these analyses, the thesis suggests that the most valuable insights larping offers

come from participation in the practice rather than the representation of characters

and actions, and that participation supersedes representation as a mode of

engagement in this practice.

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 This thesis is dedicated
to the memory of Alex Uth

Good night, sweet prince,

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest
(Shakespeare, Hamlet, 5.2, 397-98)

and to the memory of Hannes Mallezie

I like people.
’Cause even when the situation’s dire,
It is only ever people who are able to inspire,
And on paper, it’s hard to see how we all cope.
But in the bottom of Pandora’s box there’s still hope,
And I still hope ’cause I believe in people.
(Harry Baker, Paper People, 41-46)

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Acknowledgements

Firstly, I give my warmest love and thanks to Fabrízio, who is the centre of my life.

I thank my supervisors, Adam and Rachel, for never letting me give up. I also thank

Andy Lavender for starting me off on this journey and Allan Kilner-Johnson for the

support he has given. I thank the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at University of

Surrey for funding the research, the Doctoral College and the TECHNE doctoral

training consortium for the training opportunities they afforded.

I give special love and thanks to Karolina and Turrell for their support and care in the

toughest of times and for their words of encouragement. I also thank my parents for

the support and love they have shown. I extend my love and thanks to David, Laura,

Mo, Nadja, Patrik and Warren who have been my constant companions throughout

this journey. Love and thanks also to my TRPG group who made lockdowns

bearable: Adam, Jo, Lisa, Nadia, Simon and Usva.

I would like to thank the countless people who have contributed to my experiences in

larping throughout this research, and especially to those who contributed significantly

to my play and stories in the larps which feature in this thesis: Adrian, Alex,

Alexander, Alice, Anna, Craig, Emelie, Esther, Heidi, Jake, John, Karl, Katrine,

Kewan, Lars, Lisa, Liselle, Lucky, Manon, Mikolaj, Mila, Nuria, Paul, Sanna, Soren,

Tommie and Victoria.

For giving me opportunities to present my research I would like to thank Yaron

Shyldkrot, Adelina Ong, Johanna Koljonen and Sarah Lynne Bowman. For sharing

their insights and expertise in specialist disciplines I thank Anne Cazemajou, John

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Pendal, Steven di Costa and Erin Manning; and also Riadh for invaluable advice and

discussions around colonialism and appropriation. I also extend the warmest thanks

to those with whom I have worked in organising events, and with whom I have

participated in training and sharing practice: Amie, Gillian, Solene, Georg, Jonas,

Siegmar, Tim, Jenny, Helena, the members of the TECHNE Listening Summer

School and the Explicitation Interview training group.

I also send thanks to everyone I have encountered so far at the London Immersivist

Club, Game Kitchen and The Smoke. Special thanks too to Ruth, with whom I

designed my first larp. Thanks also to the members of Dragons Keep TRPG club for

allowing me to participate.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ 3
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 5
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 9
An autoethnography of larping ........................................................................................................ 11
Purpose and focus of the thesis ...................................................................................................... 18
Larping............................................................................................................................................. 22
Participation and representation ...................................................................................................... 33
Methodological note ........................................................................................................................ 41
Map of the thesis ............................................................................................................................. 42
Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................................ 45
Critical Framework and Methodology
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 45
Critical framework: Whitehead’s philosophy of organism ................................................................ 45
Methodology: practice-autoethnography ......................................................................................... 55
Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 73
Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................................ 75
What Is Larping? Roles, Functions and Radical Togetherness in La Sirena Varada
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 75
Literature on playing together .......................................................................................................... 81
Stakeholders in larping .................................................................................................................... 85
La Sirena Varada: The Pyramid, the Vortex and the Globe ............................................................ 88
Authority, power and agency of stakeholders in La Sirena Varada ................................................. 89
Ecology, opacity and collectivity .................................................................................................... 104
Sceneing........................................................................................................................................ 108
Storying ......................................................................................................................................... 115
Responsibility ................................................................................................................................ 127
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 129
Chapter 3 .......................................................................................................................................... 132
Dramaturgy, Ludaturgy and the Calcification of Plot in College of Wizardry
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 132
Dramaturgy .................................................................................................................................... 136
Intsen Deery’s story ....................................................................................................................... 139
Dramaturgy in CoW19 ................................................................................................................... 141
Calcification ................................................................................................................................... 148
Ludaturgy (or doing things with dramaturgy) ................................................................................. 151
Diegetic dissonance ...................................................................................................................... 164
Individual interest and common interest ........................................................................................ 168
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 172
Chapter 4 .......................................................................................................................................... 176
Experiences of Torture and Oppression: The Grounds of Representation and Experience in
Inside Hamlet
Trauma, consent, experience ........................................................................................................ 181
Experiential Representation .......................................................................................................... 186
Inside Hamlet................................................................................................................................. 197
Experiential representation of torture ............................................................................................ 200
Experiential representation of oppression ..................................................................................... 212
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 221
Chapter 5 .......................................................................................................................................... 223
Empathy and Historical Larping in Legion: Siberian Story
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 223
Historical larping ............................................................................................................................ 226
Empathy ........................................................................................................................................ 231
Emotion and affect......................................................................................................................... 239
Empathic affect, ‘witness’, and walking ......................................................................................... 243
Empathic emotion and prosthetic memory .................................................................................... 253
Encounters with historical Others .................................................................................................. 255
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 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 258
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 260
Politics of participation and representation .................................................................................... 261
Methexis ........................................................................................................................................ 266
Dissonance and resonance ........................................................................................................... 269
The half-real of larping................................................................................................................... 272
Practice-autoethnography ............................................................................................................. 275
Limitations and directions for further study .................................................................................... 277
Works cited ...................................................................................................................................... 281
Appendix .......................................................................................................................................... 306

8
 Introduction

In this thesis I detail a politics of participation and representation in larping (live

action roleplaying). Having represented characters and participated in a wide range

of larps (live action roleplays), I autoethnographically examine my own lived

experiences of larping and the narratives I produced through participating and

representing. This politics encompasses the ways in which I have played together

with other participants, and the ways in which I have embodied and reconstituted the

experiences of political and historical Others through my playing. One of the main

contentions of this thesis is that the politics of larping is a methektic politics; that is, a

politics of participating together. The distributions of agency and authority are found

within the acts of scene- and story-making which constitute larping. The kind of

methektic participation I theorise here can be likened to collectivist anarchy, where

there is individual freedom, but also an attendant responsibility towards others. In

this political scheme, (mimetic) representation of the experiences of (historical)

Others is secondary to the experiences of participating and story-making in the larp

itself. This is to say that the politics of larping are primarily participatory and

secondarily representational.

Politics, by which I mean relations of power and status and distributions of agency

and authority, is implied in both the terms participation and representation. Part of

the work of this thesis is to analyse the ways in which my experiences have shaped

and been shaped by these relations and distributions, including the effects of my

privileges, oppressions and prior experiences. The politics of participation is the

politics of playing together to create lived experiences and stories with and for each

other. The politics of representation is the politics of playing a notional ‘Other’ as a

9
character. This includes the politics of aiming to reconstitute the lived experiences

and narratives of such Others through play. I frame this kind of reconstitution as a

key ‘problem’ in larping and seek throughout the thesis to understand how my

experiences in larping relate to the lived experiences of those I am representing. In

order to address this problem, I pose the following questions:

1. How are my experiences, characters and narratives constituted and

composed in larping?

2. How do the twin aspects of participating and representing bear on each other

in larping?

3. What relations of power are being exercised in acts of participating and

representing?

4. What is the relationship between my lived experiences in larping and the lived

experiences of the (notional) Others whom I represent?

In answering these questions, I deploy a model of experience derived from the

process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, as well as consider arguments

around cultural appropriation and knowledge of Others’ experiences. Ultimately, I

argue for an interpretation of larping as a methektic performance paradigm as well

as a practice of ‘listening’ to the experiences of Others, and against Enlightenment

practices of ‘seeing’ and ‘knowing’ the Other. Methexis is the philosophical notion of

participation and is often contrasted with mimesis as the concept of representation.

Over the course of this thesis, I will be arguing that methektic participation is the

primary mode of engagement in larping, with mimetic representation functioning as

both a means of participating (through representing the character and their actions)

and an outcome of participation (in the narrative that results from larping). I will also

10
be arguing that: representing the experiences of political and historical Others as

experiences for players is strictly proscribed by the nature of the experiences

afforded by the larp; and that the practice of listening implies an attendance to the

voices of Others on their own terms as subjects, contrasting this with practices of

‘observing’ in which Others are studied ‘objectively’ while being subjugated by and

reduced to parameters set out by the observer. What makes this intervention

significant is that it is the first in-depth analysis of the politics of participation and

representation in larping, that it further challenges the ‘promise of experience’ (Alston

2016b) in immersive forms of performance, and that it contributes to the opening up

of larp studies as a field of investigation within and alongside performance studies.

An autoethnography of larping

I first participated in larping in my early teens. Though I now, retrospectively,

understand the event to have been a larp, it was introduced to me and my fellow

participants as a drama exercise, part of an intensive week-long residential course at

Kilve Court in Somerset, close to where I grew up. As far as the participants went,

there were perhaps sixty of us, all in our teens and hailing from various schools in

Somerset and Devon. Each was given the outline of a character to play for an hour

or so. The scenario for the larp was of a 17th Century ship, bound for the New World

(I forget precisely which colony), transporting convicted criminals to serve their penal

sentences. Some participants were cast as members of crew, some as marines and

some as convicts; I was cast as a convict. The organizer of the exercise made us

aware of a number of problems the ship and its passengers and crew might face,

from storms to the spread of disease. Some of these became plotted events which

11
our characters needed to react to. These problems stimulated drama and

collaborative story-making and instigated plots. The scenario took place in a large

hall with areas designated as parts of the ship but no elaborate set or dressing of

any kind; one area of the space was below decks, another part was the deck and a

raised platform served as the bridge. The hall became the ship and was furnished as

such only by virtue of our, the participants’, imaginations. I do not clearly recall

details of my character’s story – I did not record it in any format – but I remember

that my character got sick and, in the final moments of the larp, died.

Participating in this larp was a powerful experience and one which has stayed with

me. I recall the intensity of feeling that came with realizing that I, as my character,

was dying. I recall the group bond that formed between the convicts and the power

dynamics between us and the marines. There was an enormous sense of

empowerment, not only from the agency afforded by being in control of a character

and creating their personal story, but also from the capability of directly affecting

other characters and other participants’ stories in interesting and meaningful ways.

These things which I now recall, through the haze of years and memory, I felt during

my participation.

However, despite (or perhaps because of) its power, I also felt uneasy about the

experience. The reasons for my feeling discomfited were manifold, some related to

my own prejudices at the time about what theatre or drama ought to be or to do, but

others related to concerns about the ethics and politics of participation and

representation. The former category is easily fathomed; this kind of exercise was not,

in itself, what I at the time considered to be the proper form or use of drama. As an

exercise for developing a piece of theatre I saw value in it, but as an experience in its

12
own right I considered it practically worthless. In my fledgling understanding of the

subject, drama was intimately linked to the theatrical, that is the relation between

performer and audience. In larping there is no audience, only performers,

participants or players. Thus, larping as a dramatic form seemed improper, even

self-indulgent, to me. This boiled down to a particular way of conceiving of art and

entertainment in general: that there is an artist or producer who creates the work and

a separate audience/interpreter who receives it. This model of art and entertainment

implies the privileging of product over process, of presentation over experience, and

of public over private. This model also implies a built-in safeguard against my

ingenuous adolescent stereotype of self-indulgence: if the art is for the audience,

then the artist cannot simply indulge themselves, while the audience must take what

they are given by the artist and cannot simply indulge their own whims.

One of the aims of this thesis is to interrogate these assumptions, and to uncover

ways in which larping both challenges distinctions between and deprivileges these

binary oppositions and glorifies indulgence or ‘self-enjoyment’. This is of particular

value in the age of Web 2.0, where ‘user-generated’ content proliferates. While

larping predates the cultural explosion of the worldwide web, it can be seen as

paradigmatic of the kinds of ‘content creation’ observable in current culture.

However, the larping paradigm brings a strong focus to co-creation and

collaboration, and as such is a powerful lens through which to investigate the politics

of these modes of creativity, and how such content is generated.

My objections as a teenager to the form of larping, outlined above, had a bearing on

the latter category of concerns, relating to the ethics and politics of participation and

representation within the larp. The apparent inducement in its participants of self-

13
indulgent play seemed like childish make-believe, yet at the same time the exercise

appeared as pseudo-historical. As a pedagogical exercise in history, the experience

was perhaps successful at imparting information about the period and conditions on

board a ship in an interesting way which engaged haptic and sensory faculties as

well as cognitive ones. It also afforded some exploration of the effects of the

conditions in the manner of a simulation. However, from my recollection of the

exercise, I made no attempt at a ‘truthful’ reproduction of historical reality, but

invented narrative within the constraints of the scenario. Nor, seemingly, did the

other participants aim to achieve a truthful reproduction of reality; certainly, they

made no objections to my contributions and happily invented narrative along with

me. There was no instruction from the facilitator leading the exercise to accurately

represent history. Rather, the larp was played for drama; there was a desire for

things to happen, for tensions to explode, for disease to spread. Whereas the ideal

crossing for a ship might be uneventful, with the ship never running into rough

waters, no mutinies, and none of its passengers ever succumbing to disease, with

larping these kinds of events are interesting and desirable, so participants will steer

towards them. Larping is story-making, not re-enactment or living history; it does not

hold to ideals of historical accuracy but rather relies on antagonism and conflict in

order to develop interesting, textured and climactic narratives. Certainly, in the larp I

have been discussing here there was less emphasis on the run-of-the-mill

functioning of the ship and its crew and passengers, and more on the underlying

tensions and direct conflicts and confrontations between characters, both individual

characters and groups.

What becomes clear is the relative importance of participation and representation in

my larping performance. The fact that I prioritized creativity over attention to

14
historical facts or research demonstrates this: what was important was the making of

the stories rather than a faithful rendering of historical fact. There was, or at least I

felt, no obligation to accurately represent the historical Other. The directive was

simply to participate, to take part in the larp and generate my own narrative. This is

not to say, though, that there was no kind of representation going on in my

performance, only that such representation was resultant from my participation

rather than from careful attention to the ‘original’ or ground on which the

representation was based. It would be impossible to escape representation when the

scenario and my participation in it is modelled on real events.

It is worth noting here that throughout the thesis I distinguish between two kinds of

‘others’ involved in my larping. The first are the others with whom I participate, my

co-players and -story-makers. The second are those historical or political Others

whom I represent through my larping, the grounds in which my mimetic

representations are supposedly based. The decision to capitalise the initial O in the

case of the Others whom I represent is to highlight the difference between myself,

the characters which constitute the representation and the individuals or experiences

being represented. This is not to imply that these individuals are ‘othered’, with

respect to a normative hegemony, through my larping. Rather, it is the unassailable

difference and the ‘opacity’ of the Other’s experience that I point to through this

stylisation.

The framing of larping as a mode of story-making leads to two related concerns, one

epistemological and ethical, and the other political. The epistemological-ethical

concern is simply the question of what I can claim to know about oppression or

marginalization having undergone such an experience. Since, as I have already

15
established, I was engaged in a process of story-making during the larp, my

experience was of making a story through larping and not of being transported to a

colony on board a ship in the 17th Century, nor of dying from disease. The only

knowledge I can have gained, therefore, relates to the experience of story-making

and not to the experience of the historical Other. Moreover, I am aware that I could

never live, through larping, the experience of the historical Other. My participation in

the larp, which was a reimagined performance of a generalized history, did not imply

my participation in the historical moment itself.

The political concern arises directly from this line of argument concerning the

prioritization of participation over representation. If, in my larping, I was concerned

primarily with participating in creative story-making, it seems that I am using the

circumstances and experiences of the historical Other for my own ends. At worst this

might be characterized as the ‘colonization’ of feeling (Landsberg 2004, p. 151),

appropriating the circumstances of the oppressed or marginalized other and claiming

it as my own experience or feeling, a charge which will be investigated in depth in

chapters 4 and 5. Here we arrive at the old objection to theatre, the ‘antitheatrical

prejudice’, which finds its roots in Plato: that representation and characterization is

inauthentic, nothing more than a poor imitation of the shadow on the wall of the cave.

However, the charge is not that the characterization draws its qualities from a false

source; the charge is that larping draws on the real circumstances of another in order

to produce an ‘inauthentic’ experience for the participant. It is the processual

treatment rather than the source which is at issue here.

A natural solution to this problem of appropriation might be to avoid using the real

circumstances and experiences of marginalized or oppressed others in larping

16
altogether. Using purely fictional circumstances could be seen to circumvent the

appropriation of feeling; however, such appeals to fiction can only serve as a

displacement or deferral of the problem, to the extent that fictions inevitably operate

as analogues for real life. Thus, in high fantasy larps, the orc ‘race’ is often used as a

stand in or representation of ‘barbaric’ or ‘savage’ peoples, and orcs are lumbered

with all of the political baggage which those words entail. The fact that these

characters are often played by Caucasian people wearing dark face paint has been a

point of tension and contention in many larp communities in recent years.1 While

such blatant stereotyping is an obvious issue, the problems of representation are not

necessarily avoided in more subtle and ‘enlightened’ larps. The problem is also one

of synecdoche, where a part stands in for the whole. The fictional character becomes

a ‘hypothetical person’, and not just a specific hypothetical person but one who might

be seen as standing for the whole of a particular class of people. So, in the ship larp,

although I was not playing a particular historical individual, I was playing a

hypothetical person in those historical (given) circumstances, standing in for a

person of that ‘type’. Even a larp such as Still Life (Gorman, Hertz and Silsbee

2014), in which each participant plays a different kind of rock, is not completely

divested of the politics of representation. While the objects represented (the rocks)

may seem apolitical, the personification and characterization of these objects

through the taking on of questions about the nature of their own existence carries its

own political baggage. What kind of person would a diamond or a roof slate be?

What might their concerns be? What kinds of assumptions do participants make

1
For instance, in private Facebook groups such as ‘LARP Haven’ (2013) and ‘Larpers BFF’ (2014).

17
about these kinds of ‘people’ and their concerns, and what are their relationships to

these characters?

Nonetheless, my early teenage experience of larping affected me in ways which

were more than simply disquieting. Aside from the possible appropriation of

experience, there were other interesting political features of my larping related to

participation which will have a bearing on this thesis. These political features have to

do with notions of separation and togetherness, which can be seen as aspects of or

conditions for representation and participation respectively. Larping can be

considered a form of collective story-making, and yet the stories produced are not

unified or necessarily even co-compatible. As a private, experiential process, nobody

else in the ship exercise shared my story with me, and yet we all shared the

enactment of the stories together, and each impacted on the others to varying

degrees. Acts of larping can give rise to multiplicities of narratives. From the

communal togetherness of larping comes the separate individuality of the personal

narrative, but communal togetherness also requires each separate individual. This

begins to reveal further ways in which representation and participation are mutually

dependent.

Purpose and focus of the thesis

Having set out the main problems this thesis aims to deal with, I now aim to

demonstrate what importance these problems, and the arguments I will advance,

have to the field of larp studies and more broadly to theatre and performance. There

are three key aspects of this thesis which indicate that this research is warranted.

Firstly, larping as a mode of performance has been largely neglected by theatre and

18
performance studies. Secondly, little has been done to understand the politics of the

connections between participation and representation in participatory and role-

playing modes of performance. Finally, this research adds to growing discourses on

participatory and collaborative creative practices and aims to show larping as a

bridge between these discourses by uncovering its decentred, anarchic potential.

Additionally, this thesis draws on the process metaphysics of Alfred North

Whitehead, a philosopher whose insights have been all but neglected in theatre and

performance (a notable exception being Erin Manning (2012; 2013; 2016) in

movement and dance). The thesis stands as an example of how Whitehead’s

thought might be used in the field.

Larping as a mode of performance, and larp as a form, has received scant attention

from theatre and performance studies. While there is growing scholarly discourse on

participation and immersion in theatre and other arts (Bishop 2012; White 2013;

2016; Machon 2013; Alston 2016a; 2016b; Frieze 2016; Heddon & Howells 2011;

Freshwater 2009; Nield 2008; Breel 2011; 2015a; 2015b), larping as a form is

notably absent from most of this discourse. There are theatre practitioners who are

members of and leaders in larping communities, such as Mike Pohjola and Nina

Runa Essendrop; however, their work in larping has not received scholarly attention

from theatre and performance. When Pohjola has written about his larping practice it

has been within the realm of larp studies. Theatre director and scholar James Harper

has recently completed a doctoral study using larping and larp design as his practice

research (2020). Gareth White and Bruce Barton’s Playing with Intimacy and

Intensity Network project also engaged with larping, and a prominent member of the

network was Finnish games scholar Jaakko Stenros (PII Network 2020). This thesis

extends this inclusion of larping as a mode within performance studies.

19
Alongside this relatively new interest in participatory arts stands an over two-

thousand-year history of debate around the politics of theatrical representation (Plato

1993; Diderot 1883; Barish 1981). However, there is not much consideration of what

one means for the other; in fact, as I will explore later in this introduction, the two

ideas are often opposed, in the Greek terms methexis (participation) and mimesis

(representation). This thesis aims to demonstrate what understanding comes from

placing participation and representation alongside rather than in opposition to one

another in the study of performance, in the hope that this will open up new lines of

inquiry in participatory forms of performance such as larping, immersive theatre, and

gaming theatre, but also in the field of audience studies more generally.

In this thesis, I not only argue that larping epitomizes the relationship between

participation and representation in performance, but also that it offers different

approaches to both performance and theory and is therefore important to theatre and

performance studies. As a mode of performance in which the distinction between

participation and representation is at least blurred, if not non-existent, it is both useful

and instructive in exploring these terms in relation to each other. The political

concern with the appropriation of feeling and experience can be applied more

broadly to theatrical performance and other representational arts, particularly those

which use real circumstances and experiences. The thesis therefore provides a

model for addressing this concern across a spectrum of artforms. In exploring these

political questions, I hope that the thesis will bring insight into what ‘authenticity’

might mean. As a communal and participatory activity, larping also affords the

opportunity to explore political models of distributed agency and calls into question

received ideas about anarchy and democratic ‘representation’.

20
This thesis also forwards Whitehead’s ‘philosophy of organism’ (1978) as relevant to

the field of theatre and performance. While there is growing interest in Whitehead’s

process philosophy in other fields, theatre and performance’s interest in process

theory seems to have been dominated by Deleuzean scholarship. Whitehead’s

metaphysics directly addresses notions of participation and representation and

theorizes the relationship between them and so, as I will demonstrate in chapters 1

and 2, it is explicitly and singularly relevant to the thesis. Besides using Whitehead’s

philosophy as the main theoretical underpinning, the intention is also to demonstrate

how the practice and study of larping might be developed into an understanding of

performance which is ‘organic’ in a Whiteheadian sense.

The focus of this thesis, then, is on exploring a politics of larping which accounts for

representation and participation. This is not primarily a politics of larp communities

nor merely the distribution of power and agency between various stakeholders such

as designers, organizers and participants.2 Rather, it is a politics of the very activity

of larping: what it does in terms of representation, its treatment of the oppressed or

marginalized Other in the process of play, and the modes of participation and

representation it promotes through its becoming. This is not to suggest that all larps

do the same things in terms of representation, nor that there are no differences

2
This thesis also does not engage with ‘larping’ (or ‘LARPing’ as it is rendered) in the sense recently

employed by political studies scholar Marc Tuters (2019), namely as a form of right-wing trolling in

which people ‘roleplay’ extremist points of view in order to goad their political opponents into certain

behaviours and expressing certain attitudes. Tuters uses the term without critical appraisal of its

appropriateness and in apparent ignorance of its common meaning, calling it ‘the jargon of computer

game culture’ (2019, p. 38). This usage has little to do with the kind of consensual, fictive play of

actual larping.

21
between styles of larping or specific larping experiences. What this thesis aims to do

is use specific instances of my own experiences in larping (larped experiences) to

develop an understanding of how, and by what means, larping might imply particular

relations of power and distributions of agency and authority. While relations of power

have long been a concern in larp studies and larping communities, there are no prior

studies of this kind, into the politics of the becoming of experiences and stories. It is

intended to be a foundation upon which other research might build and does not

claim to be comprehensive in identifying all possible political relationships.

The remainder of this introduction is split into four sections. The next section offers a

definition of larping, seeking to differentiate it from adjacent practices and giving a

taxonomic overview of styles and modes, relating these to the case studies in this

thesis. The section after that begins to outline the interplay and tensions between

notions of participation and representation, and offers a definition of methektic

participation as a key concept underpinning my argument. This is followed by a brief

section on methodology addressing my own presence as researcher in the practice-

research. The introduction concludes with a more detailed map of the thesis.

Larping

In this section I outline a broad definition of larping by differentiating it from adjacent

practices, and offer a brief taxonomy of different styles of larping, defining the scope

of this research in terms of the type(s) of larping it is concerned with (and the types

of larps I have participated in). This entails looking closely at how others have

defined the activity and giving an overview of the diverse range types and styles of

larping which are practiced. I hope by this method to arrive at a broad and inclusive

22
description of larping in general which agrees with the ‘stubborn facts’ of actual

practice, as well as a narrower definition of the kinds of larping I have engaged with

for this research. At the end of the section, I introduce some of the existing strands of

research in larping and performance studies.

J. Tuomas Harviainen et al. (2018) note some descriptions of larping in relation to its

similarity to other activities such as games, theatre and tabletop roleplaying. They

highlight the importance of embodiment and physical presence in a fictional world.

They argue that ‘what differentiates larping from other types of role-playing is the

embodied presence of the players as characters’ (Harviainen et al. 2018, p. 88).

However, the demand that the world be ‘fictional’ seems to exclude historical larps.

Instead, ‘fictional’ should perhaps be replaced by the term ‘fictive’ to imply that the

diegetic space is not identical to the playspace in which the larp is happening,

congruent to what Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, drawing on Johan Huizinga, call

the ‘magic circle’ (2004, passim), while not demanding that the diegetic setting be

made-up.

Larping differs from immersive theatre in that there are no performers or audience,

but instead a group of participants or ‘larpers’ (also referred to interchangeably as

‘players’) who interact with each other in order to make scenes and stories. Larpers

might be ‘thrown […] into a totally new environment and context from the everyday

world’, as Josephine Machon suggests (2013, p. 27) immersive theatre audiences

are; however, larpers inhabit the environment and context as their characters,

proactively pursuing their characters’ objectives without necessarily any reference to

a ‘performer’. Instead, the world is populated by peers, other larpers playing their

own characters, interacting with each other to produce the ‘performance’. Immersive

23
theatre is often about entering and experiencing an ‘alien’ space where audience

members are (often interactive) spectators, whereas larping is more about inhabiting

and co-creating a world with others, in which the players are the principle creative

force.

Furthermore, Harper (2022) has criticised the privileging of sensory immediacy in

much immersive theatre and its associated scholarship. He argues that larp practice

can be a foil to this by encouraging reflexivity in participants. In Whiteheadian terms,

it could be argued that immersive theatre encourages perception in the mode of

‘presentational immediacy’, while larping demands the additional, concurrent

perception in the mode of ‘causal efficacy’ (Whitehead 1985): that is, understanding

the event in the context of its past and with a view to its future. In recent years there

has been some overlap between larping and immersive theatre in ‘playable’ theatre,

such as the game-based performances of Coney. Both I (Osmond 2017) and White

(2016) have discussed Coney’s Early Days (of a better nation), while Machon (2013)

has written about A Small Town Anywhere. These pieces tend to curate interactions

between participants, and encourage immersion into narrative, character and

community (Bowman 2018) which prioritise causal efficacy rather than the bare

impressions of sensory immediacy.

Larping differs from tabletop roleplaying (TRPGs) in that the characters and their

actions are embodied rather than narrated. As Jennifer Grouling Cover points out,

‘something that differentiates TRPGs from live-action role-playing games’ is that

‘players do not arrive in costume or speak exclusively in character’ (2010, p. 6).

While not entirely accurate, since in some larp cultures it is common to calibrate ‘off-

game’ or ‘out-of-character’ (ooc) often, and in others, such as blackbox chamber

24
larps, costumes are not expected, this characterisation nonetheless highlights the

embodied nature of larping. As Gary Alan Fine succinctly states in his consideration

of TRPGs, or ‘fantasy role-play games’ as he refers to them, ‘role-playing is oral, and

does not involve physical acting’ (2002, p. 7). Larps, though, are acted-out rather

than narrated; they are dramatic rather than epic in form.

Larping differs from historical reenactment and living history in that it does not

necessarily seek to present or recreate an accurate or ‘authentic’ representation of

historical periods or figures. Larping neither suffers nor benefits from ‘errors’ in its

representations, as Rebecca Schneider (2011) argues reenactment can. Larping

deals in self-aware fictive acts rather than the resurrection of an accurate or

idealized past. The differences between living history and historical larping will be

outlined in more depth in Chapter 5, where these differences will be more important.

What the definitions collected by Harviainen et al. don’t make explicit, but what is

certainly implied in some, is the notion of larping as collaborative story-making.

Certainly at least one of the functions of larping, and for Aksel Westlund (2004)

among others its primary function, is to produce interesting narratives with one’s co-

players, as well as living and acting as one’s character. Larping is not just an

experience, but also a process of story-making. This idea of larping as story-making

as well as scene-making is central to this thesis, both informing and enabling the

methodology, and underpinning my theorization of how larping becomes.

Knutepunkt is an annual Nordic larp conference, held in a different Nordic nation or

Finland each year (and its title translated from the Norwegian into the local language:

Swedish Knutpunkt, Danish Knudepunkt, and Finnish Solmukhota), out of which

much of the current larp studies theory has emerged. One of the key concerns in the
25
literature coming out of the earliest Knutepunkt conferences is whether larps

constitute games, stories or simulations. The Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist (GNS)

model (Edwards 2001) developed out of debates in online RPG forums, and there

have been several variations on this (Kim (2003); Bøckman (2003); Brodén(2006))

which usually acknowledge that the issue is one of choice and designating a style of

role-playing to each of these modes. While not all the models agree, and some of the

categories are omitted or elided in different models, I have attempted here to tease

out the nuance in the use of each term.

Those who engage in larp as a game, who value using rules and mechanics in order

to achieve objectives, gain rewards and win, are designated ‘gamists’. Those who

engage in larps as stories can be designated either ‘narrativists’ or ‘dramatists’.

Generally, a narrativist player seeks to engage with a plot which has been

predetermined by the designer; they value a well plotted story which they can enact

(Westlund 2004, p. 249). This is perhaps the most theatrical style of play, sharing the

author-actor relation with the traditional western model of theatrical production. A

dramatist player, on the other hand, seeks to create their own story in collaboration

with other players, valuing creativity, spontaneity and serendipity. Those who engage

in larps as simulations can be designated as ‘simulationists’ or ‘immersivists’. These

are perhaps the hardest categories to differentiate since both are concerned with

plausibility, but Mike Pohjola has suggested that the simulationist values building a

plausible society in the context of the larp, while the immersivist (eläytyjist) values

the plausibility of individual action and aims at feeling as the character (Pohjola

2003, p. 35). Both are concerned with being part of the world of the larp, but while

one focuses on building a viable community, the other aims to feel and think as the

character in order to find the motivation for their character’s actions, similarly to
26
practices of Method acting. My own engagement in larping for this research has

certainly been in the dramatist vein since I value the collaborative story-making

aspects of the practice, but I also subscribe strongly to the immersivist notion of

plausibility of my characters’ actions and feeling as the character.

In summary, I am defining larping for the purpose of this thesis as the embodiment of

and interaction between characters in a fictive setting for the purpose of co-creating

narratives. This definition does not necessarily exclude more simulationist or gamist

approaches, since narratives will inevitably result from playing a character in a

setting or fighting with an opponent in a fictive battle.

Styles and types

There are many different varieties of larps, arising from different cultures, and they

can be categorized in different ways. Larps can be characterized broadly as either

combat-based or more character-driven. Genres of larps approximately match those

of literature and cinema, with science fiction, fantasy, horror, drama and romantic

comedy being among the vast array regularly available to players. Some larps are

based on or inspired by specific intellectual properties, such as College of Wizardry

(2014), which was originally set in the Harry Potter universe, though it has since

established its own diegetic universe, or NotOnlyLarp’s Conscience (2018) which

draws conceptually from the HBO TV series Westworld (2016).

Larps can be categorized by scale, in terms of size, duration, and cost. Short-form

larps last for a matter of hours, with timescales for long-form larps rising to full

weekends or longer. All the larps in which I participated for my case-studies lasted

for between 36 and 48 hours, not including workshops. The size of a larp is usually

27
expressed in terms of the number of players. Chamber larps, such as Karolina

Soltys’s Arsenic and Lies (2018), and blackbox larps, such as Essendrop and Simon

Steen Hansen’s White Death (2012), are small-scale and can be comfortably

contained in the rooms of an average apartment or a small studio. Larger scale larps

can be held in large venues or camps, with, for instance, UK fest-larps such as

Empire (2013) and Lorien Trust (1991) attracting thousands of camping participants

per event. The larps for my case-studies held between 30-150 participants each. In

terms of cost, this usually varies in line with the other scales. A chamber larp might

be played in a participant’s or gamemaster’s (GM’s) home and be completely free of

charge, or at the split cost of hiring a small blackbox studio. Hiring larger venues for

longer larps will naturally be more costly, with catering also an important

consideration. Production costs for set-dressing and special effects will also add to

the ticket price. Currently the most expensive long-weekend-length castle-venue

larps have tickets for around £600 (e.g., Giovanni: The Last Supper (2023)). The

larps for my case studies cost between £140-470 (not including travel costs, etc.).

Harviainen, et al. highlight geographical variances as important, with different

cultures producing different traditions and styles of larping (2018, pp. 91-104). Their

analysis of these geographical variances is limited in scope to traditions of the Global

North, with no mention of the larp cultures in, for instance, China, which has seen a

recent explosion of jubensha (剧本杀, lit. ‘script murder’) (Xiong, et al. 2022), Brazil

(Schmit 2014; Godoy 2022) or Palestine (Bait Byout 2017). However, the point that

different cultures produce different styles of larps and modes of larping is a sound

one, and is pertinent to this thesis since the larps I participated in for this research

originated from and were run in different European cultures.

28
Another way that larps can be categorized is by the mechanics given by the

designers to enable play between the participants. In some forms, particularly in

combat larps, there are rules and statistics which might govern how much (physical

or magical) power a character has and how many hits they can take during a fight

before they are incapacitated or killed. Other larps, often called ‘freeforms’ in the UK

and US traditions, eschew such hard-and-fast rules in favour of deeper characters.

These larps often use specialist mechanics, or ‘metatechniques’, only for enabling

specific character actions such as violence and intimacy, for enhancing safety and

comfort, such as means of cutting scenes or traversing the playspace out-of-

character, or for enabling alternative modes of storytelling/making such as soliloquy,

flashback, etc. All of the case studies in this thesis were produced in the context of

freeform larps, and the findings relate specifically to this kind of larping, though they

might in some instances be applicable to other kinds.

The case studies in this thesis were produced in the context of the following larps: La

Sirena Varada, a Spanish magic-realist drama inspired by Alejandro Casona’s 1934

play of the same title; College of Wizardry, a Danish-Polish larp in the Nordic larp

tradition, a school larp with magic; Inside Hamlet, a Danish Shakespearean tragedy

based on Hamlet by William Shakespeare; and Legion: Siberian Story, a Czech

historical military drama, inspired by the plight of the Czechoslovak legion in Russia

during WWI and the Russian Revolution. These larps were selected because of the

particular relevance of my play experiences in each to the questions that this thesis

aims to address: those of power, agency and authority, as well as those relating to

the politics of participation and representation.

Research in larping and performance studies

29
In their chapter on roleplaying and performance studies in Role-playing Game

Studies, Sarah Hoover, et al. (2018) begin to chart the relationships between these

areas of scholarship. The majority of the chapter is dedicated to analysis of the

relationship between roleplaying games and 20th Century performance studies

literature while only glossing a few of the current concerns in the field. While the

chapter considers roleplaying games more generally, including TRPG and video

games as well as larp, it highlights some of the key voices in larp studies who have

drawn comparisons with or used approaches from theatre and performance. It is

telling about the dearth of literature in this disciplinary intersection that only one of

the voices originates in theatre and performance studies, with others coming from

game studies and psychology.

There have been some serious considerations of larping as a mode of performance

within larp studies. Jaakko Stenros’s major contribution to the study of the

intersection between larp and performance studies is to demonstrate that analysis of

larping in terms of theatre, performance art, and games is reductive and that these

frames are ill-fitting (2010). This does not exclude larp studies from the umbrella of

performance studies, but it is a strong argument for it having its own place in the

field, alongside rather than as a subcategory of any of these particular forms. In a

similar vein, Sarah Lynne Bowman’s contribution has been to compare the activities

of acting, improvisation for an audience and larping (2015b). She concludes that,

while the psychological framings of each activity bear strong similarities, the

circumstances under which they occur and their purposes vary widely. Furthermore,

Bowman has examined the ritual structure of larps, particularly the Nordic larp Just a

Little Lovin’, which is set over the course of three Independence Day parties in the

USA (Bowman 2015c). All of these foregoing studies are concerned with the
30
comparison of larping to other forms of performance. Meanwhile, Bowman alongside

her colleague Kjell Hedgard Hugaas has more recently been pioneering research

into the ‘transformational power’ of larping (2019; 2021). Following in this vein,

James Harper recently completed a PhD study on the use of larping, as a mode of

participatory performance, for ‘cultural transformation’ (2020), while Sarah Hoover’s

PhD focuses on how participation design can be used for empowerment through

affect, ‘self-presence’ and relationality (2020). These scholars all recognize larping

as performance and have sought to position it within the field and demonstrate its

utility. The key scholarship outlined here has chiefly sought to compare larping to

other forms of performance or consider it as an ‘applied’ form.

The principle aim of this thesis is not to compare larping to other modes of

performance, nor to argue for is social, educational or psychological usefulness.

Instead, I focus on my own ‘performances’ and experiences in larping and analyse

how those specific occasions are constituted and composed in relation to Others.

There is some scholarship which skirts closer to this kind of analysis: along with

Jamie Macdonald, Stenros has also developed the notion of ‘aesthetics of action’

which steers away from traditional notions of aesthetics of spectatorship and towards

the aesthetics of what it feels like to participate (2013), while Bowman and Karen

Schrier have considered the relationship between the players in a larp and their

characters (Bowman & Schrier 2018, passim). The present thesis is the first major

research into the politics of participating together and representing Others in larping

from the perspective of theatre and performance.

The focus on experiences of the player in this thesis, rather than the more common

approach in larp studies of considering the design and organisation of larps, arises

31
from the fact that the players are the principal performers in larping. As will be

demonstrated in chapters 2 and 3, while the designers and organisers provide

affordances, constraints and the material conditions for larping to happen, what

might be considered the ‘container’ for performance, it is the players who make the

performance happen and who generate political relations and stories among

themselves. This framing places a strong emphasis on the politics which arise in the

moment of performance, rather than the prescribed intentions in the design and

organisation. This is not to say that these intentions are irrelevant, but much work

already exists on the politics of design and organisation, whereas the politics of

playing has received less attention.

While I focus on player experiences, the terminology of ‘play’ and ‘playfulness’ are

largely absent from the thesis. This is a deliberate choice, made in order to move the

conceptualisation of larping away from that of games. In theatre and performance

studies, highly interactive performance with a high degree of agency is often termed

‘playable’ or ‘gaming’ theatre. Theorists, such as Andy Lavender in his discussion of

what he terms the ‘incorporation-production’ mode of audience engagement (2016,

pp. 183-9), make direct reference to games as a means of thinking about these kinds

of performances. However, as cited above, Stenros has argued that larping cannot

be reduced to either theatre or games, and I want to suggest that neither can it be

reduced to a mere conjunction of these two activities. Thus, the decision not to make

direct reference to play and games in the thesis is intended to help the reader think

differently about larping and not to simply relegate it to the conceptual domain of

playable theatre. This is not to say that notions of play do not arise in the argument;

indeed, the concept of ludaturgy explored in Chapter 3 is very much bound up in

32
ideas of playfulness and indeterminacy. It is simply the terminology which is being

avoided for the sake of broadening the conceptual horizon.

There are many other approaches to studying larping in larp studies scholarship.

This range of approaches reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the field. Many larp

scholars hail from game studies and approach larping from the perspective of games

and play (e.g., Deterding & Zagal 2018), as well as considering the game design of

larps (e.g., Björk & Zagal 2018). There are ethnographies of larp communities (e.g.,

Stark 2012), and scholarship in cultural studies where larpers are considered as a

subculture (e.g., Cowan 2019). There are also more instrumentalist approaches,

where larping is viewed as a means of achieving certain ends, or of studying

particular phenomena. Examples of this kind of larp scholarship comes particularly

from psychology (e.g., Bowman and Lieberoth 2018), sociology (e.g., Seregina

2019) and education (edularp) (e.g., Bowman 2014). These studies have developed

a strong understanding of larping as a social and cultural phenomenon and its power

as a tool. Where my project differs is in considering specific experiences and acts of

larping and how they produce political relationships, rather than looking at broader

‘meanings’ or uses of larping in social and cultural contexts.

Participation and representation

This thesis is concerned with questions of participation and representation in

performance. It is about the mechanics and meanings of participating with others in a

creative performance practice. It is also about the possibilities and problematics of

representing characters and actions in performance, particularly when those

33
characters and actions are construed to ‘imitate’ or stand in for real-world

counterparts.

In this thesis I also aim to advance a notion of methektic participation. I have written

previously about the notion of methektic participation, both in relation to interactive

theatre (Osmond 2017) and larping (Osmond 2020). My notion of methexis is a

model of participation which is not predicated on taking part in an extant work.

Rather, individuals are constituents comprising a whole in such a way that the whole

cannot be reduced to the individual participants: ‘the collective dimension in larping

must be understood holistically, not as interacting singularities but as a plural whole’

(Osmond 2020, p. 189). I have argued that many of the tools for analysing immersive

performance encourage narcissistic framings of the works, where participants think

mostly about their own experiences (Osmond 2017, pp. 51-3). Methektic

participation, by contrast, encourages thinking about the self in relation to others as

part of an ecology, inseparable from each other since individuals in this model not

only co-constitute the whole of which they are all part, but also co-constitute each

other.

Several scholars in recent decades have deployed the term methexis (Harrison

1912; Cornford 2004; Carter 1996; Bolt 2004; Nancy 2007). Some of these have

been instrumental in shaping my own concept of methektic participation outlined

above. Francis Cornford describes methexis as a ‘relation […] in which […] a group

stands to its immanent collective soul […] The One can go out into the many; the

many can lose themselves in reunion with the One’ (2004, p. 204). This captures the

sense of communion I want to convey in my use of methexis, with individual subjects

contributing to the whole, and being constituted by their participation; they can ‘lose’

34
themselves in the process of collective story-making without forgoing their

individuality or subjectivity. Paul Carter (1996) and Barbara Bolt (2004) most clearly

differentiate the methektic from the mimetic in art. For Carter, methexis corresponds

to his notion of performance, in which ‘there is never an actor on one side,

something to be acted on the other, the two come into being through each other’

(1996, p. 83). This echoes the idea of the co-constitution of experiences and selves

which is fundamental to my own notion of methexis. However, for Carter methektic

art is also ‘a physical re-enactment of the environment’ (Carter 1996, p. 174) which

differs from my own ecological deployment of methexis, which posits the

impossibility of separating the subject from the environment. Bolt, who builds on

Carter, notes that methexis, as participation, privileges experience in the body as

opposed to the representation of things on the ‘horizon’ (Bolt 2004, p. 135). This

privileging of experience is critical to my notion of methexis since it is about feeling

oneself as part of some larger whole, such as a larp, without relinquishing personal

subjective experience.

Concurrently with my own initial deployment of the term, Charlotte Ashby (2017),

another larp scholar, also deployed ‘methesis’ (sic), though drawing from Jane

Harrison’s (1912) use of the term who describes ritual dancers ‘becoming’ the animal

totems they emulate. Ashby uses the term to posit that ‘[larp characters] and their

community […] become something close to real in the methectic [sic] space of the

larp’ (2017, p. 220). This notion of ‘methesis’ is somewhat related to my notion of

methexis in that it foregrounds ‘collective and generative creation’ (Ashby 2017, p.

220) in larping; however, it differs considerably in terms of its focus, with Ashby’s

notion aimed at describing how narrative elements are brought to bear, and my own

aimed at describing the relationships between players and their collective activities.
35
Issues of representation (mimesis) and participation (methexis) in performance have

been present since at least Plato. For Plato, the mimetic representation is a

simulacrum of the Form, whereas ‘true’ embodiment actually participates in the Form

(methexis). ‘True’ embodiment is grounded in the Form while the ‘false’ simulacrum

is not. The issues of participation (methexis) in this thesis are not related to these

Platonic concerns, but rather centre around participation with others. The Platonic

notion of methexis relates to the grounding of actuals in their Forms, and guarantees

the ‘truth’ of the actual, whereas the notion of methexis in this thesis is about the

participation of individual players as constituents in processes of larping. This is

somewhat like the Hobbesian idea of the sovereign-subject political relation, in which

the sovereign represents the people and the people participate in the sovereign

(Hobbes, Rogers & Schumann 2005, p. 138). However, this thesis does not deal with

this kind of political participation and representation, though it does address

questions of ‘sovereignty’ in the sense of ‘he [sic] who decides’ (Birmingham 2011, p.

77). This latter sense of sovereignty is related less to participation and

representation, and more to notions of agency and authority, which I will explore in

some depth in chapters 2 and 3.

Platonic concerns of grounding do, however, relate to the arguments around

representation in this thesis. Considered from a more current standpoint, without

reference to Platonic Forms, we can ask whether, and how, the performance of

experiences relate to real-world experiences (such as torture or oppression), or of a

character based on real historical Others is grounded in the experience of those

Others. This raises concerns related to accuracy and authenticity, which will be

addressed in chapters 4 and 5. Alston (2016b) has challenged the notion that

immersive theatrical experience can lead to authentically grounded representations

36
of Other’s experiences, while Patrick Duggan (2012) has looked at ways in which

trauma might be representable as experience for a theatrical audience. Meanwhile,

in cultural studies, Scott Magelssen (2014) and Alison Landsberg (2004) have

looked at ways in which representations might stimulate empathy with historical

Others. This thesis uses this scholarship to investigate how experiential

representations are grounded.

‘Participatory art’ and ‘audience participation’ have been examined by Claire Bishop

(2012) and Gareth White (2013) respectively. Both consider participation as

‘material’: for Bishop people are used as the artist’s material, and for White the

participation itself is viewed as an aesthetic object. Because of this, neither moves

away from spectatorship, though both acknowledge the experiential aspect of being

a participant. In these cases, the very fact of participation, over and above what any

participant does, is seen as aesthetic material. White is explicit in his treatment of

participating in Coney’s Early Days (of a better nation) (2016) that he approaches

this engagement from the perspective of a spectator, and uses the terms of

Rancière’s ‘emancipated’ spectator in his analysis. For the most part, though,

participants and their actions are subsumed into the dramaturgy as something to be

prehended by an audience, both the participant ‘spectating’ their own actions from

within the artwork and those watching from without. This thesis does not treat

players or the fact of their participation as material to be manipulated or analysed

aesthetically. Rather, I view participation as the fundamental mode of engagement in

larping. While this generates ‘material’ for the collective scenes of the larp and

players’ individual stories, it is not itself material.

37
Both Bishop and White also treat participation as a type or element of performance,

with the attendant assumption that there is ‘non-participatory’ performance, i.e. that

which is entirely presented by artists without the active participation of audience

members in the artwork.3 Both examine the dynamics of ‘artist-led’ work, where the

examination requires a differentiation between ‘artists’ and ‘participants’. However,

for this thesis and, I propose, for larping in general (methektic) participation is the

whole of the performance, and there is no non-participatory kind of performance

involved. There is no distinguishing between ‘artists’ and ‘participants’ in larping but

rather artist-participants create their artworks (scenes and stories) through their

participation. Artistry and participation are methektically bound together in the

processes of larping.

The kind of methektic participation I propose is an ecological model of participation.

Such models have currency in the field of theatre and performance, particularly

among scholars influenced by Deleuzean notions of assemblages or by Gibsonian

notions of affordances. The edited volume Performance and Participation (Harpin &

Nicholson 2016b), pays testament to such approaches with the editors noting that

contributors, variously, ‘make cases for an expanded perception of recognition that

takes account of the full range of environmental registers immanent in performance’

(Harpin & Nicholson 2016a, p. 6); ‘attend to affect – not as a subset of human

sensibility but as a relational force that exists between bodies, objects and

technologies’ (Harpin & Nicholson 2016a, p. 7); and, ‘critically read the creative

relationality between participation and performance by engaging with theoretical

3
This does not preclude the kind of interpretive participation with the artwork proposed by Rancière

(2011).

38
positions that trouble conventional distinctions between subject and object, human

and nonhuman, and dismantle narratives of cause and effect’ (Harpin & Nicholson

2016a, p. 8). My methektic approach supplements these kinds of approaches, while

at the same time exploring the relatively uncharted intersection between

performance, ecology and Whiteheadian philosophy of organism.

Jacques Rancière argues that the spectator ‘participates in the performance by

refashioning it in her own way’ (2011, p. 13), through interpretation of the artwork.

This ‘participation’ is quintessentially narcissistic in Alston’s (2016a) sense, in that it

focuses on the individual self and offers nothing back to the becoming performance.

Rancière equates his notion of the ‘emancipated spectator’ with his prior notion of

emancipated learning. However, the ignorant schoolmaster and the emancipated

learner engage in an intersubjective, participatory relationship. Rancière’s

emancipated spectator on the other hand is parasitic, taking what they are given in

the dramaturgy of performance and making it their own, but offering nothing back

into the dramaturgy. Unlike Bishop’s and White’s formulations, Rancière’s does not

posit participation as material or aesthetic object but instead as a process of

interpretation. While this process concords to some extent with my notion of

methektic participation, in my formulation this process of interpretation feeds back,

cybernetically, into the generation of performance among the collective.

Representation is often treated as the ‘serious’ work of theatre and performance,

particularly of theatre. Participation is the means to arrive at the representation. This

thesis aims to unsettle this by showing an interplay between participation and

representation that gives neither precedence nor rank to either. In other words, I aim

to show that in larping, representation can be a means to participate as well as

39
participating being a means to represent, and that participation can be equally as or

more important than representation as an outcome. In instances of theatre where

participation is ranked as a higher outcome, such as in applied contexts, this is often

viewed as a social or political outcome rather than an aesthetic one. Even where

participation is viewed as aesthetic, such as in White’s Audience Participation in

Theatre (2013), it is couched in representational terms, either as a performance or

as ‘material’ to be manipulated by an artist. For White’s participants, their

participation is always procedurally authored and therefore proscribed by the extant

structures of the work in which it happens. It is the procedure of inviting (and of

accepting) which constitutes this kind of work, with the actual participation relegated

to the status of manipulable ‘material’. In this model, the participant cannot ‘do’

anything efficaciously since they are subject to the sovereignty of the artist and the

artwork. White dwells only briefly on the experience of participants, focusing rather

on what the audience-participant does and how they interact with the performers.

In this thesis I am considering participation and representation in performance

differently. Firstly, I am considering methektic participation with others in generating

performance and stories, rather than participation in the work of an artist or other

producer. This moves the argument away from theatrical notions of spectatorship

and towards co-creation through play. The politics of this kind of methektic

participation are different from those of theatrical participation because the relations

are between peers rather than across the boundary of the (figurative) proscenium.

Secondly, I seek to trace the possibilities and limits for representing experiences,

rather than people, objects or events, through roleplaying. The thesis uses ideas of

mimesis, semiosis and empathy to build on scholarship in this area and explore the

relationship between larped experience and the lived experiences of Others.

40
Methodological note

I am a larper; larping is part of my everyday life. I was researching in a ‘home’

context as a native within the larping community. Far from being a participant-

observer in the mode of ethnographer, I have investigated and am writing about my

own life, practices, and communities in the mode of autoethnographer. The research

is coloured by my position and experience in the community, but this ought not to be

viewed as detrimental to the quality of the research. Indeed, as will be explored in

greater depth in the methodology chapter, one of the strengths of autoethnography is

that it offers an insider’s view on cultural practices, one that resists the ‘appropriation’

resulting from an outsider seeking to ‘know’, and applying their own reductive

epistemologies to, a culture and practices which are not their own.

The methodology employed is also strongly based in experience. I both researched

using personal experience, and researched the structure of those experiences.

Personal experience was both a tool for the research and the subject of the

research. This means that there is a strong personal investment in the research as

well as a personal particularity to the findings made. The thesis cannot therefore be

a definitive analysis of larping in general, but rather is offered as a contribution to a

body of knowledge surrounding larping, partially constituting that body of knowledge

and participating methektically with other ideas, findings and experiences.

For this reason, I will be making use of ‘thick descriptions’ (Geertz 1973) of my

larped experiences as they offer a means of both expressing what happened and

drawing in important contextual information that elucidates the significance of what

happened. I will also be making use of reflexive reflection because this allows me to

41
analyse my relationality within the frame of each larp. These aspects, among others,

of the method employed will be addressed in the next chapter.

Map of the thesis

Chapter 1 comprises the theoretical framework and methodology. This firstly covers

the key concepts from Whitehead’s philosophy of organism, which are relevant to

this research. I then offer a reasoning for the use of autoethnography in conducting

the research, as well as introducing the concept of practice-autoethnography, which I

define as the study of personal experiences related to a specific (artistic) practice.

The argument furnished in the first part of this thesis builds on the analysis of case

studies exploring my participation in La Sirena Varada and College of Wizardry, and

investigates participation in larping. Chapter 2 introduces the notions of sceneing

and storying as key processes in my participation in La Sirena Varada. It brings up

issues around the agency and authority of particular stakeholders in larping, focusing

mainly on that of players. It forwards an argument for ‘radical togetherness’ in which

methektic participation and ‘anarchic’ play results in co-creativity among players, and

also calls for responsibility towards others. This contributes to an understanding of

how scenes and stories become through larping together, as well as the distributions

of power in larping.

Chapter 3 then looks at dramaturgy – what is ‘given’ to players for making scenes

and stories – and introduces the concept of ludaturgy as ‘doing things’ with

dramaturgy. This is studied through the lens of my self-confessed failure to generate

an enjoyable experience for myself in run 19 of College of Wizardry. It explores

issues of individualism and the (mis)use of affordances given in the larp design. The
42
main argument is that the way we choose to constitute relationships and participate

with other players is an important contributing factor to the experience of a larp. This

contributes to an understanding of how play experiences are constituted and how the

exercise of agency and authority affect those experiences.

The argument forwarded in the second half of the thesis builds on the analysis of a

further two case studies and investigates issues of representation. Chapter 4

investigates representations of oppression and torture in Inside Hamlet and relates

these to scholarship in trauma studies. It looks at issues of the representation of

experiences as experience and the problems of claiming larped experience as

representative of Others’ real lived experience. It argues that the limits of experiential

representation are reached when larped experience threatens to become ‘real’

experience. This contributes to answering questions of the relationships between

participation and representation, and between larped experience and the

experiences of historical Others.

Chapter 5 then assesses the idea that larping can foster empathy for historical

Others, using my experiences in Legion: Siberian Story, and turning to scholarship in

historiography and cultural studies, particularly museum studies. It forwards an

argument that empathy cannot arise in the live moment of immersed larping, but that

larping can sensitise us to the lived experiences of Others, resulting in a greater

potential for empathy in moments of encounter. This contributes to the

understanding of relationships between larped representations and those being

represented. Finally, the conclusion of the thesis maps the findings of the argument

as well as the links between each chapter.

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The thesis as a whole contributes to the growing body of knowledge on the politics of

interactive and immersive performance. It brings new understanding and

perspectives on issues around participation and representation to both larp studies

and performance studies. It contributes a new methodology for the analysis of

practical experience, one which prioritises the practice as the basis for knowledge. It

also furnishes a foundation for the increased use and development of Whiteheadian

process philosophy is the fields of performance studies and larp studies.

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 Chapter 1

Critical Framework and Methodology

Introduction

This chapter sets out the ways in which I use Alfred North Whitehead’s process

philosophy as a framework for understanding and analysing my research data

(experiences), and gives a thorough description of and rationale for the research

method of practice-autoethnography. The theoretical framework section outlines the

main elements of Whitehead’s philosophy I have employed and shows the ways in

which they are relevant to the research. The methodology section argues for the

validity of practice-autoethnography. It positions it as a method in relation to wider

ethnographic and autoethnographic practices, particularly drawing on Kevin Vryan’s

version of analytic autoethnography, as well as similar methods in the fields of larp,

theatre and performance studies. It also differentiates it from other similar methods,

particularly practice-as-research (PaR).

Critical framework: Whitehead’s philosophy of organism

The critical framework I use in this thesis to analyse my experiences in larping

comes from the philosophy of organism proposed by Whitehead. This framework

suits the research well, since it prioritizes experience as fundamental to processes of

becoming and provides insight into how creative power and agency can be

distributed. Though Whitehead does not address questions of power, agency, or

45
authority directly in his writings, a distributed, anarchic politics is implied by his

metaphysics of experience. In this section, I will initially explain the importance of the

subject-object relation in Whitehead’s conception of experience, relating this to the

analysis of larping. I will then go on to describe how the concepts of ‘concrescence’

and ‘routes of inheritance’ will be used to analyse my experiences in larping

throughout this thesis.

Experience

For Whitehead, all metaphysical becoming is a process of subjects experiencing

objects. Whitehead’s project was to develop a metaphysics which was compatible

with both the observable everyday world and accounted for the developments in

science at the time he was writing, viz. quantum mechanics. Despite giving credit for

his ideas to a host of antecedent philosophers (perhaps his most quoted remark

being that all of Western philosophy is footnotes to Plato (1978, p. 39)), his main

assertion was that the whole Western approach to ontology up to the time at which

he was writing (with the exception of Bergson’s) had been misguided. Rather than

considering how substances are subject to change, he argues, we should consider

how process gives rise to defined objects. The theory he developed in response to

this, the philosophy of organism, holds that all existence is processes of subjects (or

subject-superjects) experiencing objects.

Fundamentally, the philosophy of organism holds that there is no substance which is

subject to change underlying properties of entities. Rather, entities become in the

process of experiencing. In other words, there is no ‘experiencing thing’ which pre-

exists the experience. The experiencer becomes in the experience, and is the

experience. As Whitehead puts it, a ‘moment of experience, in its character of being

46
that one occasion, is nothing else than the percipient itself’ (1985, p. 9). What does

pre-exist the experience are the objects of experience, and an impetus or ‘concern’

for those objects to ‘concresce’. The potential for becoming lies in the determined

objects in the world and the ‘concern’. The precise mechanics of this concrescence

falls outside the scope of this thesis, but the notion of concrescence and the idea of

determinate objects giving rise to a novel, indeterminate subject is important.

Whitehead all but rejects the term ‘subject’ for denoting one who experiences.

Instead, he coins the term subject-superject. The superject, Whitehead argues,

becomes in the concrescence. It is the one who experiences as a coalescence of the

experienced objects. Importantly, though, it is the superject which determines how

the objects coalesce. Thus, the subject-superject is both self-determining yet partially

determined by the objects given to it. The retention of the ‘subject’ element in the

term acknowledges a continuity of identification between successive subjects which

is carried through the ‘concern’, though there is no self-identical substance which

subsists in this model.

The fundamental relation between a subject-superject and its objects of experience

Whitehead terms ‘prehension’. Sharing an etymology with ‘prehensile’, ‘apprehend’,

and ‘comprehend’, prehension means grasping or feeling. This linguistic relationship

to apprehension and comprehension alludes to both a physical perception and an

emotional and intellectual interpretation of the objects experienced. The subject-

superject forms a kind of constellation of the prehended objects, evaluating them

either positively (as relevant) or negatively (as not relevant), and thus determines

itself as an occasion of experience. Whitehead also refers to the whole corpus of

objects prehended as the ‘datum’. This can be taken to imply both the givenness or

47
determinateness of the objects, as in statistical data, and the idea of a gift or vector,

as in the dative case in some grammars. So, the objects are given (or gifted) to the

subject-superject, which creates itself through prehending them.

The relevance of this theoretical model to the analysis of my own experience in this

thesis is twofold. Firstly, I will not conceive of myself as the experiencing subject

which underlies the experience, but rather as the superject becoming in/with the

occasion of experience. Situating myself in this way in the analysis enables me to

decentre selfhood while not dismissing it as irrelevant. Instead, the elements of

selfhood (such as memories, attitudes and beliefs) become objects in the occasion

of experience and can be analysed alongside other elements in that experience. In

this mode of reflection I cease thinking in terms of how ‘I (as subject) experienced

this (object)’, and instead think in terms of how the experience, which includes this

sense of selfhood, is composed. Each occasion stands singularly as something

novel. The ‘I’ is a process which becomes through the coalescence of disparate

entities, rather than subsisting as a pre-existing ‘something’ which changes under

the affectivity of experience. Nothing is calcified, though the determinateness of the

objects, the elements of selfhood among them, lend shape to the experience.

Secondly, the notions of gifting and feeling become important in the analysis of

experience, in contrast to notions of taking and seeing. I analyse my experiences in

terms of what is given to me rather than what I take, and how I feel in my

surroundings and in the company of others rather than how I survey these things. My

analysis of larping becomes about sharing and methektic togetherness, in the same

way that the practice of larping is. The language of sharing is very much part of the

larp cultures I am involved with. We talk of ‘giving each other play’ when we aim to

48
add something to another player’s narrative, or ‘playing to lift’ when we act to

establish another character’s reputation or standing.

These notions of gifting and feeling also come to bear in considering the collective

experience of larping together with other players and the multitude of narratives

which arise from that collective experience. I am able to consider what was given to

the collective experience by the multitude of players, organisers, and designers, as

well as by the environment. My own prehension of any given collective experience

was one among many. The fact that I prehended each given object in a particular

way highlights the notion that the same objects might have been prehended

differently (and indeed, most likely were by other players). The composition of any

collective experience in larping is the sum of what its participants gift to it, and these

gifts are prehended both collectively and individually.

Concrescence

As described above, concrescence is the coalescence of objects in an occasion of

experience. In Whitehead’s words, ‘an actual occasion arises as the bringing

together into one real context diverse perceptions, diverse feelings, diverse

purposes, and other diverse activities arising out of those primary perceptions’

(1985, p. 9). I will use the term concrescence to denote both the process of

superjectification (e.g., the subject-superject becomes through concrescence of

prehended objects), and individual occasions of experience (e.g., a concrescence is

analysable as an object of study). Here I will delve more deeply into the political

nuances the term implies as well as outlining its specific uses in my analysis.

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Each occasion of experience is novel, though partially determined by the objects

which it prehends. The interplay of novelty (change) and determination is important

to the politics of larping. It implies anarchy and agency, while not implying complete

freedom. There is the datum, a gift, that which is given for experience, which is

already (self-)determined. The subject cannot alter the identity of the object, but

includes it in itself in the way it determines for itself.

Whitehead’s concrescence bears some similarities to Deleuze and Guattari’s notions

of territory and (de/re)territorialization. A territory is ‘a conceptual device which

produces order, working as a function which organizes sets of elements otherwise

indeterminate and confused’ (Aurora 2014, p. 2). Territorialization is the process of

(a subject) creating such a territory. Both concrescence and territorialization imply

ordered constellations which are not fixed but subject to continuous change.

The difference between the concrescence and the territory lies in their

conceptualizations of novelty and change. In Deleuze and Guattari, for novel

constellations to appear, the process of reterritorialization, there must first be a

process of deterritorialization. That is, the ordered constellation must first be

disorganized before it can change. By contrast, for Whitehead change occurs

through a process of methektic incorporation. The original constellation remains as

an object of experience for the becoming concrescence. An objective constellation

participates methektically with other objective constellations in the subject-superject

to form a complete gift (datum) for the subject-superject to experience. As Steven

Shaviro, citing Keith Robinson, observes, one of the main differences between

Whitehead’s and Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptions of the continuum of time ‘is

precisely that “Deleuze is committed to a continuity of becoming but Whitehead is

50
committed to the idea of a becoming of continuity”’ (Shaviro 2012, p. 19). This

difference highlights an important reason for my selection of the philosophy of

organism over other breeds of process theory as the theoretical basis for this thesis.

In Whitehead’s thinking there is no dismantling of an organized constellation, or

deterritorialization. Instead, all constellations, or actual entities, achieve ‘objective

immortality’ through their inclusion in becoming entities. For novel entities to create

themselves, there is no need to efface what already exists. This resonates well with

the improvisational nature of collaborative story-making in larping. New experiences

and narratives are born from and require what has gone before, and demand (an

attempt at) resolution in the future.

Analysing my experiences in terms of the self-determining concrescence of

determined objects allows me to evaluate the relative forces of constraint and

agency. The self-determination of a concrescence maps to the political notion of

agency, while the determination of the objects given for experience relates to the

(physical, social, psychological) ways in which the experience is externally

constrained. Using this framework, I can therefore assess how different forces or

tensions are acting upon my experiences as well as the extent to which I am free to

determine the experiences for myself. This will allow me to analyse the distribution of

power and authority in the creation of my concrescent experiences.

Furthermore, my experiences in larping and the collective process of larping itself

can be understood as processes of concrescence. This notion will be explored in

depth in Chapter 2, where I conceptualize two distinct but interrelated processes of

concrescence: one where the different elements of the larp participate methektically

51
in my experience, which I term ‘storying’; the other where I participate methektically

as an element in the collective process of larping, which I term ‘sceneing’.

The concept of concrescence also gives equal weight to sensation and memory as

objects of my experiences. I conceive of an occasion of experience as the

concrescence of both sensation data in the body and ‘memories’ traced back

through ‘routes of inheritance’ to prior occasions of experience. This allows

exploration of how these different aspects interact to produce a novel occasion of

experience.

Routes of inheritance

A concrescent occasion of experience comprises more than just the data of

immediate perception or sensation. Memory, prior experience and expertise all

participate in the subject-superject as elements in the objective gift (datum) through

routes of inheritance. By these routes, the past participates in the present. The

present becoming experience literally inherits past experiences and incorporates

them into itself.

For instance, while larping in the ship larp, discussed in the introduction to this

thesis, I had prior experience of travelling by boat, as well as experiences relating to

the 17th Century. These prior experiences were prehended positively in my larping,

that is they were selected as relevant to the becoming experience while I played my

character. The prior experiences reached the present moment of larping through a

succession of inheritances, from one occasion to the next. These occasions can be

thought of as configurations of my memory.

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Here I want to draw attention to the fact that the two examples of prior experiences

given above are of seemingly very different kinds. My experience of having travelled

by boat was a direct experience in which I was subject to the sensory data of sights,

sounds, smells, movement, etc. My prior experiences relating to the 17th Century

were experiences of reading or otherwise learning about that historical period. I

(obviously) did not actually experience anything in the 17th Century in an embodied

way. This demonstrates that routes of inheritance can be used to determine the

kinds of knowledge a person has of something, whether direct, embodied

knowledge, or indirect, learned knowledge. In indirect, learned knowledge the

actually-lived experience is of learning about the matter, through for instance hearing

or reading about it. When recalling such learning, the routes of inheritance are traced

directly back to the experience of learning, and only indirectly to the data (e.g., the

historical events) that were learned.

This distinction between direct and indirect routes of inheritance will be particularly

relevant to the discussions of larping Others’ experiences in chapters 4 and 5. This

idea of routes of inheritance has strong implications when considering the politics of

representation, particularly for this thesis the representation of Others. The Other’s

life can be thought of as a ground, the ‘original’ on which a larped representation is

founded. Using the Whiteheadian model, it is possible to assess how, and indeed

whether, routes of inheritance can be traced back to the ground of the

representation.

Expertise can be thought of as the accumulation of experiences of the same kind

which shape and afford opportunities to a becoming subject-superject. The

becoming occasion of experience traces routes of inheritance back to all the past

53
attempts and practisings. This is again a form of learning and of memory. Entering

into the ship larp, I had some expertise in acting and story-making, having studied

and taken special interest in drama and creative writing at school. Prior occasions of

acting and creative writing participated in my larping, shaping both my experiences

and what I gave back into collective scenes for others to experience. This

demonstrates how the past participates in the present and how, despite being novel,

a becoming occasion can conform to the past through iteration.

While the examples I have mentioned above relate to memories, similar ideas of

inheritance are seen in physical identity and physical changes, where a physical

characteristic or quality is inherited by subsequent occasions of a body. It is

therefore through routes of inheritance that we can arrive at a notion of self-identity

with past occasions of the ‘same’ body in Whitehead’s temporally atomic

metaphysics. Whitehead argues that organisms have a ‘dominant’ inheritance which

can be thought of as a constellation of self-identity, which is altered by other

inheritances from within and without the body:

Our dominant inheritance from our immediately past occasion is broken into

by innumerable inheritances through other avenues. Sensitive nerves, the

functioning of our viscera, disturbances in the composition of our blood, break

in upon the dominant line of inheritance. (Whitehead 1967, p. 189)

Likewise, the more distant past can break in upon the dominant line of inheritance

through physical or psychological memory (muscle memory, old injuries, learned

habits).

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In summary, Whitehead’s philosophy of organism is a philosophy of experience,

giving a model of becoming in which an objectified past is both experienced by and

constitutes a present subject-superject. In the process of concrescence, all of the

immediately prior, determined actual entities are prehended by the becoming

subject-superject and are evaluated either positively (as relevant) or negatively (as

irrelevant). Routes of inheritance can be traced back through chains of successive

occasions of experience, generating self-identity, learning and memory.

Methodology: practice-autoethnography

This research was conducted using autoethnography. This method was a perfect fit

for the project as it supported the research questions, the theoretical perspective of

Whiteheadian process philosophy, and the research context of larping, all of which

called for an approach which is both embodied and open to subjective experience,

as well as deep analysis of specific occasions of experience. The analysis of the

research will be done using a framework based on the philosophy of Whitehead, as

outlined above. Both autoethnography and Whiteheadian analysis prioritise

experience, while the research questions demand analysis of the direct, lived

experience of power dynamics and agency in a specified practice.

Autoethnography

Autoethnography began as a social sciences method, conceived as an alternative to

traditional ‘realist’ ethnography (Ellis & Bochner 2006, pp. 433-4). Fundamentally,

autoethnography is a way of examining cultures, cultural practices, and social and

political structures by means of the researcher analysing and communicating their

own personal experiences from within the culture, society, or political structure. The
55
researcher examines a culture of which they are a full member, in contrast with the

traditional ethnographic participant-observer who temporarily participates in the

culture for the sake of the research.

Broadly, there are two traditions of autoethnography: the original type, originated by

Carolyn Ellis and others in the 1990s, now sometimes referred to as ‘evocative’4

autoethnography, which drew precedent from the ‘insider ethnographies’ of the

1980s (e.g., Messerschmidt (1981); Jackson (1987)); and analytic autoethnography,

which was proposed by Leon Anderson in 2006. ‘Evocative’ autoethnography is

deeply tied to identity politics, social justice, and the poststructuralist turn.

Researchers from ‘minority’ groups have used this mode of autoethnography to

examine experiences of being e.g., black, gay, or disabled, in cultures where these

identities are not normative. It is often used to mine experiences where the

researcher was emotionally vulnerable or in a moment of crisis. The ‘evocative’

mode also employs a variety of creative modes of communication with its

readership/audience, including performance, dialogues, and literary writing. A typical

‘evocative’ autoethnographic output is unlikely to take the form of an academic

essay. It is important that the communication here is not merely of the analysis of

personal lived experience, but also of the experience itself. This is intended to evoke

emotional connection and empathic response from the reader/audience. Outputs in

this vein eschew explanation and the laying out of findings as evidence for monolithic

‘Truths’ in favour of presentations which draw readers/audiences close to the

emotional authenticity of the author.

4
I use scare quotes here as Ellis and Bochner (2006, pp. 435-6) have rejected the need for this

descriptor.

56
One of the goals of the evocative tradition is to change the social, political, or cultural

world through empathetic engagement, rather than describing it ‘factually’. This kind

of transformation was not the aim of the research I undertook, nor is it the aim of this

thesis. However, many of the experiences I had in conducting this research were

undeniably transformative for me personally, and have shaped many of the

observations made. So, while I do not make claims for effecting social or political

transformation through this thesis I acknowledge the profound transformative effects

larping can have on individuals and communities, effects which have begun to be

documented by other researchers, including James Harper (2020), and Sarah Lynn

Bowman & Kjell Hedgard Hugaas (2019; 2021), among others.

Analytic autoethnography, on the other hand, aims to use analysis of personal

experience for more traditional ethnographic ends. For Anderson, the key difference

between the analytic and ‘evocative’ modes is a sustained commitment to theoretical

development, rather than ‘simply to document personal experience, to provide an

“insider’s perspective,” or to evoke emotional resonance with the reader’ (2006, pp.

386-7) as he assesses the project of the ‘evocative’ school. While I consider this

assessment unfair in its diminishing of the scope and potential of ‘evocative’

autoethnography, it does serve to explicate the priorities and positioning of the

analytic mode. It aims ‘to use empirical data to gain insight into some broader set of

social phenomena than those provided by the data themselves’ (Anderson 2006, p.

387).

My project falls largely into the analytic camp. To declare this alignment is not

without its political implications. There are tensions between the views of the

originators of autoethnography and the analytic autoethnography proposed by

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Anderson. Ellis and Art Bochner have voiced legitimate concerns about the

terminology, which they developed and fought hard to defend in the largely hostile

environment of social sciences, being hijacked and subsumed by ‘realist’

ethnography (2006). While I am sympathetic to this point of view, the analytic school

provides some new scope to autoethnographic practice. Quite simply, analytic

autoethnography is useful for answering other kinds of questions than those posed in

the ‘evocative’ school, not least for the research I have conducted. Analytic

autoethnography is separate from the ‘evocative’ autoethnography which preceded

and inspired it. The expanding of autoethnography into a more analytic ‘empirical’

approach ought not to denigrate or endanger other legitimate modes of research

such as the ‘evocative’ school, though I recognize that the political machinations of

academic institutions can see to it otherwise. In short, in using analytic

autoethnography it is not my intention to contribute to the subsuming, dilution, or de-

queering of autoethnography. Indeed, in the arts and humanities, the subjective and

creative approaches of the ‘evocative’ school are highly valued. The selection of

analytic autoethnography is due to its suitability for addressing the research

questions, not an evaluation of it as ‘better’ than the ‘evocative’ school.

In my research I have followed Kevin Vryan in his expanded conception of analytic

autoethnography (2006). Vryan argues that Anderson’s proposal is too limited in its

scope. He points out that autoethnographic research need not pertain to a group or

‘social world’ in order to produce analytic data which have relevance beyond the

individual. In this research I am not concerned with any broad social-scientific study

of larpers as a social group or subculture. Instead, I am investigating the specific

practices of participating with others and acts of representing in larping, and

attempting to map the distributions of power, authority, and agency in those

58
relationships. Similarly to Vryan’s research, my research project is ‘about discovering

and better modeling’ (Vryan 2006, p. 405) how power, authority, and agency are

distributed in roleplaying. I hope that the discoveries and models that emerge from

this thesis will lead to further research in these areas.

Vryan argues that in some instances a very specific constellation of expertise,

perspective and ‘naturally occurring’ experience means that the narrow case study of

the researcher’s own insider experiences provides sufficient data for analysis.

Moreover, in these instances ‘autoethnography enables access to vital aspects of

human experience that cannot be accessed using other available methods’ (Vryan

2006, p. 407). This need for a specific constellation of given factors was the case for

my project. The research required not only expertise in larping, and to an extent the

kinds of social relationships and networks that larps generate (for instance,

necessitating that there is trust between myself and other players), but also a deep

understanding of the political and theoretical frameworks used. My journey to

selecting autoethnography as a method took me via phenomenographic methods

such as explicitation interview. For this kind of research to have garnered the

necessary data, surveys and interviews would either require generic questions

developed using a lot of assumptions, or for the participants to have a deep

understanding of the theoretical framework of the project. The former would be

unreliable, while the latter was unrealistic, given the amount of time and effort that

would be demanded of interviewees to become familiar with the terms. It became

apparent that it would be unrealistic to obtain the kind of granular detail required,

while also maintaining the breadth and open-endedness in survey or interview which

was necessary to answer the research questions, within the given timescale. I was

not interested in perceptions of power and agency, which, I reasoned, is all

59
interviews or surveys might reasonably give me. I was interested in specific political

relationships between players, organisers, and designers in singular occasions of

larping practice. The only experiences I could directly access and reliably analyse

were my own.

Vryan’s approach suited my project well, at the same time as avoiding some of the

criticisms levelled at the analytic school. I was researching a specific creative

performance practice rather than the group or ‘social world’ insisted on by Anderson,

or the moments of vulnerability, questioning, or crisis to which ‘evocative’

autoethnography is suited. However, despite being classed as analytic, Vryan’s

approach, premised as it is on the experiences of a single individual, is necessarily

provisional and does not aim at a monolithic, generalized ‘Truth’. It is analytic

primarily because it does not aim to evoke emotional solidarity or sympathy from its

reader/audience, but rather seeks to make sense of the experiences undergone (and

effected) in the course of the practice.

Practice-autoethnography

I have termed the idiosyncratic approach I have used for this project ‘practice-

autoethnography’. This research shrinks the ethnographic field to the practice. This

project has not been a study of the culture(s) surrounding larp, but rather the practice

of larping itself. While broadly following Vryan’s proposal, I was engaged in an

investigation of a creative practice from the perspective of an arts discipline, and the

approach has differed from social-scientific autoethnography in a number of

important ways. These differences will be made clear in the subsections following,

where I outline in detail the methods used.

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I am not investigating what the practices in larp reveal about larp subculture, nor

seeking to understand these practices in the wider context of the subculture. This

study does not focus on the wider cultural aspects of larping or how the practice

generates culture (Seregina 2019), though I recognise and acknowledge the ways in

which the culture informs the politics of the practice as an element of the data given

to it through a variety of routes. Rather, I am looking at the political relationships

which arise within the practice itself. This includes both the relationships with other

players and stakeholders in my participation in larping, and those which arise with

historical Others through my representation of characters. In order to accomplish

this, practice-autoethnography focuses in on particular instances of encountering or

relating to others/Others. I analyse these encounters and relations in terms of the

distributions of agency and authority in those specific instances, rather than drawing

any general conclusions about cultures of larping.

Though the subculture was not the object of study during my research, I participated

‘completely’ in larp culture. However, this participation was my ‘naturally occurring

life’, and was not primarily a research activity. Ethnographers, while they embed

themselves in the cultures they study, behave as researchers, maintaining a critical

distance. I was not a researcher immersed in larp culture but rather a larper

researching their own experiences in larping. There is an important distinction

between being ‘immersed’ or ‘embedded’ in the context vs. being part of the context.

Both immersion and embeddedness imply a fundamental separation of the

researcher from the research context, that the researcher is of a different ‘substance’

from what they are immersed or embedded in. John Schouten and James

McAlexander describe their involvement in the Harley Davidson owners’ subculture

as ‘immersed’ and even describe themselves as ‘insiders’, yet they nevertheless

61
describe their position as researchers in terms of ‘“passing” as bikers and making a

conscious effort to maintain scholarly distance’ (1995, p. 44). ‘Being part of’ on the

other hand implies methektic participation rather than the separation implied by

immersion and embeddedness. Because the research in autoethnography arises out

of the researcher’s naturally occurring life, there is no ‘over involvement’, where the

researcher affects the outcomes of the research, as there might be in other kinds of

ethnographic study. Studying from within larp culture, I approach this thesis as an

insider, describing myself and identifying as a larper and a part of the larp subculture

and some of its communities. It was important to be part of the context as the politics

of my participation with others changes if I approach the practice as a disinterested

researcher.

In practice-autoethnography, it is necessary to commit completely to the practice and

not to maintain a ‘scholarly distance’. Practice-autoethnography views artistic

creativity in larping in a similar way to theatrical production in Gay McAuley’s

rehearsal-ethnography ‘as a site of complex interpersonal relations, […] a crucible

facilitating collective creativity’ (McAuley 2008, p. 286), but unlike that participant-

observer method McAuley uses, it comes from the perspective of the practitioner

themselves. Whereas for an ethnographer as participant-observer, the individuals

involved in the culture and their practices are the objects of study, in practice-

autoethnography it is the experience itself which is the object of study. This

necessitates a collapse of the research perspective into the practice perspective.

However, as a form of ethnographic research there is a need to draw on other

scholarly research in analysis of the experiences. Achieving these two outcomes has

required two phases in the research: the practice (experience) unencumbered by

any scholarly perspective; followed by the scholarly analysis of the practice

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(experience) in light of other scholarship from the field. Practice-autoethnography,

like most ethnographic study, is necessarily inductive, since the aim is to seek out

what is interesting from the practice rather than entering the practice with a testable

hypothesis.

Practice-autoethnography differs from other kinds of autoethnography in that it is

strictly focused on experiences within a narrow practice. Autoethnography is usually

concerned with prior life experiences, and it is not usual to engage in a practice with

the express intention of undertaking an autoethnographic study. It is more common

for the autoethnographic researcher to reflect back on prior experiences, combining

autobiographical accounts alongside or imbricated with scholarly research. In this

thesis I focus strictly on those experiences had during my larping, in my preparation

for participating in larping, or, in the case of Chapter 5, as a direct result of my

having larped previously. I do not reflect on prior autobiographical details beyond

their being positively prehended in the concrescence of my experiences of larping.

Practice-autoethnography builds on some autoethnographic trends in both larp and

performance studies. Jonaya Kemper developed her 2018 Master’s thesis around

using visual autoethnography for personal transformation and emancipation through

larping. She points out that in larping communities there is already a strong tradition

of players writing or otherwise recording their characters’ narratives (Kemper 2018,

p. 67). This is usually not imbricated with scholarly discourse, but in instances where

it is, this might constitute autoethnography. The use of personal experience in the

analysis of performance has also developed in recent decades, particularly in

criticism of immersive, interactive and ‘one-on-one’ performance. Adam Alston

(2016a; 2016b), Deirdre Heddon and Adrien Howells (2011), Patrick Duggan (2012),

63
and Sophie Nield (2008) have all foregrounded their own experiences in their

scholarship on these kinds of works, with Alston affirming that he considers his

approach to be autoethnographic (2016a, pp. 25-7). While certainly in a similar vein,

these critical works are written from the perspective of audience experience and

focus on interpretation of the theatrical work rather than investigating the scholars’

own practices. Practice-autoethnography is part of these trends, but develops them

significantly in terms of focus and application.

Superficially, there is some similarity between what I propose for practice-

autoethnography and PaR as proposed by Robin Nelson (2006; 2013). In this

project, as in PaR, I have used periods of practice followed by reflection on that

practice. In many artistic PaR projects the aim is to develop new strategies or

outcomes within the practice, as well as present those developments through the

practice. The research questions are addressed by the practice. The practice itself is

the site of innovation and exposition of discovery; that is not what I was aiming to

effect with this project. I was not attempting to larp differently, or to develop the

practice of larping. In this project, the research questions have not been addressed

in the practice but only in its subsequent analysis. I am not even analysing the

practice as such. Rather I am investigating the experience of power, authority and

agency in the practice, the relationships which arise between myself and others in

the practice. This is what makes it (practice-)autoethnography, certainly a species of

practice-research, and not Practice-as-Research as proposed by Nelson.

In summary, I propose practice-autoethnography as useful for researching a practice

which is part of the researcher’s everyday life. It is distinguished from other

autoethnographic practices in that the researcher enters into the practice with the

64
explicit intention of using their experiences as research. However, they should not

enter with a research hypothesis, but rather should discover what experiences are

interesting through the process of practising. The research aim should not be to

innovate within the practice but rather to analyse the experiences of practising. The

following subsections detail the main autoethnographic methods I used, viz.

fieldwork/practice, relarping-the-larp, and reflexive reflection. They point up the main

differences between how autoethnography has traditionally been practiced and used,

and my proposed new method of practice-autoethnography.

Fieldwork/practice

As with all ethnographic work, the main method for this project was involvement in

and engagement with the field of study. In this case, that meant playing in larps. All

of the larps which form part of this research were designed and organized by others.

I participated on the same terms as, and as a peer to the other players. While I have

designed and organized other larps during the period of this PhD research, I had no

hand in organizing or designing any of the case studies forming this research.

I selected larps based on the potential for their form or content to provide robust data

aligned with the research aims, as well as their dissimilarity from each other with the

hope of engaging in a broad range of experiences. There are no larps which are

representative of design, production, or play practices ‘in general’ as these aspects

vary widely across the field. My aim was therefore to engage with different kinds of

design and production, and to play with a broad range of co-players. Selection

criteria were based on the research questions. For instance, I selected College of

Wizardry for its extremely open sandbox design. The fact that the larp had little to no

content provided by the designers and organizers, instead leaving players to

65
generate content within the structures of a school setting and timetable, meant that it

was a prime site for investigating the dynamics of power and authority at play

between collaborators in a free story-making process.

I replayed two of larps used as case studies in the thesis. I replayed College of

Wizardry due to a disagreement between some groups of players during the first run

I played in, and my ethical responsibility as a researcher and a fellow larper to

preserve the dignity and standing of my collaborators. The nature of the

disagreement was interesting and relevant to the research as it regarded how

players participated together and related to each other. However, it would have been

unfair to single out and rake over the contentious actions of particular players, not to

mention unethical since I did not have their consent to write about it. This incident did

inform the focus of my play and analysis during the second run, which is included as

a case study in Chapter 3. I replayed Inside Hamlet due to a shift in focus of the

research aims. In the first run in which I played, I took the role of Laertes, which

involved performing some scenes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to other players. This

was of interest when one of the research aims was to investigate the relationship

between larping and performance/theatricality. As this research interest receded it

became less relevant. However, from playing in that run I became aware of the

possibility to play on themes of oppression and physical and psychological torture. I

recognized the relevance of this kind of content to my investigation of larping the

experiences of others.

I played other larps as part of this research which have not become case studies.

This was usually due to replication of findings or shifts in focus of the research aims.

I have chosen to focus on singular instances of larping in particular case studies

66
since it allows me to mine deeply into those experiences, rather than taking a more

encompassing but superficial approach. During the research period I have also

played other larps which have not formed part of this research, but which have

undoubtedly played a part in shaping my understanding of the research. This is to be

expected in an autoethnographic study, since larping forms part of my ‘naturally

occurring life’ and cannot be neatly compartmentalized as research.

It was important to approach the practice as a larper doing research rather than as a

researcher practising larping because the observations/data needed to arise from

naturally occurring experiences. There was a danger in the alternative approach that

the experiences I had would become constructs of analysis of the larp. Being

partially engaged and partially disengaged, whether at different moments or having a

split focus in a single moment, would have fundamentally changed the practice and

my experience of it. It was important to engage in the practice just as a player, rather

than as a player-researcher. I therefore needed to separate my behaviours as a

larper from those as a researcher, that is separate practice activities from research

activities. This points up an interesting issue with this kind of autoethnography, viz. to

what extent does my role as researcher affect my experiences? This is analogous to

the classic ethnographic problem of the extent to which the researcher’s presence

affects the field they are studying. The separation of activities was intended to

mitigate this issue: an attempt at approaching the practice as it was intended to be

experienced. To this end, during the runtime of each larp I engaged only in activities

that were naturally occurring as part of the larp. This ensured that the experiences of

play and story-making were not affected or steered by analysis interspersed between

periods of play. I therefore did not make field notes during play, instead, making

detailed notes as soon as possible following the end of play. This meant I was able
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to engage fully as a player for the entire runtime of each larp, while not excessively

compromising the integrity of observations and impressions.

The contents of the notes made following play included: an outline of the narrative I

experienced in character, from my character’s perspective; observations relating to

how the design and metatechniques enabled and encouraged my participation in the

larp; details of any constraints imposed on me as a player; and detailed descriptions

of any scenes or occasions of experience which were of particular interest in relation

to the research questions. These notes were complemented by a plethora of

questions for further reflection and analysis.

Fieldwork ethics

Before attending any of the larps included here as case-studies, I completed the

online ethics self-assessment provided by the university. The outcome of that self-

assessment indicated that there was no need for an ethics review. The main reasons

for this indication are: that I did not organise or define the larps used in the research;

and that I have not harvested and am not keeping or analysing the data of other

participants.

All of the larps included in the research were defined and organised by others. I

entered into them as a player, similarly to an audience member in a participatory or

interactive performance, for instance. From an ethics perspective, there is little

difference between my practice-autoethnography and the research practices of other

scholars, including Alston and White, in their work on immersive and participatory

theatre. While organisers of the larps I attended as part of the research were aware

of my dual status as a player and a researcher, it was not necessary for all the

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players to be aware since I was engaging in the larps as a player and only

subsequently using my own experiences as research material. When writing about

sensitive encounters with other players, particularly the account of the torture scene

from Inside Hamlet given in Chapter 4, I sought permission to write about these from

the individual players I participated with.

An important point is that I am focusing on my own experiences of larping, rather

than harvesting the data and experiences of other participants. While other players

necessarily figure in the research through my playing with and alongside them, I am

not handling participant data other than that drawn from a publicly available setting,

at events which I did not organise myself, and which I attended as a participant along

with fellow participants. I have not harvested, kept or analysed data drawn from other

participants, and any accounts of encounters with other players have been

anonymised.

Relarping-the-larp

The practice of relarping-the-larp is a means of recording and distilling the

experience of playing a larp. It is the practice of reentering the character after the

larp has ended and retelling the narrative of the larp from their perspective. It is a

practice of both autobiography and creative writing, since the events have actually

been experienced by the character (and the player), but those events, the setting

and the character itself are all fictive. It is not notes about the experiences of playing

the larp or the character, but the story told from the perspective of the character as if

it were ‘real’. This technique is important as a bridge between the practice of larping

and the reflective and analytic work of studying the experiences coming out of the

practice.
69
Relarping-the-larp helps to make sense of the experiences and the narrative which

arose from larping, and focuses what was important for the character. It allows the

researcher to reexperience the larp as the character rather than from the perspective

of the player or scholar. This means that the recording of the narrative is close to the

experience of larping rather than being related from a distanced standpoint.

Relarping-the-larp is in itself an act of larping, playing the character writing (or

otherwise recording) their own autobiography. This frames the lived experiences of

larping in the context of the fiction and act of story-making. This framing is important

since it allows the narrative and the experience of larping to reveal their own

structures and points of interest without the need for an analytic mode. The

narratives and experience bespeak their own relevance to the research and

demands for analysis.

Relarping-the larp offers the opportunity to reveal/relive how the narrative became

through the processes of larping and in relation to others. Though producing the

record in character as autobiography, player consciousness still operates as in any

act of larping. This allows realisations about the larped experiences and the

production of narrative to arise. Some realisations arising from my relarping have

included: what constrained or limited my play or narrative; what (other) possibilities

there might have been for developing my play or narrative; how the distribution of

agency and authority affected the production of the narrative; what data were gifted

for each occasion of experience to become, etc. These realisations relate the artistic

outcomes of the practice to the analysis by suggesting what is relevant and

interesting. It therefore bridges the gulf between participation in practice and

reflective analysis of that practice.

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As an appendix to the thesis, I provide an example of a piece of writing which came

out of relarping my experiences in La Sirena Varada, explored in Chapter 2. I provide

this both to demonstrate an ‘outcome’ of the process of relarping-the-larp and

because it supports the argument around ‘sceneing’ and ‘storying’ which I advance

in that chapter. I do not include such texts for every case study, both because the

thesis is not intended as a PaR work, and because such ‘outcomes’ are not what is

important in relarping-the-larp, but rather the process of relarping itself.

Reflexive reflection

To analyse the political relations arising through my larping practice I use a process

of reflection, specifically of reflexive reflection. Having distinguished my approach

from PaR above, I here want to turn back to it for its useful observations on the

relationship between practice and reflection. Nelson highlights that critical reflection

in PaR allows for the transformation of ‘know-how’ into ‘know-what’ (2013, p. 44).

Similarly, distanced reflection in practice-autethnography can allow the researcher to

transform the bare experience of practicing and narrativising into meaningful

understanding of the practice. In the case of this research, through the process of

reflection I have transformed my experiences of larping practice into understandings

of my political relationships with others in that practice.

Reflexivity looks at the way in which the researcher is figured in their own research,

and how they relate to others (in most ethnographies the research subjects). In

traditional ethnographic study, the notion of reflexivity addresses a ‘problem’ of

objectivity/subjectivity in the empirical study; that is the researcher’s positioning of

themselves in the study and the way in which their presence affects the ethnographic

field. In autoethnography, though, reflexivity is less an acknowledgement of a

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‘problem’ (scientific objectivity not being the aim of such studies) and more an active,

positive method. Since in autoethnography the object of study is one’s own

subjective experience, part of what is being studied is the interaction between self

and others. Ellis and Bochner have described reflexivity as ‘reflexively to bend back

on self and look more deeply at self-other interactions’ (2000, p. 740). This kind of

deep investigation of self-other interactions is at the heart of my research in the

present project. Harper has shown that in the social-educational larp projects he has

run, the ‘reflexive criticality’ of participants brings awareness of their own agency in

both play and the wider social sphere (Harper 2020, passim). This awareness of the

political dimensions of play and how it relates to the wider world is precisely aligned

with the aims of this thesis. The researcher’s positionality in, and effects on the

research should be viewed as strengths of the practice-autoethnography method,

and reflexivity as a positive dimension of the process.

Reflexive reflection, then, is a process of reflecting on the practice with particular

focus on the self-other relationships which occurred therein. This process is

therefore perfectly suited to the present research, which investigates dynamics of

agency and authority from the perspective of a playing participant in larping. These

reflections are executed in the thesis as what Clifford Geertz calls ‘thick descriptions’

(1973). These descriptions describe not only what happened, but also furnish

contextual information which helps to establish the meanings of actions and

activities.

Interdisciplinary research

As Nelson has pointed out, critical reflection often necessitates research in other

relevant fields (2013, p. 29). This has been the case for the present project, and I
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have, where necessary, undertaken reading in other disciplines. This has been

particularly relevant in my reflections on representation in chapters 4 and 5 of the

thesis. It was important in these instances to frame my experiences of representing

historical Others in relation to those lives I was representing, with the aim of

understanding the experiences in terms of their ‘grounds’. This approach recognises

that my own larped experiences are not indicative of the experiences of historical

Others; and, in fact, the relationship between my larped experience and the real-life

experiences of historical Others is the very subject of my investigation in these

cases. I have therefore included in these chapters some research into trauma

studies, affect studies, and museum studies in order to make clear any differences or

similarities between my larped experiences and the lived experiences of Others. For

instance, in Chapter 4 I will look at research in trauma, torture and sadomasochism

in order to position my own experiences in relation to these fields and reveal the

politics of power and consent that became in a larped torture scene.

Summary

The theoretical framework used in the analysis of my experiences is based on the

process philosophy of Whitehead, while the main research method has been a novel

extension of autoethnography, which I have termed practice-autoethnography.

These approaches work in conjunction with each other methektically, each

participating in the other. Both prioritise experience and work towards an analysis of

the composition of experience. The philosophy of organism participates in practice-

autoethnography through the processes of concrescence and inheritance. Practice

autoethnography is predicated on the idea that occasions of experience are

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analysable into constituent data, which the notions of concrescence and routes of

inheritance afford. Meanwhile, practice-autoethnography participates in the

philosophy of organism through its focus on the living and re-living of experience,

giving weight to the notion of routes of inheritance. These two aspects of the

research work harmoniously together to give a strong foundation to the study.

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 Chapter 2

What Is Larping? Roles, Functions and Radical

Togetherness in La Sirena Varada

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate what various stakeholders give to the

methektic processes of larping, and how what is given and the manner in which it is

given result in a particular distribution of power, agency and authority in the

generation of experiences and narratives. I take ‘power’ to be a broad term,

indicating the ability to maintain conformity or effect changes within the larp.

Meanwhile, ‘agency’ and ‘authority’ are different kinds of power, with agency as

freedom of action, or freedom to do what one chooses in the larp, and authority as

vested power which bestows control over the (individual and collective) narratives of

the larp. This demonstration will lead to a view on what larping is from the

perspective of the player, or from the perspective of a particular player, myself. This

marks a move away from the dominant strands of research in larp studies: that of the

design of larps5; and that of the relationship between larp and society, history,

5
See, for example, Do Larp (Andresen et al. 2011), Larp Realia (Särkijärvi, Loponen & Kangas 2016)

and Larp Design (Koljonen et al. 2019).

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culture and the self6. This chapter turns away from what affordances are offered by

designers and organisers, away too from the wider ‘meanings’ of larping and the

stories it creates, focusing instead on how players play together in the live moment

of larping. The purpose of autoethnographic accounts in larp studies has usually

been to relate larped experience to other personal experiences and to wider social

and cultural concerns. As I have explained, the purpose of my practice-

autoethnography in this thesis is to theorise about the practice of larping itself. The

turn towards theorising play gained some traction in the Solmukhota companion

book titled What do we do when we play? (Saitta, Särkijärvi and Koljonen 2020).

This chapter in particular builds on the work I published in that volume (Osmond

2020).

The chapter is a case study of a larping experience which engendered a particular

mode of playing and story-making together. Through this I aim to demonstrate a

particular political potential of larping. This way of playing together I have termed

‘radical togetherness’. Throughout the chapter I will show that the processes of

larping consist of the togetherness of diverse elements, and their participation in and

with each other. By insisting that this togetherness is ‘radical’, I am asserting that

togetherness is fundamental to the processes of larping, and that larping cannot

‘become’ without it. This follows a similar line of argument to Marjukka Lampo’s

notion of ‘larp ecology’ (2016), but whereas she considers the individual player in

relation to their environment, I conceive of the players and environment as a

collective, methektic entity. While the chapter sets out a form of radical togetherness,

6
See, for example, The Book of KAPO (Raasted 2012), The Book of Just a Little Lovin’ (Gronemann

& Raasted 2013) and Larp Politics (Kangas, Loponen & Särkijärvi 2016).

76
a way of playing and making stories together, to which not all larping conforms, I

argue that all larping becomes through togetherness, with the mode presented here

a particular form in which individual participants are given the highest degree of

authority and agency within the larp, while still functioning as part of the larp with

other players. I will argue that the balance of freedom (in the form of individual

authority and agency) and constraint (in playing together with others) emerges from

an ethics of responsibility which is vital to the functioning of larping.

Asserting that togetherness is fundamental to the becoming of larping is not to say

that togetherness is the essence of larping; togetherness is not a quality which gives

larping its identity. Nor, indeed, is larping a substance which might be impressed by

any essence. Larping happens as occasions, in the Whiteheadian sense: it must be

conceptualized as process. An occasion (or ‘actual entity’), in Whitehead’s

metaphysics, is a process of ‘concrescence’ or coming together in experience, which

constitutes the basic atomic becoming of the actual. Whitehead denies the notions of

essences and underlying substance, what he names the ‘subject-predicate forms of

thought’ (1978, p. 7). He supplants the notion of the subject of experience as a pre-

existing ‘substance’ with the notion of the subject-superject. The superject is the

occasion as the togetherness of diverse objects. The occasion is constituted by

these objects and has no prior existence without them. The occasion of experiencing

these objects is what makes the superject. The subject is this same occasion as an

individual, experiencing the same objects and enjoying its own becoming. Therefore,

the subject-superject is the occasion as constituted by the objects of its own

experience. There is no underlying substance, since the objects are themselves prior

processes of mere experiencing. The process of experiencing the togetherness of

objects is the fundamental basis of actuality. What this means in the context of this
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chapter is that togetherness should not be construed as something which shapes

experiences but rather as the experience in and of itself. Also, the ways in which

stakeholders in larping exercise power, authority and agency is not through acts of

bringing or forcing together but through what they give to and how they experience

methektic processes of togetherness.

To explain how larping becomes from moment to moment through radical

togetherness, I introduce two complementary processes that I argue are involved in

and are fundamental to collective story-making in larping. I have termed these

processes ‘sceneing’, the practice of participating methektically in scenes with other

players, and ‘storying’, the practice of experiencing what is given through sceneing

as well as other routes, and constructing a personal narrative from it. The notions of

sceneing and storying are underpinned by Whitehead’s ideas of concrescence and

routes of inheritance. As I will demonstrate later, for these processes to function

together optimally and give players the highest degrees of power, authority and

agency in their play, participants must subscribe to an ethics of responsibility.

To exemplify my vision of radical togetherness I will use my experiences of playing

La Sirena Varada (2017), a Spanish larp inspired by Alejandro Casona’s 1934 play

of the same name, designed by José Zuell and Juan Del Desierto under the

auspices of the larp organisation Somnia. The larp was played continuously over 52

hours at the Cuevas al-Jatib near Baja in southern Spain. The larp was set in a

modern-day commune, ‘the Republic of the Free’, the characters a motley group of

people – some rich heirs and heiresses, some jaded professionals, some

psychologically broken runaways – who wanted to live away from the rat-race of the

‘real’ world: and all of them had good reason to. In the larp, we, as players, lived out

78
the languid daily lives of our characters, as well as played out the personal and

communal dramas they involved themselves with. In the context of the Republic,

where people believed themselves possessed of magical powers, avatars of divine

beings, or haunted by the spirits of their dead children, these dramas were more

than everyday, with rituals, baptisms, séances and regressions occurring frequently.

La Sirena was my first experience of a weekend-length larp, and I was impressed by

how fluidly and easily I and other players were able to generate cogent narratives for

ourselves without the guidance of an external authority. This raised questions for me

about how scenes came about, how individuals with their own perspectives and

objectives could come together and produce and resolve (or not) dramatic tensions.

And moreover, how each player could take, from their own perspective, the actions

and events of these scenes and integrate them into their own developing story, one

which was highly individualistic yet enmeshed with all the other developing stories.

These questions relate to the main research questions of (1) how my experiences,

characters and narratives are constituted and composed in larping; and (3) what

relations of power are being exercised in acts of participating.

By selecting La Sirena as a case study for this chapter I am not suggesting that this

larp entirely conforms to the parameters of the model developed in this chapter, nor

that all the participants in the larp experienced it in the way I set out here. I am

asserting that my experience of playing the larp conformed very closely to the model,

and that there were particular features of the design which facilitated my

experiencing of it in this way. La Sirena is one of the larps I have played in which I

have felt most empowered as a player to determine my character’s plot, and in which

this plot emerged spontaneously from interactions with other players rather than from

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predesigned ideas in the character sheet. I am not suggesting that this is the ‘best’

way or the ‘right’ way to design, run or play larps. The purpose of this chapter is to

give a theoretical basis from which to analyse the politics of playing together, rather

than necessarily advocate for a particular style. This basis, what I have termed

radical togetherness, is related to what Jonaya Kemper (2019) has called ‘larp

anarchy’, which is premised on the ideal of the equal agency of participants in

larping. As its name suggests, larp anarchy denies the centralized authority of the

designers and organisers of the larp to determine the experiences, plots and stories

generated within the play-space (or ‘magic circle’) during time-in. While the

designers and organizers might give objects (characters, relationships, props, pre-

planned events) as potentialities for play, what Whitehead might term the ‘data’ of

larping (1978, p. 52), it is up to the players (as a group and as individuals) what they

do with these data in play. Radical togetherness relates to larp anarchy in that – in

sceneing and storying – power, agency and authority are distributed among the

players who are larping rather than being held by designers and organisers. While

Kemper asks players to take control of their experiences and narratives, radical

togetherness shows that the players are already possessed of this power and it is

only a question of them recognising this.

The scope of this chapter is the politics of participation in larping. That is to say, it is

concerned only with the relations within the processes of larping as story-making,

and not with the ways in which larping relates to things beyond the bounds of its own

‘magic circle’. Having said this, the players, designers and organizers of any larp are

also denizens of the world, and will bring many prior experiences to bear in their

playing through Whiteheadian ‘routes of inheritance’ (1978, p. 180). However, for the

sake of this chapter, it will largely be assumed that the effects of these routes of
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inheritance can be diminished to the point of being unimportant in the scheme of the

playing of a scene, or treated as an element of story-making which participates in

processes of sceneing and storying along with other elements of experience. The

routes of inheritance which contributed themselves as elements of my own story-

making in La Sirena will be dealt with in this chapter during my discussion of the

process of storying. The ways in which larping engages with or represents the world

in which it is embedded will be explored in relation to real-world player relationships

in Chapter 3; in relation to representations of extreme experiences in Chapter 4; and

in relation to representations of historical Others in Chapter 5.

I will begin by charting the existing literature on playing together before moving on to

describe the functions and powers of the various groups of stakeholders in larping. I

will then give a detailed explanation of the processes of sceneing and storying while

using these concepts to analyse my experiences of playing La Sirena Varada in

depth. I will finish the chapter by making a case for an ethics of responsibility, which I

argue is strongly implied by the concepts of sceneing and storying.

Literature on playing together

In larp studies, when considering acts of playing, there has been intense focus on

individual player preferences in terms of styles or modes of playing. Many of the

observations and arguments in this area have been based on the Gamist-Narrativist-

Simulationist (GNS) (see Introduction). These models, emerging from the

Knutepunkt conventions and their companion publications, are intended as a design

tools, for gearing design choices towards specific modes of play, rather than as a

framework for analysing play, though they are based on observations about play-

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styles in RPGs. Inevitably, such preferences affect what players give to scenes and

the stories which emerge from them. However, such preferences are a small

element in the overall process of collective story-making, so are of marginal concern

to this study. These theories do not tell us much about the politics of playing

together, though they will feed into an analysis of what players give to processes of

sceneing.

Most significant to my study are the few in-depth studies of how players play and

create stories together in larping. Kemper’s (2019) notion of ‘larp anarchy’ is central

to my thinking throughout this chapter, and I will outline and refine my own

interpretation of this term. The importance of larp anarchy for Kemper is the

individual experience: if you are not having a good time as a player, take control of

your own experience instead of deferring to authority. She also emphasises the need

for cooperation in this. For me, radical togetherness is a way of conceiving of playing

which focuses on both individual and collective politics, through mutually dependent

processes. I want to suggest that radical togetherness, or larp anarchy, has both a

collective and an individualist dimension. Lampo’s (2016) consideration of larping as

an ecology of performance is the only extant, peer-reviewed theory of players

producing scenes through their togetherness in larping. As such, it is an important

touchstone for this chapter and will be analysed and used in the discussion of both

storying and sceneing. Evan Torner’s (2022) theorization of affordances and

constraints is relevant to my concept of sceneing, as well as in the next chapter to

the discussion of dramaturgy. Markus Montola’s (2003) observations on the

individual construction of stories, Gustav Nilsson’s (2012) theorization of character

as always co-created, and Eirik Fatland’s (2006) notion of interaction codes will be

pertinent to the discussion of the process of storying. The concept of playing to lift,
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as accounted for by Susanne Vejdemo, (2018) will be drawn on in the discussion of

responsibility.

There is sociological literature on larping and role-playing communities, examining

these activities as foci of subcultures, often using frame analysis (e.g., Fine 2002). In

these studies, players are inevitably considered the object of study, while the

characters they play and the stories they make are considered secondary, as

catalysts for or products of social interactions between the players. While not

denying that social structures affect playing, I aim in this chapter to examine instead

the particular distributions of power in acts of larping. Useful research on control and

power in RPGs has been done by Montola (2008), Jessica Hammer (2007), Mikael

Hellstrom (2013) and Hammer, et al. (2018). Montola’s categorization of methods of

exerting power again employs frame analysis: power within diegetic, game, and

extra-game frames respectively. While interesting, I am seeking here to find an

alternative to this kind of frame analysis which has become somewhat dominant in

RPG studies. My research instead looks to analyse occasions of experience which

will not be assumed to fit neatly into any one of these categories. I thereby hope to

uncover the imbrications and interstices across and between these frames. In this

chapter I make use of Hammer’s terminology but give it different implications: while

her ‘agency’ relates to negotiation between players, mine relates to individual

freedom; where her ‘authority’ relates to dispute resolution, mine relates to the power

to create story. This shift derives partly from the nature of different kinds of research

(Hammer’s an empirical study, mine an autoethnography). I approach these

concepts from the perspective of what I was able to do within the larp. More

importantly, though, my definitions of these terms relate directly to my theorization of

the processes of sceneing and storying.

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Literature from theatre and performance studies tends to focus on the relationship

between audience-participants and the ‘work’ or the professional artists involved in a

performance, rather than participants’ relations to each other. Gareth White (2013)

explores the power dynamics between the audience-participant and the ‘procedural

author’ through the ‘aesthetics of the invitation’. The procedural author is the

designer of the work or their agent, and so has some relevance to the relations

between larp designers and players. Adam Alston (2016a) discusses immersive

performance in terms of the neoliberal economy and from the perspective of an

immersed participant. Josephine Machon (2013, p. 122), citing Nicholas Bourriaud’s

relational aesthetics, touches on the general ‘conviviality’ and shared experiences of

audiences in immersive theatre, but this stops short of any analysis of specific

relations between individual participants. While explicitly concerned with the politics

of participation in artwork, with the exception of White these scholars do not directly

address the political relations which exist between participants, interested as they

are in the theatrical relationship between the ‘artwork’ and its ‘audience’. White, in

his article on Coney’s Early Days (of a better nation) thinks about the meaning of

being and participating with others (2016). However, the theatrical context and

personal perspective from which he writes – he is embarrassed by the expectation to

roleplay, and by his fellow participants’ commitment to roleplaying – is not helpful to

my analysis of larping, where roleplaying is the purpose of participating.

Art critic and curator Bourriaud has influentially described relational art as ‘an art

taking as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social

context, rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space’

(2002, p. 14, italics in original). This chapter challenges Bourriaud’s opposition of

public and private symbolic spaces, arguing that the relational art of larping requires
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both public and private symbolic spaces. It is about interaction and social context in

sceneing, but also about the independent symbolic process of storying.

Jen Harvie describes ‘delegated’ practice in Fair Play (2013). Delegated art and

performance practice is where participants are given defined roles in an extant

performance piece or artwork. These roles normally come with narrow expectations,

and Harvie notes that ‘though this work appears to delegate to and empower its

audiences, it may effectively preserve the elitism of the star artist or company whose

(brand) name usually retains authorship of […] artwork’ (Harvie 2013, p. 42). She

also argues that ‘the engagements it offers are actually very limited, even illusionary.

Its egalitarianism is compromised by its tendency to retain authorial status for the

producing company or ‘real’ artist’ (Harvie 2013, p. 50). As I will show, the

distribution of authority in larping is radically different from this view of distributed

practice since it bestows agency and authority on the players. Designers and

organisers do not retain authorial status but bestow it on the participants.

Stakeholders in larping

In order to understand the distribution of power, authority and agency in larping, the

first things to define are the individuals and groups who hold political stakes in

larping. It will then be possible to examine the authority, power and agency held by

each of these stakeholders in the production of scenes and stories in La Sirena

Varada. In doing this I will demonstrate the centrality of players to the process of

story-making in larping, and validate the rationale for the strategy of focusing on the

politics of players playing together which this thesis addresses. The main groups of

stakeholders which are significant to the playing of the larp are the designers, the

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organizers, and the players. (Stakeholders whose lives are represented in larping will

come into the frame in chapters 4 and 5.) While the roles of designer and organizer

might be taken on by the same people, as was the case with La Sirena, the functions

they have in each of these roles are distinct, and it is not necessary for these roles to

be held by the same individuals. Therefore, I will consider them as distinct, if

overlapping, functions.

The key functions of larp designers are to give structure to the larp and define

opportunities for play and story-making. There are a variety of tools that designers

might use to develop these structures and opportunities, including: defining events

that happen during the larp (either plot-events or rituals); developing backstory and

relationships for characters, groups and the ‘world’ of the larp; designing

metatechniques to represent things which should not be played for real (e.g.,

violence, sex, death); defining the use of space or defining spaces that should be

present in the larp; defining how time is represented including act breaks, time

elapsed between acts and the flow of time (e.g., one day of real time represents a

week in the life of the characters); defining the genre of the larp (historical, dramatic,

science fiction, horror, fantasy, etc.); and defining the social structures, ontology and

physics of the world, such as the existence or not of things like magic, the status of

each character in relation to the others and the wider world of the larp, etc. These

parameters and structures for playing are given to players and organizers usually in

the form of documents such as character sheets, design documents and volumes of

lore.

The functions of the organizers are mainly practical and might include finding the

venue for playing, setting the dates and times for the larp to take place, organizing

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catering and accommodation, preparing players for play through pre-larp workshops,

setting standards for and monitoring the safety of players, and producing

opportunities for play through deployment of plot events and non-player characters

(NPCs).

The functions of the players are to use the resources (or affordances) given by the

designers and organizers and to play with them (Lampo 2016; Torner 2022).

Through this playing, the players can generate stories together. While plots,

backstories, techniques and lore may be given by the designers, it is not until the

players use or interact with these things in their play that they become part of the

process of larping, and therefore of this particular kind of story-making.

What can be seen from the functions of the different stakeholders’ roles is that

players are the principal story-makers in the process of larping. While the designers

give structure and opportunity to the process, and organizers provide the physical

means of creating scenes and stories together, it is the players who actually produce

the scenes and stories. Larping, then, is not (or should not be) a ‘designed’

experience in the mould of an amusement park ride such as a house of horrors. The

designed elements in larping only give the potential for kinds of experience without

determining precisely how these elements will be used or what their outcomes will

be. While in some larps, prewritten story is there to be ‘discovered’ by the characters

(and the players alike), there is not a specific way (a ‘correct’ way) in which the

players must or should respond to unfolding plot. While the same may be true of

audiences in theatre and cinema, as in the case of the ‘emancipated spectator’

(Rancière 2011), the fact that the players in larping are playing the characters means

that they have the power to alter the course of events: the agency to choose how the

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characters will act and the authority to shape the plots and narratives which come

out of these events and actions.

La Sirena Varada: The Pyramid, the Vortex and the Globe

The story which resulted for my character, Pyramid, from playing this larp is given a

full account in Appendix A (as a relarped larp): The Pyramid, the Vortex and the

Globe. I will summarize it here for the sake of referencing throughout the chapter.

The setting for La Sirena Varada was a resort comprised of a series of caves carved

out of hills in the desert of Granada province in southern Spain. It was hot and dusty,

the on-site swimming pool giving welcome relief from the blistering sun. The on-site

hammam (Turkish bath) was used as a play-space where characters could undergo

transformations. In the fiction of the larp, the resort was home to the ‘Republic of the

Free’, a group of people who eschewed social conventions in order to indulge their

desires and delusions or to escape their past.

I played the character Pyramid, who started the larp as an ‘anchor’ with strong links

to the world outside the Republic and aiming to either ground what he viewed as the

crazed members of the community or otherwise to monetize the ‘venture’. However,

his outlook soon changed after he unintentionally harmed Moon, one of the people

he was committed to helping. Pyramid re-evaluated his position and after spending

some time in the transformational waters of the hammam he realized that his ‘truth’,

which tethered him to the ‘real’ world, was just one of a multitude of truths belonging

to the members of the Republic. He had a vision of himself as an ever-moving

whirlwind of these truths and took on the new objective of understanding the

community by collecting the personal truth of each of its members. Having adopted
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this objective he renamed himself Vortex. In the course of collecting these truths, he

discovered that one member of the Republic, Gaze, intended to destroy the

community by photographing and exposing the ‘façade’ of delusions that he saw as

constituting it. Having collected all the truths, Vortex was renamed once more, this

time through being baptized as Globe in a ceremony. Globe finally confronted Gaze

as the latter was setting up his exhibition that would expose the façade of the

Republic. In the tense standoff, Globe pulled out a gun which he had stolen earlier,

and shot and killed Gaze as the latter’s lover, Mistress, held his body and wept.

Globe finished the larp dancing with Heart, the woman he had followed to the

Republic initially.

Authority, power and agency of stakeholders in La Sirena Varada

I will now outline the degree of authority, power and agency each of the three

stakeholder roles identified above entails, specifically with reference to my own

experiences of playing La Sirena. By doing so I will demonstrate what it means to

have authority over narrative in larping, and describe how free actions have the

power to effect changes in scenes.

Players

As a player in La Sirena, I had the agency to choose my character’s actions, the

power for those actions to effect change in scenes, and authority over my own

character’s narrative. I had complete freedom over my actions and the directions in

which I wanted to take plot threads. In Lampo’s terms, I was free to ‘make choices

on which possibilities to carry out’ (2016, p. 41). For instance, the plot where I

collected other characters’ truths was unplanned and not written into the character
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sheet given to me by the designers. The seed for this activity was sown early during

play, and it grew as an organic, emergent progression from choices I made as the

character. The choices I made were reasonable for my character, Pyramid, based on

the objectives I had decided to pursue. One of his chief motivations was to help

those he perceived as in need or lost, so this steered the choice of actions I made

out of all the possible actions the character could have taken. When Pyramid

recognized that his actions and words, resulting from his narrow, materialistic view of

the world, had harmed rather than helped those he wanted to support, he took stock

of his whole attitude. This taking stock was a free action in itself. Other possibilities

for action included continuing bloody-mindedly with the character’s existing attitude

and coming into further conflict with other characters because of it. This would also

have been a valid play choice and in accordance with the written character sheet. A

whole series of other unscripted, free choices led to the point where the character

decided to ‘collect’ the other members of the community and become keeper of their

truths. This activity of collecting truths also had the power to effect change more

widely in the larp, most notably in the encounter with the character Gaze. Up to the

point where Gaze agreed to share his truth, Pyramid and Gaze had interacted only

peripherally and we were not involved in each other’s plots. However, my free action

of collecting truths and the player of Gaze’s free action to share his character’s truth

in detail changed that significantly. After admitting that he wanted to harm the

community, Gaze became an antagonist to Pyramid. We became entangled in each

other’s play and plots to the extent that Gaze would eventually be killed by Pyramid

(by that point reborn as ‘Globe’). Identifying Gaze as Pyramid’s enemy was possible

because I, as player, was free to incorporate the new discoveries about Gaze into

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my character’s personal narrative. In other words, I had complete authority over the

development of my character in this moment, and throughout the duration of play.

Therefore, I argue that the principal story-makers in La Sirena were the players. The

designers and organizers supported and provided opportunity for this story-making.

We, the players, had the authority to create stories together through co-participation

in scenes. We had the power to alter the course of our own and others’ plots and the

agency to determine outcomes and narratives, in collaboration, negotiation or conflict

with our fellow players. As I will demonstrate later in this chapter, this co-authorship

of stories is made possible by the radical togetherness of players in processes of

‘sceneing’, which implies that power and agency are not distributed to individuals

who are interacting, but to the players as participants in a singular (but not

homogeneous) corpus.

Contrary to this view of players having ultimate power, agency and authority, Henri

Hakkarainen and Jaakko Stenros (2003) have asserted that the combined function of

designer and organizer, commonly termed the ‘gamemaster’ or ‘GM’, has absolute

power and authority. In this view, any power held by the players is bestowed on them

by the GM. They claim that the GM ‘has to surrender part of that power either

implicitly or explicitly to the player in order for meaningful interaction to be possible’,

while at the same time retaining ultimate authority since ‘nothing is true […] unless

the gamemaster approves it’ (Hakkarainen & Stenros 2003, p. 56). This view of the

GM as having supreme authority over the larp does not chime well with the notion of

larp anarchy (indeed, the title of Kemper’s presentation, ‘No Plot. No (Game)

Masters’ (2019), alludes to this authority which she seeks to dismantle). Nor does

this view concord with the structures apparent in La Sirena. I contend that the degree

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of power and authority I experienced in La Sirena was not peculiar to this one larp,

and that players will always have a higher degree than Hakkarainen and Stenros

afford them in their article, in spite of any effort on the part of GMs to retain complete

authority. Indeed, there are few larps in which I have played where I have been

expected to defer to a designer or organizer during time-in.

Hakkarainen’s and Stenros model seeks to define all forms of role-playing ‘game’

under one definition, including TRPGs and larps alike. This view might, then, be a

hangover from TRPG Dungeon Masters (DM) (in, for example, Dungeons and

Dragons (1974)). The DM in these cases defines physical facts about the fictional

world through storytelling because the objects of sensation are not there to be

sensed. As Montola (2003) points out, in TRPGs the objects are produced in the

minds of the players through the DM’s descriptions and the imagination of each

player. Fine also assesses the TRPG ‘referee’ as ‘in theory omnipotent’ since they

are the creator of the fictional world and ‘he [sic] maintains ultimate interpretive

authority.’ (2002, p. 72) The authority of the DM in defining what exists in the world

and what is apparent to the characters is crucial for them to be able to inhabit

together the fictional world, or what Fine calls the ‘shared fantasy’ (2002, passim).

However, Montola also points out that things are different in larping: the physical

world is there in front of the players, the players can sense what their characters

sense without the need for a narrator. The GM’s authority is therefore less essential

in larping than in TRPG. In competitive forms of larping a GM, or in some U.K. larps

a ‘ref’ (an abbreviation of ‘referee’), may be necessary in the arbitration of the

competitive elements such as combat. There may also be elements of the fictional

world in larping which have not been physically represented (physrepped), so a GM

needs to relate the fictional sensa to the players in the same manner as the DM in
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TRPG. Again, this affords the sharing of the fantasy among the players. In some

larps, runtime GMs (those designers/organizers/volunteers who have some

responsibility for stimulating play or narrative while the larp is timed-in) are there to

support players rather than enforce adherence to the rules of the fictional world. In

any case, as is evidenced by larps like La Sirena, the authority of a GM is far from

necessary for playing or for the production of stories in larping.

I agree with Stenros and Hakkarainen’s assertion insofar as it is necessary for the

fictional world to be defined before play so that story-making can happen within it.

Players play within the physical and conceptual parameters of the larp, or what

Salen and Zimmerman (2004) have termed, after Huizinga (1949), the ‘magic circle’.

The formation of the magic circle is one of the key responsibilities of designers and

organizers. But what happens within the magic circle, and the stories which are

made there, are largely down to the players acting freely and generating their own

plot and narrative.

Indeed, players may even ‘hack’ the larp if they are not enjoying themselves in

activities prescribed for them by the designers in more pre-plotted or railroaded

larps. The concept of hacking here is borrowed from systems and computing, and

indicates instances where players change elements of the rules, system or diegetic

frame of a larp in order to be able to do things with their character that would not be

permitted by the design. Kemper (2019), in her notion of larp anarchy, advocates

hacking in order to enhance a player’s experience, provided it does not impede or

intrude on others’ play. She asserts that no rule or element of the fictional world is so

important that players should have to endure misery. However, hacking holds the

risk of spoiling play for others. When Huizinga discusses the difference between the

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cheat and the spoil-sport in discussion of games (1949, p. 11), he highlights the

importance of committing to the parameters of a game. The cheat is still invested in

the idea of the game but flouts the rules in order to gain the upper hand. What

happens within the magic circle is important to the cheat, otherwise they would not

want to win so badly. The spoil-sport, on the other hand, denies the magic circle and

prevents play from happening. In larping, this could come in the form of refusing to

acknowledge status relationships, calling everyone by their player name instead of

their character name, or refusing to react to staged physical violence upon their

character in the appropriate way. The spoil-sport thus destroys the parameters of the

fictional world by demonstrating the magic circle to be illusory. Players’ commitment

to the shared fictional world is an important aspect of larping if an even distribution of

power and authority is to be achieved. Hacking is one way in which players can

resist the authority of the GM in order to create the experience and story they want,

but it should be considered and executed responsibly.

Perhaps the hegemony of the GM in larping has passed since Hakkarainen and

Stenros wrote their definition, though it may perhaps be that the particular larps I

have played in have trusted in good faith on the part of players. In which case, and in

the case of the provision in Kemper’s endorsement of hacking that it should not

impede others’ play, this trust ultimately relies on the ethics of responsibility which I

will detail at the end of the chapter. For now, I will continue examining the distribution

of power, authority and agency in the present case study.

Designers

Months in advance of the larp, the designers of La Sirena, Zuell and Del Desierto,

provided us, the players, with a design document, and a character sheet each. The
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design document gave us the ‘rules’ we were to play by, that is the metatechniques

we could use to simulate or represent in-fiction acts such as intimacy and violence,

as well as detailing what the fictional world entailed. It included the directive to ‘play

to flow’, an explanation of the ‘fluid time’ mechanic, and a set of ‘community rules’

tenets which the members of the fictional community lived by. Playing to flow

directed players to flow along with events, to get involved, to respond to things

spontaneously, and to use imagination. Fluid time meant that two days of real time

represented a full year in the fictional world. However, there were no formal breaks,

so while I could step from one scene into another within seconds as a player, I could

decide that months had passed for my character. While playing to flow and fluid time

offered creative freedom to the players, the community rules indicated the limits and

restrictions on play. It was through these community rules and the character sheets

that the designers exercised their authority over the stories which were produced

through larping.

The set of eleven community rules directed behaviour in both the fictional community

of the ‘Republic of the Free’ and the player group of the larp. The characters had

agreed to live by the rules in the fiction, but it was also how we had agreed to play

together as players. Here I will give a few examples of how these rules affected play

both in character and as a player. The first rule was: ‘The Republic of the Free

eschews common sense’ (Somnia no date a, no pagination). In character, this meant

that Pyramid had to be careful about how honest he was with his attitudes and with

how he pursued his objectives. The concept of the Republic was a community of

people who followed their every fantasy and delusion fulsomely and with absolute

commitment. As someone who was trying to ground the other characters and talk

‘sense’ into them, this rule went against Pyramid’s beliefs. It also gave other
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characters a reason to form certain attitudes towards him, mostly distrust or pity,

since he did not (or could not) conform to the rules of the community. For me as a

player, this rule set an expectation for there being at least the possibility for

supernatural or other strange events to be real within the fiction. This meant that,

even if in character I might scoff at or naysay practices such as séances, as a player

I needed to leave space for it to possibly be a genuine communion with the dead.

The third rule: ‘Everything declared from our imagination claims existence. […] Do

not deny their presence if desired by others’ (Somnia no date a, no pagination). As a

player this rule includes both an invitation and expectation to create, and a directive

not to deny the reality of other people’s play. This meant that I, as Pyramid, refrained

from attempting to disprove the supernatural dealings of other characters during the

scenes in which they were happening, and instead kept the character’s thoughts for

private conversations with trusted allies. The eleventh rule: ‘We never just leave’

(Somnia no date a, no pagination). This rule required that, if a character chose to

leave the community, either temporarily or permanently, there must be some

ceremony and ritual around this event. This had the effect, both in and out of

character, of creating a strong sense of community. Not only were characters who

went travelling recognized as important members of the Republic, the ritualization of

both celebrating and mourning their leaving brought all the players together and

made the character’s leaving part of every player’s individual narrative. The fact that

these rules were both in-fiction rules of the Republic and out-of-fiction rules of the

larp led to uncertainty during play over the reality of the supernatural in the fictional

world, and whether these characters had actual mystic powers, or were involved in

collective psychosis. This uncertainty was important for the atmosphere of the larp,

lending it a ‘magic realist’ feel. The community rules set out the expectations of the

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designers for characters’ attitudes and behaviour, and allowed the designers to

author the overall tone of the larp. These expectations became realized in play

because we, the players, all subscribed to these rules. Without the rules it is unlikely

that we would have been able to play effectively together as we would all have

different concepts and frameworks for the fictional world.

My character sheet for Pyramid consisted of four sections, using the metaphor of

seafaring as a structure. The ‘Shore’ section outlined where the character had come

from. This was the backstory the designers gave me containing facts about the

character’s life, and his reasons for his becoming part of the ‘Republic of the Free’.

The ‘Ship’ section outlined some objectives for the character, as well as his general

disposition and attitudes, and how he interacts with other members of the

community. The ‘Sea’ section gave an indication of the community’s attitude towards

the character and hints at what Lisa Goldman calls the character’s ‘shadow self,

[their] unconscious need’ (2012, p. 70). Finally, the section ‘Others who flow along’

outlined Pyramid’s relationships and attitudes to other specific characters, some of

which gave firm backstories and others of which gave suggestions for directions of

play. Each of these sections offered particular opportunities or affordances for play,

and for me to develop the character further myself. In total the character sheet was

four A4 pages, so the character design was by no means exhaustive. There was

plenty of room for me to imagine other parts of the character’s history. However, the

Shore section gave me definite concrete facts on which to base my imagining. While

I did not know what would happen during play or what plots I would get drawn into,

this backstory gave me a basis for my actions. Some elements and events in this

backstory would become more important than others, both in my character

development and during play. Pyramid’s relationship with the character of Heart, for
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example, I developed into something of an obsession during my pre-larp

development, and this became a romantic relationship during play. As it was written

in the character sheet, Heart was just ‘the wealthiest of my students’ who ‘spoke

about her project [the Republic of the Free] while having an evening glass’ (Somnia

no date b, no pagination). I decided that Pyramid needed a strong reason to follow

her and remain in the community, since he was ‘not fond of the “Republic”’ (Somnia

no date b, no pagination). I therefore developed the relationship beyond what the

designers had defined. Despite the clear authority of the designers to define

backstory on the character sheet, it was my interpretation of the character that was

realized during the larp. Similarly, while the attitudes and objectives in the Ship

section were useful in getting a flavour of the character and how he might interact

with others, I was free to choose which of these attitudes and objectives were most

important, in order to make sense of the character and his motivations for myself. In

fact, from the very outset the playing of the larp significantly changed the objectives I

had intended for my character to pursue. In my character development before the

larp I had built Pyramid’s attitude based strongly on this sentence from the character

sheet: ‘This is a cosy and sunny location that could be easily monetized and turned

into something productive’ (Somnia no date b, no pagination). However, the first

scene I played during the pre-larp workshops with the player of Moon radically

shifted Pyramid’s attitude and objective towards wanting to help and lift the mood of

other characters. His failure to help Moon made him reassess his actions and set

him on a very different path. Although the inspiration for these plot twists and

character developments came from the character sheet, it was chiefly my

interpretation of the text which became realized in play.

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As can be seen from this discussion of La Sirena, designers certainly have a degree

of authority (and authorship) in the process of larping through the resources they

give to the players. However, they have very little power or agency to intervene in

the story-making process during the playing of the larp, which in turn diminishes the

degree of authority they are able to wield over the story-world. Designers will often

detail the backstory of the characters as well as prewritten relationships with other

characters on character sheets, thus partially authoring the characters. Designers

also define what is allowable within the world of the larp through their authoring of

lore and metatechniques. However, all these things are only intended as stimuli for

story-making through playing together, rather than prescribed script in the mode of

playwright, director and actors in theatre and other media. While backstory may be

story in and of itself, it is not presented as a finished product but rather offers

directions in which to set the characters running. What the designers provide are the

‘givens’, what Whitehead terms the data, of larping. These data are the already

determined gifts from which the players are able to create novel scenes and stories.

These gifts do not predetermine the final form of any scene or story, but are

potentialities from which the ‘creative advance into novelty’ (Whitehead 1978, p. 28)

derives its materials.

The authority which the designers have over the structure and ontology of the larp,

are necessary for the larp to be playable by a diverse group of individuals coming

together; they set the parameters for play. According to Whitehead’s ‘ontological

principle’ (1978, p. 19), nothing comes from nothing. In other words, no process

arises apart from some immediately antecedent processes from which it draws its

data. Larping will always draw on something, on some prior experiences of the

players. Without some given design for the larp, the experiences the players have to
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draw on will be entirely their own lived experiences, separate from each other’s. In

order to be able to play together in a shared world, there must be parameters which

are common to everyone. The structure which designers provide is required for the

togetherness of the players in the process of larping. Players’ subscribing to these

parameters is vital to the development of a ‘shared fantasy’. The rules governing the

fictional world and the intended play experiences, as set out in the design document,

are important. The community rules in La Sirena were therefore vital for the

successful sharing of the fictional world and the togetherness of the players.

Of course, it does not specifically require a singular designer or group of designers to

fulfil this function. It would be possible for players to collectively come to the agreed

parameters which will bring them together in play. While such a democratic approach

to design might seem preferable, the likelihood of such a design process being

successful diminishes as the number of individual stakeholders involved in such a

project grows. Designing by consensus of all players is a nice idea, but impractical

and difficult to manage in reality. Instead, the designers compile the structuring and

worldbuilding mechanics into a design document which the players can subscribe to.

It is important to note that no player is required to subscribe to any one set of

mechanics or fictional world. They can simply not sign up to a larp which does not

suit their sensibilities. As Torner (2022) has noted, the particular affordances and

constraints offered by a larp can be the draw or the aversion for players, provided

these are made clear in advance. Players are free to choose from among many

different designs which can accommodate different playstyles and interests. This fact

demonstrates that each larp is a world in itself, and that not every player, nor every

larp design for that matter, is suited to every play community. This is a kind of

democracy, but one which recognizes difference and diversity rather than simple
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majority rule. Players are enfranchised to play together functionally and within the

parameters set out by the designers by both the agency of selecting a particular larp

to play and by the actual payment of money to play, giving the play experience (and

the work to make it functional) a tangible monetary value. When we subscribe to a

larp, players are staking money on the belief that the design will give rise to a good

(story-making) experience.

Organizers

Organization in La Sirena consisted of the provision of the practical necessities for

playing the larp. As mentioned before, the designers were the chief organizers of this

run of the larp, with support from others with specific tasks such as catering and

logistics. The organizers arranged a venue and time for the larp, engaged in pre-larp

communications with the players, provided accommodation, meals and refreshments

for the duration of play, ran pre-larp workshops, and offered both practical and

emotional off-game support to players if they needed it. The workshops imparted

practical information, gave players hands-on experience of using the

metatechniques, helped create the designers’ desired tone and atmosphere, and

allowed players to develop relationships and transition into character. In their roles

as organizers (not as designers), these people did not influence play directly, but

rather supported the players. Significantly, though, the organizers also played

consistent characters in the fictional world of the larp. This meant that instead of

influencing directions of play and the creation of stories from ‘outside’ the larp, they

became equal members of the community, both in the fictional world of the Republic

of the Free and as part of the player group. They influenced play and stories in the

same way as any other player – by participating together with others in scenes. They

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had the same freedom of action, power to effect change, and authority over narrative

as the other players. However, they held this agency, power and authority by virtue

of playing rather than in their roles as organizers. They did not use their roles as

designers and organizers to control or steer the stories created through play. They

did not expect other players to defer to them as an authority over the larp other than

in terms of practical concerns such as safety and nourishment. They rather gave

themselves to play in the same manner as the other participants and so integrated

into the larp as players.

The role of organizer is chiefly practical, and therefore organizers tend to have little

authority over the story-making process. They are facilitators for communicating and

delivering the designers’ vision of the larp to the players (where the organizers are

different individuals from the designers), and enabling the players to develop stories

by bringing all the necessary elements together. Again, as with the designers’ role, it

is about giving opportunity and potentiality for players to co-create story themselves

by providing the physical means and necessities for play. Organizers have the power

and agency to intervene in or influence the story-making process through the

deployment of NPCs, plot devices such as letters or other communications, and plot

events such as invasions or attacks (in the case of combat larps). Organizers also

maintain the structure of the larp by triggering act-breaks, time-shifts, mealtimes,

curfews, etc., and can influence players through devices such as the amount and

nutritional value of food provided, sleep deprivation, etc. However, these elements

are usually given in the design of the larp and the organizers merely implement them

during play. It may be that organizers can facilitate plot-development during play in

instances where a player is at a loss for developing their own plot, but this kind of

intervention would normally be at the request of the player in question. The

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organizers of La Sirena did not use any of these intervention techniques beyond the

scheduling of meals, instead influencing play by playing characters, setting

themselves as equal to the other players in authority, power and agency during time-

in.

The chief function of organizers is to enable and stimulate play rather than to control

it. Despite having the power to direct the action of the larp, this power is best used

sparingly and only in order to enhance the play of the participants. This is where

larping differs drastically from the immersive theatre of companies like Punchdrunk:

the organizers of larping do not aim to give an experience, to ‘show’ or deliver a story

to an audience, but to give opportunities for players to generate their own

experiences and develop their own stories – stories which the organizers could not

have imagined.

The authority over the story-making process and the authorship of the stories

generated in larping, then, lies principally with the players. While designers and

organizers do the important work of providing parameters within which to play, giving

opportunities for play to happen, and looking after the practical concerns and

necessities of players, they are not themselves the makers of the stories and

experiences which come out of larping. The process of playing, and the scenes in

which players engage, are the principal organs of story-making, the players taking

what has been given by the designers and organizers as well as their own

interpretations, ideas and prior experiences, and producing novel occasions which

had not been imagined prior to the players’ coming together. Designers and

organizers create the ‘magic circle’ within which the players can create stories, but it

is the players who must sustain the magic circle and do the work of turning

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experiences into stories through their playing together. My experience of playing La

Sirena exemplifies this principle of players as chief story-makers. However, it also

highlights the important work of designers and organizers in creating the shared

fictional world and providing the conditions in which stories can be made through

play.

From this discussion, we can see that larp anarchy is not a liberal anarchy. We

cannot simply do whatever we want as players. It is an anarchy in which power,

agency and authority are distributed among the active participants, the players.

Importantly, it is anarchy within parameters. Torner’s constraints (2022) are as

important as the Gibsonian affordances which Lampo champions (2016). We, as

players, can do what we want so long as we do not ‘break the game’: so long as we

do not spoil the world, authored initially by the designers but sustained and

developed by the players, in which the larp takes place. We should also be careful

not to break each other’s game. As I will outline later, players bear responsibility for

each other’s experiences. The principle of radical togetherness I am advancing

precludes a libertarian form of anarchy and strongly implies a kind of collectivism.

This anarchy works because individual players are working on the same

assumptions and towards similar goals, and because they are behaving responsibly

towards each other.

Ecology, opacity and collectivity

Having discussed the degree of power, agency and authority held by the various

stakeholders in larping, I will now examine in greater detail how scenes and stories

are developed in larping through processes. The two complementary processes I am

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proposing here I have termed ‘storying’, which relates to the private, individual

experiencing of each player, and ‘sceneing’, which relates to the public, collective

experiencing of the community of players. With the discussion of these two

processes I aim to demonstrate the power dynamics of people playing together in

larping, and how larp anarchy functions through radical togetherness.

How do players play together in larping? And how does story emerge? It seems

obvious to say that they participate together in ‘improvised’ scenes, and story

emerges from that improvisation. This is fundamentally true, and it is the basic

scheme adopted by Lampo (2016) in her description of an ecological model of

playing in larp. However, this scheme does not say much about the processes at

work in scenes and stories. Lampo develops on this basic scheme using James

Gibson’s theory of ecological perception, including the notion of affordances. In

Lampo’s model, a player in a larp encounters their environment and other players’

actions. From these encounters the player goes through a process of extracting,

choosing between, and enacting possibilities for their own action or reaction. While I

agree broadly with this model for how individuals perceive and choose actions for

play, I intend to refine it further. Firstly, to Lampo’s idea of possibilities for action, I

want to add the idea of possibilities for story. In the encounters with other players

and the environment, the player perceives not only potential actions but also

potential for personal narrative; the player is constructing their character’s story at

the same time as they are acting and reacting in a scene. Secondly, I am interested

in the encounters themselves, not just the individual perception of the encounters.

Juhana Pettersson argues that the individual ‘player is the engine of desire. Moved

by wants and needs both larp-related and personal they move along lines of purpose

and emotional direction’ (2021, p. 249). However, he also points out that ‘the player
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is never purely an individual because all desires are fulfilled in the group. When it

works, each gives the others what they need’ (Pettersson 2021, p. 249). It is

precisely this sense of methektic participation that I aim to capture. In other words, I

am interested in the togetherness of the players, the politics of their relations and

how they operate collectively in scenes.

The point that all the players simultaneously construct their character’s story while

they act in scene gives rise to an important observation about the stories which

result from larping. That is, stories are individually constructed by each player.

Perhaps one of the most perplexing things about larping is what Édouard Glissant

might call its ‘opacity’ (1997, p. 190). Glissant’s opacity is a postcolonial, counter-

Enlightenment argument for the right of other cultures to remain ‘unknowable’ to the

‘enlightened’ or ‘enlightening’ eye of The West. But it intersects with this thesis on

larping because in the same way that the subtle significances of cultural practices

are unknowable, so too are lived experiences. In larping, the stories we generate

individually as players are produced with and by each other, in the radical

togetherness of our playing, yet they are unknowable to any other than the subject of

the story – its protagonist. My use of this notion of opacity is not intended to claim

identity between colonised cultures and players in larps, nor to efface ethnic and

racial differences, but merely to point up the resonances between the unknowability

of cultures and the unknowability of experiences.

The fact of this opacity is not to say that players are unable to communicate the plot

of their character’s story to others. But larping is experiential. The ‘war stories’7 of

7
‘War stories’ are the narratives players share with others, after the larp has finished, about what their

character experienced during play.

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each player are not larping in themselves, but re-larping or accounts-of-experiences

of larping. There is no means of making the lived experience of creating the

particular story I have lived ‘known’ – no way to ‘enlighten’ it or make it ‘transparent’

to an outsider. These outsiders include not only non-larpers, but also the other

players who have played the larp with me. While I will not dwell too much on this

notion of opacity for the remainder of this chapter, it will be an important theme later

in the thesis, particularly in chapters 4 and 5 where I explore the politics of playing

out the experiences of historical Others and the possibility of ‘fellow feeling’

(Landsberg 2004, p. 150), and argue against claims of knowledge over the

experiences of Others.

On the other hand, these stories would not exist without ‘outsiders’. The lived

experience of larping is born out of togetherness with other players, as well as with

the environments and atmospheres in which the stories are created. And we, as

players, share scenes. We work together to produce these stories. But I create my

story, opaque to the other players (the outsiders), while they create theirs, opaque to

me.

Whitehead’s conceptualization of the subject-object relation is useful here, since he

denies the reduction of that relation to the relation of knower-known (Whitehead

1967, p. 175). In other words, he makes a claim for the influence of objects on

subjects without the subject ever ‘knowing’ the object. Knowing, for Whitehead, is a

high abstraction and the primal form of relation is ‘feeling’. Therefore, the stories I

and the other players created in La Sirena ‘felt’ each other, just as Glissant’s cultures

might ‘feel’ each other without either knowing the other. This does not mean that our

larp stories simply touch or ‘interact’. From the Whiteheadian perspective, feeling

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means that the object is included as an element of the subject (what Whitehead

terms ‘prehension’, meaning holding or grasping). Following this line of thinking, the

stories of others are necessarily included in my own story, without my ever

consciously comprehending these others’ stories. In fact, my story is an experience

of my togetherness with others (with outsiders) through our prehension of each

other. It is this kind of methektic togetherness that I will analyse in terms of its

distribution of agency and relations of power in this chapter.

Sceneing

The process of sceneing is the collective dimension of larping: the public,

collaborative, co-creative aspect of playing and story-making. It is the becoming of

the larp as players actively play together, creating scenes through improvisation,

pursuing their characters’ objectives and enacting their characters’ attitudes and

desires. Rachel Hann has described scenes, in the sense of ‘dramatic action’, as

‘contextually extra-daily and highly visible, as well as experientially interventional and

orientating’ (2018, p. 25). This description holds well for larping: scenes are the

moments players play out, the moments of the characters’ lives which become

visible and orient the emerging stories and relationships. Sceneing, I propose, is the

process of this dramatic action as it develops between players.

To illustrate this concept of sceneing I will here outline an example from my playing

in La Sirena. This will make clear both how the process operates and how players

use it to collaborate in collective story-making.

It started with a gift.

A gift, its rejection, and flight. Then the return, an apology and a quest.
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 Before she landed in the ‘Republic of the Free’, that glorified madhouse, she
had been a quite brilliant lawyer. When I met her she was living as a child
and calling herself ‘Moon’. I myself had been made to choose a name – this
was one of the rules of the ‘Free’: no mundane names to remind us of our
previous lives or of the outside world. I went by ‘Pyramid’, representing
something strong and stable at least.

Moon’s gift to me was the universe.

It was offered in the most silly, wide-eyed, childlike manner. I had come to
the balcony to once more take in the impossible star-scattered Spanish sky,
when her affected simpering pierced my contemplation. Something about the
stars. I replied with a vague, inadequate comment about their magnificence.
Then she gifted them to me.

“I give you the whole universe,” she said.

I looked at her, that grown woman speaking with a girl’s voice, and I could
not bring myself to humour her. I can’t say what seized me in that moment,
other than perhaps a desire to show her the reality of her life. “You can’t give
me the universe,” I said.

“Why not?” she said.

“It’s just dust and gas. I don’t want it,” I said.

My cruelty registered in her eyes, in the tears that began welling there.

“You’re so mean!” she cried as she fled the balcony – fled the community, as
it later became clear. She would not return for over a month.

(excerpt from The Pyramid, the Vortex and the Globe, Appendix)

The player of Moon and I improvised this scene by giving our interpretations of our

characters into the methektic melding pot of the occasion of sceneing through our

actions and intentions. Our bodies and the environment (the stars, the balcony) were

also given as ingredients into the methektic mix. The occasion of sceneing is nothing

more nor less than the constitution of such given data (characters, actions, bodies,

environment, etc.) into an occasion of experience. This should not be thought of as

‘collective experience’ in that it happens outside of any player’s perceptive or

conscious experiencing. Instead, it is the mere fact of all the given data being in

specific physical and emotional relation to each other. Sceneing is not an evaluative
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process; it does not select among relevant and non-relevant data, and it does not

prehend objects negatively, only positively. In other words, it is the complete datum,

taken with all its paradoxical contradictions and without interpretation. It is what

Whitehead would term ‘eternal’, since it is in a constant state of becoming and is

never satisfied. Rather, it demands satisfaction by giving itself back for interpretation

into occasions of storying.

Sceneing operates through the togetherness of players in a scene. The players, their

actions and intentions, are the data given to the process of sceneing. They are the

objects which sceneing simultaneously prehends and is comprised of. The process

of sceneing is thus what Whitehead terms ‘subject-superject’: both the subject

experiencing the objects and at the same time the ‘superject’ composed of those

very objects. The subject does not preexist the objects or its experiencing of them. It

is rather the result of the togetherness of these objects in its own experience. In fact,

the subject, in the present discussion the process of sceneing, is precisely the

experiencing of its objects; it has no existence apart from this. The subject, then, is

always a process and not some preexisting substance which experiences and is

qualified by its objects.

Sceneing includes the methektic togetherness of players participating in a scene. It

is methektic in that the players collectively constitute something which is not merely

themselves. In other words they are part of something. While they do not lose their

individual ‘identity’, this individuality is subordinate to what they give to the process of

sceneing through their participation. This is similar to Lampo’s notion of ‘larp ecology’

in which players interact with their environment and form ‘a comprehensive

interdependent system where all the players and other organic and non-organic

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components of the game support each other’ (2016, p. 36), which in turn echoes

Whitehead’s argument that ‘the human being is inseparable from its environment in

each occasion of existence’ (1967, p. 63). However, by conceptualizing sceneing as

methektic I suggest that that larping consists of occasions of diversely constituted

singularities instead of the system of interdependent individuals suggested by

Lampo. Methektic participation is the concrescence of the diverse multitude into a

singular occasion. This means that instead of each having an individual relation with

every other element in the scene, creating a ‘network’ of linked ‘nodes’, in sceneing

each player becomes part of a relational field where the individual players give

themselves as ingredients into the ‘mixture’ of the scene. It is impossible to analyse

this field as individual relations between its constituents; rather, it should be

understood as the togetherness of all the elements in a singular entity.

The players being part of the constitution of an occasion of sceneing is important

because it implies players’ mutual constitution of each other’s experiences. I must

feel the atmosphere, I must ‘engage’ in some way in the scene. While Lampo’s

ecology shows that play depends on others, it misses the necessity of ‘dealing with’

the scene as a whole. Lampo’s model shows comprehensively how players pick up

on affordances for action, but I suggest that there is more to larping than this. My aim

with introducing this notion of sceneing is to illustrate more fully how players play

together in larping. While the selection among possibilities which Lampo advocates

certainly occurs in individual processes of storying, as outlined in the next section,

and players intentions are felt through their selected actions, the scenes in which the

players take part are built collectively. This goes beyond the notion of individuals

supporting each other, by considering the group of players as components of a

singular occasion of experience. This does not necessarily mean that players ‘feel’
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part of the singular experience. On the contrary, as mentioned above the players do

not experience perceptively or consciously the occasion of sceneing since it is an

always-indeterminate becoming concrescence. The very fact of the players’

presence and their actions guarantee their inclusion in the occasion of sceneing.

Whatever they do becomes part of the whole. This is similar to how Hann argues

‘scenography happens’ through ‘the indeterminate qualities of an affective

atmosphere as a coalescing of seemingly distinct components’ (2018, p. 67). Once

each player selects an action from among the possibilities and enacts it, that

seemingly distinct action becomes part of an indeterminate ‘mixture’. While the

action and its associated intention are determined, and felt as such, the action’s

effect in the collective domain is not determined. In fact, as will be demonstrated in

the discussion on storying, the action’s effect will never be finally determined since it

is likely to have varying effects and interpretations for the other players.

The most significant design choice which allowed the particular player freedom in

sceneing that I have associated with La Sirena was the directive to ‘play to flow’. The

idea with playing to flow is to ‘flow [with] the actions and reactions of other

characters, flow [with] whatever is coming. Don’t stop anything. Don’t block anything.

Don’t attach yourselves to any expectation in your mind.’ (Somnia no date a, no

pagination). Contained in this summary is an invitation to us players to create, giving

us the freedom and authority to let flow whatever our imaginations generate: ‘flow

[with] whatever is coming. Don’t stop anything.’ Such promise of freedom certainly

accords well with the notion of larp anarchy. Flowing is not necessarily a directive to

act, or to ‘participate or else’ (Fensham 2012). Players are free to simply observe

scenes. However, the methektic principle of sceneing means that it is not only the

player who stands by and observes: it is also their character who does so. Unlike the
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masked audience in a Punchdrunk production, who is ‘invisible’ within the fiction,

players in larping contribute by their pure presence (or indeed absence). What the

player chooses to do in the flow of sceneing always has meaning within the fiction.

There is also a recognition in the designers’ instructions for playing to flow of the

players’ radical togetherness, and the fact that our play relies on others: ‘flow [with]

the actions and reactions of other characters. […] Don’t block anything. Don’t attach

yourselves to any expectation in your mind.’ This not only directs us to get involved

in scenes and respond to events, it also directs us to allow other players to act

according to their imagination and tells us that everything is contingent on how

scenes develop through co-creation. In other words, I cannot simply imagine an

entire scene and expect it to unfold in exactly the way I imagined it. I can enter a

scene as my character with a particular objective or intention, but the outcome is

entirely contingent on how other characters respond to my character’s actions. Thus,

during my character’s activity of collecting truths, other characters flowed along with

this, offering their truths (or their lies – I, as both player and character, had no way of

discerning the difference), and their reactions shaped my play. When Gaze made his

revelation to my character, I flowed along with this, reacting in character and making

it an element of my character’s narrative. I also had freedom to get involved with

whatever scenes I wanted to. The directive to ‘play to flow’ meant that I could seek

out particular players to interact with, or move to different places to discover what

activities and scenes were happening. The only general type of restriction to this

was, for example, not inserting my character into a romance plot between other

characters, or to try to resolve other characters’ conflicts without the permission of

that character’s player. This restriction was not imposed from the outside by the

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organizers, but was rather self-imposed, from a desire not to intrude inappropriately

on other people’s play.

From this discussion, it can be appreciated that larp anarchy has its confines.

Players’ actions within a process of sceneing also have their restrictions and should

conform to what has been given. Even under the doctrine of anarchy, it is not a case

of ‘anything goes’. Larp anarchy is rightfully the distribution of authority to all players,

and the investment of all players with the power to effect change and the agency to

choose their character’s actions. However, such choices must conform to the tenets

of the design and to what other players do in order for there to be a meaningful

sense of ‘playing together’. Togetherness is not merely co-presence while playing.

Togetherness in an occasion of sceneing is the methektic participation of players

with each other. In other words, their presence with each other has an effect. Every

player gives something into the process of sceneing and is partially responsible for

the experience of the other players. Larp anarchy, then, is not mayhem or the ability

of individual players to change everything at will. It is rather the power of each player

to act freely in order to affect how the process of sceneing becomes.

In terms of authority in processes of sceneing, there is indeterminate authority and

scenes are collectively authored. Scenes cannot be said to have been authored by

any single person since every player present has their part to play, whether they are

‘active’ in the scene or not. In the scene between Moon and Pyramid detailed above,

it was the interplay of our improvisation as players and our giving actions and

intentions to the scene which allowed it to develop. Neither the players, nor the

designers/organisers, can be named as sole author. While the designers have some

authority through the production and assigning of character sheets, this authority can

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only be felt during the playing of the larp in what the players choose to do with the

characters.8 In terms of agency, every participant has the power to change things in

the scene and every player has the agency to select their character’s actions and

objectives. However, they cannot determine how their actions are met by other

characters or how the other characters will respond. In the scene between Moon and

Pyramid, I did not decide how the other player should react. I selected and

performed the actions that felt most suitable in character and responded to the other

player’s reactions. The player gives their freely chosen and self-determined actions

to the process of sceneing, but what they will receive as a result of these actions is

indeterminate. It is important to recognise that players are not free to make changes

to the design, so larp anarchy is constrained by it. Players’ agency is limited by their

subscription to the design, style and genre of the larp, though this subscription is

itself a freely chosen action.

Storying

The term ‘storying’ is commonly used to express the idea of relating or sharing

stories. In many academic contexts it refers to how stories are used to conduct or

disseminate research (MacLellan 2022; Phillips and Bunda 2018; Whitburn &

Goodley 2022). My use of the term is quite different. I am using storying to denote

the process of constructing a personal narrative. While sceneing is the public,

collaborative dimension of larping, storying is the private, personal dimension.

8
It is worth noting that in other larp styles, ones which ‘railroad’ the players into particular plots and

actions, authority lies much more with the designers and organisers since players are expected to

play their characters in very specific ways.

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Storying is the process of each player constructing their own narrative from the lived

experiences of sceneing as well as their own intentions and prior experiences. This

personal narrative can be seen as the (or one) ‘outcome’ of larping, perhaps what

players do it for. Certainly, I place great value as a player on the narratives which I

have been able to construct from my larping, as can be seen from my own account

of playing La Sirena: The Pyramid, the Vortex and the Globe (Appendix). Despite

this being my own account of the character I played, I recognize that the story

emerged from and relied upon my participation together with others in processes of

sceneing. Although I am the author of the account, all the other players whom I

played with had some power over what went into it: the agency to intervene in its plot

as it emerged in play, and authority over what it was possible to include in the

account. Likewise, I also had such agency and authority in respect of the narratives

of other players. This section will examine how the process of storying works in

relation to the lived experiences of sceneing.

I pulled the pistol from my belt and pointed it straight at Gaze’s heart. He put
his hands up, revealing his palms to me.

“You really have gone mad, haven’t you?” he said.

I motioned for him to sit, and he did.

“Where are the other copies of these photos?” I demanded.

Gaze laughed.

At that moment the door opened. Through perhaps her own divine
providence, Mistress walked in. But when she saw me, gun extended, she
froze.

“What’s happening here?” she demanded.

“My goddess,” I said, not taking my eyes from Gaze, “this man wants to
destroy us all.”

“I command you to lower the gun,” said Mistress.

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 “No,” I said.

“I command it!” she said, her voice almost screeching.

“I’m sorry, my goddess, but I can’t. He wants to destroy the Republic.”

“He’s quite right,” said Gaze. “I fully intend to destroy you all.”

“My love?” she said, approaching him.

Gaze laughed once more. “You’re the first to go.”

“What are you talking about?” she said. She was caressing his arm. “You
don’t want to destroy me. I’m your goddess.”

“You’re no goddess,” he said. He grabbed the photograph of her and held it

up. “Look. You’re just a woman.”

“No,” she said, all trace of authority drained from her voice.

“No goddess would debase herself to do the things that you’ve done with
me,” said Gaze. “You pathetic –”

Gaze stopped abruptly, a red bloom spreading across his chest.

I felt my finger tight around the trigger.

I could see Mistress screaming as she tried to pull Gaze up, but the ringing
in my ears silenced everything.

I looked at Gaze slumped in his seat, Mistress weeping on him, and all my
organs seized, and surged, and seized again. He was part of me. Despite
everything, he was part of me. I turned away and wept softly into my hands.

(excerpt from The Pyramid, the Vortex and the Globe, Appendix)

Storying represents the individual dimension of story-making in larping: it is the

mutually ‘opaque’ narratives (or narrativisings) of specific conscious bodies,

comprised of lived experiences of occasions of sceneing.9 Where sceneing

9
The ambiguity of whether it is the narratives or the conscious bodies which are comprised of lived

experience is deliberate: both are, for the narrative and the body are not separate, but are

abstractions of the same process. The process itself is mere, indeterminate experiencing, while the

narrative and the body are identifiable determinations abstracted from that occasion of experiencing.

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emphasizes the communal and collaborative nature of story-making in larping,

storying emphasizes two simple truths: that no two players experience an occasion

of sceneing in the same way, and that the same occasion of sceneing might have a

different significance for each player. In the same way that Glissant tells us that other

cultures are irreducible to transparency for the Western gaze (1997, pp. 189-90), the

individuality of processes of storying means that it is not possible for me to ‘know’

another player’s experience, nor they mine, even if we have participated in a process

of sceneing together. The individual experience of a process of sceneing is not

reducible to that process of sceneing. Indeed, The Pyramid, the Vortex and the

Globe cannot be seen as the definitive account of what happened in La Sirena. It is

but one of many stories which emerged from us, me and the other players, playing

together. Many of the scenes which I have written in my account may be interpreted

wildly differently by other players in the same scenes, and will certainly hold different

meaning for them and their character’s narrative. While I have presented The

Pyramid… as a readable story, no other person, not even among the players whom I

played with, can know the experience of actually playing (and through playing,

constructing) that story. The account is a way of communicating what was significant

to me as I played and afterwards, reflecting back. But it does not come close to

conveying the actual lived experience of my playing. Likewise, it is impossible for me

A determination is what we might commonly call a ‘thing’, and such a thing is identifiable in that it

might be comprehended in consciousness as singular, unified and persisting through multiple

successive occasions, though it may in fact be comprised of many parts – what Whitehead would call

a ‘nexus’.

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to ever know the experiences of other players. Such is the opaqueness of lived

experience.

Here we get at how my model extends Lampo’s model of larp ecology. Lampo

focuses on larping as an activity, as performance, but overlooks the story-making

aspect of larping. She examines how players ‘collect information’ and assess,

choose and embody possibilities for acting but neglects the singular experience of

the player. Because its focus is on performance of actions, Lampo’s model leaves

out an essential aspect of larping: meaning. What do the data objectified mean for

the player? How do they affect the development of their character and story? This is

what storying is about: the private interpretation of occasions of sceneing in

constructing a meaningful narrative. Larping is more than the mere machinery of

moving from action to action. It is about making sense of those actions from the

perspective of a unique character. The particular significances of the objectified data

to a player’s experience is a vital element in (self-)determining what intentions the

player will drive back into sceneing.

Storying is achieved through togetherness just as sceneing is. However, instead of

the togetherness of diverse bodies in action that characterizes sceneing, storying is

the togetherness of the perceptive faculties of the conscious body of an individual

player and the routes of inheritance traced to that player’s prior experiences. It

should be clear from this that processes of storying, although hermetically individual,

require a prior world in order to constitute themselves. The perception which

constitutes the occasion of storying is perception of a world. The routes of

inheritance trace back to prior experiences of togetherness, or memories. The

subject-superject which is the occasion of storying needs to prehend objects to

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constitute itself. In practice, this means that my own storying is the togetherness of

my playing with others and the prior experiences which have constituted my self

(consciousness, body) up to that moment. I am not a subject experiencing the

storying, separate from the process and impressed by it, rather I am the process of

storying itself. I, that is my sense of identity as a person, become in my experiencing

of others, along with the character I am playing and their story. These things – my

sense of self, the character, and the story – are all abstractions of the same process.

During the scene in La Sirena when I, as Globe, shot and killed Gaze, the process of

sceneing was complemented by each of our (the players’) processes of storying. The

way each player involved in the scene integrated the actions of the scene into our

narratives was necessarily different. We all, literally, had different perspectives,

experiencing the process of sceneing from different physical points of view. But we

also experienced the process through different prior experiences, and through

different characters who had particular attitudes, beliefs and desires. For me, and for

Globe, it was a moment of heroism, and a demonstration of solidarity with the

interests of the community. For the other players the texture of the moment

depended on their characters’ objectives and attitudes. While I do not presume to

say what their experiences or the ways they narrativized them were, it can be

imagined that the moment could be characterized by Gaze’s player as a moment of

failure and by Mistress’s player as a moment of tragedy. It is highly unlikely that

either player experienced it in the heroic character that I did. This demonstrates how

the same occasion of sceneing is experienced by players in diverse ways.

The point here is that although players’ experiences and stories are in part derived

from the same process of sceneing, collectively authored and participated in

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synchronously, there is scope for each player to form diverse experiences and

stories from that same source. Each player determines the meaning of the events

coming out of sceneing for themselves. While the designers will have some influence

on this determination through the prewritten character sheet, they cannot directly

influence the players’ experiences and narratives in the moment of larping. The

character sheet is one of many elements which are drawn on through Whiteheadian

‘routes of inheritance’ for the determination of a concrescent occasion of storying.

This demonstrates the supreme authority that players have over their own stories

(notwithstanding that some players might experience anxiety over interpreting events

‘correctly’).

My process of storying in the shooting scene was constituted not only by the

immediacy of the process of sceneing, but also by my own prior experiences, both in

the playing of the larp, in my preparation for it, and in my everyday life. These prior

experiences are included in the present process of storying through routes of

inheritance. Viewing myself as ‘an enduring object’, my storying ‘gains the enhanced

intensity of feeling arising from contrast between inheritance and novel effect, and

also gains the enhanced intensity arising from the combined inheritance of its stable

rhythmic character throughout its life-history’ (Whitehead 1978, p. 279). The ‘stable

rhythmic character’ is my ‘sense’ of self, accrued through my prior experiences, while

the ‘novel effect’ is my immediate experiencing of the larped moment. The routes of

inheritance trace constituents of my stable rhythmic character back through

successions of prior experiences, each one in turn having transmitted the original

experience into its successors. For instance, my experience of reading the character

sheet for Pyramid is prehended by subsequent iterations of my experience and

effectively becomes a constituent of me. In some experiences, such as when I am

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thinking about the character or when I am playing the larp, this constituent is

prehended positively as relevant to the current experience. In other experiences,

such as when I am concentrating on some other thing, this constituent is prehended

negatively, as irrelevant. This constituent, my prior experience of reading the

character sheet, is always present as potentially relevant to my current experience. It

achieves what Whitehead terms ‘objective immortality’, since, whether relevant or

not, it is a constituent of, and present in my subsequent experiences. My reading of

the character sheet is therefore a constituent of my process of storying in the

shooting scene. The experience of reading is passed through the chain of

experience which constitute my ‘sense’ of self, forming a route of inheritance.

Routes of inheritance which affected my own processes of storying include my

background and experiences as a playwright. My experiences of writing plays

influenced the way in which I played my character in La Sirena, with careful

consideration given to dramatic structure, conflict, and my character’s objectives and

strategies, and a focus on the agon or struggle of the character. The evidence for

these concerns can be seen throughout my account in The Pyramid, the Vortex and

the Globe. My actions in the shooting scene and my process of storying which came

out of those actions, were influenced by a ‘sense of drama’ which is rooted in my

experiences as a playwright traced through routes of inheritance. These routes of

inheritance are not traced back to mere ‘ideas’, the concepts of dramatic structure or

agon, but to actual lived experiences of writing plays, of watching plays and films

from the auditoria of theatres and cinemas, of acting in plays in my undergraduate

days, of sitting in classes and seminars discussing these things with others, among

countless others. The point is that these routes of inheritance are felt in the occasion

of storying as physical, as prior actual experiences, rather than as concepts. The

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abstract concepts of ‘dramatic structure’ and ‘agon’ become physical constituents of

occasions of storying through my own prior occasions of experiencing, and my

categorization of some such occasions as structures named ‘dramatic structure’ and

‘agon’. The abstract concepts are, in fact, the product of conscious human

taxonomy, the categorizing of species of experience. The concepts are not

necessary for the becoming of an occasion of storying because the experiences I

have had and categorized as such reside within me, are among my very

constituents. My experiences come first and are transmitted through each

successive becoming of myself to be felt as a route of inheritance in the occasion of

storying; the ideas of ‘dramatic structure’ and ‘agon’ are simply ways of naming

identified species of experiences.

It is important to note here that categories like dramatic structure and agon cannot

be used as benchmarks for the validity of players’ experiences. In my own larping,

for instance in the shooting scene with Gaze and Mistress, a valid experience is one

which conforms to dramatic structure and the agonic. For another player there might

be some other measure of validity – e.g., a montage of emotions, or living

authentically as the character they are playing. The worth of a play experience is

decided by each individual player rather than by some external standard.10 There

was space for many different kinds of experiences in La Sirena, and no one kind of

experience was prioritized or validated above others.

What should be clear is that the individual processes of storying feed back, or are

inherited into collective processes of sceneing. This happens through the causal

10
This is not to say that players might not use some external standard to judge the worth of their

experience.

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efficacy of the players’ experiences in storying, which are transformed into the

players’ intentions in the process of sceneing. As Whitehead asserts, causal efficacy

has a ‘vector’ character, or the notion that a percept is ‘inherited with evidence of its

origin’ (1978, p. 119), moving from one occasion of experience to the next. It is the

advance of experience from one occasion to the next, into novelty, effecting

movement and change. The process of storying results in the definite determinations

of player, character and story, and it is these determinations which are felt as objects

in the becoming subject-superject of the occasion of sceneing. The indeterminacy of

sceneing is born out of the diversity of these objects which constitute it, and the

differences between the players’ interpretations. The fact that each player’s story has

been definitely determined, but differently to others’, means that the collective

process of sceneing can never be definitely determined since none of these

interpretations constitutes the final determination. Thus, from the absolute

determinacy of the individual occasions of storying arises the eternal indeterminacy

of the collective occasions of sceneing.

Once, in the moment of firing the gun, I have determined the occasion of experience

for myself through the process of storying as heroic and right, this gives me a new

attitude and intent in the scene, which conforms to the objectives and attitudes of the

character (felt through routes of inheritance). Meeting, in the process of sceneing,

with the reaction of the character of Mistress, who interprets the act as tragic and

evil, gives rise to disagreement in the occasion of sceneing. Because each occasion

of storying has been hermetically self-determined, isolated from the concomitant

experiences of other players, when these occasions are subsequently felt in the

occasion of sceneing, there is disagreement between them, and particularly between

the routes of inheritance traced through each occasion of storying to prior instances
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of sceneing. However, there is no need for one of these interpretations of the facts to

prevail. Instead, the conflict gives the opportunity for further play: Mistress accuses

Globe, and Globe defends himself against these accusations, confident in the

justness of his actions. In sceneing there is always something to be resolved. There

are conflicting accounts and conflicting intents. There is never a final determination

of what a scene means, its significance, or what its outcome is: these things are

different for every player.

It is also worth mentioning that among the routes of inheritance influencing each

occasion of storying, and therefore the whole process of story-making, is the

givenness of the framework provided by designers. In La Sirena I had become

familiar with the structure and techniques of the larp through the design document

and the pre-larp workshops. These experiences traced routes of inheritance to the

occasions of sceneing in which I participated and my own occasions of storying.

Again, these experiences, like the experience of reading the character sheet, shaped

the possibilities for what might happen in occasions of sceneing and thus the

constituents of my processes of storying. These routes of inheritance became part of

the fabric of playing the larp. Organizers can also be felt in storying through the

elements of larping they give to the players. This might include the environment,

standard of accommodation, quality and amount of food, etc. Since the

presentational immediacy of the data for storying are given by the player’s body,

factors which affect that body, including nutrition and rest, will have an impact on the

prehension and interpretation of those data. In La Sirena, I felt the organizers’

influence principally through environmental factors. The careful selection of the

venue with its hammam and dusty caves, as well as the timing of the event at the

end of May ensuring long, languid days and clear starry nights, all gave important
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elements to the processes of sceneing in which I participated and thus to my

individual occasions of storying. The hammam in particular, serving as the

transformative waters from which my character emerged changed twice, gave an

atmosphere which demanded a certain mode of engagement. The chanting of the

players combined with the warm, salty water brought me to a feeling of such

relaxation, calm and rapture that the revelations about my character emerged from

an almost spiritual sense of togetherness with the environment and my own

thoughts. Thus, in this case, the occasions of sceneing and storying involved the

togetherness of the self with environment and atmosphere. Designers and

organizers, wittingly or unwittingly, exert influence over the stories through the routes

of inheritance felt in each occasion of storying. Therefore, although there is limited

authority, power and agency on the part of designers and organizers in the moment

of storying, their influence is still felt through the objective immortality of the players’

prior interactions, directly or indirectly, with them.

It should be noted that, though I have described the process of storying at length, its

actual occasions are split-second.11 There is no moment where I stop in a process of

sceneing in order to undertake the work of storying. It is not a ponderous procedure

of engagement, followed by withdrawal, followed again by engagement. The feeding

of storying into sceneing and sceneing into storying is more analogous to a rapid

oscillation or a vibration, constantly in exchange and in tension. While the process of

sceneing is continuous the process of storying is atomic, its occasions following on

from one another in split-second succession. Thus, the process of sceneing is

11
In fact, occasions of experience, according to Whitehead, occur outside of space and time, the

extensive continuum being an abstraction of processes of experiencing.

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constantly fed by new occasions, and is constantly feeding back the indetermination

which characterizes it, to the players who constitute it.

Responsibility

The implication of the twin processes of sceneing and storying is that the players, at

least in larps like La Sirena, bear a great degree of responsibility for what happens

during play. Since each of us is responsible for so much in each other’s experiences

and stories, the ethos of larping is (or ought to be) one of responsibility to each other.

Such responsibility necessitates a degree of compromise and negotiation within

processes of sceneing. Just because an action or course of events makes sense for

my character’s plot does not mean that it ought necessarily to be pursued. Because

all the players have an interest in the events in sceneing, all players should have

some agency over what happens. In other words, I ought to play for the benefit of

others as well as for myself. Not to do so would constitute a form of ‘power playing’,

where a player acts only to satisfy their own desires without regard for the wants or

needs of others. Thus, when Globe shot Gaze it was up to the player of Gaze what

happened. It was they who decided to have the character die, rather than I who

decided to kill him. There was no rule that meant the character must die if shot, or

even be wounded. It would have made perfect sense within the scenario for the gun

to be jammed or not loaded. While this compromise was reached through the play-

to-flow mechanics, at other times it is preferable to do off-game calibration or

negotiation with the other players in a scene. For instance, in my initial scene with

Moon, because this happened early in the larp as a ‘prelude’ scene, we as players

did not know each other’s character well. We did a brief out-of-character calibration

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to figure out what would work for the characters in their given circumstances, and

what might be impactful. This simple calibration involved us as players telling each

other what might upset or annoy our characters. In order to create effective moments

of drama, we needed to know what would be effective. Without this explicit

negotiation the scene might have failed to have the desired impact on either of the

characters.

This responsibility to others somewhat limits agency, but not so much authority.

Authority over one’s personal narrative can only be limited by the constraints on

agency and what is permitted for experience in sceneing. The ways in which

occasions of storying become, and therefore authority over individual player

narratives, is bound up with that player. There is no responsibility to interpret other

players’ actions and intentions ‘correctly’ in private processes of storying. If a

character has done or said something, given that action to the collective sceneing, it

is available for interpretation and inclusion in others’ personal narratives.

Even in larps which do not give as high a degree of freedom as La Sirena, ones in

which prewritten plot is delivered by the designers and organisers, there is still a

distribution of responsibility which extends partially to the players. The methektic

nature of sceneing, the fact that the players participate in scenes by their very

presence, necessitates this distribution of responsibility. There is at the very least the

responsibility to uphold the fiction and maintain the genre and tone that players have

subscribed to. Beyond this though, even where plot is given by designers and

organisers, the world of the larp is still populated by other player-characters who are

responding to events and actions. Players relate to each other in these scenes as

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much as they relate to the plot-events and NPCs; all are part of the methektic

process of sceneing.

Conclusion

To summarize, the above analysis points to the players having the freedom to do

what they want within the larp, within the limits of the design. While designers and

organisers set certain parameters for play and provide a framework for the players to

subscribe to, it is players playing together within that framework that gives rise to the

actual occasions of experience in larping. Players have the power to effect changes

and the agency to act however we choose. Moreover, each of us has absolute

authority over our own story. But, as Whitehead insists of all such processes (1985,

p. 41), processes of storying must conform to some extent to what has gone before

through the inheritance of an immediate past. Our storying must conform to what it

experiences, the objects of the process of sceneing. If the objects of sceneing are

ignored in our storying, we might as well be sitting alone, individually, each writing

our own novella, rather than engaging in the collaborative, co-creative process of

sceneing. Because our storying depends in this way on sceneing, each of us is, in

part, responsible for the storying of all the others we are playing with. On the other

hand, each of our private processes of storying is felt in the collective process of

sceneing and in part constitutes it. Each of us is partially responsible for what

happens in the process of sceneing since it conforms to the intentions each of us

throws into the methektic mix, each intention finding its origin in an antecedent

occasion of storying. Even though each player has authority over their own story, it is

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so intimately bound up in the stories of others that it is impossible to say that that

player is solely responsible for it.

If storying is the desired ‘product’ of larping, then sceneing is the churning engine

which drives its production. Importantly, players must give to the process of sceneing

in order to enjoy the lived experiences which will be the data for their storying. Each

player must participate methektically in sceneing in order to draw from it. The

implication is that, in participating in sceneing together, each player is (partially)

responsible for the lived experiences (and therefore the data for storying) of all the

other players. Each player has this degree of power over all the others. Each player

has some power to affect the lived experience of others and thereby change the data

available for producing their individual narratives through storying. This imparts onto

each player responsibility in two different senses: the fact that I am partly responsible

for the lived experiences of others means I have a responsibility to them to

participate in sceneing in a way that is interesting for others, and not merely as a

means to advance a plot that is likely only to affect my own storying.

Authority over each individual process of storying remains with the player who is

consciously producing it, but the possibilities for storying are limited by the lived

experiences enjoyed in the process of sceneing. Since the process of storying is the

togetherness of lived experiences coming out of sceneing, what is given to

processes of sceneing directly affects each process of storying. As a superject,

storying is comprised of those determined experiences which it has been given as

data. Though the player (in their process of storying) finally determines how each of

these data are ‘felt’ and included in the determination or ‘satisfaction’ of the occasion

of storying, the data themselves, the determined experiences, cannot be changed.

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In order for the anarchy of larping to succeed there is the necessity for an agreed

framework within which to play, and for players to play in ways which give

consideration for their responsibility to others. However, within this mutually agreed

framework players do not need to work towards common goals. Rather, for the

process of sceneing to give rise to any meaningful conflict, players should work

towards their own goals, but do it together.

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 Chapter 3

Dramaturgy, Ludaturgy and the Calcification of

Plot in College of Wizardry

Introduction

As I lay dying from my wounds in the Inner Courtyard of the college, I realized that

few, if any, would mourn my death. I had carved out a space for myself in the faculty,

but I had not let anyone else in. It was a secluded spot without space for

communality. I had built walls between myself and those around me. The most

important things in my life lay outside of here, beyond the castle walls. Who had I

touched? What significance had I in the lives of others? My time here had amounted

to a handful of dust.

These were the final moments of Intsen Deery’s life (though he came back in spirit

form to haunt/taunt those whom he had known). In those moments he reflected on

how the choices he had made set him on a lonely and secluded path. In this chapter

I will similarly reflect on how my choices about this character and the plot I made for

him set me as a player on a similarly secluded path through run 19 of College of

Wizardry (CoW19). I will argue that this secluded path arose from what I term

calcification, a ‘symptom’ of my play in CoW19. Calcification is where a (supposed)

play experience becomes fixed and intransigent. This notion will draw on the

important functions of dramaturgy and its playful counterpart which I have termed

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ludaturgy, cybernetic feedback loops, and narrative dissonance, as well as the

political concerns of individualism and commonality.

The chapter is about the choices I made in CoW19 and how those choices were

afforded by the larp’s design; it is about the steps and missteps I took in making my

character’s story. These missteps did not arise from any constraints in the design,

but from my own decisions in my planning and playing of the larp. Through the

analysis of the design and my choices I will look at the concept of dramaturgy in

relation to larping and from that develop a concept of ludaturgy, or doing things with

dramaturgy. This concept will help to elucidate the causes of calcification in my play.

This chapter sits within and expands upon a burgeoning discourse on the

relationships between dramaturgy and participation. Others who have written about

what spectators and participants do with dramaturgy include Jacques Rancière

(2011), Deirdre Heddon, Helen Iball and Rachel Zerihan (2012), Gareth White (2013;

2016), and Joanna Bucknall (2016). White’s most significant contribution to this

discourse is perhaps the notion of the invitation, and the idea that an invitation to

participate is part of the aesthetic material of a performance in which it occurs (White

2013, passim). Bucknall describes these kinds of invitations to play as ‘liminoid’,

highlighting that the invitation is for participants to suspend the normal rules of

socialization (Bucknall 2016, p. 54). In larping, invitations to participate take many

forms: from marketing materials to the design document and character sheets, to the

multitude of invitations the happen between players before and during the runtime of

the larp. In this chapter I propose that each player has their own dramaturgy, a

‘micro-dramaturgy’, that develops alongside and in concert with the (macro-

)dramaturgy offered by the designers and organisers, and the micro-dramaturgies of

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all the other players. Ludaturgy does not relate to the aesthetics of such invitations

but rather what participants do with them. Heddon, Iball and Zerihan (2012) and

White (2016) have considered autoethnographically what they did with invitations to

participate in performance. While their work informs my notion of ludaturgy, their

foregrounding of the artist-‘spectator’ relationship means that their observations

about the moment of performance relates only tangentially to larping, where the

primary relationship in performance is between players.

This chapter will focus in part on individuality in my experience of larping in CoW19.

In the previous chapter I explored the communality of story-making in larping. While I

detailed the individual process of storying, the emphasis was on the ways in which

that process is comprised of and (partially) determined by participation in communal

activity. This chapter, by contrast, will focus on an individually created story, the

processes by which this story was developed and produced, and my reflective and

reflexive analysis of those processes. I will demonstrate that by making my character

and plot highly individualistic, I changed the politics of my play and my relationships

to others. The individualistic outlook I adopted in planning for and playing CoW19

meant that I was unable to effectively integrate in the larp methektically. Moreover,

my individualistic approach resulted in a story which was calcified from the outset of

the larp’s runtime, a story which was unassailably fixed.

The chapter is also an analysis of individuality, individuation, and individualism in my

experience of playing the larp. These three related terms have different significances

in my analysis. I use individuality to signify the fact of being a distinct entity,

differentiated from its surroundings; individuation to signify the process of becoming

a distinct and differentiated entity; and individualism to denote the political outlook

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that the interests of individuals supersede those of the collective or community.

Individuality (in character, intention and action) and individuation are fundamental to

the engine of sceneing and products of storying as described in Chapter 2 while

individualism can be harmful to the even distribution of power in a larp, as will be

demonstrated below.

The core contribution of this chapter to the thesis is in demonstrating how player

agency and authority can lead to non-methektic modes of play. It gives an alternative

to the constitution of experience in larping provided in the previous chapter, one in

which an individualist mode of playing led to an experience. It offers an example of

how, by using unintended affordances of the dramaturgy in a larp design, agency

and authority can lead to individualistic and detached mode of playing, where without

the radical togetherness described in the previous chapter neither the player nor

their actions participate methektically in the larp.

The way Intsen’s story in CoW19 developed was markedly different from the way, as

discussed in the last chapter, the Pyramid/Vortex/Globe story in La Sirena Varada

developed. This difference arose in part from a different politics inherent in the

design of CoW compared to La Sirena which gave rise to a different politics in play.

In this chapter I will explore these differences and evaluate the implications they

have for the notions of larp anarchy and methexis. This will be achieved by analysing

the degrees of agency and authorship which were possible according to the design

of the larp, and that which I exercised in both collective sceneing and my own

storying.

To understand how Intsen’s story was made, it is necessary to understand three key

aspects of the process of sceneing which gave rise to it. Firstly, it is important to
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understand the design of CoW and what freedoms and constraints it affords for

playing the larp. Second, it is necessary to analyse how the choices I made in using

the principles outlined in the design impacted on both the way I developed my

personal plot and the ways I interacted with others. And finally, it is important to

demonstrate how the ways in which I interacted with others both before and during

the larp impacted on the way my personal plot developed. These three aspects are

what were given to the processes which constituted both my experiences and my

narrativisation.

I will analyse each aspect in turn, and then describe how they came together

methektically to constitute my experiences. It should become clear, however, that

these aspects did not come to bear sequentially, or separately from each other, but

were rather methektically entwined with each other. They were all ingredients given

to the concrescence of my play experiences, impacting and affecting each other.

Importantly, my choices and the interactions I had with others affected each other,

and the design framed and affected both. The choices and interactions did not affect

the design as it was calcified in the design document.

Dramaturgy

Eirik Fatland (2005; 2009) terms the design of a larp its dramaturgy. The dramaturgy

is ‘the inner and outer structure of a larp, as it is authored by a larpwright’ (Fatland

2005, p. 149). This use of the term dramaturgy concords with an understanding of

dramaturgy as it is used in theatre and performance where it broadly describes ‘the

composition of a work’ (Turner and Behrndt 2016, p. 5). Through the term’s use and

development, dramaturgy has come to mean particularly how performances are

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arranged to be meaningful to an audience. Dramaturgy encompasses ‘the

confluence of components in a work and how they are constructed to generate

meaning for the audience’ (Versényi 2003, p. 386). This does not necessarily imply a

straightforward transmission of a message from the performance to its audience

(what might be considered didactic theatre). For instance, Turner and Behrndt

emphasize fluidity in dramaturgical analysis and interpretation, so that ‘rather than

attempting to pin down the meaning of a work’, dramaturgy instead is about

‘observation of the play in production, the entire context of the performance event,

the structuring of the artwork in all its elements’ (Turner and Behrndt 2016, p. 5).

Dramaturgy, then, is concerned not so much with what a performance means but

rather with how it comes to mean. It is the way in which the elements are composed

to facilitate the process of meaning-making for the audience. Erving Goffman’s

sociological dramaturgy (1969, passim) operates similarly with the givenness of

elements and their composition in the construction of performance to give

impressions to an audience. For him, dramaturgy is fundamentally a means of

impression management, the making of meaning through composition.

This idea of composition is important too for Fatland (2009), who stresses a holistic

approach to larp design over consideration of individual components. Thus,

character, plot, game mechanics, etc. should be considered in terms of how they

relate to each other, rather than as entirely separate elements of the design. This

approach corresponds to the ‘weave’ of performance proposed by Eugenio Barba

(Turner and Behrndt 2016, p. 35). However, while Fatland’s proposal reflects the use

of dramaturgy in theatre, it is not directly congruent. Larp dramaturgy does not

encompass the totality of ‘the work’, which in larping is always incomplete at the

point when the dramaturgy is presented to the players. Instead, the designers and
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organizers use the dramaturgy to afford players the potential for play. Larp

dramaturgy, then, is not the composition of a complete artwork for presentation to an

audience, but the development of a coherent ‘world’, gifted to players who will

complete the work through the processes of sceneing and storying, as explored in

the last chapter. The dramaturgy is there ‘in order to facilitate role-playing’ (Fatland

2009).

While I agree with Fatland’s proposal for larp dramaturgy, I contest that dramaturgy

encompasses not only those elements of larping given by the ‘larpwright’ (designing

and organizing teams), but also the processes of storying carried out by each

individual player. Each player, in their storying, realizes their own individual

dramaturgy. Both of these kinds of dramaturgy are concerned with structuring,

ordering, and making comprehensible the components of the larp. The designed

aspect of a larp might be termed its macro-dramaturgy, while I propose that the

storying (narrativization, meaning-making) of the players be termed its micro-

dramaturgies.12 The macro-dramaturgy will feed into and affect the micro-

dramaturgies through the players’ integration of rules, character, backstory, etc. into

their personal narratives.13 Larpers should therefore not be seen in the same way as

12
My notion of micro-dramaturgies here differs significantly from the recent coining of

‘microdramaturgy’ by Jonas Schnor (2022). Schnor’s term relates to the practice of dramaturgy (and

is closer to my term ludaturgy), whereas mine relates to the givenness of narrative.

13
It is interesting and perhaps important to note that while I have chosen this system of taxonomizing

the designed element as macro and the personal narratives of players as micro, it could be viewed

otherwise. The micro-dramaturgies of the larp design and players’ intentions and prior experiences

become part of the macro-dramaturgy of the player’s individual narrative.

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audience members in theatre, as ‘receivers’ of the work, but as dramaturgs in their

own right. They produce their own experiences and compose those experiences into

meaningful narratives. This production and composition is different from the

interpretive capacity of Jacques Rancière’s ‘emancipated spectator’ inasmuch as

larpers do not spectate or otherwise receive a complete work of art, but are active

and agentive in the work’s conception and realization. By this token, I was micro-

dramaturg of Intsen Deery’s story in CoW19. It was through my active and agentive

production and composition that this story was realized.

Intsen Deery’s story

It started on the bridge crossing the dried-out moat connecting the forecourt to the

castle. CoW always begins with the procession of students across this bridge. As a

member of staff, an Assistant Professor and Conservationist, my character stood

flanking the procession on the bridge.

I had decided that this was the start of his second year working at the college.

Ostensibly Intsen Deery’s purpose in returning to the college was to tend to the

lesser-fae creatures inhabiting the forest on the castle grounds. As a part-fae himself

he had an affinity with the dryads and naiads. However, he was also there as an

operative for the Vitolls crime syndicate, since his best friend from his college days

was the heir to the Vitolls’ family ‘businesses’. He had been tasked with peddling

illicit potions among the student body as well as making deals with some of the more

nefarious members of the college faculty who might need access to outlawed

equipment or materials. He had been supplying such items to one member of staff

who was involved in some ethically questionable experiments with werewolves.

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He also wanted to reconnect with his fae heritage and had been planning a means of

accessing and becoming part of the Summer Court. This scheme constituted

Intsen’s main plot and most of his scenes and actions were aimed at achieving this

objective. His plan was to duel the Knight of the Summer Court in order to take their

place, as a school friend of his had done with the Knight of another fae court.

He made a deal with a pair of fae twins who were seeking a means to escape their

bondage to the college’s headteacher. In exchange for releasing them from the

magical shackles which constrained them, Intsen would receive protective magics for

use in his duel. In order to keep his side of the bargain, Intsen decided to cause a

major disturbance. He co-opted a cleansing ritual he was leading in to surreptitiously

murder a dryad, opening a rift to the Fae Realm. Mending this rift would necessitate

the use of the magic binding the twins, thereby forcing the removal of their bonds.

Unfortunately for Intsen, one of the students involved in the ritual saw him draw his

wand despite his insistence that nobody bring their wand to the ritual. After the rift

was mended he was arrested. However, the fae twins released him and gave him

the protective magics they had promised. He disappeared from public life at the

college until he was able to make a deal with the authorities to provide information

on other members of the faculty to escape prison.

Intsen also made a deal with a demon called the Spider. In exchange for

strengthening magics, Intsen arranged a trial for a student whose friends had made

a bargain with the Spider. The demon wanted the student’s soul to add to its

Madness Web after they and their friends had deceived it. To drive the student to

breaking point and into despair, Intsen summoned a dark spirit which held part of the

student’s brother’s soul. The spirit taunted the student and offered the brother’s soul

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shard in exchange for the student’s own soul. Despite the magics he had obtained

from these deals, Intsen’s ultimate duel with the Knight of the Summer Court resulted

in his (physical) death and spiritual banishment from the Fae Realm.

Dramaturgy in CoW19

In this section I will explore the reasons why my plot in CoW19 became so

individualistic, and why the story and the character’s relationships became calcified

in play, attributing this to the form and process of my micro-dramaturgy, which was

grounded in planning rather than play. I will draw on the decisions I made during my

planning for the larp, showing how this was highly individualistic. This will open out

into subsequent sections dealing with calcification in more detail, and developing the

concept of ludaturgy to describe the playful realm of activity beyond dramaturgy.

The macro-dramaturgy of CoW

CoW is a ‘sandbox’ larp, meaning that the content of the larp is created by the

participants rather than designers. Players are able to craft freeform stories and

create their own characters and plots within the limitations of the diegetic world. In

CoW, the main designed elements are the diegetic framework and the structure.

These parameters within which play can happen both constrain players’ choices and

enable the building of a cogent and relatively consistent story world. The setting

indicates the kinds of events and stories that can occur in the larp, while not

predetermining them.

The dramaturgy of CoW’s design is extremely open with regard to plot and story.

While it provides a robust school structure within which to play, there are no pre-

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scripted plots nor much in the way of backstory to restrict players. Players are

therefore at liberty to develop plot and story themselves. There is also little restriction

on how to develop plots and stories. The dramaturgy commends itself equally to

collectively or individually generating plot and story. There is nothing in the

dramaturgy that demands either of these approaches take precedence, nor any

suggestion that either is ‘better’ than the other. In CoW19, I chose to develop my

character and his plot individually.

The diegetic framework consists of three ‘pillars’ as well as written descriptions of the

various houses, classes, academic pathways, year groups, and extracurricular clubs

available at the at the fictional Czocha College of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The

‘pillars’ provide a hierarchy of expectations for the kinds of stories which are possible

within the diegetic framework. They express the spirit in which the designers

imagined the larp as well as forming a baseline of expectation, informing participants

of what to expect and what their co-participants will be expecting. These ‘pillars’ are

expressed thus:

1. A functioning school

College of Wizardry is first and foremost a larp about a school, and it should
feel like a school. School rivalries and traditions matter here. Magic may be
real, but so is school life!

2. Youngsters & Adults

Second, College of Wizardry is a larp about youngsters exploring life and

adults defining it. Player age doesn’t matter, but playing a Junior or a Senior
matters a lot.

3. Magicians

College of Wizardry is also a larp about witches and wizards, but that comes
in third place. Magic and epic struggles are more interesting if not overused.
Wonder is best in doses!

(Dziobak Larp Studios 2016, p. 7)

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The structure for the larp is centred around two days of academic classes at the

college and a number of special events including a parade of the houses into the

castle, which opens the larp, the sorting and initiation of juniors into the houses, a

sporting tournament, and the Grand Opening Ball where the final house points are

announced, which finishes the larp. These are the structural elements given by the

designers and organisers: Fatland’s dramaturgy, and what constrains and affords

play according to Torner (2022) and Lampo (2016). All of the ‘content’ is generated

by the players, including the content of the classes since the Professors are players

as well. Houses, classes and clubs can act as foci for plots to develop, but it is up to

the players whether and how that happens.

The micro-dramaturgy of Intsen Deery

The design of CoW, while placing certain limits or constraints on the possibilities for

story-making nonetheless afforded me great freedom in the stories I was able to

conceive and develop. I, along with all the other players, had the agency to construct

my own character and plots, and I could produce whatever stories I might desire

within the limits of the diegetic setting. The possibilities for making and experiencing

my own story were vast; I could choose whatever plot I wanted. I did not want to play

alone though, so was aware that I would need to integrate my plot with others. If I did

not, there was no reason to expect anyone to want to opt into the plot I made. While I

could have developed my character’s plot in collaboration with other players, I

decided instead to develop it on my own and independently of others’ plots and then

integrate the plot through carefully selected relationships afterwards. I reasoned that

this would be simpler and would allow me to design the specific story and experience

I wanted to play. I planned the majority of my plot in advance of the larp, including

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the specifics of many scenes. This planning constituted dramaturgy as I have

outlined above, since it defined the composition and structuring of many of the

elements of my larped experience.

Character

Having played the larp once before (CoW15), I decided to continue the story of the

character I had created for that previous run, Intsen Deery. It is relatively common in

CoW for participants to bring back characters from previous runs, despite there

being no continuity between runs in terms of characters or events. Things which

happen in one run have no effect on subsequent runs, meaning that what had

happened to my character in the previous run formed part of my own micro-

dramaturgy but was not an element in the macro-dramaturgy. Since I had played him

at a previous run, the character’s backstory was already set and so, although coming

from a co-creative process (in the previous run), was not developed in collaboration

with the other players of CoW19.

Plot

Despite having played-to-flow (as I did in La Sirena, see Chapter 2) at the previous

run of CoW I participated in, I decided to plan out a plot for CoW19. This preplanned

plot was based on a strong character objective: that of Intsen aiming to be accepted

into the fae Summer Court. Again, this objective was a key part of my micro-

dramaturgy, helping me to structure and compose Intsen’s story.

In CoW15, Intsen had been on a journey of self-discovery. He had recently found out

that he was of mixed heritage, having both human and faerie blood, and he spent

much of the larp exploring this new identity. This exploration came into tension with

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the possibility of finding an identity and home with his college friends in House

Libussa. As mentioned above, much of this story arose from playing-to-flow. Though

some beats of my CoW15 story were pre-planned, every element of this micro-

dramaturgy was influenced by the processes of sceneing in which I participated with

my co-players. No outcome was decided in advance, and some elements arose

entirely spontaneously in play.

In CoW19 I chose to continue the theme of Intsen tracing and exploring his mixed

heritage, seeking to connect again with his fae identity. This resulted in a quest plot:

his final objective was to gain a position in the fae Summer Court by defeating Knight

of the Summer Court in single combat. My character’s entire plot revolved around

the steps necessary for achieving this objective, rather than on relationships with

other characters.

My plot for CoW19 was predominantly generated and planned in isolation and in

advance of the runtime, rather than arising from interaction between myself and

other players. This meant that other players and their characters did not have a

particular investment in my plot. It was something that could run alongside other

plots which had been developed by other groups of players without having a

significant impact on those other plots. I had developed a robust micro-dramaturgy

for myself. There was an undeniable feeling of security in this, knowing that my plot

was effectively protected from outside influence or interference and that the story

would almost certainly play out the way I had planned.

Relationships

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Though I had a returning character, very few other characters from CoW15 returned

in CoW19, and those that did had had little interest in or knowledge of the plot I was

planning for myself. Intsen’s main relationships were with characters not physically

present in the larp, including his best friend from the previous run of the larp, and the

fae of the Summer Court. I developed the plot in relation to these characters rather

than characters with whom Intsen could actually interact during the runtime of the

larp. These relationships with absent characters were the ones that mattered to the

character.

On the other hand, Intsen’s relationships with characters present in the larp were

transactional rather than personal, in the sense that they would involve a literal

exchange of commodities or favours, and entirely centred around the plot I had

planned. An example of such a relationship was with the fae twins. Each party in the

transaction cared only about what they would get out of the exchange, rather than

the other party’s story. Indeed, I have little knowledge of what these other characters

got up to in the period following their release from bondage. Their story had no

bearing on my own, and likewise what Intsen did with their protective magics had no

bearing on theirs. These kinds of transactions are therefore highly individualistic, in

that each character is concerned with their own interest. Importantly, none of Intsen’s

relationships entailed emotional connection between the characters, only emotion

towards the objects or tasks for which they were created.

As I will explore later in relation to ludaturgy, there was one relationship grouping

Intsen was part of which did not have this transactional character. This was the ‘Fight

Club’, a loose collection of characters who came together to fight without using

magic. Intsen was one of the Club Monitors, whose main function was to award

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house points for participation in club activities. Importantly, none of what happened

during the Fight Club scenes (which happened during each night of the larp) was

intended to contribute to my prescribed plot, and so the play during these scenes

was not constrained by my planning. Consequently, the relationships and stories

which arose were more spontaneous and I was able to develop some personal

bonds within the Club. However, these scenes felt quite separate from the main plot I

had planned, so they did not have much impact on my play or storying outside of

their occurrence.

In summary, my planning, and consequently my micro-dramaturgy for CoW19 was

chiefly individualistic. I was concerned chiefly about my own plot and the experience

I would have during the larp. The character I played came from a previous run and

was set on a singular objective which did not have significance for any of the other

characters. None of his relevant relations were present in the larp, and the new

relationships forged were mostly transactional in nature, without deep personal

connection but rather doing favours in exchange for other favours. The plot I

designed for the character was a quest in which no other characters had significant

investment, though some were tangentially involved through transactional

encounters. This analysis shows that, when evaluating individual play experiences, it

is important to understand not only the macro-dramaturgy, which is Fatland’s focus,

but also what players do with that dramaturgy (what I am terming ludaturgy) and the

micro-dramaturgies which arise from that. While the macro-dramaturgy offers

potential and affordances, it is the ludaturgy and micro-dramaturgy which define the

larped experience.

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Calcification

In playing CoW19, Intsen’s plot became calcified, that is it became rigid and

intransigent, in spite of the free-flowing, sandbox macro-dramaturgy of the larp. I

played out the scenes as planned; the transactions with other characters happened;

the character got to the end of his quest. However, there was no discovery of

anything new in these actions. I reproduced the planned plot in action, allowing

nothing to distinguish it from the ‘original’. I discovered little about my own character,

little about other characters, and little about the world. There was little development

of character or relationships. During play, I followed my pre-generated plot rather

than making it in the process of sceneing with other participants. While there are

other larps in which there are seeded plots or hidden secrets written in by the

designers in advance (e.g., Legion: Siberian Story, which is the subject of Chapter

5), these plots and secrets are not usually known to the players. In those cases, the

player discovers things as they go. In the case of Intsen, because I had designed the

plot myself and planned each beat of it, there was very little for me to discover.

My micro-dramaturgy did not arise from play during runtime, but from the planning I

had invested in advance. There is a qualitative difference between playing out a

preplanned story in cooperation with others, and co-creating a story methektically in

collaboration with others. The latter has indeterminacy as a vital element, whereas

the former is already determined in advance. We can think of this in terms of the

ground: that is, in terms of where a plot derives its existence from. For the

preplanned plot, the ground is the planning itself, and the prewritten story which has

already been decided. For the co-created plot which emerges in play, the ground is

in the process of sceneing.

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My plot was a solo quest, without much character development. I forsook the

dynamism and indeterminacy of methektic playing with others for the certainty and

stability of my planned story. I created Intsen’s plot individually and entirely for

myself. No other character had any kind of vested interest in Intsen’s plot. It was

collaboratively ‘told’ but not co-created with my fellow players. The plot was already

formed and I simply fitted their actions into that form. That is not to say that I told

other players what to do, but rather made their actions relevant to my preplanned

plot, which was centred around events rather than relationships. The way that I had

composed my play dramaturgically, focusing on things happening, of which I already

knew the outcomes, determined my experiences of larping in CoW19. The lack of

personal relationships reduced the opportunity for any kind of intervention in my plot

or emergence of new plot. There was no dynamic, fluid development of relationships

just as there was no dynamic, fluid development of character. An important part of

the methexis of sceneing and storying is the characters being affected by others

through what is given into these processes. However, this can only happen if the plot

and character have not calcified through excessive individual planning, and if the

character is integrated in the story-world(s) of others.

My calcified, predetermined plot denied methektic becoming and instead became an

exercise in mimesis. The plot as played out in the larp was a mimetic copy of the

prewritten story. There is a hint of Platonism in this, with the Idea of the planned plot

and its realization in play: sceneing must participate in (conform to) the Idea of the

plot rather than the other way around. My processes of storying were grounded in

the plot rather than the process of sceneing in which I participated. They were

judged adequate (or not) against the pre-decided criterion of the plan. This privileged

what ought to happen (according to the calcified, planned plot) rather than what
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actually happened around me during play. Creativity happened elsewhere, in the

planning of the plot, not in the methektic occasion of sceneing. It did not happen

through the character and his relationships. At the level of the character, the politics

was one of me as player being in total control of my story rather than responding to

what was given in sceneing. I controlled Intsen as an avatar rather than giving him to

the methexis of sceneing. As discussed in the last chapter, sceneing is about

participating in such a way as to become part of the ecology of the larp. The notion

of methexis means becoming a constituent, along with other elements, without losing

individual identity. At the level of sceneing, the politics was of absolute individualism

and separation from the ecology of the larp, since I had also already decided how

other characters and my interactions with them would affect my process of storying. I

was not participating in the presentness of sceneing but in the pastness of

determined plot. Nor was I participating with the potentiality of intrinsic, dynamic

relationships but with extrinsic, calcified symbols. My play and the making of my

story were not live during the playing of the larp.

Pursuing set objectives and having determined plot are valid modes of larping. There

are many larp designs premised on these modes, and many larpers who enjoy

participating on such a basis, for instance, in the UK Freeform style of larp. The

difference between those kinds of larps and what I planned for CoW19 is that the

objectives and plots are usually planned by the designers or organisers rather than

the players, and plot points are not necessarily known to the players in advance.

This means there is a good deal of surprise and discovery, which is part of the

appeal and enjoyment derived from these kinds of larps. Also, plots and relationships

in these kinds of larps are usually carefully woven together in order to have

consequential effects on the characters and their stories. When a character’s

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objectives are not methektically entangled with other characters and plots through

either the design or character relationships, their story exists separately from the rest

of the larp. This was precisely what happened with Intsen’s story.

Dramaturgy itself was not the cause of the calcification of my story and experience in

CoW19. Rather, the cause was my approach to developing my own micro-

dramaturgy. Attendance to dramaturgy is important not only on the macro level of

designing a coherent composition for players to use, but also on the micro level as

an individual player. Having developed my micro-dramaturgy individually, it was

unreasonable to expect other players to invest in it. Therefore, my experience of

playing which arose from this micro-dramaturgy was similarly individualistic and

secluded. Somewhat ironically, the character and my experience of playing him were

defined not by what I had written or planned beforehand, but rather by his

relationality within the whole context of the larp. The fact that the character and his

plot were so peripheral within the wider context made the experience of playing it

disappointingly underwhelming.

Ludaturgy (or doing things with dramaturgy)

I have mentioned above that my micro-dramaturgy was grounded in my planning

rather than in play with others. Here I will develop the notion of a ludaturgy, a realm

of activity in which micro-dramaturgy can be grounded and from which play and story

arise. As I have shown above, the notions of dramaturgy put forward by the likes of

Fatland and Turner and Behrndt focus on what is given to players or the audience.

Particularly in participatory modes such as larping this leaves a gap or blind-spot for

analysis: what players and audiences do with what they are given. In larping

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especially, what players do constitutes the majority of the experience of the

performance. For effective analysis of larped experience, then, it is important to

consider this doing through participation, what I term the field of ludaturgy.

In theatre and performance studies, the tendency is to approach participation from

the perspective of spectatorship: audiences are always spectators first and are

invited to participate by performers. In larping, the assumption of roles is quite

different. Scholars’ accounts often foreground spectatorship, as well as notions of

production and reception. White explicitly considers ‘spectatorship in works that

demand performances from audience members’ (2016, p. 21), while Heddon, Iball

and Zerihan posit a practice of ‘Spectator-Participation-as-Research’ (2012, p. 122)

in One to One performance, in which they argue ‘the artist’s moments of production

are inevitably affected by – and entwined with – the participant’s life experiences and

sense of self’ (2012, pp. 123-4). They frame this practice as ‘creating a space within

the work for the spectator to become a participant’ and as ‘collaboration’ (Heddon,

Iball and Zerihan 2012, p. 121). This recognises the important relationality involved

in such work, but does not go so far as to concede productive creativity to the

‘spectator-participant’. Adam Alston’s ‘productive participants’ do get such

recognition, but their practice is framed as a ‘narcissistic’, self-involved breed of

production-reception (Alston 2016a, pp. 10-11, passim). In all these analyses,

participation is considered from within the strictures of theatrical spectatorship. With

ludaturgy, I instead consider participation in terms of play.

There is, or perhaps ought to be, a gap between the macro- and micro-dramaturgies,

between the potentials and affordances of the design and the realizations of players’

storying, which lies outside of dramaturgy though uses the dramaturgical affordances

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provided. I contend that there is a whole realm of activity in larping which cannot be

included in or adequately described by the definitions of dramaturgy outlined above.

In other words, it does not concern what is given or the gathering of given elements

(as might happen in the work of, for instance, Punchdrunk); rather, it concerns

creative becoming and the dispersal of the potential of the macro-dramaturgy into a

multiplicity of realizations in occasions of play. This realm of activity is what I am

terming the ludaturgy of the larp.

I will here define ludaturgy and distinguish it from notions of dramaturgy. Ludaturgy

becomes wherever dramaturgy, a given composition, is used as a function in an

indeterminate process. Ludaturgy is the complement of dramaturgy: where

dramaturgy is about drawing together, ludaturgy is about dispersal; where

dramaturgy is about the meaningfulness of things, ludaturgy defers meaning.

Ludaturgy is not concerned with the drawing or weaving together of the elements of

drama, but rather with dispersal and play. If dramaturgy is attention to how elements

are connected and drawn together, ludaturgy is throwing the elements to the wind.

Ludaturgy is related, then, to notions of postdramatic dramaturgy (e.g., Fensham

2012), which is often an invitation, not necessarily to participate directly, but to play

with the materials and ideas presented.

Though it necessarily involves indeterminacy, ludaturgy is not a dramaturgy of

uncertainty, such as that described by Yaron Shyldkrot (2019, passim), where the

dramaturgy generates uncertainty as an effect for the audience. Nor is it a case of

‘fail[ing] to connect’ as Turner and Behrndt (2016, p. 37) might suggest, since

ludaturgy (and many larps) is not about making everything connect in a singular

‘work of art’. It is the individual players who make the connections according to their

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own creativity in their micro-dramaturgies. These micro-dramaturgies are grounded

in the play of ludaturgy, in what they do with the macro-dramaturgy they are given.

Ludaturgy is that realm of activity where nothing is completely constructed or

determined, and where those things which have been constructed are played with

and explored. It is the coming together of the macro-dramaturgy with players.

Ludaturgy exists where the dramaturgy can be used in emergent creativity, rather

than where things latent in the dramaturgy are simply extracted. Ludaturgy is

therefore an anarchic principle in the same vein as established for sceneing and

storying in the last chapter, since the play is determined by the players rather than

strictly by the dramaturgy.

In Chapter 2 I referred to both Evan Torner and Marjukka Lampo in relation to

affordances and constraints in larping. My notion of ludaturgy extends the

engagement with these ideas; it is about what people do with the affordances and

constraints they are given. Ludaturgy is not so much about the aesthetics of the

invitation as the aesthetics of what a player does in response to an invitation.

Another key observation made by White is that invitations to participate can also

demand that participants exercise their will ‘and apprehend [themselves] as a subject

with a will, rather than experience the performance as a lesson through which [they

are] guided by the performance makers’ (White 2016, p. 32).

While the term ‘ludoturgy’ has previously been coined by Daniel Greenberg in

relation to video games (2014), my concept differs from this significantly.

Greenberg’s coinage is simply dramaturgy in relation to games: he literally

substitutes in the word ‘game’ for the word ‘play’ in Geoffrey Proehl’s definition of

dramaturgy (Greenberg 2014, p. 76). Thus, Greenberg’s ‘ludoturgy’ is best

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understood as the dramaturgy of games rather than a category in its own right. My

ludaturgy, on the other hand, is a playful counterpart to dramaturgy, one which is

vital for the live(li)ness of co-creativity in larping.

This concept of ludaturgy is clearly related to the process of sceneing as set out in

the last chapter. While sceneing is a general process which I have argued operates

in the same way in most larps, ludaturgy is specific to individual larps. We can

discuss the ludaturgy of a larp in the same way as we can discuss its dramaturgy.

That is, in the same way we can ask, for instance, how characters relate to each

other as written on their character sheets or what effect a metatechnique might have

in the larp, we can ask how the players are playing together or the effects different

modes of play have. As such it might be a useful tool for analysis in a similar manner

to dramaturgy; however, such analysis can be difficult. The dramaturgy is usually

accessible, likely written in design documents and character sheets; the dramaturgy

is usually relatively fixed. The ludaturgy on the other hand depends on players as

well as what is given in the dramaturgy. Since it is what happens in play, it is

ephemeral, indeterminate and potentially in constant flux. It is also partial to the

perspective of each player. Viewed from the outside, or even from the perspective of

another participant in a scene, ideas of how we are playing together and with the

dramaturgy might differ widely. The analytic potential of ludaturgy and methodologies

for effecting such analysis lie outside the scope of the present discussion. For this

thesis, it is enough to establish what the ludaturgy is in order to recognize how it

affected my play in CoW19.

Ludaturgy in CoW19

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In preplanning my plot for CoW19 the way I did, I curtailed the potential for ludaturgy

in the runtime of the larp. What I did with the dramaturgy of the design was to create

more dramaturgy. While sceneing happened, the sceneing was not ludaturgical for

me, but the reiteration of the dramaturgy I had created for myself. While ludaturgy is

explicitly intended in the sandbox style of the larp’s macro-dramaturgy, I railroaded

my plot and limited the opportunity for ludaturgy by prescribing the story I would play

out during the runtime.

However, another way Intsen integrated with other characters in CoW19, which I

have not detailed above as it was not part of his main plot, was through the Fight

Club. This was a loose association of characters who wanted to engage in one-on-

one friendly fights using physical contact. While the design of CoW generally

prohibits stage fighting, with altercations settled with wands rather than fists or

swords, Fight Club offers a forum for players who want to engage in that kind of play,

without disrupting others. My character was one of two staff monitors for the club.

The position of monitor was chiefly to award house-points to student characters for

their participation, but also permitted me to participate in fights myself. Diegetically

the club was an unsanctioned, underground activity, though non-diegetically it was

fully sanctioned and implemented by the larp organizers. While Fight Club was an

element of the macro-dramaturgy to the extent that it was part of what was given by

the designers and organizers, what it became in the hands of us, the players, was

not determined by the macro-dramaturgy. In addition to being the only space in

which other forms of fighting could occur, its unsanctioned status marked its

members as characters who did not always adhere to the demands of authority. The

Fight Club was not heavily preplanned apart from arranging where and when the

scenes would take place. There was a Facebook group where this practical
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organization took place. However, there was no plot attached to the club nor any

preplay (see below) among the characters. This left the Fight Club as an open space

where any plots and connections between characters might arise during play. Thus,

though I forged no firm relationships with other members of the club in advance of

playing the larp, Intsen was integrated with these other characters simply by virtue of

his membership.

I participated as Intsen in a fight with the other staff monitor character, an

accomplished duellist. This encounter was unplanned but played well into my

character and plot development. Intsen lost the fight as the other character was a

much stronger fighter than him. Though the other character bested Intsen, this was

not a foregone outcome at the start of the scene. We were fighting with foam swords

without full contact, so establishing what was happening during the fight was done

through improvised dialogue and responses, commenting on the closeness of a

swing or showing a wound through a sharp gasp and cupping a hand over the place

where the blow supposedly landed. We also improvised dialogue about our relative

strengths as duellists and so established which character ought to win through a

process of in-character negotiation. This negotiation is a good example of ludaturgy.

While we brought the established macro-dramaturgy of the club as well as our own

micro-dramaturgies, the ludaturgy arose from using these dramaturgical elements in

play and in how we interacted as players. It was quite possible for neither of us to

concede defeat, or to use a system of calling out the wounds inflicted on each other,

or to enter into off-game calibration to establish the outcome of the duel. Our

dialogical in-character negotiation was just one of many possible ways of playing the

scene together. Ludaturgy is fundamentally how players use the dramaturgical

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material to relate to each other (and perhaps to other elements in the process of

sceneing) in play.

It was important for Intsen to win in single combat since this was how he intended to

beat the Knight of the Summer Court. Therefore, choosing as a player for him to lose

was a big setback for the character: it showed how unready the character was for the

trial which lay before him. This realization, both as character and as player, emerged

from the ludaturgical play with the other player. In my micro-dramaturgy, Intsen was

more than capable of holding his own in armed combat. However, pitting him against

a character who was a famed duellist showed that his capability was relative to his

age and experience. The ludaturgical sceneing in this encounter, then, altered my

own micro-dramaturgy in a way that all my calcified, pre-planned plot could not allow

for in other scenes I participated in.

It was not necessary that my individualistic planning resulted in individualistic play.

Rather it was my dogged attachment to this planning which caused the play

experience. This attachment did not allow for new elements arising from the

playfulness of ludaturgy to enter into my storying. I composed my micro-dramaturgy

in advance of the larp. It did not develop from ludaturgy and this was what led to

calcification and individualism. This contrasts with the Fight Club scenes, in which

my preplanned micro-dramaturgy played little part. Instead, my micro-dramaturgy for

these scenes was grounded in ludaturgical play with others.

Ludaturgy and non-larp performance

Arguably, doing things with the dramaturgy is what Rancière’s (2011) ‘emancipated

spectator’ is involved with. Indeed, such emancipated spectating can be classed as a

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minor form of ludaturgy. However, the givenness of a performance to an audience as

a ‘complete work’ is not the same as the skeleton dramaturgy of a larp like CoW.

While the audience in the theatre might be free to interpret what is presented, they

must first encounter and perceive the complete work as it is given to them. White

(2016) has written compellingly, using Rancière’s emancipated spectator as a frame,

about his experiences participating in Coney’s Early Days (of a better nation). It is

clear from his account that the work was chiefly produced ludaturgically. But this

particular performance piece was arguably more larp-like than theatre-like, with

White suggesting that it troubles a notion of spectatorship ‘modelled on a distanced

and disembodied observer where the bodily interconnections to the situation that

make us intersubjective contributors are effaced and contained’ (White 2016, p. 24).

The givenness of a complete work of art is equally the case with ‘open’

dramaturgies. In these dramaturgies, what is given has an indeterminacy about it:

there is conflict, multiplicity or ambiguity, but nonetheless something definite has

been given for interpretation. So, while ‘open-ended dramaturgies […] require us to

consider structure and content as dynamic and continually to be kept in process,

rather than elements to be fixed and resolved’ (Turner and Behrndt 2016, p. 34), this

does not mitigate the givenness of what is presented to the audience. The

meaningfulness for the audience will still depend strongly on the dramaturgical

principles on which the performance was built. In larping, the meaningfulness

depends at least as much on how players interact with each other ludaturgically as

the dramaturgy given by designers.

Earlier I characterized larp dramaturgy as distributed. This distributed dramaturgy

can be seen in immersive theatre as well, though usually the emphasis there is on

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composition rather than production. Immersive theatre audiences do not generally

generate their own material but rather compose given material into a meaningful

narrative. However, the immersed audience’s ‘collecting’ of fragments of narrative,

before they compose them dramaturgically, is a kind of ludaturgy. The ludaturgy

occurs in the interstice between the givenness of the production dramaturgy and the

audience’s own micro-dramaturgical work.

Ludaturgy can be an important aspect of other participatory performance practices –

for instance, Adrian Howells’s one-on-one performance Foot Washing for the Soul

(2008). In a private ritual Howells washes the audience-participant’s feet while they

share a quiet spoken dialogue (Heddon & Howells 2011; Walsh 2014). This

‘performance’ depends on the fostering of a relationship between Howells and his

participant. The becoming of this relationship might be characterized as ludaturgical

rather than dramaturgical, since it comes about through interactive ‘play’ and

between the givenness of the dramaturgical elements. This ludaturgy is nonetheless

controlled by Howells who leads the conversation/confession with his predetermined

questions which form part of the dramaturgy of the piece. Despite the importance of

ludaturgy to this work, there is an uneven distribution of power as Howells still ‘owns’

the dramaturgy. While the foot-washing is framed as a gift, the dramaturgy is still

controlled by the designer/artist rather than given to the participant to do with what

they will.

FanSHEN’s Invisible Treasure (2015) appears at first blush to gift a playspace to its

audience. Participants are introduced into a space full of ludic potential and

seemingly without any rules. The ceiling is filled with moving light patterns which

participants can influence through their movements. There are panels in the floor

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and a giant furry bunny against one wall. There are no performers, only other

participants who create a ludaturgy through their play with the different elements

they have been given. However, progression through the different segments of the

piece depends on participants triggering events through their actions and players

can ‘win’ by solving the puzzle of which actions will trigger the next segment. Though

there are many ways the players might play, there is a ‘correct’ way to play inherent

in the dramaturgy. Though the players produce a ludaturgy, they are beholden to the

dramaturgy in order for the ‘game’ to progress. This dramaturgical control is central

to the message of the piece, which highlights social control inherent in apparently

free systems.

Turner and Behrndt note that, even in participatory and interactive work, ‘the

audience is woven into the performance’s dramaturgy’ (Turner and Behrndt 2016, p.

209), implying an existing substantive work in which participants are incorporated or

which they complete with their physical presence, words, or whatever. Gareth White

calls the ways in which audience-participants are invited to participate ‘procedural

authorship’ (White 2013, p. 29, passim). This procedural authorship is a

dramaturgical strategy which at least partially determines the ways in which a

participant can encounter and interact, thus authoring the encounter in the

dramaturgy in advance of its actual occurrence. In a similar vein, Joanna Bucknall

discusses ‘the ways in which certain immersive and micro-performance practices

employ ludic strategies within their dramaturgies’ (2016, p. 53). Notwithstanding the

actual ‘content’ participants produce (what they say or do), the participation itself is

part of the givenness of the dramaturgy. What the audience-participants do with the

invitation or ‘ludic strategy’ constitutes the work’s ludaturgy.

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Despite the presence and importance of ludaturgy in other forms of participatory

performance, I contend that larping and other forms of roleplaying are uniquely

placed as fields of investigation for ludaturgy. Roleplaying is by its very nature a

ludaturgical process rather than a given product, a finished dramaturgy presented to

an audience. The Fight Club scene described above, though it was afforded by the

design, was not procedurally authored by it in the way that, for instance, Adrian

Howells procedurally authored his encounters with his audiences of one. Nor was it

governed by a ludic strategy inherent in the dramaturgy as can be perceived in

FanSHEN’s piece.

Importantly, ludaturgy is not what the dramaturgy does (how it affects or effects), but

what we do with the dramaturgy: how we use, transform or destroy it. It is a common

aphorism in larp communities that ‘no plot/design survives contact with the players’.

This acknowledges that ludaturgies arise in play and that dramaturgy is affected by

them. Whereas in Rancière’s emancipated spectatorship the dramaturgy, what is

given to the audience for experience, stays intact, with larping (and other

participatory practices) the ludaturgy alters the dramaturgy. While the sandbox

design of CoW is light on macro-dramaturgy, the Fight Club scene had an impact on

my own micro-dramaturgy as I have outlined above. The negotiated-in-play

relationship I shared with my fellow player posed a serious threat to Intsen’s carefully

planned plot.

Cybernetics of ludaturgy

A ludaturgy is not without structure. As I have argued above the dramaturgy works to

delimit the ludaturgy: the mechanics and metatechniques of the specific larp, which

are affordances for play. There are also everyday social structures which players
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bring into play, and conventions of playing and larping which are culturally inflected.

Ludaturgical structure is always a process of becoming between participants and is

generated cybernetically. Steve Dixon has written persuasively about the use of

cybernetics in producing performance work (2016; 2017). Meanwhile, Eleanor Saitta

has observed the connections between larps as systems and sociotechnical

infrastructural cybernetics (2016, p. 76). Lampo’s deployment of affordances also

implies that playing in a larp is structured around cybernetic feedback loops. Of most

interest to the present argument, though, is Erika Fischer-Lichte’s (2008; 2016)

description of the audience-performer relationship as ‘the autopoietic feedback loop

of performance’ (2008, p. 38). Just as Fischer-Lichte’s audience-performer feedback

is generative of performance, the feedback loops of relationships between players

generate and sustain the ludaturgy of a larp. The cybernetic feedback loop can be

seen in the in-play negotiation between myself and the other player in the Fight Club

scene. Neither one of us individually was in total control of the negotiation, but rather

we shared control through the constant renewal and redefinition of our relationship in

the scene. Importantly, this cybernetic operation continually fed forward the process

of sceneing into new occasions, so the process was kept alive and our relationship

continually renewed.

As White points out though, the kinds of cybernetics at play in participatory

performance are not only autopoietic. Autopoiesis is a specific kind of cybernetic

loop, one which causes an object to reproduce itself. White suggests the use of,

arguably more interesting, adjunct terms such as heteropoiesis, indicating systems

which generate material from disparate sources, and allopoiesis, indicating systems

which generate material other than themselves (White 2013, pp. 187-8). As I have

suggested above, the relationships between players in ludaturgies do not simply

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reproduce themselves but remake and redefine themselves with every iteration.

While considered from the perspective of simply maintaining a relationship,

ludaturgies might be considered autopoietic; however, the lack of similarity between

the individual occasions of that relationship indicates that the system is more

allopoietic. Ludaturgies are also produced by agents (players) interacting with one

another and the given dramaturgy, and thus can be considered heteropoietic.

What is most significant to this thesis, because it points up the differences between

ludaturgies of larping and theatre, is the referentiality of these cybernetics. The

cybernetic systems of ludaturgy in larping do not require continuous dramaturgical

input from the designers or organisers because the relationality of the players feeds

back into itself. This is perhaps one of the key distinctions between theatre and larp.

In theatrical modes (including what might be thought of as theatrical modes of

larping), audiences are persistently referred back to their relationship with the

dramaturgy, whereas in ludic modes players create their own feedback loops with

each other.

The calcification of my plot in CoW19 occurred in part because I instilled my play

with a ludaturgical system which always referred me back to my pre-formed micro-

dramaturgy. This did not allow space for other, more dynamic and spontaneous

ludaturgies to develop between myself and other players, as they did in the Fight

Club scenes.

Diegetic dissonance

In CoW19, I had to ignore some actions and events in the processes of sceneing

happening around me in order for my plot to work. There were conflicting micro-
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dramaturgies contained within the same diegetic space. This created a kind of

dissonance, whereby the sceneing did not match the intentions I had for my story.

CoW allows for this kind of dissonance, and it is in fact an important facet of this kind

of sandbox-style larping. Since the ‘content’ is player-generated, the designers and

organisers have little control or authority over the plots which develop. There might,

therefore, be several plots in play at the same time which are at odds with each

other. There could, for instance, be a character who is mourning the death of a loved

one, while another group of characters are resurrecting their friend with the use of a

straightforward ritual. Both of these plots might be permitted within the setting, but a

reality in which bringing people back from the dead is relatively straightforward does

not sit well with a plot about someone mourning a death which is assumed to be final

and irreversible. I had to ignore, or negatively prehend, things that were at odds with

my plot and characterization, and chose to negatively prehend others which were

simply not relevant to my plot. Everything in Intsen’s purview needed to serve the

preplanned plot otherwise it would not make sense.

One major element of CoW19 I elected to discount from my individual story-world

was a large-scale werewolf plot, which involved the oppression and forced treatment

of lycanthropes. This plot was important for many players’ stories. However, as with

all plots at CoW, it was strictly opt-in, meaning that you needed only engage with the

plot if you chose to. It was made clear by the main instigators of the plot that anyone

who did not wish to engage with the plot, which was intended to be very dark in tone,

would not have to. Scenes related to the plot would happen away from public areas

and no players would bring it into play with others who had not first consented by

showing interest. I did not wish to engage with the plot since it neither furthered my

character’s scheme nor added any relevant colour to the story I was aiming to make.
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The dissonance allowed those other players to create a large-scale, intricate plot

with each other, while not impacting the play of others who did not wish to

participate.

Taking this diegetic dissonance into account, then, an important facet of ludaturgy is

the selection, from among many options, of what dramaturgy is included in a process

of storying. The micro-dramaturgies arising out of audience-members’ interpretations

in Rancière’s spectatorship remain largely private and do not necessarily impinge on

other’s interpretations. In larp, though, the diverse interpretations and micro-

dramaturgies are embodied in real time and necessarily impinge on, or at least are

offered as affordances for, others’ micro-dramaturgies. Also, the theatrical model of

performer as transmitter and audience as receiver of dramaturgy breaks down in

larping, where players are giving other players dramaturgy while simultaneously

receiving dramaturgy from those same others. The ludaturgical selection among

these diverse dramaturgies is an important part of making meaning in storying. This

further underscores how the closure of meaning in a larp is resisted in these kinds of

sandbox larps. In the context of One to One performance, Heddon, Iball and Zerihan

note the important difference between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ texts and their relative

potentials for truly collaborative practice (2012, p. 129). The fact that diegetic

dissonance resists closure is an important facet of this kind of sandbox collaborative

story-making.

Dissonance can be understood as an extreme case of the individuality of storying,

where not only is each individual player’s interpretation of the events of sceneing

different, but the very events themselves are either counted or discounted in each

player’s process of storying. This dissonance is not simply a case of character

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naïveté, whereby the player knows something is happening but their character does

not. Rather in these cases what is happening in the story-world of one character is

not happening in the story-world of another. There are separate but imbricated

diegeses becoming for individual players or groups of players.

Dissonance is necessary for a sandbox larp like CoW, but also gives rise to a certain

political risk. Individualism can lead to the unbalancing of the distribution of power

and authority. Players might no longer feel in control of their own narrative because

something intrudes. Ironically, a design which gives a lot of agency also poses the

risk of diminishing agency. It is the same mechanism, the total freedom for players to

author their own individual plots, that affords both the higher degree of agency and

the risk of diminishing that agency. A plot which imposes on or intrudes into other

players’ plots or the public spaces of the larp might prevent other players from

enjoying the play they had been engaged in or their own storying. This can have a

similar impact to the From Dusk till Dawn effect or ‘genre hoax’, whereby players

have subscribed to and are expecting one kind of play, a specific genre or tone, only

to have that unexpectedly subverted, either by designers or other players. While this

kind of surprise might delight some players, it is likely to derail other players’ stories

and play, leading to dissatisfaction and potentially abandonment of the larp. This can

be considered in the Whiteheadian terms of positive and negative prehension, where

players grasp the elements in sceneing either by including them in or discounting

them from their storying. A plot which is intrusive crowds out the possibility for

positively prehending other alternatives. If the majority of the data from an occasion

of sceneing is prehended negatively in a player’s narrative, it leaves a void.

Therefore, if a player does not want to opt into a scene but they have no alternative

(if, for instance it happens in the dining room during a mealtime), they will be forced
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instead to stop playing. Such instances diminish the agency of players to create the

play experiences and stories they want. In larps where plot is generated by the

designers or organisers, these kinds of events are par for the course. However, in a

sandbox larp where agency and opting-in are key principles players subscribe to,

such scenes can be problematic.

The dissonance which was useful for me, allowing me to make my own story without

recourse to other plots or events, also meant that other players were free to discount

my plot from their own stories. Since my character’s plot had very limited relevance

to others, my character became, I believe, relatively insignificant. Few, if any, other

characters had reason to care if something happened to my character. The

dissonance of this kind of opt-in play is a useful tool, but one which I should perhaps

have used more sparingly. While it allowed me to play my plot without the intrusion

of contradictory elements of theme or tone, it also too easily allowed me to simply

discount the things going on around me which might have enriched my play, and to

merely pursue my individualist interests.

Individual interest and common interest

The individual and the notion of individuality are also central to the idea of anarchy I

have begun to extrapolate in the last chapter. Whether the individual voluntary

association and agreement of collectivist anarchism, or the absolute individualism of,

for instance, libertarian ideology, individuality is at the core of anarchic systems. In

the absence of a controlling authority to govern or judge actions, individual agency

and desire take on a higher degree of influence in shaping a society or culture. In

larping, anarchy affords individual agency and desire stronger influence over the

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shaping of story. Larp anarchy is apparent in sandbox style larps such as CoW and

La Sirena Varada, where players have the freedom to generate their own plots, but

not so much in more tightly structured larps with plots pre-authored by the designers.

Larps which have an anarchic design afford players much higher degrees of agency

and influence over sceneing. Of course, the extent to which individual players

choose to use these affordances may depend on personal experience, expertise and

comfort with navigating the larp frame. As Heddon, Iball and Zerihan observe

‘collaboration does not, in itself, guarantee equality or democratic process’ (2012, p.

130). Nonetheless, players in CoW are able to decide freely what happens, within

the constraints of the larp’s genre, without reference to any ‘higher’ authority. This

affords players the opportunity for highly individualistic play.

Larping is a prime example of voluntary association and agreement: participants sign

up freely and agree to collaborate in producing certain kinds of story using a specific

set of game mechanics. This does not, of course, mean that participants do not need

to compromise, as demonstrated in the previous chapter. In order to participate, they

might have to agree not to do certain things which they might otherwise have done.

For instance, in a larp where character deaths are proscribed, a participant who

might want to play out a tragic death scene would have to agree not to play such a

scene. Such prohibitions do not impinge on participants’ freedoms provided they are

announced transparently and upfront. If the larp design does not accommodate a

participant’s specific desires, they could choose not to sign up, or they could play

that scene at a different larp where character deaths were not prohibited.

My whole experience was driven by individual interest: both that of my character and

my own as a player, and these interests were related. Intsen was only interested in

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his final goal of forcing his way into the fae Summer Court, and I as player was

chiefly interested in playing out this plot, which, as I have outlined above, was highly

individualistic both in its process of development and its outlook.

One scene from CoW19 which illustrates the importance of common interest is the

forest ritual scene. In his role as a conservationist, Intsen led students in a ritual to

cleanse the forest of dark magic in order to promote the growth and welfare of the

dryads (woodland spirits) which lived there. This ritual gathered players into the

scene through a common interest, either in the sensations of participating in the

ritual or diegetically because their characters were interested in the conservation

effort. Moreover, I planned and led the ritual with another player who composed and

taught to the other players an incantation.

The ritual itself was a wonderful, communal experience, but it was overshadowed

somewhat by the preplanned plot point of my character killing a dryad at the end.

The scene had not been initially planned like this, but evolved thus through my plans

to integrate my own plot with those of others. It was to be a straightforward ritual,

used to create a sense of community among its participants and a fun, magical

scene to play which would add flavour to players’ experiences. However, I later

decided to use this ritual as part of a scheme to free the fae twins from their bondage

(as described above). This scheme involved my character murdering a dryad during

the ritual. Thus, I co-opted the ritual scene, intended originally as a moment of pure

togetherness, for the purpose of individual interest. The killing of the dryad ended the

magical, communal moment and turned it into something else. This certainly affected

others who were attending the ritual, but they were not privy to my plot and so did

not share in that moment with me. It was perhaps even disappointing for some of the

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players who had not expected the scene to end in this manner. From the responses

of some of the characters during the scene, some imagined that they had somehow

caused the catastrophe. Moreover, while I had fostered a common interest in the

scene with the co-player who had written the incantation, this interest extended for

only the duration of the scene and we had little interaction in the larp outside of this.

Because I had achieved what I needed from the scene, there was then no common

interest shared between us.

On the other hand, the scene did bring about a common interest among other

players to discover what had gone wrong with the ritual. This, then, enmeshed Intsen

in the network of interests common to other characters. I figured as a potential

antagonist in many other players’ micro-dramaturgies at that moment. However,

because I followed my plot rigidly, I did not allow any of these common interests to

come to anything as I did not engage in ludaturgical play to realise those potentials.

While the ritual itself was a bringing together of characters to engage in a methektic

process of sceneing, in the end, with Intsen’s final act of murder, it turned into

another step in his scheme for entering the Summer Court.

The kind of play I engaged in here can be called individualist. I had, after all,

orchestrated the whole scene for my own ends, both in character as part of Intsen’s

scheme and out of character as a means of advancing my own plot. What had begun

as an intention to foster communality had become, through my focus on my own plot,

a means to advance my individual interest without regard for the interests of others.

My individualist play was perhaps not problematic for other players, and the person it

affected most was myself. However, there are instances where individualism in play

can be problematic, e.g. when one player’s interest overshadows others’ leaving no
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space for alternative events or actions. Players who engage in this kind of

individualist play do not necessarily do so on purpose or even knowingly. However,

their self-interest can be detrimental to the experiences and stories of others. This

kind of individualist play can be categorized as a type of toxic power-playing, where

a player uses others as a means to achieve their own narrow objectives at the

expense of other players’ agency and pleasure. At its most extreme we might term

this power-playing as ‘diegetic solipsism’ whereby a player considers only their own

story and experiences as important, or even real.

Plots and relationships become methektic through the common interests of multiple

characters and players. This does not mean that individuals in larping cannot have

personal or competing interests. There can be different perspectives on and desires

for the interest players and characters share, but it is important that characters have

an interest in the same thing if players are aiming to play together methektically. In

instances where an individual interest shares no commonality with another’s interest,

there is nothing at stake. The single player whose interest is invested in that thing

will have to play on it alone, and the only plot which might emerge will be from their

own invention and planning. Such an interest is devoid of methektic relationality.

Conclusion

This chapter has addressed the constitution of my experiences, characters and

narratives in CoW19, and the powers of agency and authorship I exercised in these

compositions. The key contribution to knowledge of this chapter is the concept of

ludaturgy, which requires more distributed relations than I allowed to arise in the

constitution of my experiences. My approach to composing plot meant that Intsen

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Deery’s story and my experience of playing it became individualistic and calcified.

However, the indeterminacy of my approach to the Fight Club scenes meant that I

was able to enter into the ludaturgy, joining others in doing things, playfully, with the

dramaturgy.

I have defined ludaturgy as doing things playfully with the givenness of a larp’s

dramaturgy. It requires a degree of indeterminacy, and if playing ludaturgically with

others a common interest between participants. Because of the indeterminacy,

individual micro-dramaturgies arising from ludaturgical play can be diverse.

Therefore, a degree of dissonance between narratives is expected from this kind of

playful creative practice.

The fact that my plot was very individualistic, and my determination to execute it as

planned, affected my experience of larping. The magic of community was lost; I was

lonely. It was not because the story I chose to make was ‘bad’ that my experience in

CoW19 was not as satisfying as it has been in other runs of CoW. Rather it was

because that story did not involve others in any significant way. Most of the events

only had significance for my character. Other players accommodated my plots, but

they weren’t involved in them. Similarly, I accommodated others’ plots but did not

involve myself in them. There were times when these plots overlapped, but did not

affect each other, for instance, the Spider plot intersecting with Intsen’s bid to beat

the Knight of the Summer Court. While this superficially integrated the character with

the wider world of the larp, it had no real impact during the runtime. Though the plots

were interwoven, they did not reach a point of methexis, where the plots were part of

the same thing: they felt largely separate and could have progressed in similar ways

by different means. The plots did not need each other. The imbrication of plots in this

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manner does not imply methexis. The plots fitted together well, but they did not

participate with each other. They did not combine in a process of becoming

something novel but rather happened adjacently, not affecting each other. This also

demonstrates the importance of common interest in creating ludaturgically with

others. Differing intentions and actions towards the same thing creates greater

potential for playful indeterminacy than disinterested and transactional trading of

favours.

It is important to recognize that this was not a ‘failing’ of the design and principles of

the larp, but rather of my interpretation and use of them. My dramaturgical approach

of preplanning an individual plot was in opposition to the ludaturgical affordances of

the larp’s design. I have played other runs of CoW more successfully. In those runs I

engaged methektically with others either by leaving my personal plot open and

indeterminate enough to participate with other plots and events in a dynamic and

responsive way, or by not preplanning any personal plot at all and simply playing to

flow. I have participated in four other runs of CoW since CoW19. The approach I

took at those runs was different from the one I took at CoW19. I planned much less,

built stronger relationships with other characters, and left much more space for

unexpected possibilities to arise during play. This approach developed from my

experiences in CoW19 and the recognition that individually planned plot can lead to

highly individual and isolated play. I found these subsequent runs more personally

fulfilling and satisfying. In the instances where I did not preplan personal plot I played

roles with a higher degree of in-character responsibility including a prefect and the

headmaster. These kinds of roles made it easier for me to integrate with others’ play

since players would naturally bring problems to the functionally responsible

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character. The more flexible and open I have been with these characters, the easier I

have found it to segue into other plots and initiate new relationships ludaturgically.

The approach I took to story-making in CoW19 and what I allowed to be relevant in

my experience affected the way I played, what I experienced, my story, and my level

of integration in the larp. These aspects became calcified. Though I had a high level

of control and authority over my own story, I had relatively little power within the larp

because my character was not fully integrated through relationships or participation

in plots with other people. Notable exceptions to this were the forest ritual and Fight

Club. Because these events involved others and were relevant to other characters,

my character became significant to those others during those scenes.

In summary, the composition of my experiences in CoW19 came primarily from my

own prescripted plot which I had planned in advance of the larp. I used the agency

and authority afforded by the design of the larp to create an individualistic plot that

was absolutely dissonant with the other aspects and content of the larp. My staunch

adherence to this planned plot resulted in play that was calcified rather than

becoming ludaturgically during the playing of the larp. The majority of my

participation in CoW19 cannot be described as methektic since it neither required

nor affected the other participants or their narratives.

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 Chapter 4

Experiences of Torture and Oppression: The

Grounds of Representation and Experience in

Inside Hamlet

Gertrude: If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
Hamlet: Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.
(Shakespeare 1994, 1.2:74-6)

***

My dearest Hamlet,
I hope all is well with you in England.
I’m afraid things here are rather desperate. This siege seems to have
driven people mad!
Horatio, Tubaline and I have not been treated with the respect due to
friends of a Prince. I don’t know how to tell you. It is unspeakable and
perhaps unwritable. We have been mistreated abominably by your
Uncle’s lackeys. Yes, we were taken for ‘questioning’ by the
Directorate.
They wanted to know about the attack and about Fortinbras. They
wanted to know about the Red armies and the Danish revolutionaries
and what their next moves are. And of course, I resisted, I resisted as
much as I could, but when I saw what they were doing to Horatio and
Tubaline. I couldn’t let them do that. And I couldn’t tell them much in
any case. Just that I had been in contact with Fortinbras, that he had
told me to wait. I don’t know anything about their plans. I need you to
understand that I didn’t have a choice. They nearly drowned me. I
was afraid of what might happen to me them us. And
I’m worried, Hamlet. Horatio is hardly himself. He is morose; I can
barely stir him to speak let alone act. And meanwhile Tubaline seems
intent on destroying herself by giving herself to that Voltemond beast.
I need you here. We all do.
I can’t wait until you are made leader of a free Republic of Denmark
and can mete out the appropriate punishments to all the enemies of
the People.

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 I hope that you return to us soon, comrade. Come home, sweet
Prince. We need you.
All my love,
Lartius

***

In November 2018 I participated for the second time in Participation Design Agency’s

Inside Hamlet, a larp inspired by and using material from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, at

Kronborg Castle in Hellsingør, Denmark. During the larp my character, Lartius,

experienced oppression and torture. The questions I raise here are: what did I as a

player experience in these moments? And what did my experiences have to do with

real instances of torture and oppression?

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the representation of experience. In the

epigraph that opens this chapter, Hamlet draws a distinction between seeming and

being. This chapter is concerned with that distinction, with the differences between

appearances and doing something for real. It is obvious that some in-character

experiences, such as walking, talking, kissing, arguing, crying, etc. can be really

experienced by players. The mechanics, sensations and relationality of these actions

are identical experiences for the player and the character. As I will demonstrate,

other experiences, such as the experience of being oppressed, can also be

effectively represented for players as experience in larping. However, the main aim

of this chapter is to investigate the limit of such representation. In order to do this, I

will look at the representation of torture in larping, drawing from my experiences in

Inside Hamlet, and will argue that it is impossible to represent such experiences as

experience without it becoming an actual instance of abuse.

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My lived experiences of playing torture scenes in Inside Hamlet are markedly

different from the lived experiences of people who have been subjected to actual

torture. Firstly, I came to no physical or psychological harm during or as a result of

the scenes. Instead, the scenes were acted out dramatically; that is, I and the other

players performed as if the torture were happening rather than performing it for real.

Secondly, I entered into the scene willingly and all players consented to the activities

and the levels of intensity at which they were played. This is obviously different from

a real-life torture interrogation, which is necessarily non-consensual and non-

cooperative, with asymmetric distribution of agency and power. Thirdly, the scene

served as a plot point in the stories I and the other players were creating and

enacting, as well as a means of developing an interesting and textured character-

arc. In my larping I have often intentionally put my characters in uncomfortable,

painful or harrowing situations in order to both experience the associated affects

and, on an intellectual level, explore how these experiences change a character’s

demeanour, attitudes and objectives.

In light of these differences, what do my lived experiences in larping have to do with

real-life experiences of oppression and torture? It is clear that the lived experience of

playing torture in a larp scene differ entirely, on numerous points, from those

experiences which it is intended to represent. But are there also points of

congruence or resonance between these experiences? If so, by what routes does

my representation inherit these similarities from its originals? In what ways, if any,

can my larping be said to reconstitute real-life experiences of torture and

oppression?

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Asking these questions is effectively to ask: what is the relationship between the

representation and its ground? If the ground of my larped experience in the torture

scene in Inside Hamlet is real-world instances of torture, what is the relationship

between the two? Is the representation rooted in the ground, participating

methektically in it through routes of inheritance? In this case it would be more of a re-

presenting, a resurgence of something already experienced, bringing the past into

the present experience, rather than a representation in the mimetic sense. However,

this presents the problem of whose past is being experienced, and how it would be

possible for me to re-experience another’s prior experiences. Or is the

representation, as Nancy (2007) might suggest, related to the ground through

methexis-as-desire? This characterises mimesis as a deep dive towards a ground, a

reaching towards the ‘original’ (remembering that such an original is never an Idea or

an essence but the multitude of prior experiences) with the aim of participating, of

achieving verisimilitude.

Framed more generally, then, the main aim of this chapter is to discover the grounds

of my experiences in the torture scene. In the chapter I will argue that it is impossible

to produce experiences comparable to the physical, affective and psychological

traumas of real-life torture through performing as if in larping. However, I will contest

that structures of oppression can be reconstituted effectively and experienced

through larping. I will also demonstrate that performing as if can be a means of

effecting such reconstitution, using plot, narrative, and the relationality of characters.

What makes this significant and valuable is that it marks the (fuzzy) limits of what is

representable as experience and demonstrates a means of understanding how

experiential representations operate.

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I will be necessarily promiscuous with the resources I draw on in this chapter. The

intersections of role-playing, experiential representation, trauma and politics are

relatively uncharted, and I must therefore cast a wide net in order to catch the

relevant concepts. However, this diversity of resources is focused in scope on

forming an understanding of my experiences of role-playing torture and oppression,

and how that relates to real-life experiences of torture and oppression.

I will initially establish the conceptual framing of the chapter by looking at issues

around trauma and consent. This will draw on and challenge some of the claims and

assumptions of, Patrick Duggan’s Trauma-tragedy, as well as Peggy Phelan’s, Cathy

Caruth’s and Diana Taylor’s work around trauma in order to interrogate the

representability of trauma. Adam Alston’s analysis of 66 Minutes in Damascus

(2016b) and journalistic criticism of Badac’s The Factory (2008) will also be key

touchstones as critiques of representations similar in kind to those I am exploring in

Inside Hamlet. I will then explore, theoretically, the notion of experiential

representation or representing experience as experience.

Next, I will offer a detailed description of both the torture scene in which I played in

Inside Hamlet and the narrative which arose from it for me. This will lead into an

evaluation of experiential representation of torture, taking into consideration the

impact that consent has on the politics of such representations. I will examine the

mismatch between the symmetric distribution of power and agency in my own,

larped, experience and the asymmetric structure of that in real-life torture. I will use

concepts from sadomasochism (as another form of role-playing) to draw out both

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similarities and distinctions between my larping and consensual BDSM14 practices.

The aim of this is to reveal the specific relations of power, agency and consent which

became between myself and the other players in the larped torture scene.

Following this, I will consider the torture scene in Inside Hamlet as a plot device and

narrative stimulus in the larp. I will analyse the meaning of the scene within the

narrative I created, and how it affected Lartius as a character and the subsequent

choices I enacted as him. This will show, finally, how oppression is simulated within

the diegesis of the larp through methektic participation in an actual instance of

oppression. In opposition to critiques predicated on the mimetic copying of ‘originals’,

my core contention in this chapter is that experiences of oppression can be

effectively simulated in larping through imaginative participation, the actual limiting of

player agency, and the relationality of characters.

Trauma, consent, experience

Duggan has argued, contrary to Phelan, for the representability of trauma. While

Phelan claims that trauma is ‘untouchable’ and that ‘the symbolic cannot carry it’

(Phelan 1997, p. 5), Duggan argues that ‘trauma symptoms’, i.e. the persistent,

uninvited reliving of a trauma, are themselves representations of the original event,

and therefore the original trauma must be in some sense representable. This debate

highlights two areas of concern which are pertinent to this chapter. Firstly, Duggan’s

argument foregrounds the notion of the ground of a representation. In other words,

14
Bondage-Discipline, Dominance-Submission, Sadism-Masochism.

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he argues that a representation requires an ‘original’ in which it is rooted.15

Representations are defined by their relationality to a ground; they are embodiments

of that ground. Secondly, Phelan’s argument suggests that that representation is

necessarily symbolic and that trauma lies beyond symbolism. This necessity of

symbolism, of reference between one experience and another, in representation is

central to the concerns of this chapter. It demands questions about the nature of the

referentiality, and via what routes of inheritance the representation references its

ground.

Other voices in the intersections between trauma, violence, experience and

performance include Caruth (1995; 2016), Taylor (2003) and Lucy Nevitt (2013). In

Unclaimed Experience (2016), Caruth charts ways in which narratives, both historic

and literary, evoke traumatic experiences. Taylor, meanwhile, argues that the

repertoire of Peruvian theatre collective Yuyachkani retains and transmits a social

history of trauma, and that their ‘performances enter into dialogue with a history of

trauma without themselves being traumatic’ (Taylor 2003, p. 210). Nevitt has given a

concise overview of the representation of stage(d) violence in theatre and other

performance contexts, arguing that the differences between simulation and reality

are often far from clearly defined. This resonates to some degree with my argument

about the experiential representation of torture; however Nevitt’s argument relates

specifically to spectating rather than experiencing violence. What I am considering in

this chapter is the direct experience of violence as the victim of a violent act, through

the means of symbolic play in larping. My concern is not how traumatic experience

might be evoked or presented for a reader or audience, nor how traumatic histories

15
This seemingly Platonic notion will be problematized and nuanced later in the chapter.

182
might be disseminated, but whether trauma, violence or oppression can be

represented as an experience for a player through means of symbolic acts.

Importantly, this chapter looks specifically at the representation of what Duggan calls

a ‘trauma-event’ rather than ‘trauma-symptoms’, that is an ‘original traumatic

moment’ rather than ‘its disruptive return’ (Duggan 2012, p. 23). It will not, therefore,

engage deeply with scholarship on ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ such as Judith

Herman’s (2001), Ruth Leys’s (2000) or Felicity de Zulueta’s (1993). While Duggan’s

notion of mimetic shimmering, which is a key touchstone for this chapter, is linked

explicitly to his proposals about trauma-symptoms (Duggan 2012, pp. 73-5), I intend

to show that in the context of experiential representation of trauma-events, this kind

of shimmering can be dangerous.

Alston (2016b) has criticized ‘the promise of experience’ in Lucien Bourjeily’s

immersive theatre piece 66 Minutes in Damascus (2012). The piece stages the

arrest and detention of audience members through physical and sensory

manipulation as well as including elements of narrative and storytelling. In brief,

Alston argues that both in the piece and in the marketing surrounding the work

audiences’ physical sensations are equated with an idealized ‘prisoner Experience’

to the extent that audience members might mistakenly claim the idealized

experience as their own.

Similar unease around the representation of extreme experience is found in the

journalistic coverage of Badac’s The Factory, particularly the criticisms of Brian

Logan (2008) and Chris Wilkinson (2008a; 2008b) for The Guardian. Badac’s

website describes the piece as ‘an immersive piece that…follows the final journey of

victims destined to die in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau’ in which ‘the

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audience were locked into the venue and then led through the various spaces while

experiencing the undressing and gassing processes used within the camp’, going on

to explain that ‘audience members were screamed at, abused and brutalised by

guards. The whole process being designed to disorientate and unnerve the

participants’ (Badac no date). Of the production Wilkinson argues that ‘the audience

is coerced into playing the role of victim as we are repeatedly screamed at, shunted

from room to room and assaulted with loud noise’ (2008b), and points out that ‘of

course, we are not victims. The harder the show works at trying to convince us

otherwise, the more we are reminded that we are in no real danger’ (2008a). Logan

says that ‘the company's thuggish bid to be as unpleasant as Auschwitz just draws

attention to the dissimilarities. We have chosen to be here. We are not obliged to

take orders. We can leave’ (Logan 2008). Wilkinson’s and Logan’s accounts make

clear that such shock sensations are superficial and their equation with prolonged

traumatising or violent experiences is false.

The kinds of critique levelled by Alston, Logan, and Wilkinson highlight the

dissimilarities between the lived experiences of participants and the experiences

they supposedly represent, while also raising ethical questions about claiming such

experiences as ‘authentic’ or ‘real’. However, they do not, as I intend to do in the

present chapter, postulate under what conditions an experience might be claimed as

‘real’, nor consider what an experiential representation has to do with the ‘original’ in

which it claims its ground. In this chapter I aim to answer the questions: generally, is

it possible to represent experiences as experiences; and, specifically, is it possible to

represent as experiences the kinds of aversive experiences found in torture and

oppression?

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Finally, this chapter is intimately entwined with issues of consent. While there has

been a recent surge in interest around consent in theatre (McIvor 2017; Solga 2019;

Brodie 2019; Mackie-Stephenson 2021), these are chiefly concerned with

representations of consent or non-consent on stage, or of managing consent in

rehearsal rooms and performance. It is also worth mentioning here that the consent

mechanics in the scene from Inside Hamlet I am discussing were explicit and

ongoing, rather than implied. In other words, the scene was calibrated between all

participants in advance and there were means of both withdrawing consent and

checking-in with other participants as the scene was played out.

The interest in consent in this chapter has to do with a paradox about consent in

experiences which represent power imbalances, particularly how consent figures in

experiential representations of torture. This concern with the paradox of consent can

be seen in the objections of Alston, Logan and Wilkinson, above. The fact that

audience members have chosen to subject themselves to experiences of ‘trauma’ or

‘torture’ and have consented16 to such treatment means that the experiences are not

equivalent to actual experiences of trauma or torture.

This paradox is congruent with a concern about consent and risk in BDSM contexts.

Staci Newmahr describes the paradoxical dynamic in sadomasochism (SM) thus: ‘At

its core, the link between SM participants is a quest for a sense of authenticity in

experiences of power imbalance. In order to achieve this, participants must suspend

belief in their own egalitarian relations for the duration of the scene. When this is

16
In the case of 66 Minutes in Damascus, the audience was warned in advance. With The Factory

audience members did not necessarily know the form and content, but as Logan notes, were free to

leave the performance.

185
successful, the sense of power imbalance feels real’ (Newmahr 2011, p. 72). In

conversation, former International Mr Leather John Pendal confirmed to me that

most Dominants and submissives consider these labels as identities rather than

roles: that they engage in what he calls ‘real-play rather than roleplay’ (Pendal 2020).

Newmahr also points out, though, that ‘the credo of the SM community is SSC –

Safe, Sane, and Consensual’ (2011, p. 146), showing that submissives must consent

to the SM activities in full awareness of what it involves. The commitment to

suspending belief in the reality of egalitarian relations demonstrates not only

submissives’ consent to SM, but a desire to feel dominated; such desire only serves

to deepen the paradox. Despite the resonances with my larping, though, in SM real

acts of violence, physical, psychological, emotional, are participated in consensually.

During my larping in Inside Hamlet I did not experience any real physical violence,

and any psychological or emotional violence that might have been possible was

mitigated by continuous check-ins between myself and the other players in the

scene. So, while there are parallels with my own arguments around the relational

aspects of torture, the particularities of SM practices are not exactly analogous to my

larped experiences in Inside Hamlet.

Experiential Representation

By experiential representation, I want to express the idea of the representation of a

real-life experience (such as torture) as an experience for a person who has never

had that real-life experience. In other words, the experience of torture is represented

to the person as a lived experience which is not itself torture. I introduce this concept

here as a hypothetical, and aim to set out the conditions which might result in such a

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representation. Discussion of the possibility of such conditions being met will be

deferred until later in the chapter.

Mimesis, semiosis

The first problem to address is what it means for something to be a ‘representation’

of an experience. Establishing this will allow me to assess whether my experiences

in Inside Hamlet constitute representations of real experiences of oppression and

torture. There is a range of definitions for representation; the OED lists ten definitions

for the term. It is therefore necessary to identify what kind(s) of representation are

under investigation in this chapter. The two senses of representation I will be using

are: standing in for symbolically, or semiotic representation; and depiction or

portrayal of, or mimetic representation. Though it is an important issue in larping and

in other social, political and cultural spheres, this chapter is not concerned with

representation in the sense of the inclusion of different social, cultural and ethnic

groups. Nor is the chapter concerned with the ways something is portrayed (e.g., the

representation of torture as necessary), nor legal or political representation in the

sense of a person speaking or acting on behalf of another.

The terms ‘semiotic’ and ‘mimetic’ are being used as a shorthand for the distinction

between representation by appearances and representation through signification.

The distinction between these two classes of representation will be important for my

argument in this chapter, but I am not looking to replace or redefine any alternative

uses or theorizations of these terms. Some conventions in literary criticism (at least

since Samuel Taylor Coleridge (see, e.g., Burwick 1990)) hold that writing and

language can be used ‘mimetically’ to produce realism in literature. This is clearly not

possible in the sense of mimesis I am employing here, other than perhaps in the use
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of spoken onomatopoeia or concrete poetry. In general, language and writing do not

produce a likeness or copy of the object, but rather stand in for it. Similarly, some

theorists have argued that the stage is in itself a sign-system, so that all

representations which appear there are semiotic, even when it is mimetic; in other

words, everything on the stage is to be interpreted as signifying something (Elam

2002, passim; Fischer-Lichte 1992, passim). Since my argument here hinges on the

difference between the reconstitution of experience, and experiences which stand in

for other experiences, the present chapter holds that language is the exemplar

nonpareil of non-mimetic, semiotic representation under the definition used in this

chapter. Similarly, notwithstanding any additional weight of signification that objects

and actions might acquire through their inclusion in a work of art, things which ‘look

like’, ‘sound like’, or more relevantly to the current study ‘feel like’, will be considered

as mimetic representations in this context. It is also important to note that ‘mimesis’

and ‘mimetic’ throughout the chapter are used in the simple sense of copying or

embodying, and are not intended to evoke the complex notions forwarded by

Theodore Adorno (2013).

Grounds

What mimetic and semiotic representation have in common is that they reference a

ground. This supposition of a ground means that a representation is always a

representation of something which is its ground. My discussion of the politics of

representation in this chapter will centre around what my representations of torture

and oppression in Inside Hamlet were grounded on and how these representations

relate to their grounds. The relationality between the representation and the ground

will be described in terms of the directness of its routes of inheritance.

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There can be little doubt that there have been actual instances of torture in the world

which might serve as the ground for the representation of torture in Inside Hamlet.

The term ‘original’, though, places too high a burden on the representation, implying

the existence of a singular distinct and discrete instance, or worse a Platonic Idea of

torture on which the representation is modelled. This is not the case for a great

number of representations, particularly in the domain of fiction. In the case of the

torture scene in which I played, there was not a single ‘original’ instance of real-life

torture on which the scene was based. Rather the ground was torture ‘in general’:

the multiplicity of instances of torture throughout history (and in the future).

The relationship between the representation and the ground is one of the most

significant questions of 20th Century aesthetic theory. Adorno particularly, as well as

other members of the Frankfurt School, sought to address the relationship between

artistic expressions and ‘reality’ (see, e.g., Gaines 1985). Similarly, the various

schools of Method acting emerging from the United States in the mid-20th Century

grappled with the production of ‘real’ emotional and physiological responses in

performance (Krasner 2000, pp. 5-6). Neither Method acting nor aesthetic theory are

interested in the reproduction of particular experiences, as I am in relation to larping

in this chapter. Instead, the ground for aesthetic theory is usually the social milieu in

which an artwork is produced or received, while Method acting grounds expression

in the actor’s ‘self’ and their experience. This chapter is chiefly concerned with

whether, and how, a specific experience can be represented, as experience, for a

player-participant.

Jean-Luc Nancy’s analysis of the relationship between mimesis and methexis in art

is relevant here, since he argues that all mimesis demonstrates a desire to

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participate methektically in the ground which it imitates (Nancy 2007, p. 11). For him,

mimesis is a ‘dive’ towards the ground. This framing of mimesis as desire will be

relevant to my argument around representing torture and recalls the paradox of

masochism outlined above. Whitehead (1985) deals with symbolism, and his view

troubles to some extent the structuralist relationship between signifier and signified.

For Whitehead, the ground is always an experience. Two things, such as a word and

an object, become associated through experience. Thus, the object of a tree comes

to signify the word ‘tree’ for an English speaker as much as the other way around.

Objects, words and images are methektically enmeshed in the experience of the

percipient. Far from being arbitrary and free-floating, the relationship between

signifiers and signifieds in this view become fundamental to experience and are

deeply culturally inflected. This understanding of grounds as experiences limits the

directness of routes of inheritance and demonstrates the prevalence of symbolic

reference in everyday experience of the world.

In a sign, a signifier refers to something (its signified) with which it is associated. The

ground here is the experience of associating the signified and signifier including prior

experiences of such association. The routes of inheritance in semiosis are traced

back through the experiences of association to the object of signification, calling to

imagination what is signified. So, for instance, in the experience of hearing the word

‘tree’, routes of inheritance are traced back to prior experiences of hearing the word

in the presence of, and indicating, actual trees or images of trees. The routes of

inheritance flow indirectly to the signified object, through prior experiences, and the

representation is grounded in the experience of association rather than in the

signified object itself. The word ‘torture’ might call to mind instances of torture not

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because it bears a likeness of the act but because the reader has experiences of

associating the word with particular acts.

In mimesis on the other hand some thing, some ground, is being imitated or

embodied. Mimesis creates a ‘copy’ of the ground, operating through ‘likeness’. A

mimetic representation of a tree is the production of a likeness of a tree, for instance

in a painting or photograph; a mimetic representation of torture is the production of a

likeness of torture. Such a representation might encompass a variety of sensory or

other experiential aspects. In a(n effective) mimetic representation of torture, the

appearance of, say, a beating or a waterboarding might be apprehended directly,

that is it can be seen, heard or otherwise sensed. The routes of inheritance here are

direct, the presentation of the representational scene matching, to a greater or lesser

extent, the appearance of the grounding ‘scene’ and apprehended by the senses. A

mimetic representation of torture with a high enough degree of verisimilitude might

be mistaken for actual torture if taken out of context.

For this chapter, the main concern is whether, and how, the presentational

immediacy of my larped experience is grounded in real experiences of torture and

oppression. My contention is that an experiential representation, or representing an

experience as experience would necessarily be a kind of mimetic representation. To

represent a real-world experience as a larped experience, that larped experience

should seem like the real thing, without being the real thing. If the larped experience

is semiotic, that is, an experience of associating one’s immediate circumstances and

actions with the real-world experience, then it does not correlate experientially to that

real-world experience which is its supposed ground; the larped experience would be

of associating the two things, rather than living through a similar experience. As

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Phelan has argued, it is not possible to reconstitute an experience through symbolic

means, only evoke it. However, the demand that the representation be mimetic puts

an emphasis on the immediate present of the larped experience, limiting the routes

of inheritance to be grounded in the occasion of sceneing, rather than being

grounded in real-world experiences. This has profound implications for the

experiential representations of torture and oppression, which I will illustrate later

using my experiences in Inside Hamlet.

To summarize the definition of experiential representation, it is a representation of

experience, as experience. It is primarily mimetic, meaning that it imitates the

experience of a real-world counterpart; and it is never merely semiotic, though the

mimetic representation may also be said to ‘stand for’ the real-world counterpart.

Also, while the means of producing the experience might involve semiotic standing-

in-for, the experience itself must be an imitation, or reconstitution, of the ‘original’. As

an imitation, the experience should seem like the ‘original’ without ever being it. It

must be the reconstitution of sensory, psychological, or somatic experience in the

experiencing subject. In terms of psychological, and often somatic experience

participants are likely to have to invest in and construct the imitation themselves.17

17
Prima facie, this definition might seem similar to notions of Method acting. The real physiological

and emotional responses Method actors express are supposedly the same as those they would

express if they actually underwent the action of the play. However, this is careful to deny that the

actor actually experiences what the character undergoes, but only expresses the physical and mental

responses associated with the experience. The aim of the techniques is as a means of producing

authentic responses, rather than ‘authentically’ experiencing the character’s circumstances as an end

in itself.

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Representation of trauma and ‘mimetic shimmering’

I now want to look at an existing argument for a kind of experiential representation of

extreme experience in the shape of Duggan’s notion of ‘mimetic shimmering’ and the

representation of trauma. While trauma is not exactly what I am considering in my

experiences in the torture scene in Inside Hamlet, it is a similarly extreme kind of

experience which has drawn objections to the idea of its representability. I will also

argue later that torture necessarily has a traumatic aspect.

Looking back to the earlier discussion of trauma, the contradiction between Phelan’s

and Duggan’s positions, on the one hand that trauma cannot be carried by the

symbolic, on the other that trauma symptoms are representations of the trauma

event, and the answer to whether trauma can indeed be represented, lies in whether

trauma symptoms can be understood as part of a symbolic scheme. Certainly, there

is a ground, the trauma event, in which trauma symptoms are rooted. Phelan’s

suggestion that a trauma ‘is a complete, contained event’ (Phelan 1997, p. 5)

concords with Whitehead’s notion of symbolism. For Whitehead, the symbolic

originates in the reference between two modes of perception: ‘presentational

immediacy’ and ‘causal efficacy’ (Whitehead 1985, passim). Presentational

immediacy is the mode which perceives the sense-data, what Hume called

‘impressions’. Causal efficacy, on the other hand, is the mode in which occasions of

experience are perceived as causes and effects of each other. Phelan’s

characterization of trauma as ‘a complete, contained event’ is an event perceived

purely in the mode of presentational immediacy, ‘untouchable and remarkably

unattached to, untouching of, what surrounds it’ (Phelan 1997, p. 5), in other words

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without reference to causal efficacy. Defined thus, trauma indeed seems to lie

‘beyond the symbolic’.

Turning to Duggan’s characterization of trauma symptoms as representations, we

can ask whether they can be included in this symbolic scheme. Duggan cites Ruth

Leys who describes trauma-symptoms as ‘perpetually reexperienced […] painful,

dissociated, traumatic present’ which ‘refuses to be represented as past’ (Leys 2000,

pp. 2-3). This demonstrates that trauma sufferers do not experience such symptoms

as memories or as past occurrences in the mode of causal efficacy, referencing the

presentational immediacy of their present circumstances. Instead, they experience

them as pure presentational immediacy, as a ‘dissociated, traumatic present’. These

‘representations’, then, do not lie within a symbolic scheme since they fail to

reference between one mode of perception and the other. Rather the perceiver

mistakes perception in the mode of causal efficacy for perception in the mode of

presentational immediacy. If trauma symptoms can be characterized as

representations of the trauma event in which they are grounded, they might be

termed non-symbolic representations. All this is to argue that the fact of trauma

symptoms’ existence does not imply that trauma can be represented symbolically. It

appears that in the case of trauma, semiotic representation is not credible. However,

mimetic representation might be; might there be an experience which feels like

trauma but is not itself traumatic?

In the context of theatre, Duggan suggests that particular experiences related to

trauma-symptoms can be represented experientially for audience members through

what he calls ‘mimetic shimmering’ (Duggan 2012, p. 73, passim). He claims that the

uncertainty created around the representational status of an image or action

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(uncertainty about whether something is ‘real’ or simulated) ‘can […] be associated

with a represented experience of trauma’s central paradox’ (Duggan 2012, p. 84).

The paradox referred to is ‘a triangulation of oppositions between the desire to forget

the original event, the repetitive and uninvited intrusions of the fragmented memories

of that event, and the necessity to consciously remember/relive/restage it in order to

attempt to move beyond and eventually forget it’ (Duggan 2012, p. 26). The

audience member’s experience of ‘mimetic shimmering […] produces an

‘undecidability’ which is experienced viscerally and painfully but paradoxically also

with excitement and curiosity, causing a tension between the desire to look away

and a desire to experience it’ (Duggan 2012, p. 74).

Does this constitute an experiential representation of trauma or the paradox

attendant on it? The first thing to note is that, despite the bold claim at the beginning

of Duggan’s book that it should be possible to represent trauma, this claim is

somewhat tempered in his extrapolation, arguing only that it is ‘trauma’s central

paradox’ which is represented rather than trauma-events or trauma-symptoms

themselves. Even as a representation of the experience of the paradox it does not

meet the conditions of my definition of experiential representation. The ‘excitement

and curiosity’ which the audience member experiences does not map to ‘the

necessity to consciously remember/relive/restage’ a trauma event. The traumatized

person restages the trauma-event in order to effect the forgetting and to cease the

repeated intrusions of trauma-symptoms into their experience; that is the necessity

which Duggan writes about. The audience member does not draw near to the staged

trauma in order to look away, nor to prevent further experiences of such witnessing.

While the paradox is represented, insofar as the tension between confronting or

drawing close and turning away or distancing is reconstituted in the audience

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member’s experience, it is a semiotic standing-in-for rather than a mimetic imitation.

That is, despite the embodied, visceral response elicited by mimetic shimmering, that

response is not an embodiment of the experience of trauma but rather presents a

similar, but not congruent, triangulation of tensions. As Duggan himself says, it ‘can

[…] be associated’ with the paradox (2012, p. 84), implying a semiotic rather than a

mimetic relation of representation.

Furthermore, the experience of mimetic shimmering is not grounded in real-world

experiences of trauma symptoms, but rather in the theatrical relationship: the

audience member’s perception of what is happening in the performance. Though

mimesis may be an element in the performance, the audience member experiencing

mimetic shimmering is not engaged in an act of mimesis themselves. While in my

own experiences in Inside Hamlet I did engage in deliberate acts of mimesis, I will

demonstrate that similar problems of grounding occurred.

While mimetic shimmering appears at first blush to constitute an example of

experiential representation, I have shown here that it does not meet the criteria I

have set out, i.e. an imitation, as experience, of an ‘original’, grounding experience.

In the following sections I will firstly outline my experiences in the torture scene in

Inside Hamlet using thick descriptions, and then demonstrate through close analysis

that it too did not meet the criteria for experiential representation. This will serve to

expose the gulfs in the routes of inheritance that attend on attempts at experiential

representation of these kinds of extreme experience.

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Inside Hamlet

In the larp, the central plot of Hamlet was played out by a small group of participants

taking on the roles of the main characters from the play (in 2017 I took the role of

Laertes in this group), including intermittently staging scenes using the original text.

Meanwhile, the world of the story was greatly expanded, with a different setting and

a large cast of characters (the larp can take up to 112 players). The setting of Inside

Hamlet was an imaginary Europe in which the monarchies did not lose their political

power, during the late 1930s, as communist revolutions swept through the continent.

Halfway through the first evening, the castle was attacked by the communists and

the characters spend the remainder of the larp besieged. The themes which players

were intended to explore in this setting according to the dramaturgy of the larp were

decadence, deception and death, with Claudius’s court quickly descending into acts

of violence and depravity.

One specific expansion from the play to the larp was the inclusion of a character

group called ‘the Directorate’, King Claudius’s high-powered secret police and

intelligence gathering force. The Directorate used all means at their disposal for

gathering intelligence and extracting information, including torture. A number of the

characters in this group were also written as sadistic, enjoying causing harm and

distress to others. The character I played in the 2018 run, Lartius, was an

impoverished friend of Prince Hamlet’s who questioned and tested authority in all its

forms, particularly Claudius and his Directorate. Lartius was involved with inciting the

communist revolution in Denmark, had consorted with the leader of the revolutionary

movement (a repurposed Fortinbras from the original play, played as a NPC), and

was conspiring with others to overthrow the King. Because of this, Lartius, along with

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other members of the Prince’s circle, became a person of interest to the Directorate

and was subjected to torture in the course of play.

The letter at the start of this chapter is a remembered reconstruction of an unsent

and destroyed letter my character, Lartius, wrote to his friend and unrequited love,

Hamlet. In it I attempt to express, through what the character holds back, the feelings

which attended the torture scene. In the end, the character was unable to express in

words what really happened. Indeed, the purpose of the letter was not to relay an

accurate account of the event but to spur Hamlet into action – to bring him back to

Denmark and put an end to his uncle the King’s deeds. It is a reconstitution of a

reconstitution of an event which imitated torture. The original letter took a long time,

in-character, to construct. There were many more crossings out, and each sentence

was pondered and laboured over. By contrast, this reconstruction was written hastily

after the larp had ended, to capture the essence of the original while it was relatively

‘fresh’. Of course, even soon after the event, the moment in which the original letter

had been written had passed, the situation and the atmosphere were different, and

that moment had become a memory.

There were three of us, the Prince’s Circle, and three or four of them, the

Directorate. We, the players of the Prince’s Circle, had requested this scene during

the preparatory workshops for Act 2 of the larp. With Hamlet away in England (and in

the mind of Claudius, dead), unable to protect us, the Prince’s Circle was no longer

impervious to the machinations of the King and the Directorate. In Act 1 we had been

fairly carefree, with a sense that our characters were winning in the game of war,

with the attack on the castle and the ensuing siege a major blow against Claudius.

Hamlet’s absence in Act 2 presented a perfect opportunity for a reversal of fortune

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for our characters, and for us to experience their vulnerability and the precarity of

their situation.

As I had arranged with the other players in advance, during Act 2 I was invited very

politely by a member of the Directorate to answer some questions. There was

enough menace and suggestiveness in this invitation to understand that this was not

a request that could be refused. My fellows – Tubaline and Horatio – and I were

ushered to an alcove in the back of the smallest and cosiest of the rooms that made

up the playing area of the larp. Each of us, the members of the Prince’s Circle, was

taken by a different member of the Directorate. The Directorate player I was to play

the scene with was a friend. We knew and trusted each other, and had played other,

albeit less intense, scenes together in the past. From here on I will refer to this player

as ‘the other player’.

I was held down by the other player on a chaise longue, my feet on the seat back

and my head hanging over the open end. There were no restraints, so I held myself

immobile, freeing the other player up to carry out their actions and giving their

character full control of the diegetic situation. The other player checked, out-of-

character, that I was comfortable and that I was alright to go ahead with the scene. I

confirmed, out-of-character, that I was. The other player covered my mouth and nose

with a damp cloth and mimed pouring water over my face. I mimed struggling and

spluttering, as if I was trying to catch my breath. Meanwhile, across the alcove the

players of Tubaline and Horatio were participating in similar activities, miming

emotional and physical reactions to mimed acts of torture.

Eventually, helpless in the face of such brutality, my character confessed to colluding

with and passing information to the enemy. In response to this confession, the other
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player’s character then raped my character. This action showed the disdain the other

character had for my character and his treacherous actions, as well as asserting

their absolute power and control over the traitors and the socialist usurpers of the

established political structure. The action itself was represented without the removal

of any clothing, and was effected by the other player holding me down against the

seat of the chaise longue and thrusting their hips between my open legs in imitation

of sexual penetration. Again, the other player checked out-of-character that I wanted

to play the scene in this way. Although only a very brief activity, the other player

checked in with me several times using the larp’s safety mechanics, as I struggled

and resisted both physically and vocally.

The scene ended with the Directorate releasing the three of us, degraded and

dehumanized, with warnings of what might happen the next time we betray the King.

Our postures and our body language had changed. Gone was the carefree insolence

and swagger of the Prince’s closest friends. Instead we, as our characters, crawled

on the floor like dogs and sat curled in each other’s arms unable to express what had

happened to us.

Experiential representation of torture

I move on now to analysing my experience in the above scene to consider whether it

meets the criteria for experiential representation. To consider whether the

experience of torture might be represented as experience is to consider whether the

experience was like torture without itself being a case of actual torture. I have

demonstrated above that the representation should embody the experience of real-

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world torture mimetically, taking the cases of real-world torture as its ground, rather

than standing in for the experience symbolically.

Torture

I propose that there are two aspects of torture which must be mimetically recreated

to constitute an experiential representation: a trauma aspect and a relational aspect.

The legal definition of torture according to the U.N. Convention against Torture is

any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is

intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a

third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third

person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or

coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of

any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or

with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in

an official capacity. (U.N. 1984, Article 1)

This definition requires both ‘severe pain or suffering’ and that the pain or suffering

be ‘intentionally inflicted’. The condition for official authorization is not relevant to the

present case study. Official endorsement is not relevant to the experience of torture,

only that another person has power over one’s body and circumstances, or the body

and circumstances of another whom one cares about. Therefore, although the

Directorate did represent state power within the diegesis this was not relevant to the

representation of the experience of torture in the larp.

I will raise three main reasons why my larping in the torture scene in Inside Hamlet

did not constitute experiential representation. Firstly, I will demonstrate that my

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experiences were not grounded in real-world instances of torture. Secondly, I will

show that the trauma aspect of torture was not represented experientially. And

thirdly, I will show that it is impossible to reproduce the relational aspect of torture

representationally without it becoming a case of real abuse.

Grounds of the experience

How was my experience in the torture scene grounded? The notions of ‘originals’

and grounds presuppose a specific relationship between my larping and real-life

experiences of torture: that of reproduction or reconstitution. To claim that my larped

experience represents real life instances of torture is to claim that it is grounded,

either semiotically or mimetically, in those instances. Semiotic grounding is relatively

unproblematic; it is simply to claim that my experience stands in place of actual

torture. However, as I have shown above, merely semiotic representation cannot

constitute an experiential representation: it cannot allow one to experience what it is

like to be tortured. The semiotic representation is only signifying real-world torture

rather than embodying it. For an experiential representation of torture, the larped

experience must somehow embody the ground of real-life torture. It is not enough

that it signify by association. It must either reconstitute the real experience of torture

or it must inherit the experience directly from real-world experiences of others by

direct routes. In other words: the experience must be a reconstitution of the ground;

or the experience must inherit the experience through a direct route from the ground,

the ground being other people’s real-life experiences of torture.

I can claim without doubt that my representation of torture in Inside Hamlet did not

trace any direct routes of inheritance to lived experiences of real-life torture. I have

never been subject to torture in real life, though I have been tormented, experienced
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extreme pain and feared for my life. While these experiences share aspects with

torture, they do not arise out of the ground of real-world instances of torture. I inherit

these aspects through various routes, none of them directly from real-world

experiences of torture. I have had many experiences of witnessing representations

of torture from engagement with theatre, film, television, video games, literature, and

other media. I have heard and read accounts of torture, and have seen the images

which came out of the atrocities committed in Abu Ghraib. The experience is always

mediated in some way, even if the account comes directly from a person who has

experienced torture directly. My experience of playing-tortured did, then, trace routes

of inheritance back to real-life instances of torture, but these were always mediated

through representations, whether artistic, linguistic or mechanical. Therefore, any

experiential representation I might claim would have to be a mimetic embodiment of

the ground of real-life torture.

The larped experience itself and the diegesis of the larp were the direct grounds. In

other words, the experience was grounded in the immediate present of the larp

rather than in real-world examples of torture, which were only prehended

referentially. Just as with mimetic shimmering, the experience was grounded in the

present relationships between me as an experiencing subject-superject (the

audience member in Duggan’s formulation) and the (other) performers in the scene.

Duggan demonstrates that the effects of mimetic shimmering relate necessarily to

the theatrical context in which they are embedded (2012, pp. 66-84). The significant

difference of my experiences from mimetic shimmering is that there was no

uncertainty about the status of the actions performed in the torture scene, nor about

my relationality with the other players. As a participant rather than a

spectator/witness, uncertainty about the ‘reality’ of the representation is diminished

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or eliminated. Indeed, if there were significant uncertainty about the reality of such

actions in the larp, this would not only overstep the safety boundaries of the larp, but

would also cease to be a ‘representation’ for that subject.

My experience of the torture scene, its sensations and phenomena, traced direct

routes of inheritance only back to the processes of sceneing and storying in which I

participated. If the experience traced routes of inheritance to the ground of real-world

torture it was only by association, and therefore semiotically. The mimetic actions

which reproduced the semblance of torture were referential rather than real. As I will

show in the following subsections, the larped experience was not one which

reproduced the experience of torture in either of its aspects.

Trauma aspect

I have discussed at some length above the contradictory positions held by Phelan

and Duggan on the representability of trauma. I concluded that discussion by saying

that while it seemed impossible to represent trauma by means of semiosis, it might

be possible to do so by means of mimesis. Nevitt seems to echo this, at least in

relation to physical suffering:

There are no words for pain that has no visible or tangible source, and

because of this, pain and bodily suffering are difficult to communicate,

imagine and empathetically share. Once the effects of suffering are embodied

[…] the imaginative connection is somewhat easier to begin and to maintain.

(Nevitt 2013, p. 65)

What Nevitt suggests is that because mimetic acts give the appearance of real

suffering, the physical suffering, the performer’s pretended pain, is represented

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imaginatively for audience members. Of course, since Freud and psychoanalysis,

trauma has come to encompass more than physical suffering, but also psychological

and emotional suffering during and following a trauma event. However, the trauma

aspect of the representation in the torture scene centred very much around physical

violence, so Nevitt’s analysis is relevant to the present argument. However, Nevitt

discusses literary and theatrical representation, where it is the reader or audience for

whom the suffering is (or is not) represented. My investigation of experiential

representation is somewhat different, since it is the experiencing rather than the

witnessing of trauma which is in question. I want to claim that this difference is an

unassailable problem for experiential representation.

Visual or auditory representations rely on appearances. A faithful visual reproduction

looks like the ground without itself being a case of the ground. Likewise with auditory

representation sounding like the ground it embodies. Experiential representation

does not rely on appearances but on living through an event. This is the fundamental

failure of the idea of experiential representation, that experience can never appear to

be anything other than what it is. One can mime the actions of the ground, but it

won’t feel like the ground and therefore become a faithful ‘representation’ of it,

without being an actual case of the ground. When I played the torture scene in Inside

Hamlet, I experienced the mimetic actions of pretending to be waterboarded but I

never approached the belief that that was what being waterboarded might feel like.

My body was not convinced of the verisimilitude.

It is clear that, in the case of the torture scene, the actions of waterboarding were

represented mimetically, but the experience of being waterboarded was not

represented for me as a lived experience. The only way to produce such an

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experience would be to actually waterboard a participant, in which case neither the

actions nor the experience would be mimetic representations but the thing itself. The

difference between that and torture would be the element of consent and the agency

of the participant being waterboarded.

While my experiences in Inside Hamlet did not represent the trauma aspect of

torture, other larps, such as KAPO (2011), a Danish larp in which participants played

‘prisoner[s] in a Danish detention camp for dissidents’ (Raasted 2012, p. 4), have

played more closely with accurate physical experiences of torture by causing actual

physical suffering to participants, such as keeping players in stress positions,

extreme noise, and cold-water hose-downs. Arguably, this use of actual physical

suffering is no more a representation of the trauma aspect of torture than the mimetic

acting out of Inside Hamlet. It is instead the actual inflicting of physical suffering on

bodies. It does not seem, it is. However, this is only the first of the aspects, so

perhaps using real physical suffering alongside some representational technique for

the relational aspect of torture can result in an experiential representation. The

following subsection will demonstrate why that is impossible.

Relational aspect

Torture is not simply trauma; it is also relational. As Manfred Nowak and Giuliana

Monina observe, it is defined as ‘the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering’

(2020, p. 22), while Eric Stover and Elena Nightingale offer the definition of

‘deliberate infliction of pain by one person on another in an attempt to break down

the will of the victim’ (1985, p. 4). The necessity for deliberateness across accounts

implies that it is the imparting of trauma from one party to another, while Stover and

Nightingale’s definition is explicit on this. Trauma in its merest form involves a body
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or psyche, the traumatized, in an event; there is no necessity for another actor.

Torture, on the other hand, is constituted in a political relationship between the

torturer and the tortured. Torture, along with other kinds of abuses, involves the

traumatized (or tortured) and an identifiable traumatizer (or torturer), in a power

relationship. The torturer has agency while the tortured does not. Loss of agency is a

defining feature of torture: it is something a person is subjected to. It is not

something chosen or consented to. Nowak and Monina argue that an important

distinguishing feature of torture is the powerlessness of the tortured (2020, p. 25).

Furthermore, Metin Başoğlu and Susan Mineka refer to the traumata of the kind

associated with torture as ‘aversive events’ (1992, passim), suggesting that a

defining aspect of the relationality is the tortured’s aversion-from the events they are

subjected to. Furthermore, Stover and Nightingale cite Amnesty International’s

definition of torture requiring the infliction of pain to be ‘against the will of the

[tortured]’ (Amnesty International, cited in Stover & Nightingale 1985, p. 5). It cannot

therefore be invited by the tortured since that is at odds with the fundamental quality

of the experience of torture. An experiential representation of torture should therefore

include subjection to something unwanted and the inability to prevent or cease this.

This raises the masochistic paradox outlined at the start of this chapter: that the

masochist wants to feel forcefully disempowered, while having consented to and

enthusiastically enacting the disempowerment. I similarly consented to and

enthusiastically enacted the disempowerment of my character and wanted for him to

undergo the trauma of waterboarding, both because it made sense within the

diegesis of the larp and because it created an interesting shape to his story. My

experience in larping did not reconstitute the experience of torture effectively,

because it was ‘safe, sane, and consensual’. I, as the playing-tortured, was entirely
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complicit, and this was continually reaffirmed throughout the scene. As my character

I played at non-complicity, but this was not the experience I had. There was a

disjunct between the processes of sceneing and storying: between my player

experience and my character’s experience (or non-experience, since that experience

never actually became but was rather imagined in my process of storying). As

mentioned above, part of the structure of torture is that it is non-consensual and

aversive on the part of the tortured. Because physical or psychological torment is

applied for the purpose of punishment, extraction, or discrimination, it is necessarily

adversarial and the torment is intended by the torturer not to be desirable to the

tortured. The tortured should be averse to the torment they endure and desire for it

to cease. This is an important element of the ground of real-life torture. Since

aversion characterizes the experience of torture, a reconstitution of the experience

through larping should involve a similar aversion on the part of the player playing-

tortured. However, the player has either consented to the scene and desires for it to

occur and to continue, or they have not consented and their experience is not of

playing in a larp but rather of a real-world instance of assault.18

My experience during the torture scene in Inside Hamlet was of feeling safe and

secure. As Annelie Friedner (2019) points out there is the desire in larping to ‘play

bravely’: to have extraordinary experiences while larping, experiences which might,

in real life, be frightening or abhorrent. Friedner argues that such play ‘requires trust

and a sense of caring for each other’ (2019). This is precisely the opposite

relationship that is fostered between a torturer and their victim. In contrast to the

18
Assault meaning the apprehension of immediate trauma, so the actual administering of a trauma

such as physical battery need not occur for there to be an instance of assault.

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adversarial relationship inherent to torture, the relationship between the other player

in the scene and me was one of trust. Knowing that I had consented and that there

were safe-words meant that I could not fear the other player; and indeed, if I feared

them I had a means of stopping play. If I had feared but did not want to stop, it would

have been because I desired the fear, because I welcomed it into my experience. If I

had feared and wanted it to stop, but for some reason could not make it stop – I

could not say the safe-word, for example – the experience would have become one

of actual torture, or at least of abuse, from my perspective. The other player’s

relationship to me in my experience would have changed so that the experience is of

real-life abuse rather than played torture.

In a situation where consent is given and actual torment is endured consensually,

but there is a real desire for the activity to cease, this is where we reach the fuzzy

limit of representation. Duggan’s ‘mimetic shimmering’ occurs, whereby an image or

activity oscillates between representation and real-life. For Duggan this is a theatrical

effect for the spectator who is at a remove from the image or activity. For experiential

representation, though, and perhaps especially where representations of torture or

other extreme experiences are concerned, this shimmering can be dangerous. The

experience shimmers between a representation and an actual experience, meaning

there is a serious risk that the played representation might become an actual

instance of what is being ‘represented’. Duggan says that in the theatrical context

‘such an experience may put an audience into a position of bearing witness to

trauma’ (2012, p. 75), and is clear that he is not suggesting ‘one is “traumatized” by

the experience as, unlike the trauma-symptom, there is pleasure and excitement in

the encounter’ (2012, p. 74). However, in the context of a larp, where the mode of

‘reception’ is participatory experience, the player does not bear witness but
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experiences the actions happening to them. If the player becomes unsure whether

their experiences of being abused by another are mimetic or happening for real there

is unlikely to be pleasure and excitement, but a very real likelihood of the experience

becoming traumatizing. In larping, therefore, mimetic shimmering has the potential to

generate real experiences of abuse.

The practice of masochism inhabits and explores this fuzzy limit of representation,

where there is desire for actual aversive experiences. ‘Edgy’ larps like KAPO can

also push towards this fuzzy limit of representation. However, despite their

exploration of the fuzzy limit, larps like KAPO do not produce experiential

representations of torture either. The account of the interrogation procedure in KAPO

(Fallesen and Ponsgaard 2012, pp. 104-11) details the organisers’ concern for the

individual physical, mental and emotional safety and wellbeing of each participant,

and ensuring that they receive the treatment they requested and desire. The

participants not only consented to the assault and, in some cases, battery, but

actively desired to be subject to these experiences. In KAPO, although the physical

sensations, emotional anguish, or psychological torment of torture might be felt, it is

not torture relationally as the playing-tortured have opted-in to this treatment. The

playing-torturers’ concern for the experience of the playing-tortured produces a

power relationship unlike that of real-life torture. The clear desire of the playing-

tortured to experience these sensations precludes the representation of the

experience of torture as experience because non-consensuality is a defining aspect

of torture. Any desire for such an experience to be ‘authentic’, to participate in the

ground, negates its authenticity, since the ground is characterized by aversion-from.

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My experience of the torture scene in Inside Hamlet did not explore, nor even

approach this fuzzy limit. It was contained safely as a semiotic device: it stood in for

an instance of torture. Because of the fuzzy limit of representation, a robust safety

culture has grown up around many larping communities to mitigate risks. The

physical and emotional safety of participants has long been a concern in larping

(Fatland 2013; Brown 2016; 2017; Svanevik & Brind 2018; Algayres 2019; Friedner

2019; Koljonen 2020). Safety considerations and the processes and mechanics

employed in larp designs are intended to ensure that no participant is subjected to

experiences which would cause them undesired distress or harm. Player safety has

been deemed important in all the larps I have participated in since starting this

research to ensure all participants involved consent before playing on potentially

distressing themes or with potentially harmful actions. This was the case with Inside

Hamlet too. There were briefings and workshops prior to going into character

addressing how to calibrate potentially risky scenes involving violence or intimacy,

and the mechanics, including safe-words, for changing the intensity of or ending a

scene should it go beyond any participant’s boundaries.

In sum, my experience of playing the torture scene in Inside Hamlet was not an

experiential representation of real-world torture. The experience neither arose

directly from the ground of real-world experiences of torture, nor did it ‘dive’ towards

that ground by means of reconstituting a real experience of torture. My playing-

tortured was, in the end, semiosis: standing in for an instance of torture in the story.

While this semiosis was achieved through means of physical experiences, lending it

a different quality to semiosis by way of description (as in narration or literature) or

witness (as in spectating drama), it was nonetheless standing in for the ground

rather than embodying it.

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Neither the trauma aspect nor the relational aspect of torture were effectively

represented as mimesis: they never seemed to be something other than what they

were from my perspective as the experiencing subject-superject. On the one hand,

the physical actions never felt overly dangerous. On the other hand, the relationship

between the other player and myself was one of trust and care. In this instance,

none of the criteria for experiential representation were met. The example of KAPO

shows that at least one of the criteria might be met through larping. However, if all

the criteria are met, we reach the fuzzy limit of representation, where it is likely that

the activity ceases to be representation at all and instead becomes an actual case of

abuse.

Experiential representation of oppression

Having established that the experiential representation of torture did not manifest for

me in playing Inside Hamlet, and that such a representation is probably impossible,

this section now focuses on a kind of representation that did manifest for me. In my

playing of Inside Hamlet, the ‘structure’ of oppression was effectively represented in

the fictional diegesis through the relationality of characters. In this section I will

analyse how that structure of oppression was represented experientially for me. The

definition of oppression I am using for this analysis is that of being ‘trapped’ in a

social role or position (Stahl 2017, p. 476); where ‘the experience […] is that the

living of one’s life is confined and shaped by forces and barriers which are not

accidental or occasional and hence avoidable, but are systematically related to each

other’ (Frye 1983, p. 4).

Torture scene as plot point

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Since I have demonstrated in the previous section that the torture scene did not

experientially represent the aversive event of torture for me, I will now consider it in

light of its function within my character’s plot. The scene served to definitively put

Lartius ‘in his place’ within the diegetic social structure. The scene can be seen as

part of a broader experience of oppression-play. However, it was not only overt and

extreme actions like the torture scene that built this oppression-play. Rather, the

whole structure of the diegetic social structure served to uphold and perpetuate the

oppression of my and others’ characters. The torture scene, as a plot event, was an

effective tool for expressing and embodying that oppression.

Oppression as diegetic structure

Structures of oppression were baked into the design of Inside Hamlet through the

systems of power that existed in the fictive world and through the written character

relationships. The central plot of the larp concerned the uprising of the citizens of

Denmark against the oppressive rule of King Claudius. The power structure of the

fictional Denmark in which we played was a monarchy with a number of vassal noble

families who wielded varying amounts of political influence and military might. There

were also ways in which commoner characters could exert influence such as through

religion, there being a formal church and a group of mystics. There were also groups

such as the press, courtesans, and industrialist ‘profiteers’. Each of the vassal

families had relationships with the monarch and the other families, as well as having

individual personal relationships, both friendly and antagonistic, with characters both

inside and outside the family group. Similarly the commoner characters had a range

of friendly and antagonistic relationships with each other and members of King

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Claudius’s court. This network of relationships created a social structure in which

some characters held significant power and influence while others had less.

My very taking on of the role of Lartius imparted certain expectations and duties onto

me, not as a player but as a character within the diegesis. As a lord, he was vassal

to the king. Being landless, he had to rely on the charity of others and was therefore

(in the context of the fiction) pitiable. As a friend of Hamlet, he was distrusted in

Claudius’s court. These were some of the roles and expectations set for the

character in the fiction; some of these he fulfilled, but others he railed against. Thus,

though not an underprivileged character, he was oppressed through the constraints

of the expectations which the social structure of the fiction placed him under,

similarly to Marilyn Frye’s definition of oppression above. These constraints were

also felt by me as a player during the larp. While these were the constraints on the

character ‘as written’, equally important to my experience of oppression was action,

particularly the potential (or lack thereof) for meaningful action my character held,

and the interactions I had with other characters. As Jaakko Stenros has claimed,

‘when we pretend together that we have stepped into another world […] it all starts to

feel real enough’ (2019, p. 30 italics in original).

Much of the feeling of oppression I experienced was caused by a deliberate

diminishment of agency for the character I played. The role of Lartius limited my

actions as a character and as a player, while affording other characters a much

wider range of actions. While other characters had authority to carry out specific

activities, could perhaps order others to perform actions for them, or had the backing

of a powerful family or other kind of grouping, such as a military unit or a religious

sect, the Prince’s Circle, the group Lartius belonged to, was small and wielded little

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power in court. The only real influence the character had was through his association

with Hamlet, whose absence for the whole of the central Act of the larp meant that

Lartius was open to all kinds of attacks and abuses, his treatment by the Directorate

not being the least of these. Attempting to confront or to cross others would land him

in trouble. Lartius was thus powerless to affect things which he wanted to affect and

to achieve the things he wanted to achieve. The possibilities for action inversely

correlated with the character’s oppression: the fewer the possibilities for meaningful

action, the greater the oppression. Thus, since my character’s range of possibilities

was constricted, I as a player felt oppressed by the systems in place in the diegesis

of the larp. This effected the experiential representation of oppression for me.

The diegesis afforded power to some characters and withdrew it from others. At the

same time, the mechanics of the larp afforded all players, in theory if not in practice,

equal power and agency over their own physical and narrative experience.

Nonetheless, during the larp I could not simply announce ‘Now I am King,’ as might

happen, say, in a childhood roleplaying scenario. Had my character done this, the

‘offer’ would certainly have been rejected by other players, or at least treated as a

joke or a pretence of some kind. The diegesis had its own rules which were upheld

by the players and felt ‘real enough’; the fictional ‘world’ and the society portrayed in

the larp hung together by their own logic and laws. The laws in the fictional diegesis

would not allow for my character to assume the mantle of king. I had to play my part

as a player, and my character was expected to play his part as loyal subject. As a

player, I was able to leave the diegetic space, but when I returned my character

would still be oppressed. Though I (as player) could escape, Lartius could not. Even

if I calibrated with other players to play less overt oppression, my character would

never have the power or influence to be able to carry out certain actions.
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Though I welcomed the oppression-play as an experience and as an element of my

storying, Lartius was averse to the oppression he lived under. Part of the interest of

playing the character was that he did not accept the social structure he lived in and

was actively attempting to overthrow it. He recognized the constraints against his

freedom and the fatalism of adhering to the laws and expectations laid down for him.

In my storying, this was the prime reason for his betrayal of the state and his

collusion with the communists: it was his way of gaining power and being able to

affect the outcome of things. It might be objected that I did not experience the

oppression as the character because I as a player welcomed it. However, aversion is

not a defining aspect of oppression as defined above, indeed there are plenty of

examples of oppressed individuals accepting and upholding the oppressions under

which they live.19 Aversion is not therefore central to an experiential representation of

oppression in the way it is necessary for one of torture. Moreover, I did feel the

frustration of trying to achieve things and failing, both as a character and as a player.

Even though I was not averse to these feelings of failure and constraint since they

built an interesting and textured narrative, the feelings were still real. I was not able,

as a player as well as a character, to affect things according to my objectives. There

was no way that the character could ‘win’ within the system, to the extent that he

conspired to topple that system in order to institute a new one in which he might

have power. The attitude towards the oppression, whether aversion or welcoming,

was not as important to the experiential representation as the powerlessness of

social constraint and constriction of possibilities for action.

19
For instance, women upholding and perpetuating sexist social structures.

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Lartius’s powerlessness was brought about by the relationality of the characters, and

the ways in which other players participated with me in sceneing. At the start of the

second act, in order to counteract Lartius’s open contempt for the court, Claudius

appointed him court jester. I and the player of Claudius had agreed this in the break

between the first and second acts. This appointment was an invitation for other

characters to treat my words and actions as a joke and openly mock the character in

a way they had not done so before. This trapped me in a specific social role,

confined and shaped by unavoidable social forces. The fact that Claudius had the

power to appoint Lartius as court jester, and that the other characters accepted this

decree, demonstrates the very real power structure that was at play within the

diegesis. This increased the oppression I felt in character since I became even less

able to affect things in the diegesis, having been made figuratively toothless by

Claudius’s action. It was important that this was effected by the way other characters

related to my character rather than by any action on my part. The oppression was

instilled through the network of relations in which the character participated.

While the potentiality for oppression was contained in the written relationships in the

character sheets given to us by the designers, it was up to us as the players to enact

these oppressive relationships and bring the potentiality into actuality, making it ‘feel

real enough’. Appointing Lartius the court jester was not prewritten in the relationship

given to me and the player of Claudius, but was an event that followed logically from

it, and from the action of the first act. Because the potentiality was already in the

design, we just needed to do, we didn’t need to imitate. By this I mean that the

enactment of the oppression was based on the affordances given in the design

rather than by copying or embodying extant examples of real-world oppressions. It is

clear here that it was our playing together and the network of relations which was the
217
ground for my experience of oppression in the larp, rather than any intentional

‘imitation’ or mimesis of specific instances of oppression or of oppression in general.

The design was not in itself an imitation of the structure of oppression, but contained

the potential for such a structure to become. It ‘imitated’ the ground of oppression

through its positing of relations.

Oppression as simulation; larp as text

My experience in the torture scene did not create an accurate experiential copy of

real-life torture, nor did it reach toward the ground of the experience of torture in

general, because a defining element in the experience of torture is aversion.

However, my experience of feeling oppressed did effectively simulate actual

oppressions. This was enabled because it was possible to reconstitute the structures

and relations of oppression within the diegesis of the larp in exactly the way that it

was not possible to reconstitute the activities and relations involved in torture. That

is, in the simulation which comprises the larp and its fictive world I suggest that

actual structures of oppression are present.

I deliberately deploy the terms simulate and simulation here, and intend with this to

invoke the notion of the simulacrum developed by Jean Baudrillard. Just as in

Baudrillard’s assessment of religious systems, the larp ‘is no longer itself anything

but a giant simulacrum – not unreal, but a simulacrum, that is to say never

exchanged for the real, but exchanged for itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without

reference or circumference’ (Baudrillard 1994, p. 6). This almost perfectly

encapsulates the larp: it is ‘not unreal’, indeed it certainly ‘feels real enough’; nor

does it stand in for the real, but is its own enclosed world or system, not requiring a

ground outside itself. Thus, in the playing of oppression in Inside Hamlet, my larping
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was not a representation but a simulacrum. My playing and my character’s

relationships to other characters referred only to the larp design. The larp therefore

has its own reality and its power is not drawn from a ground outside itself. Rather it is

its own ground. That is to say, the experiences to which I was subject, the processes

of sceneing in which I participated, and the storyings which I produced were

grounded in the larp itself. This concords with Baudrillard’s conception of the

simulacrum as a copy without an original.

I invoke here, too, the Derridean notion of ‘text’ (Derrida 2016, pp. 172-3). For

Derrida there are ‘texts’ which operate through internal relations of signifiers to other

signifiers within the system, and the ‘general text’ which encompasses all reality

including the texts (Schalkwyk 1997, p. 388). The larp can be understood as a text,

an internal network of relations, and as part of the general text, referring to but never

identical with instances of torture and other instances of oppression. Methexis here

is participation in the process of sceneing, or in the community of players (a kind of

communion) rather than any (attempted) participation in an external ground as

Nancy suggests is the case with mimetic representation. In a similar way, storying

can also be viewed as the self-as-ground, a network of relations which links the

processes of sceneing with the private routes of inheritance of prior experience. The

twin grounds for my playing of oppression, then, are the larp itself and my

autoethnographic narrativizing.

This is not representation by mimesis, the deep dive in an attempt to participate in

the ground, but rather representation by simulation, which neither seeks to

participate in nor even refers to a ground outside itself. Inside Hamlet was a

Derridean text or Baudrillardian simulacrum. Though the larp was perhaps inspired

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by real-life instances of oppression in the design, it was in itself entirely self-

sustaining and self-referential. It did not require an external ground (or ‘outside-text’

(Derrida 2016, p. 172)). Ironically it is precisely because of this detachment from

referents that it came to ‘refer to’ and ‘represent’ instances of oppression so well.

Because it stood on its own, without the necessity of a ground to sustain it, the larp

became an example of oppression, albeit a fictive one, and so participated in the

network of examples that give meaning to and define oppression; it became part of

the network of relations constituting the ‘text’ of oppression. Thus, it was precisely

because it was its own ground that Inside Hamlet was able to reconstitute the

structures of oppression effectively.

As I have argued here, in Inside Hamlet I experienced actual oppression in a fictional

diegesis, a simulation. My choices in the larp and my potential for action was actually

limited by the fictive social structure and my character’s relationality to other

characters. How, then, does this relate to my definition of experiential representation

towards the start of the chapter? It is not a mimetic representation. It demonstrates

the difference between ‘seeming’ and ‘being’ which Hamlet highlights in Act 1, scene

2 of Hamlet the play. I did not dress in the ‘trappings’ of oppression while playing

Lartius, rather the character was oppressed, and playing him in the diegetic space I

felt that oppression too. It ‘represents’ oppression in the sense of synecdoche: a part

standing for the whole – my playing Lartius stands for other oppressions as an

example of oppression. It does not take other oppressions as its ground, but rather is

of that ground, merely standing forth, as if to say ‘this is what oppression is,’ or ‘this

is how oppression becomes’.

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Conclusion

In this chapter I have given a definition for experiential representation in order to

explore the representability of extreme, violent experiences in performance. This

took into account a number of objections voiced by Alston, Logan and Wilkinson to

similar kinds of performances in immersive theatre, where audiences were promised

‘authentic’ experiences. In defining this I considered and critiqued Duggan’s account

of representing ‘trauma’s central paradox’, while at the same time recognizing his

concept of ‘mimetic shimmering’ as a useful touchstone.

I have demonstrated that my own experience of representing torture in Inside Hamlet

did not meet the definition of experiential representation. Firstly, the experience was

ground in the present moment of performance rather than in real-world instances of

torture. Any routes of inheritance traced back to real-world instances of torture were

inherited indirectly through semiosis rather than directly through mimesis. Secondly,

my experiences of both the trauma aspect, that is the physical mimesis of torture,

and the relational aspect, that is the power differential between the torturer and

tortured and aversive feeling of the latter, did not reconstitute, did not seem like, real-

world experiences of torture. Thirdly, I showed that performances which do seek to

reconstitute such experiences are at risk of overstepping the fuzzy limit of

representation and becoming instead actual cases of abuse or assault. However,

fourthly, I showed that my experiences of oppression in Inside Hamlet did effectively

represent real-world structures of oppression – although this ‘representation’ was not

in the sense of mimetic, experiential representation but rather in the sense of

synecdoche. The oppression experienced in the larp stood as an example of

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oppression in general. It was therefore grounded in the diegesis of the larp rather

than being a mimetic embodiment of an ‘original’.

While I have tried to maintain rigid definitions of mimesis and semiosis for the sake

of the argument, in reality their distinctions shimmer like Hamlet’s distinction of

seeming and being at the fuzzy limit of representation. There is a danger in reifying

concepts like these; their distinction is artificial and arbitrary. However, this reification

and distinction, even if temporary, has been valuable in laying the conceptual

groundwork for investigating the possibilities and limits of experiential representation.

Quite apart from the fuzzy limit of representation, larping itself constantly shimmers

between the real and the fictive: as Jesper Juul would put it, it is ‘half-real’ (2005).

Hamlet’s distinction between seeming and being begins to blur. There is little

(perhaps no) ‘experiential representation’ as I have defined it in larping: if I kiss

someone in a larp, I have the actual experience of kissing someone. It is not a

representation, though it occurs within the fictive framing of the diegesis. Similarly,

my experience of minor oppression in Inside Hamlet was real: there were real

constraints which I had to operate under within the dramaturgy of the larp. Sex and

violence are represented semiotically for this reason, because otherwise they would

have to be enacted for real. Everything in larping is either a semiotic representation

or it is for real (or more often it is both). For this reason, torture is representable

visually but is not representable experientially. The very desire for participation in the

ground of torture means that it will inevitably fail, either never attaining the required

relational quality and so becoming a symbol, or else reaching beyond the fuzzy limit

of representation in attaining the relational quality and thus shift into an actual

instance of torture or abuse.

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 Chapter 5

Empathy and Historical Larping in Legion:

Siberian Story

Introduction

In 2018, I had a larp experience which put me in the place of a historical Other, in

Legion: Siberian Story, which was based on the plight of the Czechoslovak foreign

legion in Siberia during WWI and the 1917 Russian Revolution. In Legion I walked,

as those Czechoslovak soldiers had, across a snow-covered landscape to reach my

destination, in the fiction Vladivostok but in reality a long track where I could run from

imaginary enemies towards an imaginary ship. On the cross-country trek I had to

traverse a collapsed bridge over a fast-flowing icy river and carry the corpses of

fallen comrades, as well as learning in character of the (fictional) death of one of my

closest relations.

In her TEDx Talk in 2018, Dutch larper and larpwright Susan Mutsaers made a

compelling argument for the potential of larping to promote empathy. She referred to,

among others, The Quota, a UK larp set in an immigration detention centre, and

Halat Hisar, a Palestinian-Finnish larp about the daily tribulations of living under

occupation. She asserted that these kinds of ‘social larps … let people step into

another one’s shoes to explore what they really feel’ and poses the question: ‘are we

allowed to talk about somebody’s experience like we’re actually there if we cannot

know what they are feeling?’ (TEDx Talks 2018). This chapter seeks to unpack the
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implications of ‘walking in the shoes’ of another, and consider whether larping can

give access to or knowledge of how another is feeling.

This chapter is about the possibility of empathy, of sharing in the affective and

emotional experience of historical Others, or ‘feeling what another feels’, in the

context of historical larps. In it I explore definitions of empathy and evaluate the ways

in which my own experiences in historical larps conform to these definitions. Legion

did not promise an ‘authentic’ experience of the Other’s life or circumstances,

promises which Adam Alston challenges and critiques in some role-playing

immersive theatre (2016b). However, roleplaying the lives of historical Others implies

a drawing closer to their experiences. Larping, and particularly historical larping, is

popularly said to foster empathy. For instance, Mutsaers’s presentation cited above,

but also Daniel Steinbach’s argument for empathy being generated by putting

players in the circumstances of refugees (Steinbach 2016, p. 54). I want to question

this popular belief and analyse it in relation to my own experiences to uncover what

might be meant by this and under what definitions such a claim might conceivably be

true.

The main question driving this inquiry is: what do my experiences in historical larping

have to do with the experiences of the historical Others represented? I assert that it

is dangerous to suggest that we as larpers can lay claim to Others’ experiences. This

might be characterised as ‘colonising’ Others’ experiences (Landsberg 2004, p. 149),

though this is a politically loaded term which might be better conceived of as

‘appropriating’. Certainly the claiming of another’s experience might be construed as

imperialist as Landsberg claims, but the term ‘colonising’ is loaded with racial and

ethnic implications which are not the focus of this chapter.

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The main focus of the chapter is on theorising a model of ‘empathy’ in larping which

does not consist in feeling the feelings of another, but which rather changes the

emotional valency of encounters with others, either in person or through archival

documents and artifacts. This begins from the premise that larp can undoubtedly be

personally transformative, changing the ways in which a player might understand the

experiences of another, while also acknowledging the fact that individual experience

is opaque in Edouard Glissant’s sense (1997), and unknowable by others. Hence,

another key question that this chapter will be wrestling with: How have my

experiences in larping affected my encounters with historical Others? The

exploration of these issues will contribute to addressing the main questions of this

thesis by: demonstrating how participation (processes of sceneing and storying)

bears on the affects and emotions I feel during my larping, and on my representation

of Others; and outlining what relations of power are created in my representations of

Others.

The chapter begins by charting existing literature in larp studies on the aims and

purposes of historical larping, and the literature in cultural studies on emotion,

empathy and the notion of sharing experience with political or historical Others. It

then sets out a definition of empathy before using that definition to analyse my

experiences in Legion. This analysis will draw on Hilda Levin’s notion of

metareflection, which contradicts ‘the myth of total immersion’ (2020, pp. 65-6) and

proposes a form of reflective practice in larping that encompasses the diegesis and

the real world simultaneously (2020, p. 62). This will allow me to evaluate the

accuracy of describing larped experience as fostering empathy, and to propose an

alternative architecture of emotional experience arising from larped experience,

based on Whiteheadian routes of inheritance.

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Historical larping

I have argued throughout this thesis that larping is chiefly about experience and

participation rather than accurate representation. However, this does not place

larping outside the politics of representation. The politics of representation is

particularly salient regarding historical larping, especially when the historical period

represented is within living memory.

Mo Holkar has highlighted both the appeal of and the important design

considerations that go with historical larping and history as a source for larp design

(2017, 2020). He says that ‘designers may feel that they owe a responsibility to the

people of those times to represent them fairly’ (2017). Such a sense of responsibility

seems reasonable if designers aim to take the historicity of the period seriously, and

if they similarly want the players to. The sense of responsibility might be extended to

the players in historical larps as well, since it is they who portray the characters. The

idea of responsibility is echoed in a controversy surrounding Just a Little Lovin’

(2011), in Sweden (Gerge 2021). This larp is set during, and concerns the lives of

those affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s. The concern of some critics and

journalists was that illness and the experiences of historical Others were being

‘exoticized’. However, the larp’s designers Hanne Grasmo and Tor Kjetil Edland

make explicit their aims of ‘telling stories of universal themes that would genuinely

touch the players; to further provide an experience from which our participants could

reflect on questions of identity’ (2021, p. 565), as well as their control over the tone

and themes of each act of the larp through workshops and metatechniques (2021, p.

566). This concern over the quality of representation in historical larps is not only

important for fairness and respect to the historical Other. I suggest that if designers,

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organisers and players hope to foster some kind of understanding or empathy with

the Other, the emotional tenor of the playing style and the feelings evoked must

enable that.

Elsewhere, Eirik Fatland analyses the historical authenticity of 1942 - Noen å stole

på (2000) an experimental larp which ‘brought together 130 players for five days in

an ambitious attempt to relive history’ (Fatland 2010, p. 93), that of the 1942

occupation of Norway by the Nazis, through the lens of a small fishing village.

The experiment was successful […] But exactly in which respects it

succeeded, and how, is still open for discussion. At the heart of that

discussion stands two claims: The first is that 1942 achieved an unparalleled

authenticity in its depiction of history through larp. The second claim is that it

taught us something about life during the Occupation. (Fatland 2010, p. 93)

While these claims are interesting in themselves, I am not seeking to analyse Legion

in these terms. I will not be looking at its depictions of historical facts, its physical

representations, etc. Nor will I be investigating the educational value of the larp.

More interesting for this chapter is Fatland’s claim that though ‘not an exact rec-

reation’ of the historical place and period, the larp was ‘tangible enough that it would

force us to bridge the gulf of understanding between us and our grandparents’ (2010,

p. 99). This implies a drawing closer to, and empathy with those historical Others

who are represented in the larp.

Holkar outlines some of what might be termed, in Whiteheadian manner, the routes

of inheritance through which we gain knowledge and experience of historical periods.

He highlights the biases inherent in many of these routes. This is important since

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‘our knowledge of history is filtered by the (necessarily limited) information that we

have about it,’ (Holkar 2017) and is restricted and distorted by the historical

interpretations applied to primary sources. Interpretation also comes from

contemporary social and personal attitudes towards the structures and mores of the

historical milieu. There is also the question of attitude towards the historical period.

In her treatise on reenactment, Rebecca Schneider argues that ‘reenactors in art and

war romance and/or battle an “other” time and try to bring that time – that prior

moment – to the very fingertips of the present’ (2011, p. 2). The idea of ‘romancing

and/or battling’ suggests different perspectives on and relationships with the past

being reenacted. However, the past is brought into the present it is always in a

particular way, through a particular filter. A player’s conception of a historical period

or event is therefore coloured by layers of interpretation. For Holkar this troubles the

notion of historical ‘authenticity’: ‘It’s impossible to larp “the 16th Century” from the

point of view of the 21st Century; all you can ever do is larp an approach to the 16th

Century, which emerges from the context in which you’re designing’ (2017). This

frames historical larping as a historiographic practice, much like the historical

reenactments discussed by Schneider (2011) and Magelssen (2014).

Holkar further asserts that the responsibility of historical larp designers is twofold:

they have responsibility not only towards the historical Others in the representation

of those Others, but also to making a larp experience which says something about

the social relations of the historical period which is relevant to the players now

(Holkar 2020). This might be through pointing up similarities or differences between

the social structures of the two periods. This highlights that historical larps are not

mere representations of historical events or milieus, in the way simulations or

reenactments might aim for. When Schneider says that reenactments ‘try to bring
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that time – that prior moment – to the very fingertips of the present’, it recalls Nancy’s

mimetic dive towards the ground explored in Chapter 4. Indeed, Schneider also

writes of historical reenactors’ ‘effort to erase as much anachronism as possible’

from their reproduction of prior moments (2011, p. 53). Rather than trying to make

the past present, historical larps are more about the historical-fictional stories the

players develop through their participation. While representation becomes a greater

concern in historical larping due to the existence of actual historical Others who

correspond to the characters, this does not mean that the importance of participation

and player experience is diminished in favour of slavish or fanatical pursuit of

absolute period accuracy. Indeed, the focus on story over and above concerns of

accuracy is one of the key factors distinguishing historical larping from reenactment.

The case studies in the previous chapters have been ‘fantasies’, in the sense that

they were inspired by works of fiction (plays and novels) and were grounded

primarily in the imaginations of the designers. Although some of these larps might

have used an historical period as a setting, none of them were seeking to reproduce

or invoke that period in order to restage historical events or milieus. Inside Hamlet,

for instance, was set in the late 1930s. However, the characters were all from the

play Hamlet, and the world was an alternate history in which the European powers

were still political monarchies. This use of period is what Holkar calls ‘para-historical’

larp, which takes place ‘in a setting that’s inspired by actual history, but not seeking

to represent it’ (Holkar 2020). Holkar suggests that the moral responsibility,

particularly of larp designers, towards the historical Other changes as the design

deviates further from actual history (2020). Though Holkar does not expand on what

that change might be, I suggest that the moral responsibility is greater when there

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are real historical Others whose experiences correspond to those represented in the

larp, compared to where the use of period is chiefly for the aesthetics of the larp.

The value of Holkar’s observations for this chapter is that they highlight both the

responsibility designers and players have towards the experiences of historical

Others, and the impossibility of ‘authentically’ simulating those Others or their

historical milieu. This implies that respectfulness in the handling and portrayal of

historical Others’ identities does not guarantee an authenticity of experience.

Arguably, part of the responsibility of respectfulness should be a recognition that the

experiences had in larping are not comparable to those of the historical Others

represented. This seems to be at odds with the notion of larping for empathy, since

we cannot claim to feel what another has felt if the experience used to evoke that

feeling is not comparable. However, I felt strongly that my affective experiences in

Legion related me somehow to the historical Others I represented. This raises

questions about whether such a relationship is real or illusory, and whether I can

rightly claim that my larped experiences brought me into closer contact with the

historical Others.

Firstly, it is important to underpin the exploration of these questions with an

understanding of emotion and particularly notions of empathy. The next section will

define empathy in light of scholarship in philosophy and cultural studies. Following

this will be an exploration of the distinctions between affect and emotion. This will

lead into discussion of my experiences in Legion, where I will critique the idea that

second-person interpretation constitutes ‘witness’ of historical Others, instead

deploying Levin’s metareflection as a means for ‘listening’.

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Empathy

There are a number of nuanced definitions of different kinds of empathy in the field

of philosophy. Some of these definitions, and the distinctions between them, will be

important in the analysis of my larping, while others will not be relevant.

The most important distinction philosophers in the field of empathy draw is between

cognitive and affective empathy. Cognitive empathy is defined as ‘the capacity to

understand another person’s state of mind from her perspective’ (Spaulding 2017, p.

13), whereas affective empathy is defined as feeling for another (Maibom 2017, p.

23). Cognitive empathy is therefore about recognizing and rationalizing a person’s

emotions, actions, behaviours or attitudes given what one knows of their

circumstances. The two major psychological theories for how cognitive empathy is

achieved are known as ‘simulation theory’ and ‘theory theory’ (Spaulding 2017, p.

14). Simulation theory argues that cognitive empathy is achieved through a process

of imagining oneself in the situation of the Other, while theory theory argues that the

same can be achieved with mere reason, without the need for imaginative

simulation. Simulation theory can be seen as perspective-taking whereas theory

theory can be seen as reasoning the Other’s emotions and actions from given

circumstances. While the relative merits of each of these theories is not of great

importance to this thesis, it is clear that the simulation theory has strong links with

larping, as will be discussed later. However, correlation between this kind of

perspective-taking and larping is too obvious to be particularly interesting, and so I

focus on the possibility of emotional and affective empathy, which larping has a less

clear relationship to.

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Unlike cognitive empathy, which is understanding another’s perspective, affective

empathy is an affective response to a perceived feeling in another. Affective

empathy is differentiated from other affective states such as emotional contagion,

empathic concern and personal distress, though as Heidi Maibom observes these

terms are often confused or used interchangeably in various disciplines, and the

concepts are not necessarily entirely exclusive of the others but rather exist on a

spectrum (2017, pp. 22-3). Affective empathy is generally defined as feeling a

specific affect/emotion for the Other, while empathic concern (or sympathy) is the

broader state of feeling good or badly for another, emotional contagion is considered

a primal response to mood in which one ‘catches’ the emotion of others, and

personal distress is becoming distressed by another’s emotion without sharing that

emotion. Affective empathy proper is felt for and with the Other, sometimes referred

to as ‘fellow feeling’ (Landsberg 2004, p. 150).

Martin Hoffman defines affective empathy as ‘an affective response more

appropriate to another’s situation than one’s own’ (2000, p. 4). Hoffman, whose

concern is empathy’s role in moral development, focuses on empathic distress, that

is experiencing distress when observing another in distress. He outlines a number of

modes of arousing empathic distress, of which ‘direct association’, ‘mediated

association’, and ‘role- or perspective-taking’ (Hoffman 2000, p. 5) are pertinent to

the present chapter. Direct association deals with the ‘association of cues from the

victim or his [sic] situation with one’s own painful past experiences’ (Hoffman 2000,

p. 5), an involuntary response arising from the apprehension of surface appearances

(facial expression, posture, gesture, sound, pheromones, etc.) of the Other. One

perceives the feeling in the other, giving rise to the same feeling in oneself. Mediated

association is the ‘association of expressive cues from the victim or cues from the
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victim’s situation with one’s own painful past experience, where the association is

mediated by semantic processing of information from or about the victim’ (Hoffman

2000, p. 5). In this kind of association narrative becomes a constituent in the

experience of empathic distress. Hoffman gives the example of a 1996 study in

which subjects read accounts of others’ distressing life experiences and reported

empathic distress responses (2000, p. 51). Role- or perspective-taking is the same

as the simulationist theory of cognitive empathy, that is, imagining ‘how the victim

feels or how one would feel in the victim’s situation’ (Hoffman 2000, p. 5). It is

important for my later argument that, despite being different in kind from affective

empathy, cognitive empathy can arouse the former.

It is unclear in much of the literature on larping whether the activity is supposed to

engender cognitive empathy, affective empathy, or both. In the context of larp

studies, Elektra Diakolambrianou refers to empathy as the ‘ability to understand

another person’s feelings and/or experiences from within that person’s own frame of

reference […] our ability to put ourselves in another person’s shoes’ (2021). This is

congruent to the definition of cognitive empathy set out above. The idea of

roleplaying engendering cognitive empathy is relatively uncontroversial; as

Diakolambrianou points out, this kind of perspective-taking is common in larping, and

roleplaying itself literalizes the simulation theory of cognitive empathy. However, it is

not obvious whether larping does, or even can, engender affective empathy in

relation to historical Others. Is it really possible to feel the feelings of another through

our playing? In light of Hoffman’s taxonomy discussed above, it would seem not. If

empathy requires attendance to the Other, then immersed acts of roleplaying are

inadequate for its occurrence. I will argue, however, that it may be in moments of

metareflection that empathy happens, rather than moments of immersion.

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Sara Ahmed gives useful insight into ‘the impossibility of feeling the feelings of

others’ (2014, p. 38). Writing specifically about the experience of pain (emotional as

well as physical) she highlights that, while we might be moved by another’s pain or

their account of it, we cannot feel it in our bodies or know it personally: as Ahmed

says, ‘I know enough of this pain to know the limits of what I can know, reading as I

am in this time and place, with this body, arranged as it is, here, now’ (2014, p. 38).

This throws into relief Hoffman’s definition of empathy; it emphasises that the

empathic response is not feeling the feelings of the Other, but rather feeling for the

Other. The fact that Hoffman’s model resorts so often to prior personal experience

on the part of the empathising subject is testament to this.

Dance scholar Susan Leigh Foster charts notions of kinaesthetic empathy, asserting

that ‘the dancing body in its kinesthetic specificity formulates an appeal to viewers to

be apprehended and felt’ (2011, p. 218). The necessity for the co-presence of the

dancing body and the ‘viewer’, or at the very least the visual apprehension of the

dance, means that Foster’s model for kinaesthetic empathy is of limited relevance to

questions of larping the historical Other. Larpers play (imaginatively) as the absent

Other rather than apprehending them directly. The routes of inheritance for feeling

the Other are vastly different between the two cases.

As explored in Chapter 2, Glissant further highlights the difficulties of claiming

knowledge of the Other in his discussion of notions of ‘transparency’ and ‘opacity’

(1997, pp. 111-20, 189-94). His argument says that the West seeks to know and

understand other cultures by rendering them ‘transparent’ to their modes of

investigation. However, this rendering transparent is a form of reduction: ‘In order to

understand and thus accept you, I have to measure your solidity with the ideal scale

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providing me with grounds to make comparisons and, perhaps, judgements. I have

to reduce’ (Glissant 1997, p. 190). Glissant contrasts this with a culture’s ‘right to

opacity’ (1997, p. 190), not to be known, classified and reduced according to the

scales and measures of the hegemonic culture but to exist fulsomely on its own

terms. Though Glissant is writing particularly about culture, language, and

translation, it is clear to see how these concepts can be transposed to an analysis of

empathy in historical larping. If there is a desire or attempt to know and understand

the feelings of an historical Other, there is a necessary reduction of the Other’s

experience into the player’s frame of reference. This links with Holkar’s observations

about viewing historical periods from the perspective of the present. As with Ahmed’s

argument, Glissant points to the limitations of empathy and further supports the

necessity for the reliance in Hoffman’s model on prior personal experience and

imagination.

Similar questions regarding knowledge of another’s experience has been considered

by Liam Jarvis (2019, passim) in relation to virtual reality performance. Jarvis frames

this as an issue of perspective-taking (2019, pp. 15-6), recognising, as

Diakolambrianou does of larping, that the embodiment of another’s physical

circumstances is necessarily an attempt to experience the world as they do. This

kind of embodied perspective-taking will be one of the key problems encountered

later in the chapter when attempting to consider larped experience instead as

affective empathy. The main question is whether such perspective-taking makes

present the (spectre of) the historical Other.

My understanding of how empathy operates in larping is further underpinned by the

current of Whitehead’s process philosophy which runs throughout this thesis. The

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structure of affective empathy outlined above can be understood in terms of routes of

inheritance: empathy arises from the inheritance of an emotional or affective state of

another in the immediate present. This highlights the necessity for the direct

perception of the Other in the moment of feeling, and that empathic feeling is caused

by perception of feeling in the Other. The concept of routes of inheritance also

enables analysis of the means by which a player encounters historical Others, either

through their play or subsequently. Routes of inheritance are the means by which

past experiences are included in a present, becoming experience. By tracing these

routes, it will be possible to assess the directness and immediacy of a player’s

encounters with historical Others.

In relation to performance and empathy, literature from museum and cultural studies,

including Scott Magelssen’s Simming (2014) and Alison Landsberg’s Prosthetic

Memory (2004), are useful touchstones for modelling the kinds of empathic relations

with historical Others that might arise in larping. The notion of simming is particularly

relevant to feelings arising from physical activity, while prosthetic memory is more

relevant to feelings arising from engagement with stories or narrative.

Magelssen defines simming as ‘a simulated, immersive, performative environment’

(2014, p. 3), and later states that ‘simming, through performative embodiment in

three-dimensional, immersive environments, makes meaning for spectators’ (2014,

p. 7). The relationship with larping practice is obvious since both involve performative

embodiment, though simming is concerned more with the simulation of real-world

scenarios than collaborative, fictional story-making. Magelssen uses simming as an

umbrella term covering a wide range of roleplaying practices from living history to

emergency services crisis simulations. The most interesting part of his discussion for

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this thesis is on ‘second-person interpretation’ in living museums ‘where you do the

interpreting of the past […] by trying your hand at what a historic individual would do’

(Magelssen 2014, p. 33, italics in original). Magelssen explores in detail the

problematics of non-black museum visitors roleplaying as historic slaves in ‘Follow

the North Star’, a U.S. living history roleplay in which visitors ‘step into the roles of

fugitive black slaves seeking freedom in the North’ (Magelssen 2014, p. 33).20 He

particularly emphasises that the performing body operates as a ‘guarantee of

authenticity’ promising ‘a more “real” time travel experience than visitors would get

from a collection of historic objects’ (Magelssen 2014, p. 35). He argues ultimately

that museum visitors understand the notion of ‘walking in another’s shoes’ to be

metaphorical (p. 36), and cites Brecht’s concepts of Verfremdungseffekt and Gestus

(pp. 38, 44) to claim that the differences between the roleplayer’s body and the body

they are representing, as well as the discomfort experienced during the roleplay,

result in critical distance which allows them to ‘bear witness’ to the social distortions

brought about by the historical oppressive system. This analysis suggests that

second-person interpretation gives rise to cognitive rather than affective empathy,

with an embodied understanding of an activity or mode of living, rather than feeling

the feelings of the historical other. However, he also points out, citing Foster, that the

original connotations of empathy ‘had less to do with emotions or feelings than with

the ability “to register a change in sense of physicality that, in turn, influenced how

one felt another’s feelings”’ (Magelssen 2014, p. 151). This analysis points to a

notion of ‘empathic affect’ where the feelings of the other are felt first through the

20
Magelssen’s account of roleplaying as specifically oppressed individuals relates somewhat to my

discussion of oppression in larping in the previous chapter. However, neither the present chapter nor

the aspects of Magelssen’s argument I am interested in deal with the verisimilitude of representations.

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experience of affects rather than emotions (a distinction which is explained in detail

below).

Landsberg argues for a concept of prosthetic memory, where a person ‘takes on a

[…] personal, deeply felt memory of a past event through which he or she did not

live’, which ‘emerges at the interface between a person and a historical narrative

about the past’ (2004, p. 2). She suggests that experiential sites such as

reenactments, ‘experiential’ museums (including but not strictly limited to living

museums), and historical films ‘offer strategies for making history into personal

memories’ (2004, p. 33). In support of theorising this concept of prosthetic memory

Landsberg extols fellow feeling while criticising sympathy. Her discussion of

sympathy bears considering in relation to historical larping:

Sympathy, a feeling that arises out of simple identification, often takes the

form of wallowing in someone else’s pain. Although it presumes sameness

between the sympathizer and her object, whether or not there is actually a

“sameness” between them, an actual shared experience, matters little, for in

the act of sympathizing, one projects one’s own feelings onto another. This

act can be imperializing and colonizing, taking over, rather than making space

for, the other person’s feelings.

In the act of sympathizing, one not only reinforces the victimhood of the other

but also establishes hierarchies. Sympathy implies condescension, for the

sympathizer looks down at her object and in the process reaffirms her

superiority. (Landsberg 2004, p. 149)

For the historical larps I am writing about, the designers, organisers and players

participated with the intention of being respectful towards the historical Others they

were representing, but as Holkar observes we necessarily play from the perspective
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of the present day. It is debatable, therefore, whether larping can foster true fellow

feeling with historical Others, or whether there is instead sympathetic projection

which takes over the experiences of the Other. I will later argue that larping can

foster empathic responses to historical others, but only in moments of metareflection

rather than in the immediate moment of immersed larping. Acts of larping help to

sensitise players to the affects and emotions of Others while not mimetically

reproducing them.

Emotion and affect

Another important distinction to draw in this chapter is between emotions and affects.

Drawing this distinction will allow me to consider different notions of empathy in

relation to the somatic and the emotional. While there is some variety in distinctions

between affect and emotion across disciplines (e.g., Alston 2016a; Barrett 2018;

Cochrane 2015; Massumi 2002), there is general agreement that affect describes

certain kinds of percepts, given to experience, over which the subject has little or no

control, and emotion is, or is the product of, the sense made of those percepts by the

subject. In the present study, affects include feelings such as hunger, thirst and pain,

while emotions include joy, disgust and excitement. It is also generally argued that

not all affects give rise to emotion, but that emotion requires affect. Indeed,

neuropsychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that emotions are constructed from

affects and ‘emotion concepts’ (2018, p. 30). Similarly to how Whiteheadian

conceptual prehensions operate, the emotion concept ingresses into the experience,

or ‘intensity’ of affect, ‘qualifying’ it, as Brian Massumi would put it (2002, p. 25).

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As Ahmed argues in The Cultural Politics of Emotion, ‘emotions are relational: they

involve (re)actions or relations of “towardness” or “awayness” in relation to […]

objects’ (2014, p. 8). This concords precisely with Whitehead’s argument that ‘anger,

hatred, fear, terror, attraction, love, hunger, eagerness, massive enjoyment, are

feelings and emotions closely entwined with the primitive functioning of “retreat from”

and of “expansion towards”’ (1985, p. 45). This ‘towardness’ and ‘awayness’ seems

similar to Barrett’s notion of valence, which she describes as ‘how pleasant or

unpleasant you feel’ (Barrett 2018, p. 72), and which she attributes to affect rather

than emotion. However, it is important to recognise that Barrett considers affects

‘interoception […] your brain’s representation of all sensations from your internal

organs and tissues, the hormones in your blood, and your immune system’ (2018, p.

56). It is not until the ingression of the emotion concept into the experience of an

affect, which can be seen as the moment of judgement, that such towardness or

awayness responses can happen. Affect here is not relational but personal. In this

formulation, affects are the concrescence of bodily feelings as occasions of

experience, while emotions are the concepts which give meaning to those feelings

and relate them to events, or objects, in the external world.

The relational aspect of emotion is important to this chapter. With respect to my

historical larping we can ask the questions: What is the ‘object’ reacted (or related)

to? Is it the immediate circumstances of the larp? Or, through staging an embodied

encounter, is it the historical Other? These questions are central to the analysis of

my larped experiences. For now, it is important to note Ahmed’s argument that

emotions are not found in the subject, nor do they originate from sources either

within or outside of the subject. Instead, emotions become in the encounters

between subjects and objects. As such, ‘attending to emotions might show us how
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all actions are reactions, in the sense that what we do is shaped by the contact we

have with others’ (Ahmed 2014, p. 4). The question of what ‘others’ I had contact

with in my larping will be central to my analysis.

Ahmed’s argument correlates closely with Whitehead’s analysis of emotion as

something which becomes in, and shapes, the encounter between the subject and

objects of experience. Whitehead conceives of this encounter colourfully ‘as the

transference of throbs of emotional energy’ (1978, p. 116). Whitehead decries the

‘topsy-turvy fashion’ (1978, p. 162) in which earlier philosophers formulated

experience, with emotions proceeding from (human) impressions. In Whitehead’s

formulation, emotion is ‘primitive’ in processes of experiencing, with conscious

impressions following much later in the process, if at all. For Whitehead, emotion can

be thought of as the way in which a subject prehends, or grasps, the objects of its

experience. The emotion is shared between the subject and object as ‘sympathy,

that is, feeling the feeling in another and feeling conformally with another’

(Whitehead 1978, p. 162, italics in original). It is important to remember that for

Whitehead the objects of experience are already determined and so have a definite

emotional texture, whereas subjects are always indeterminate but with an appetite to

prehend objects, and therefore apt to be shaped by the objects which it grasps. The

Whiteheadian subject can also be characterised as a ‘superject’, that is, as being

constituted by the objects which it prehends. As subject it is self-determining, and so

shapes the objects by the manner in which they are included in its composition, and

as superject it is shaped by those objects of which it is composed.

Both Ahmed’s and Whitehead’s conceptions of emotion are strongly related to

notions of empathy, the emotional relationship with the object shaping or even

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constituting the subject-superject. Whitehead’s gloss of ‘sympathy’, quoted above, is

clearly analogous with what Landsberg calls ‘fellow feeling’, which, as I have shown,

is what philosophers of empathy consider affective empathy proper. Whitehead’s

direct sharing of feeling clearly does not match with Landsberg’s description of

sympathy as ‘imperializing and colonizing’ or ‘condescending’. There is no strict

hierarchy in Whitehead’s formulation.

Steven Shaviro points out that Whitehead’s notions of emotion and feeling are in fact

closer to what Massumi and others term affect (Shaviro 2012, p. 47). Combined with

the idea, established above, that Whitehead’s ‘sympathy’ is analogous to

Landsberg’s ‘fellow feeling’, and that this fellow feeling is universal to subjects’

experiencing of all objects, Whitehead seems to suggest that affects are not mere

interoception but connect us (our experiences) with the external world. Barrett

herself observes that interoception is simply a kind of perception, the perception of

our own bodies, and Whitehead shows that our experiential contact with the external

world happens through the body. As he observes, ‘the feeling of the stone is in the

hand’ (Whitehead 1978, p. 118, italics in original). The experience of the stone is

therefore inherited from the same kinds of nervous, bodily feelings as affects like

hunger and pain. As Shaviro puts it, ‘perception is first of all a matter of being

affected bodily’ (2012, p. 57). Because fellow feeling is, in Whitehead’s ontology, the

primordial manner of all experience it follows that affects must be experienced in this

manner too. This is interesting for the present thesis because, if Whitehead’s

discussion of ‘sympathy’ relates to affects rather than strictly emotions, it raises the

possibility of what might be termed ‘empathic affect’ besides the well-established

‘empathic emotion’; that is, that I might be able to feel another’s affects through my

larping. Through the analysis of my experience of walking in Legion, I will

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demonstrate that, despite notions of kinaesthetic empathy charted by Foster (2011),

empathic affect with historical Others through larping is impossible, giving weight

instead to the importance of emotions in notions of empathy-through-larping.

The conception of emotion as subjects shaping and being shaped by objects is

important for the analysis of my larped experiences and their impact on encounters

with historical Others. The imperatives of the Ahmedian and Whiteheadian analyses

of emotion for this chapter are, firstly, to consider emotion and affect in terms of my

relationality to others, both my commonalities with and differences from these others,

and how I relate to them; and secondly, to recognise the ways in which I shape and

am shaped by the emotion or affects of an encounter, as well as how the encounter

itself is shaped by the emotion or affect brought into it by both determined objects

and becoming subject.

Empathic affect, ‘witness’, and walking

In January 2018, I travelled to Czechia and trekked for two days across the snow-

covered winter countryside. I did not do this as myself, but as Štěpán Šturm, a

military engineer of the Czechoslovak foreign legion during WWI and the 1917

Russian Revolution. Legion was a two-day larp, run by Czech organisers, about a

fictional unit of the foreign legion as they undertook the real historical labour of

crossing Siberia in order to travel home via the USA. The central plot was of the unit

traversing the unforgiving terrain and braving encounters with hostile forces to reach

Vladivostok and the prospect of a return home. Besides that, there was also

personal drama, romance, and entertainment (Šturm was one of a pair of puppeteers

who put on a show for the rest of the unit).

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The larp was structured around set ‘stations’ where the major scenes would happen,

usually with organiser-generated content. In order to travel between stations we

walked as a unit, usually in double or single file. There were, therefore, two distinct

modes of play. The first was focused on sceneing with others, expressing character

through dialogue and action. The second was focused on doing, on the practice of

walking. While the sceneing-focused mode was about the processes of collaborative

story-making outlined in chapters 2 and 3, the doing-focused mode might be

considered as directly engaging with the historical Other through second-person

interpretation. However, I intend to show in the following that I did not engage

directly with the historical Other while actively roleplaying.

The trek itself encompassed a wide range of walking experiences, from walking

through woodland and open snowy fields, to walking close enough to rivers that a

misstep could result in a plunge into icy water. The going was arduous and, at times,

perilous. Even modern walking boots were no guarantee against slipping on frozen

tree roots.

Towards the end of the second day of the larp, we came to a collapsed footbridge,

the only river crossing for several miles. While the bridge itself was intact, the

supports on one edge had collapsed, making it slope steeply into the flowing water. It

was possible to cross by balancing precariously on the edge of the bridge like a

tightrope walker. There was not even a handrail to assist in this. One brave organiser

performed this feat, taking one end of a length of rope which they pulled taut around

a tree trunk to create a makeshift handrail. After this each member of the unit

crossed the river, slowly and one at a time. The crossing was nerve-wracking,

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adrenaline causing my heart to beat faster and stomach to flutter, and stretching out

each second as I sidestepped across the narrow beam.

Considered as the concrescence of the bodily sensations of crossing the makeshift

bridge, my affect in this moment consisted of the movement of my legs as I sidled

across the beam, my heightened awareness of balance and stability, tensing in my

hands and arms gripping the rope, and the quickening of my heart rate.

My walking, among other actions I performed during the larp, can be considered

second-person interpretation, that is, doing what the historical Other did. I know that

soldiers like Šturm also traversed a frozen landscape and carried the bodies of dead

and injured comrades. Similarly, I traversed the frozen landscape of the Czech

countryside and carried the bodies of people feigning death and injury. Both I and

that notional Other experienced the associated affects of these actions in our bodies.

Possibility of empathic affect

As above, Magelssen, in citing Foster, points towards a notion of empathic affect

defined as feeling bodily sensations for an Other. Here I want to refute this notion, at

least for the specific case of empathic affect for an historical Other through historical

roleplaying. The notion of empathy described by Foster relates specifically to the

witnessing of another’s bodily effort: ‘the process through which one experienced

muscularly as well as physically the dynamics of what was being witnessed’ (Foster

2011, p. 177, italics added). The recognition and empathic experiencing of effort

when witnessing another act is not the same as experiencing one’s own effort. My

affects while crossing the beam were not empathic affects of the kind Foster defines

since they are not caused by perception of the Other. The affects I felt were also

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entirely appropriate to my own situation, and therefore cannot be considered

empathy under Hoffman’s definition as outlined above. In the moment of roleplaying,

it was my own effort that I ‘witnessed’ rather than that of the historical Other.

While I was aware that my body was not the character’s, the affects did not ‘belong’

to the character but to myself as a player. My body was neither trained for nor

experienced in walking this landscape. I instead had to concentrate hard on some

things that might have come second-nature to a real-life, historical Štěpán Šturm; my

body learning as it made missteps, experiencing things for the first time. My body

was possessed of neither the requisite experience nor the metabolic efficiency for

my affects to approximate those of the character’s. My experience of these affects

did not match a real legionary’s experience of similar affects because of the

differences in our bodies. My prior experiences, the routes of inheritance that

constituted not only my ‘sense’ of self but also conditioned my body through activity

and exposure were fundamentally different from those of the historical Other. Here

we see the ‘opacity’ of the Other’s experience (Glissant 1997), inaccessible and

unknowable to me through my roleplaying. As such, I did not ‘bear witness’ to the

historical Other’s affects but simply experienced my own.

The bare fact that both I and the historical Other might have done similar activities

does not constitute empathy. Indeed, these two experiencings have little to do with

each other. My experiencing fatigue, cold, pain, and other affects of my walking was

due to the things I was doing and not to the affective experiences of the historical

Other. The routes of inheritance connecting the experiences were indirect and

extremely dilute at best. That is, I did not experience the historical Other’s affects (or

efforts) as immediate objects in my given circumstances, rather the experiences of

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historical legionaries were passed down to me through a long string of other

experiences, verbal and written accounts, the reverberations of their life as they lived

with or were remembered by others, interceded into by layer upon layer of

interpretation and feeling. According to the definitions I have set out above, drawing

on Hoffman, empathy is a response to the perception of emotion or affect in another.

My affects while larping were not responses to the affects of the historical Other, but

responses to the immediate circumstances in which I found myself, and therefore do

not meet the conditions for empathy.

Empathic affect is not possible through second-person interpretation, since there are

no direct routes of inheritance connecting my doing to the doing of the historical

other. I am experiencing the affects myself, in my own body, because I am doing the

walking. I am not experiencing the Other’s walking. There are indirect routes of

inheritance which can be traced between the historical Other’s affects and my own,

through documents and histories, and via the larp’s designers and organisers.

However, these are necessarily translated through media which are not themselves

affects: documents detailing injuries, or the routes taken by the legionaries, or

chronicles detailing the lives of the historical Others, cannot carry the fatigue, pain,

or cold, as they were felt, into my experience.

‘Witness’ and Verfremdungseffekt

While true empathic affect cannot be achieved through second-person interpretation,

I want to investigate what other kind of relationship might be at play between my own

and the historical Other’s affects. In what follows, I will look in more detail at some of

Magelssen’s assertions and suggestions in order to analyse this relationality.

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Magelssen suggests that through the performance of actions, postures and gestures

(Brechtian Gestus) we can ‘bear witness’ to the social distortions historical Others

were subjected to (2014, p. 44). The idea of witness implies ‘being there’: it is

something personally experienced. The routes of inheritance connect a situation to a

conscious experience directly through a body embedded in that situation. This is the

structure of witness. Also, in his discussion of Verfremdungseffekt (2014, p. 38)

Magelssen asserts that there is critical distance between the second-person

interpreter and the historical Other, brought about by an awareness of the difference

between their bodies. Magelssen suggests that this kind of second-person

interpretation might ‘allow the critical separation necessary for thought’ (2014, p. 38).

My discussion above of the differences between my body and that of a real

Czechoslovak legionary concord with Magelssen’s suggestion. However, I want to

nuance this further, in order to interrogate the notion of ‘embodied witness’

(Magelssen 2014, passim), by investigating the moment of awareness: that is, when

my awareness of the difference between my body and that of the historical Other

occurred.

The kind of second-person interpretation in question is an immersive activity, under

Sarah Lynn Bowman’s definition of ‘immersion into activity’ (2018, p. 383). In other

words, I could immerse in the task of crossing the beam itself; I could allow the

affects of my steps to fill my senses and command my attention. Bowman’s

taxonomy of immersion is more useful here than, for instance, Rosemary Klich’s

review of different descriptions of immersion (2016) since Bowman’s work relates

specifically to larping. The activities of walking in snow and balancing on a narrow

beam to cross a river both involved (for my experience at least) enough challenge to

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warrant my full attention while not being beyond my capacity, thus producing a ‘flow

state’ (Csíkszentmihályi 1990) which allowed me to immerse into the activity.

This raises the question of how I could be simultaneously immersed and critically

distanced, in accordance with Magelssen’s invocation of Brecht’s

Verfremdungseffekt. Quite apart from research which demonstrates the limited

capacity for the human mind to focus on two tasks at once (e.g., Leland et al. 2017),

it is paradoxical to claim to be both fully immersed into an activity and having the

kind of self-aware distance required for Verfremdungseffekt at the same time. This is

closely related to Levin’s line of argument on her idea of metareflection, which also

draws on Brecht (Levin 2020, pp. 63-6). Arguably, immersion into activity precludes

attention to other concerns, including cognisance of the difference between my own

body and that of the historical Other.

If, as I have suggested, the activity of crossing the beam was immersive, how can

such cognisance come about? How does the body of the historical Other figure in

the performance of the activity itself? I want to argue that it does not. Indeed, in the

moment of crossing the beam, I was not aware of the difference between my body

and the body of the historical Other, precisely because I was immersed into the

activity. I was focusing on the immediate activity of walking. It was only after

immersion, once I had the opportunity to reflect, that I was able to recognise the

difference and achieve Verfremdungseffekt. The recognition that the effort of

crossing the beam might be related to the effort of the historical Other only came

through a subsequent reflective process. This is precisely Levin’s notion of

metareflection, where ‘we may focus in on – immerse into – the experience of fiction

while role-playing, but we may also choose to zoom out and observe both reality and

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fiction at the same time’ (Levin 2020, p. 62). In this process of metareflection, I was

no longer immersed in the activity. However, there was no moment while I was

crossing the beam when I broke my immersion in the activity to reflect on the

differences between my own body and the historical Other’s. This was only possible

on subsequent reflection. This suggests that at least some kinds of second-person

interpretation require two distinct phases: one of mimetic activity and another of

reflection.

This also underscores the fact that I was not empathising with the historical Other.

The reflective process required a cognitive dimension which does not fit with the

definition of fellow feeling. I was not feeling for and with the historical Other but

rather feeling my own affects and subsequently overlaying those feelings with my

knowledge of the Other’s plight as a separate experience. While my affects were part

of the objective datum of the new experience, along with the knowledge of the

Other’s plight, the affects do not arise in response to the other’s plight. The

concrescence of these two aspects of my experience occurred only after the activity

in the reflective phase.

The example of crossing the beam involved particularly intense concentration and

heightened awareness of my own body and affects. What, though, of less intense

examples of walking during my roleplaying in Legion? There were moments during

other periods of walking when I broke my immersion in activity to reflect without

stopping walking. Because I was reflecting while walking, experiencing the affects

while thinking about the plight of the historical Other, did this then allow me to

‘witness’ the affects of the Other?

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These periods of walking in deep snow involved frequent switching between

immersion and distance. Though the affects of walking in snow formed part of my

experience in these moments, they were certainly not empathic because they arose

from my walking rather than from my metareflection on the experience of the

historical Other. Awareness of my own body during long walking sections meant I

could be distanced, but I reflected only on the fact that I could not feel the historical

Other’s affects in those moments, the fact that the character (and the historical Other

he represented) would be used to this, whereas I was not. This awareness of

difference is the Verfremdungseffeckt which Magelssen claims allows ‘witness’.

To call it ‘witness’, or implying a ‘being there’, is misleading. It implies that the

historicity is the same, that the historicity of the Other’s affects have been recreated

somehow through my larping. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas, Landsberg ‘critiques

knowledge as inherently imperialistic’ (Landsberg 2004, p. 151), and this is

something to be wary of in claiming ‘witness’. It is important that we, as players, do

not claim the experiences of historical Others as this would be appropriative. To

claim historical experiences in this way would be to ignore their very historicity and

reduce them to a set of reproduceable and ahistorical circumstances. Just as the

oppression I experienced in Inside Hamlet was not the same oppression

experienced in real-life political regimes, the affects I experienced in Legion were not

the same as the affects experienced by real-life Czechoslovak legionaries because

the historical contingencies surrounding each occasion of experience were different.

My own routes of inheritance while walking did not originate in the walking of the

Other, nor in the same historical circumstances and therefore a direct ‘witness’ was

not possible.

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Doing what the Other did does not guarantee feeling what the other felt. Just

because I actually walked in a similar way to the historical Other does not mean that

I feel the Other’s affects. Even if my affects were the same as those of the historical

legionary, their congruence does not imply empathy, which requires that I feel for the

Other, that they be the cause of my feelings. It is clear that the cause of the various

affects I experienced during Legion was my own act of walking rather than the

walking of a historical Other. Moreover, the circumstances in which we acted were

vastly different, and, as Holkar argues, experiences in larping are always coloured by

our own contemporary perspectives. The datum for the concrescent experience was

inherited chiefly from my own prior experience, and there is no direct route of

inheritance between the affects of the historical Other and my experiences in larping.

I neither experienced nor perceived directly the historical Other’s affects in my

walking, but instead had to consider how my walking related to their walking through

metareflection. As with Brecht’s theatre, the distancing and necessity for reflection

denies empathy and gives rise to the Verfremdungseffekt, which Magelssen relates

to second-person interpretation. The metareflection intervenes in the immersion into

activity and assures the distance/difference between immersive play and its

association with the activities and affects of the historical Other.

In summary, second-person interpretation does not yield empathy in the way

outlined in the previous sections. It associates the larped experience with the lived

experience of the historical Other rather than being a response to an encounter with

the Other. While historical larping can provide players insight into the types of affects

historical Others might have experienced, it does not generate a direct response of

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fellow feeling to the perception of affects in those Others. The affects I experienced

while walking were my own; I did not feel the walking for the historical Other.

Empathic emotion and prosthetic memory

At this juncture I want to steer the argument into slightly different territory in order to

understand Landsberg’s notion of prosthetic memory. This notion will be useful,

alongside the above exploration of second-person interpretation, in formulating a

framework for larping-as-empathy-generating. My intention here is to bring these two

concepts together to explain how historical larping might be able to generate

empathy for historical Others.

Landsberg argues compellingly for the notion of prosthetic memory, an

understanding of mediated histories as producing the feeling in an audience of

having ‘been there’. It ‘emerges at the interface between a person and a historical

narrative about the past, at an experiential site such as a movie theater or museum’

(Landsberg 2004, p. 2). Prosthetic memory operates with emotionally charged

narratives rather than doing what the Other did as Magelssen explores with second-

person interpretation. Landsberg argues that prosthetic memories have the power to

provoke empathic emotion by generating emotional responses to stories of Others.

I want first to show why larping does not in itself constitute or produce prosthetic

memory. During Legion, a character close to Šturm died suddenly and unexpectedly.

This event shocked, saddened and angered me. These emotions were my own,

generated from the shock of the unexpected event and the fact that I would no

longer be able to play any plot with that other character. (Owing to my not knowing

this event would happen, I had not played much with the other player during the first
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day of the larp). While these emotions might also have been appropriate for my

character in the given circumstances of the larp, the fundamental cause of the

emotional state was what happened from my perspective as a player. My grief in this

moment did not map directly to the experience of the historical Other. While it was

highly emotionally affecting, I did not experience the loss a historical Other

experienced. Rather, it was a loss related to my, and the other player’s, participation

in the larp. The emotion was also not in response to the grief of the historical other.

The emotion I experienced in the larp was not a result of the perception of that

emotion in the historical Other but rather to my own immediate circumstances as a

player.

Larped memories are not prosthetic memories in that they are actually lived

experiences of larping rather than received representations of experiences not

actually lived. In light of my comments in Chapter 3, prosthetic memories as outlined

by Landsberg are produced dramaturgically through what is given by the producer of

the artifact to the audience, whereas larped memories are produced ludaturgically

through playful encounters with other larpers and the larp environment. This means

that larped memories do not directly reach beyond themselves without further

reflection on how they relate to the experiences of others. This is a key distinction

between the notions of prosthetic memory and second-person interpretation. It also

means that larped experiences cannot become prosthetic memories without the kind

of distanced reflection Magelssen discusses in relation to second-person

interpretation. Second-person interpretation gives rise to ‘witness’ of one’s own

affects produced ludaturgically which can later be associated with the experiences of

the Other; prosthetic memory relies on dramaturgically constructed occasions of

supposed witness of historical events. These concepts, together with routes of

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inheritance, can be used to formulate a framework which explains what my larping

has to do with the experiences of the historical Other.

Encounters with historical Others

As I have shown in the foregoing sections, my affective and emotional experiences

during Legion cannot be considered empathic with the historical Other under the

definition I am using. I did not feel affects because the historical counterpart to

Štěpán Šturm felt them, but because of what my very real, present body was

undergoing. Similarly, I did not feel emotions because the historical counterpart felt

them, but because of the circumstances of the (fictive) character in the larp and my

personal, present relationship to both the character and his circumstances. The

notion of a methektic fellow feeling can, at most, be said to relate to the experience

of participating with other players, not to a communion with the Others represented

by characters.

My larping did not give rise to empathy with historical Others in the present moment

of the larp, but this does not mean that the experiences I had cannot give rise to

empathic responses subsequent to the larp. Here I want to suggest that the

empathic power of larping lies not in the moment of experiencing affects or emotions,

but in the way it sensitises the player to the experiences of historical Others as

encountered through documents, archival materials and media representations.

Encounters with documents and archival materials are precisely the kinds of

‘interface between a person and a historical narrative’ which Landsberg is interested

in; however, they lack the ‘experiential site’ which is necessary for the generation of

prosthetic memory. Here, the second-person interpretation of historical larping can

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intervene in order to lend that experiential dimension. The experiences made in

larping trace routes of inheritance into these encounters and affect them. Larped

experiences can be felt keenly in these moments. My own walking and the emotions

felt at the news of the other character’s death constitute part of my experience in

encountering these stories. This is not a mere intellectual comparison between my

own larped experiences and the historical account of the Other, but rather a felt

resonance which changes the emotional valence of the encounter with the narrative

or archival material. The larped experience serves to sensitise the player, affecting

their personal understanding of the archival material without ever imparting any kind

of experiential ‘knowing’ of the Other’s experience.

Following the end of the larp, the designers and organisers of Legion, a group of

Czech historians, delivered a contextualising presentation to the players. This was a

talk and slideshow detailing the chronology of the real Czechoslovak legion’s journey

to Vladivostok, their circuitous trip home around the globe, as well as situating it in its

contemporary geopolitical history, and giving some details of personal narratives

relating to real legionaries. While listening to this, I felt some of their weariness and

frustration because I was reminded of my own experiences in the larp. In this

encounter, I was able to interpret the account of their walking differently because of

my own larped experience. It generated prosthetic memory in me by marrying my

larped experience, on which I had already metareflected and discovered the distance

between myself and the Other, with the strong, emotionally-driven historical narrative

of the real legionaries. It was in this encounter, when confronted with the reality of

the historical Other, that an empathic resonance happened. This empathic

resonance and my feeling of connection with the historical Other was strengthened,

changed, perhaps reshaped, because of the experiential dimension of my larping.

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‘Listening’

While I largely agree with Magelssen’s argument around Verfremdungseffekt and

Gestus, I want to move away from his use of the term ‘witness’, proposing instead

that this kind of second-person interpretation in developing sensitivity is more akin to

‘listening’. Whereas ‘witness’ implies an experience is laid bare as an ‘image’

immediately available, that we can see and know the Other’s plight through roleplay,

‘listening’ implies attending to the ‘voice’ of the Other.

In historical larping, we might ‘bear witness’ to our own affects and emotions while

playing a character who finds themselves in specific historical circumstances. This

witness allows us to ‘listen’ differently to encounters with real historical Others and

shapes the prosthetic memories generated in such encounters. While we do not

empathise with the historical Others during the act of larping, the very experience of

larping a particular character may cause empathic resonance, or change the depth

or shape of our empathic response, in later encounters with historical Others.

When encountering personal accounts, photographs, or even chronicles and

histories of Czechoslovak legionaries in Siberia during the Russian Revolution, I do

not ‘know’ their experiences, affects or emotions. However, the way I feel in such

encounters and the way I understand those historical Others is different from how it

was before I larped as Štěpán Šturm. As Landsberg argues, this is the important

thing about prosthetic memory, that it changes people in the present and shapes our

ethical stances towards Others/others (2004, p. 152). The notion of listening shows

that larping can foster affective empathy and furthermore demonstrates how acts of

participation and representation bear on each other. If we take encounters with (or

‘readings’ of) the narratives of historical Others as representations, what Derrida

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might call the ‘doubling’ of the text (2016, p. 172), participation in larping and other

forms of roleplaying can bring new meaning or understanding to such

representations. Further, it is only through conceiving of a specific participation as

also a representation of the life of a historical Other that the semiotic association can

be made. While the framing of Legion as specifically historical calls directly for this

association, it is possible that other larps which are not framed as such may give rise

to such associations and acts of listening, thereby fostering empathic resonance.

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter was to investigate the potential for historical larping to foster

empathy with historical Others. I firstly outlined Holkar’s observation that we can only

ever larp other historical moments from the perspective of our own, present historical

moment. I then gave a detailed account of empathy, defining it for the purpose of the

chapter. I argued, using Magelssen’s concept of simming and Landsberg’s concept

of prosthetic memory, that empathy with historical Others does not occur during

moments of immersion. This is because empathy is defined as a response to the

emotion or affect of another, but in moments of immersion focus is on the immediate

present of the larp and not on the historical Other. I also argued, however, that

metareflection on moments of immersion can sensitise players to the experiences of

historical Others. I finally claimed that such sensitisation can lead to empathic

resonance in players, in their subsequent encounters with narratives and archival

materials relating to the historical Others they have played.

The arguments here and in Chapter 4 are complementary, dealing as they both do

with representations and experiences of Others. The conclusions drawn in Chapter 4

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show that representing Others’ experiences is extremely limited, and that one’s own

performances in larping form the ground of one’s experiences. This chapter has

been more concerned with attempts to draw closer to historical Others, to

understand their experiences not by experiencing them, but through trying to create

some common experiential ground through which to sense more keenly their stories

when we encounter them. As Bowman and others have shown, larped experiences

can have a significant transformative impact on individual players’ attitudes and

perspectives, including on their sensitivity to the plights of historical Others.

However, such transformations require openness, attentiveness, and the intention to

change one’s own understanding through listening.

This investigation into empathy has shown some of the ways in which participation

and representation intertwine. Where the first part of the thesis demonstrated the

ways in which experiences in larping are constituted through participation, this

chapter reveals how those experiences can be transformed and reconstituted

through metareflection and thereby formulate new representations or ‘readings’ of

the lives of Others. While empathy in the immersed moment of larping is limited to

fellow feeling with the present co-players (and their characters), metareflection

creates space in which we might feel for historical Others in our encounters with

them. Larped experiences constitute routes of inheritance which re-emerge, forming

threads in the texture of our ongoing experiences of the world.

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 Conclusion

The aim of this research was to investigate the politics of roleplaying and to

understand the functions of participation and representation in larping. Through

autoethnographic analysis of my experiences in larping and building on literature in a

variety of fields concerned with performance, experience and representation, I have

given a perspective on roleplaying which both highlights the power of participation

and demonstrates the limits to representation. I have proposed a framework by

which to understand and analyse roleplaying experiences, as well as studied the

complex relationships between participation and representation.

While many of the findings of this thesis will be of interest to other areas of theatre

and performance studies, particularly to researchers in immersive theatre and other

immersive experiences, it is about larping. The conclusions drawn here cannot be

simply transferred to studies of other kinds of experiences, though there is much

potential for similar studies using these methods in other areas linked to immersive

and participatory performance forms.

I begin my conclusions by addressing the main research questions: How are my

experiences, characters and narratives constituted and composed in larping? How

do the twin aspects of participating and representing bear on each other in larping?

What relations of power are being exercised in acts of participating and

representing? What is the relationship between my lived experiences in larping and

the lived experiences of the (notional) others whom I represent?

Following this, I will chart the concerns and conclusions that are shared across and

between chapters. Firstly, I will look at how the notion of methexis sits within and has
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been developed by the arguments presented across the thesis. Then I will look at

how ides of dissonance and resonance operate, as explored in Chapter 3 and

Chapter 5, especially, and how these ideas relate to each other. Then I will look in

more depth at the idea of the ‘half-real’ of larping, raised in the conclusion to Chapter

4, considering how this concept might apply across the case studies in this thesis.

Finally, I will appraise the methodology of practice-autoethnography, before giving an

account of the limitations and routes for further investigation.

Politics of participation and representation

The main aim of this research was to gain an understanding of how participation and

representation function in the experience of larping and what the politics and

significances of that experiencing are. In exploring this I have considered

distributions of power and agency across several case studies, as well as

considering how the characters, scenes, and stories I have participated in and

helped to create through play relate to their hypothetical real-world counterparts.

One of the core insights coming out of this research is that the significance of

participation supersedes that of representation in my experiences of larping. Playing

together, methektically, with other players both within and outside of the diegetic

world of the larp was what brought meaning to my experiences and stories, over and

above any actions, scenarios, or individuals we were hypothetically representing.

The act of larping creates its own world and takes as its main ‘concern’ the events

and actions within the larp rather than anything external. Wider concerns, such as

how the scenes and narratives created through larping relate to real-world (non-

fictive) events, come to bear when not larping, or more accurately when not actively

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playing or fully immersed. In my analysis of the larps discussed in this thesis, these

concerns entered into consciousness in subsequent reflections on the experiences

had, or in interstices in larping when my ‘real’ world came into sharper focus than the

fictive world of the larp.

I also found that accuracy is not as important as ‘authenticity’ in larping, where

accuracy indicates a correspondence or verisimilitude to an ‘original’, and

authenticity is constituted as a commitment to the fictive world and to creating, with

others, interesting and enjoyable experiences and stories. This can be seen in my

accounts of each of the case studies, though particularly those in Chapter 4 and

Chapter 5, where the discussion was focused more directly on mimetic

representation. In each case, the argument moves towards an understanding of the

larped experience as grounded in the immediate present of the larp rather than in

any hypothetical real-world or historical other to which the experience supposedly

corresponds.

In Chapter 4 I looked at Patrick Duggan’s concept of mimetic shimmering in relation

to representations of torture and oppression in larping. This study revealed the limits

of this approach to experience when the subject is both the performer of and

audience to an activity. Arguably, in the worst cases roleplaying can take real-world

traumas and parody them. It is better not to claim to offer an ‘accurate’ experiential

representation at all, but rather to highlight what the roleplaying experience is and

draw out the value of that. My analysis of the torture scene in Inside Hamlet shows

that such extreme experiences cannot be accurately represented as experiences but

only as reduced imitations of the actions involved, meaning that the larped

experience is not comparable to an actual experience (of torture). I showed that the

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grounding of this scene was in the relations between the players/characters rather

than in the imitation of real-world torture. This is not to say that experiences in

larping can never accurately represent other experiences, but that the extreme

example of torture shows the limitations of experiential representation. For instance,

I argued that oppression was represented as experience in Inside Hamlet in the

sense that my experience stood as an example of oppression by virtue of the way I

and the other players participated together, rather than in the sense of a mimetic

imitation of oppression.

In Chapter 5 I looked at how Scott Magelssen conceptualized second-person

interpretation and Alison Landsberg’s notion of prosthetic memory. While these

models were useful in analysing how my experiences in historical larping produced

empathic responses with historical Others, neither was sufficient for explaining

completely the becoming of fellow feeling. Neither the walking nor the death of my

character’s close relation in Legion gave me an accurate experiential representation

of ‘what it was like’ for my character’s hypothetical historical counterparts. Rather,

each of these was a participatory experience which shaped my process of storying,

and encouraged me to reflect on, or listen to, accounts of and from historical Others

differently. The experiences were wholly original and my own, rather than imitations

of the experiences of another, and I used them chiefly to affect my larping in the

here-and-now rather than to attempt to connect or commune directly with historical

Others in the moment of larping. This highlights that, in my experiences, presence in

and commitment to the diegesis superseded considerations of historical accuracy

during my playing of the larp. While the scenarios and political structures embodied

in the larp’s design are inspired by history, they do not reproduce or re-enact that

history. Rather, they make something new in the present: new narratives and novel
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experiences for the players. Similarly to popular history, players can use events or

scenarios inspired by the past in their larping to affect their own attitudes and

understandings in the present. While ostensibly rooted in historical events, historical

larping in fact invites participants to create their own narratives which might, if the

right routes of inheritance are fostered through debriefing and contextualization,

manifest empathic connections with historical Others. Unlike Rebecca Schneider’s

(2011) contention that reenactment ‘touches’ the past and constitutes its continued

living as discussed in Chapter 5, I argue that historical larping creates new

experiences for its participants so that they might ‘listen’ differently to the

untouchable and unknowable past.

While mimetic representation was not as central to the experience of roleplaying as

how I participated with other players, it undoubtedly had an important function in my

roleplaying. The representation of characters functioned primarily as a tool, a means

to participate in the fiction. Adopting an alternate persona shaped the way I

perceived and acted in the world. In other words, it changed the way I participated. I

will discuss the complexity of character as a function in a later section of this

conclusion, but at this juncture I want to emphasise that it enabled my participation in

sceneing and affected the way I constructed my personal narrative through storying.

Representation enabled my participation, but it was the participation which primarily

constituted the experiences and narratives that I generated with the other players.

Representation is also a facet of character sheets and scenarios, in that the

designers represent these constructs in words for interpretation by the players.

These documents might be based on or inspired by works of fiction or historical

events, and certainly arise from prior experiences of people, events or texts. These

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documents are therefore grounded in other experiences, and some even in the

experiences of others, creating routes of inheritance from the ‘original’ experiences

to the documents. As I have shown, the character sheets and scenarios in a larp are

prehended in the processes of sceneing and storying, traced through routes of

inheritance from the player’s reading of these documents. Moreover, in developing

their character imaginatively prior to playing the larp, players are likely to make

reference to other cultural artifacts, real-life individuals, historical events, etc. These

references concresce with the larp documents to produce the character the player

will bring into the larp. While these other experiences may not directly affect the

playing of participants in the larp, they are still felt, contributing indirectly to the

experience – not as vividly as the immediate presence of the action of the larp, but

still relevant. In this way, mimetic representation has a bearing on the processes of

sceneing and storying, but always as echoes, reverberated off many surfaces. The

representations of the past or the fictional world of the larp which players bring with

them through their interpretations of the characters and setting contribute to the

experience of larping without being the key to playing effectively.

The politics of the participation I experienced in larping was analogous to a kind of

collectivist anarchy, whereby I was free to produce my own stories, but those stories

depended as much on other players as my own imaginative creativity. It was

participation with others that enabled me to create my personal, individual narratives.

This unsettles the dichotomy between individual freedom and social responsibility. In

larping those who pursue their own interest without care or consideration for others

risk infringing on the others’ enjoyment and liberty to create their own narrative.

While pursuing an ideal of freedom from authority, it is vital to consider one’s actions

as relative to and bearing on the experiences of others, lest one’s personal liberty
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become tyrannical. Larping, when practiced with care and consideration for others,

can be an effective model for this kind of collectivist anarchy.

In my experiences of larping, I came to understand that individual freedom depends

on responsibility to and for others’ experiences. As I demonstrated through the

discussion of my story-making process during La Sirena Varada in Chapter 2, the

potential for my individual fulfilment of story-making through storying depends on my

social participation in processes of sceneing. Meanwhile, my failure to create a

satisfying narrative in College of Wizardry 19 arose from my disconnection from

others and my attempt to exercise my personal freedom in creating my individual

story. This shows that, in larping, there can be the freedom to create one’s own

personal narrative without the control of an outside authority (author, director,

designer); however, the narrative can never be entirely independent but rather must

participate with all the other narratives which are being generated by the other

players in a narrative ecology. This narrative ecology is not unique to larping; it is

how experience in everyday life becomes. Our experiences depend on the objects of

our experience, including the actions and intentions of other individuals.

Methexis

Another important aspect of this research which has wider utility in theatre and

performance is the development of the notion of methexis. While the term has been

used in recent years by scholars in different fields (Nancy 2007; Bolt 2004),

sometimes in relation to performance (Carter 1996), I have developed an

interpretation of methexis with particular regard to the becoming of experience. Here

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I will sum up my interpretation as well as propose some uses for the concept in the

field of theatre and performance.

In the context of this thesis, methexis is interpreted as a kind of participatory

creativity where the distinction between participants becomes uncertain. This moves

beyond the notion of immersion, where the subject situates themselves within and is

enveloped by the artwork. Instead, the subject becomes an element in the artwork,

equal with all other elements. It is the togetherness of subjects experiencing each

other as elements in the artwork, which they themselves constitute.

Methexis brings back the principle of unity, but differently from the Grand Narratives

of modernism. Methexis is not simply unity but the unification of the many in the

singular experience, while the many still maintain their difference because the

singular experience is not absolute, but one of a multiplicity. As Daniel Villegas Vélez

argues, ‘participation as methexis is not fusion or confusion but the simultaneous,

spatialized coming together of a singular plural being, of parts that remain separate

together’ (2020). This view of methexis is paradoxical in that it involves the

dissolution of the individual while at the same time maintaining individual difference.

Through my Whiteheadian analysis of larping in Chapter 2 I have shown how this

troubling of unity and multiplicity is possible. The participants in a process of

sceneing unify while still maintaining their individual difference from each other. The

becoming of sceneing and the becoming of storying are simultaneous with each

other.

Methexis can be viewed as both a creative mode and an analytic model which ought

to be important to theatre and performance studies. I want to suggest that there

might be value in considering performance practitioners’ working processes in terms

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of methexis. Company devised works particularly could be thought of as arising from

the kind of ‘separate togetherness’ I have outlined in this thesis. Methexis might also

be used as a means of analysing and evaluating participatory performance works,

such as those of Adrian Howells or Marina Abramovic, since it unsettles the notion of

the ‘work of art’ as something given by the artist for experience by spectators,

considering it rather as collective experience/the experience of collectivity.

More broadly, the notion of methexis transforms Erving Goffman’s concept of the

performance of self in everyday life which, in his analysis, concerns individuals or

companies of individuals performing to an ‘audience’ of the public in everyday life.

Methexis can be used to describe how such everyday performances add to the

methektic processes of work or social situations without recourse to concepts of

performer and audience.

As a creative mode, methexis might have applications in interaction design, thinking

practically about how ‘audiences’ or ‘players’ are incorporated into work. Some of

Coney’s work, for instance A Small Town Anywhere (2009) or Early Days (of a better

nation) (2014), exemplify methektic practice in participatory theatre. In these pieces,

the participants’ own creativity is brought to bear in meaningful ways which affect the

outcomes of the stories. Methektic practice might be conceptualised as the

production of a space or structure where art happens, where participants can

perform, separately but together, in constituting an artwork and each other’s practice.

Another important aspect of methektic practice is dramaturgy and ludaturgy, or what

is given and what is left open by a designer. Methexis in larping is facilitated by

briefings and workshops. In this regard it is not that participants are given an

experience but rather that they are given the tools to create experiences for
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themselves. This sacrifices the slickness and the illusion of reality of a fictive world,

such as is often seen in immersive theatre practices like the work of Punchdrunk, in

order to incorporate participants more effectively. Methektic practice is never about a

‘product’ but the process of creativity.

Dissonance and resonance

Notions of dissonance and resonance have been important in different parts of this

research, but it is important now to bring these twin concepts into focus to examine

their differences and how they interrelate. As described in Chapter 3, dissonance

had to do with participation and the ways in which I played together with others,

while resonance as outlined in Chapter 5 had to do with representation and the ways

in which I related my own experiences to accounts of others’ experiences. Here I am

going to consider how these terms can be associated in alternate constellations.

As described in relation to my play in College of Wizardry 19, dissonance was a

feature of sceneing where ‘incompatible’ styles of play or plots coexisted in the same

larp. Meanwhile, resonance was addressed in relation to my experiences following

Legion and happens when an experience from larping enables a person to ‘listen’ to

accounts of real-world experiences differently. It allows stories, documents, and

statistics to be experienced from a different perspective, or with different feeling. The

larped experience resonates with the present reading of such stories, documents,

and statistics, rather than with the historical instances represented. There are,

however, routes of inheritance connecting the present reading to the historic

experiences of others.

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While I pointed in Chapter 3 to dissonance as a key reason for my own ‘bad’ larping,

dissonance is not necessarily to be construed negatively. Indeed, less extreme kinds

of dissonance can be fruitful sources of collective creativity. Importantly, dissonance

is not playing against other players; there is no necessity to derail others’ plots. It is

rather the parallel development of contradictory narratives. Dissonance can prevent

the rise of Stanislavskian ‘superobjectives’, overarching grand narratives which

dictate the aboutness of a drama, freeing players from thematic constraints and

opening up possibilities for alternative stories to emerge. In this way, dissonance is

related to Rancière’s notion of dissensus. It goes against the idea that there is any

‘proper’ way for sceneing to unfold or for the interpretation of events in storying.

Larping does not happen by consensus. It is not design by committee but the

becoming-one of disparate experiences without negating their differences. This is not

to suggest that this always works well in every larp, and there are examples of larps

in which designers or organisers designate a ‘true canon’, or a version of the diegetic

events that should be considered ‘objectively’ correct. However, even such

designations cannot negate the larped experiences of players though they may

shape them differently in future recollections or retellings. A degree of dissonance,

then, is vital for larp anarchy, but also enriches processes of sceneing. Internal

inconsistency in sceneing, arising from the differing perspectives and intentions of its

participants/constituents, keeps the process alive and creative by keeping outcomes

indeterminate and a multitude of possibilities open.

There can also be resonance during play, where disparate stories, scenes, or

characters can harmonize unexpectedly, amplifying each other and bringing to the

fore themes which had not been intended in the design. Resonance in play is the

capacity to relate to another (character) differently because of the current experience

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of larping. It is the way that another player’s narrative can reinforce your own

experience, such as happened to me in Inside Hamlet: the story of another character

with whom my character had no written or planned relationship so perfectly echoed

my interpretation of my character that a few brief interactions amplified specific

aspects of my experience of the larp.

On the other hand, there can be dissonant representation, where listening seems

impossible because the larped experience seems so far removed from the lived

experience being represented. Indeed, the experience of larping torture in Inside

Hamlet might be described as a dissonant representation. The experience I had did

not enable me to listen differently to accounts of real-world torture, nor bring me

closer in feeling to the real-life tortured. However, the dissonance here is not simply

the lack of resonance, that is not encountering real-world accounts with an altered

perspective as a result of lived experience of larping (though resonance is unlikely to

occur if there is such extreme dissonance). The dissonance arose from the

contradictions between my larped experience and descriptions of the experiences of

the real-life tortured. The safety and security felt in the relation between myself and

the player of my character’s torturer did not give rise to an experience which

changed my perspective with regard to real-life torture.

Dissonance is also an important element in listening, for recognising the difference

between the larped experience and real-world experiences, thus precluding claims of

fellow-feeling and instead opening the space for empathic resonance. In reading

accounts of legionnaires following my participation in Legion, the contradictions

between my larped experiences and their lived experiences removes the self-

indulgence of bogus empathy, while still allowing me to experience the account from

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the altered perspective of resonance. Dissonance keeps the larped and real-life

experiences separate while still allowing accounts to be listened to feelingly. It is

dissonance which keeps the memory ‘prosthetic’, functioning as a tool and distinct

from ‘real’ memory.

It is important to note that dissonance and resonance are twin concepts and not

opposite or opposed. One is not the negation of the other, neither are they absolutely

fixed. The dissonant can become resonant and vice versa. In the sphere of the

immediate present of the larp, dissonant play can reshape stories, send plots on

alternative trajectories, and transform characters. In La Sirena Varada the

dissonance of the contradictory narratives gave space for my character to develop in

unpredictable and creative ways. The landscape of my narrative shifted through this

development so that those narrative elements which had been resonant became

dissonant, while other previously dissonant elements became resonant. Thus, Gaia’s

final plea to Pyramid/Globe at the end of the larp (see Appendix) became

unintelligible in relation to my narrative through its dissonance, but this in-the-

moment dissonance also resonated as a counterpoint and a reminder of how my

narrative landscape had transformed.

The half-real of larping

Jesper Juul has said that video games are half-real, in that the rules and winning (or

losing) conditions are real, but the world and environment of the game are fictional:

‘a video game is a set of rules as well as a fictional world’ (2005, p. 1). The situation

is similar in larping, though the division between the real and the fictional is perhaps

more complex and less clear-cut than in video games. That is because, most

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obviously, in larping the characters’ actions are really carried out. When I walked

through snow in Legion I really walked through snow and had the real sensations

attendant on that experience.

Though the scenario and world of many larps, including La Sirena Varada, College

of Wizardry and Inside Hamlet, can be described as fictional (notwithstanding any

routes of inheritance they might trace to the ‘real’ world), the actions performed in

these larps are better described as fictive in that they relate to fictional characters

and their fictional objectives in a fictional world, but are carried out for real. The same

is true of those larps such as Legion which are directly based on real-world events

and scenarios. In these cases, the real history is fictionalized. The fictive actions are

real but relate to the fictionalized world of the larp. In other words, in larping we really

do things within a fictional framework. When I say we really do things, this is more

than simply really drinking or smoking as an actor might really do in a production of a

scripted play. I mean that our actions really effect the movements of plot, the

development of relationships between characters and the stories that are made

possible through these. In this respect, larping is perhaps more closely related to

theatrical improvisation and processes of devising. In any case, this notion of the

fictive treads the fuzzy ground between the real and the fictional.

A prominent example of the fictive nature of larping is my participating in an actual

instance of oppression during Inside Hamlet. As outlined in Chapter 4, Inside Hamlet

represented oppression in that the fictional social structure and hierarchy in the

design of the larp gave rise to an actual experience of (minor) oppression in terms of

the options available to my character within the diegesis. Though the distribution of

power and agency for the characters was part of the fictional world, it really

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constrained the possibilities for action my character and, by extension, I as player

had while playing. While this might be put down to the ‘rules’ of the ‘game’, as with

Juul’s video games, it is far from clear where the set of real-world rules and the

fictional social stratification and politics begin and end. Indeed, the ‘rules’ here were

not hard-coded as in a video game, but existed in the virtual realm of potentiality,

open to be tested and railed against, as my character did frequently in his

confrontations with figures of authority.

This case of the half-real of larping also reveals the half-real of real-world political

relations. Relations are never wholly ‘real’ but constructed by and in the interactions

between its participants, always temporary and open to testing and change.

Relations are sceneings, becoming through the methektic participation of disparate

individuals in a unified process. While I have highlighted the similarity with larping,

the stakes in real-world sceneing of political relations are much higher, and its

participants rarely approach an encounter with the intention of collaboration for

mutual benefit. Again, the notion of unity here does not necessarily imply harmony,

only that there is participation together in a singular process and that what becomes

is a definite event.

Besides thinking of political encounters as sceneing, the intransigence of opposing

political perspectives can also be conceptualised as storying. As I have outlined in

this thesis, storying is the individual experience of each participant, resulting in a

diverse multiplicity of experiences arising out of the unified process of sceneing.

Because the event of an encounter between political opponents is experienced

separately in this way, and with the routes of inheritance of prior individual

experience, multiple, contradictory narratives are likely, if not inevitable. While these

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multiple narratives may be construed by opponents as wilful misinterpretation or

misrepresentation of the ‘facts’ of the event, in truth the event has been experienced

differently. This can be seen as a failure (or refusal) to listen to the Other in the

sense I have outlined in this thesis, neglecting to ‘play’ with the other in order to

understand differently their perspective and the way they express themselves. While

I offer this as a means of conceptualising differences in political perspectives, I am

not seeking to deny political manipulation or abuses of power. Rather, I wish here to

highlight the way that a hardened perspective calcifies experience, stultifying the

potential for creativity and novelty. While the listening achievable through role-

playing does not offer fellow-feeling with Others, it can open alternative perspectives

and possibilities.

Not least of the fictive elements of larping is emotion. The emotions which arise

during larping are both real and fictional at the same time in that they relate to

fictional characters and events in a fictional world and scenario, but are really felt,

similar to notions in Method acting as touched on in Chapter 4, and also to questions

around audience’s emotional responses in theatre and literature (e.g., Radford &

Weston 1975). The effects of this fictive emotion, known as bleed, where emotion

experienced within the larp is carried into ‘real-life’ experience, have been well-

documented and theorised in larp studies literature (e.g., Montola 2014; Bowman

2015a; Vorobyeva 2017). Further routes for study of bleed are suggested below.

Practice-autoethnography

Finally, this research has advanced an argument for and shown the value of

practice-autoethnography as a research method. I have demonstrated that this

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method is appropriate and effective in a project where it is imperative to engage in

the practice as practitioner rather than as practice-researcher. It is clear that the

experiences and narratives which emerged through methektic participation in larping

would have been quite different had I overly planned or anticipated outcomes in

advance. Indeed, entering the playspaces with specific preformed questions or

definite plans would have gone against the principle of methexis which has

underpinned the entire project. I allowed experiences to accumulate and aggregate

into clusters of concerns. In this sense the method was very much inductive, the

research questions and their answers arising from observations of my experiences

as a practitioner. In this way it is related to the method of auto-explicitation

(Vermersch 2007) and sits as an adjacent approach to such ‘expert’ reflection.

Practice-autoethnography adds to a growing range of phenomenological and

phenomenographic methods focused on uncovering experience in the senses of

both the presentational immediacy of the concrescence and the accumulation of

expert practice in routes of inheritance. Besides the aforementioned auto-

explicitation, and its sister method explicitation, such methods in theatre and

performance studies include rehearsal ethnography and audience phenomenology.

What distinguishes practice-autoethnography from these other methods is its focus

on the practitioner’s own experiences of their participation in their own creative

practice in order to evaluate their position and relative power within a political

ecology. Using practice-autoethnography has allowed me to analyse the

contributions made to my experiences of larping and the narratives that arose from

them by various agents, assess the degrees of power, agency and authority I had

over my own processes of experiencing, and evaluate the ways in which playing

related to the lives of political and historical Others.

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Limitations and directions for further study

The methods used have necessarily limited the research to my own experiences and

this thesis therefore constitutes a politics of experience rather than the politics of

experience in larping. The insights reached through these methods are wider than

simple analysis of specific experiences, and have enabled the use of experiences to

prompt thinking around broader topics to do with playing together and playing

Others. However, these methods can be used by others to prompt different thinking

around these same topics, depending on their own prior lived experience. This

leaves potential for further phenomenographic or comparative analysis with other

larp practitioners’ experiences. There is also potential for practice-autoethnography

to be used for other kinds of creative practice both within and beyond theatre and

performance studies.

Some aspects of the player-character relation, such as alibi, bleed, and steering, are

well-documented and theorised in larp studies, while others warrant further study.

What remains to be interrogated is if there can be said to be a politics of bleed.

Some authors have begun exploring the empowering or transformative potential of

bleed (Kemper 2018; Bowman & Hugaas 2019; 2021; Transformative Play Initiative

2021) if used as a tool, but there is potential in investigating autoethnographically the

simple experience of this phenomenon. These emotions are related wholly to

participation in the present of the larp and are not of the representational order, but

there surely is a distribution of power and agency in the experience of bleed. If

designers, organisers and co-players are, by the principles of sceneing, storying and

methexis, responsible for the experience of that emotion, there must surely be

attendant responsibilities of these agents to the individual experiencing it. On a

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practical level, many larp organisers offer post-larp debriefings and workshops to

help players understand and deal with emotional bleed, but it remains to be

answered whether there is an ethical imperative underlying this. Such concerns fall

outside the scope of the present study, but further research is certainly warranted in

this regard.

One important implication of this research is that, in roleplaying, the character cannot

be construed as simply a representation. Instead, the character is a site of political

enactment and exploration. While this thesis considers the dramaturgy (what is

given) and ludaturgy (potentiality) of character design, as well as how characters

relate to real-world individuals, there is scope for further research into other aspects

of playing character. Larp characters encompass desire, constraint and perspective

all at once: the characters’ desires impart objectives that the players can follow; the

backstories and given attitudes constrain to some extent how the character might be

played; and the characters’ attitudes give the player a perspective from which to

engage with sceneing and through which to experience the larp.

Also implied in this research but beyond the scope of its analysis is the relationship

between and relative relevance of imagination and lived experience in larping. In my

playing of the characters, I did not live the experiences of the character’s backstory

as set out in the character design, and therefore have to imagine them, but did live

the experiences of the characters as I actively played them. In Chapter 4 and

Chapter 5 I considered the relationship between actively larped experiences and

their ‘real world’ counterparts in terms of representation and participation, while

largely ignoring those elements of the characters which were merely imagined.

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Further research is also warranted into the doubleness of the player-character

implied in this study. Playing can be both enjoyable and harrowing at the same

moment, depending on whether the player’s or the character’s perspective is taken.

There is the epistemological paradox of, for instance, knowing that it is the

character’s pain, but feeling it nonetheless. Because acting, even in amateur

settings, can be considered work, the question of enjoyment of harrowing experience

does not arise so obviously in theatre performed for the audience. The experience is

lived for the sake of the audience, as a representation. However, with larping no

such external audience exists, and the experience is lived for its own sake. This

raises questions around the role that ‘negative’ emotions have in the affective

ecologies of our lives.

Finally, while larp mechanics and metatechniques, the structuring elements of larp

design, have been alluded to throughout the thesis, the focus of the analysis has

been experiences of play. The functioning of these structuring devices has only been

directly considered when it has had a direct impact on my experience. However,

these devices often formalise and systematise distributions of power and agency, as

well as structuring modes of inter-player communication and ways of interacting in a

larp. Further research into the political implications of specific mechanics and

metatechniques is certainly warranted.

In summary, this thesis has made a strong argument for considering the politics of

larping primarily in terms of participation and only secondarily as a form of

representation. It has also advanced a nuanced approach to the study of expert

personal experience in practice-autoethnography, and has made a case for

expanding the use of Whiteheadian process theory and the concept of methexis in

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the field of theatre and performance. Besides these major contributions, it has

introduced the processes of sceneing and storying as fundamental to experiences

and creativity in larping, as well as the concept of ludaturgy as a playful complement

to dramaturgy. It has also suggested that notions of dissonance and resonance are

important to an understanding of larping, and has given insight into the relationship

between the real and the fictional as experienced in the fictiveness of larping. What

has become clear in this research is that the interweavings of participation and

representation in larping, how the processes of becoming which make collaborative

story-making possible can give rise to understandings of the wider world, point to

ways of living together and understanding Others. They suggest a politics for

authoring our everyday narratives which attends to others, in which we become part

of the mixture, methektically, without losing our selves.

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 Appendix

The Pyramid, the Vortex and the Globe:

a chronicle of La Sirena Varada

i.
It started with a gift.

A gift, its rejection, and flight.

Then, the return, an apology and a quest.

Before she landed in the ‘Republic of the Free’, that glorified madhouse, she had been a

quite brilliant lawyer. When I met her she was living as a child and calling herself ‘Moon’. I

myself had been made to choose a name – this was one of the rules of the ‘Free’: no mundane

names to remind us of our previous lives or of the outside world. I went by ‘Pyramid’,

representing something strong and stable at least.

Moon’s gift to me was the universe.

It was offered in the most silly, wide-eyed, childlike manner. I had come to the balcony to

once more take in the impossible star-scattered Spanish sky, when her affected simpering

pierced my contemplation. Something about the stars. I replied with a vague, inadequate

comment about their magnificence. Then she gifted them to me.

“I give you the whole universe,” she said.

I looked at her, that grown woman speaking with a girl’s voice, and I could not bring

myself to humour her. I can’t say what seized me in that moment, other than perhaps a desire

to show her the reality of her life. “You can’t give me the universe,” I said.

“Why not?” she said.

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 “It’s just dust and gas. I don’t want it,” I said.

My cruelty registered in her eyes, in the tears that began welling there.

“You’re so mean!” she cried as she fled the balcony – fled the community, as it later

became clear. She would not return for over a month.

That was more than I had intended. I had been brought there by the woman whose spirit

was so pure and kind that she had adopted the name Heart, to help these individuals

floundering on the margins of reality. Instead, in my reckless impatience I had driven one of

them away.

I didn’t know how to make it right. I hoped every day that she would return. The guilt of

her flight gnawed at me incessantly. I needed some advice. I approached the one who called

himself ‘Voivode’, a minor nobleman from somewhere in Eastern Europe. Despite styling

himself a prince, suggesting delusions or at least ambitions of grandeur, he was at least in

touch with the reality of the outside world, privileged though his life appeared to be. He often

spoke of his home, his father, the celebrations of his people. More importantly, he was

erudite.

I approached him in his quarters and told him the whole sorry tale of Moon’s departure.

He looked at me with his penetrating eyes, kind, not disapproving, but serious.

“How can I make this right?” I pleaded.

“When she returns, you must accept her gift. Not just in words, but actually accept that

gift into your being.” I could not tell whether Voivode read the bafflement and incredulity in

my silence, but he continued: “And you offer Moon a gift in return. That is the only way to

repair this damage.”

“A gift in return? But I have nothing to offer her. At least nothing in the order of the

universe!” I scoffed.

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 “If someone gave me the universe,” he said, “the sum total of all external existence, I

would consider giving in return the inverse of that.”

I considered this for a moment.

“You mean the internal?”

“Exactly. Why don’t you try offering yourself?”

The community was self-organising. It had its founders – Heart, Gothic, Wine and

Sigmund – who took on certain responsibilities, but the Free were exactly that: at liberty to

choose whatever they wanted. I was among their number, though technically a member of

staff.

I categorized the denizens of the ‘Republic’ under three headings: the sensible, the

vulnerable, and the dangerous. The sensible, while not necessarily completely clear-sighted,

could at least hold a conversation in terms of the actual world. People like ‘Glass’ and

‘Voivode’. These were people I could turn to with my concerns about the community and my

ideas for its improvement. The vulnerable, fragile creatures like ‘Shadow’ and ‘Moon’, had

lost their grip on reality and were in danger of drowning in the sea of madness that was in

danger of enveloping the community. The dangerous were the propagators of the madness.

With some, the likes of ‘Mistress’ and ‘Magician’, it was unclear whether they believed their

own inventions, but others such as ‘Bird-Speaker’ and ‘Gothic’ were certainly using the

vulnerable for their own ends.

Heart was the only one who escaped categorization. The purity of her intention and the

wholesome love she bore for the whole community placed her above such things. She was

their saviour. And I was her helpmate. Ostensibly I was the community’s English teacher,

though I understood Heart’s true intention in bringing me to that place. It was my job to bring

them back to themselves, to demonstrate the beauty of the real and the everyday. I could

foresee it being a viable business, charging those wealthy enough who had grown weary of

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the hyperreal, technological nightmare of the modern world to recognize the simple and

elegant beauty of nature once more, and using the money raised to help those truly in need.

Heart’s one flaw was that she was far too trusting. Her love for the community and each

of its members blinded her to their, sometimes glaring, faults. In her eyes, every person was

as deserving of her respect, her attention and her assistance as any other. One evening I

happened upon her asking advice of the one called Bird-Speaker. This woman I knew to be a

complete fraud. She claimed to believe that she could understand ‘the language of the birds’

but she had no such delusion. She was on the run from a gangster named Samuel and had

feigned her madness in order to gain safe harbour in the community. She played her part well,

and the ease with which she lied made me mistrust her deeply. This made her dangerous. The

advice I had heard her give, based on her ‘gift’, was rarely in the best interest of the person

receiving it. However, it was impossible for me, who most of the community saw as grey and

an impediment to their flights of fancy, to reason with anyone and convince them that Bird-

Speaker should be avoided. I had therefore taken to subtly mocking her suggestions and her

‘power’ at every opportunity in the hope that others would begin to question her motives.

So, when I saw Bird-Speaker in conversation with Heart I decided to intervene. I joined

them where they were sitting and asked what they were discussing. Bird-Speaker was silent

but Heart, open and generous as ever, relayed the whole conversation.

“And what are the birds telling you?” I asked Bird-Speaker.

“They are talking of the future,” she said imperiously.

“It’s strange,” I said, “but I can’t hear any birds tonight.”

“Of course you can’t,” she replied. “Excuse me, I seem to have finished my drink.”

As Bird-Speaker disappeared into the crowd, I turned to Heart and said, “You know you

really can’t trust everyone.”

“What do you mean?”

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 I wasn’t sure whether this question meant that I had overstepped the limit of her English

comprehension or it was her innocent incredulity.

“I mean, there are some people here who are dangerous.”

“No,” she said, smiling. “No-one here is dangerous. We are a community.”

“But some people don’t care about the community,” I said. “Some people are here for the

wrong reasons.”

“Who?”

“Well… Bird-Speaker is not what she seems. You shouldn’t trust her.”

“How?” asked Heart, her brow furrowing.

But Bird-Speaker was returning with her drink. “What’s wrong?” She said, looking from

Heart to me. Bending down, she said in a low voice directed at me, “Your grey and mundane

views don’t belong here.”

“The same could be said for you,” I murmured.

Bird-Speaker sat down again and clasped Heart’s hand. This seemed to ease Heart’s

concern. Bird-Speaker simply glared at me until finally I stood and took my leave. As I

walked away, I wished beyond hope that I could have such an effect on Heart.

A week later Moon returned. She brought with her a new member of the community,

supposedly a fallen angel who was in search of her lost wings. She decided to take the name

‘Nimbo’. I could see immediately the influence this creature had over Moon, who in her

childishness was particularly impressionable. It only took for Nimbo to give a suggestion and

Moon carried out the action immediately. A perverse and destructive relationship,

particularly given the apparent vindictiveness of Nimbo. Moon had found something to guide

her, but where it should have been me leading her to the safety of the shore, she was being

dragged further into the sea of madness.

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 Of course it all came out, the reason for Moon’s flight, and I was forced to face my shame

at last. This came in the form of an Ordeal. This was the justice system of the Free – a

wronged party would challenge the offender to a contest and the result would be decided by a

panel of judges. It was Gothic who challenged me. This contest was not intended to get at the

truth of the matter, which in any case I was prepared freely to admit to, but rather to humiliate

me. The challenge was to express in words our admiration for Moon. I was beaten before it

started – not only was Gothic a poet, however honest and heartfelt my speech might be it

would be too grey, too mundane for the ears of the gathered crowd. I was not one of them and

could not, or would not express myself in any terms but reality. Taking the stage I faced

Moon and told her the truth: that what I admired most in her was her intelligence, her sharp

legal mind, and that I was sorry for pushing her away when she needed my help. The

response to this was lukewarm at best – some of the audience rolled their eyes and whispered

to their neighbours, while others simply yawned. Gothic’s speech was full of passion and

hyperbole, and in no way a genuine expression of his feelings. However, this was judged

superior to my humble honesty.

Moon approached me at the end of the charade and said, in something approaching a

normal adult manner, “I know you were trying to apologise. Your problem is you think

everyone needs help except you.”

Before the crowd dispersed the one who called himself Odysseus, a brash and lewd

egotist, decided my humiliation was not yet over. Giving an over-the-top round of applause

he bellowed, “Bravo, schoolmaster! That was quite a speech you gave! Come on, do me!”

The rest of the crowd laughed. I looked at Odysseus, unsure whether to leave and be

aloof, or accept his new challenge. I would be jeered either way. I decided to stay and face it.

“Come on, what are you waiting for?” he sneered.

311
 “Alright,” I said. “What I admire about you… I look in your eyes and I see hidden

depths.”

“Ooh, hidden depths,” Odysseus led the chorus of giggles from the audience.

“Yes, and in those depths… In those depths, I see… nothing.”

Odysseus burst into laughter and the crowd followed. “The schoolmaster knows me well!

Well done Pyramid. Always good for a laugh!”

I sloped away as the gathering continued their revelry. I found myself in the company of

the one they called Glass, which was a welcome change from the crowd in the courtyard. He

was one of the few residents of the ‘Republic’ with whom I shared any common interest, and

the only one in whose company I felt entirely relaxed. We could speak for hours on any

subject, and we always seemed to be of the same mind on all matters we discussed. He had

witnessed the Ordeal and commiserated with me, but advised me not to be concerned. He

reminded me how immature the majority of those people were, how desperately in need they

were. I could always rely on Glass to bring perspective to things, and even to make me laugh

with his characterizations of various members of the community. We sat for a long time that

evening, drinking and laughing, until I forgot the Ordeal, the humiliation, and my shame.

The one going by the name ‘Mistress’ had once been a highly successful businesswoman,

ruthless then but perhaps more so now. She had set herself up as a goddess incarnate. If this

megalomaniac delusion had been confined to her own head it might not have been so bad, but

most of the other members of the community were similarly convinced of her divinity, and

treated her as a goddess, worshiping her and accepting her ‘blessings’.

I had made it my mission to destabilize her little theocracy, and so took every opportunity

to undermine the fantasies she wove. So when she happened to encounter me as I sat

enjoying some wine, I could not resist toying with her a little.

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 “What has happened to your businesses, Mistress?” I asked, ingenuously. “Now that you

are living here?”

“What are you talking about? I am not living here, I am merely occupying this human

vessel temporarily.”

“But you used to own several businesses,” I continued.

“I don’t know what businesses are, little man,” she said.

“Companies. Firms. I think you used to write a column in one of the newspapers as well

didn’t you?”

“Little man, tell me. What do you want most in the world?” she asked.

I laughed and averted my gaze to a group gathered by the door.

“What is the thing you want more than any other?” she asked again.

I looked up at her, into her eyes.

“I want Heart,” I said.

She laughed a malicious little smile. I glared at her, then stood and stormed out of the

room, humiliated.

With my teaching I had been having some success. The one who called herself Gea had

accepted the reality of her daughter’s death, even if she still believed she could bring her back

to life. I encouraged her to attend my classes despite being a native English speaker, as I

could tell she was desperately seeking the truth. It was a question of helping her to

distinguish between memory and actual presence.

“Of course Rain is still with you,” I told her. “In your most treasured memories.”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head and smiling. “She’s here beside me. I can see her.”

The problem was that each of the community fed off the others’ delusions. The one who

called himself Magician had convinced Gea that he could raise her daughter from the dead.

She had become so set on this idea that it was all she spoke about at that time. For weeks she

313
had been raving about the ritual that would bring Rain back to her. However it was not until

the night Moon returned that she told me that she needed to find a ‘vessel’.

“What kind of vessel?” I asked her.

“A body,” she replied.

That was the moment I sensed a darkness in the community beyond the danger to those

most vulnerable. I surmised from Gea’s description of the proposed ritual and the need for a

vessel, a body in which to contain her daughter’s soul, that there was to be a sacrifice – a

human sacrifice.

Horrified, I went immediately to find the founders. The first I ran into was Gothic whose,

not altogether surprising, response was, “If someone is willing to sacrifice themselves, who

am I to stop them?” Telling him exactly what I thought of his attitude, I left him to find

Heart. Asking for her, I discovered that she had been called away from the ‘Republic’ on

legal matters and may not be returning for weeks. The knotting of my stomach was not only

for concern over the safety of the vulnerable. The thought of not seeing her for such a long

period gave me a strange hollowness. At least I knew she was safe though, and it would not

be her used as the human vessel. Focusing once more on that pressing issue, I went directly to

Wine, after Heart the most sensible of the founders, and raised my concerns with him. He

was reassuringly shocked by the suggestion of sacrifice, and promised that he would

investigate as a matter of urgency. “You shouldn’t worry,” he said. “It’s probably all a

misunderstanding. We have good people here.” The way he fixed my gaze with his and

grasped my shoulder told me I could trust him to deal with it.

I invited the one who was given the name ‘Comrade’ to study this community. He had

been one of my students, back when I was a Lecturer in Anthropology in England. He had

written his thesis on a similar decadent commune which had eventually collapsed in on itself.

314
I hoped that if he could understand the workings of the ‘Republic’ we might be able to

prevent such a catastrophic implosion happening here.

I went to him then with my new misgivings. “Things are far more disturbing than we had

first thought,” I told him.

His surprise at my revelations showed me that he had yet to uncover this information

through his ethnography. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll find out what’s happening here.”

“We need to protect these people,” I said, driving home the urgency of the situation. “We

need to protect those who deserve it.”

I don’t know what possessed me to be so direct, perhaps it was the unease and danger I

felt with the prospect of sacrifice hanging in the air, but when I next met Bird-Speaker I

spoke my mind. I told her what I knew of her past and the man who was tracking her down.

She scoffed at me in her usual haughty manner, but I could see I had touched something in

her.

“I’m not interested in blackmailing you,” I said, “but there are worse things going on here

than pretending to be a prophetess. And there are people who would want to use that kind of

information in pursuit of their own goals. So I just want to know that I can count on you for

support.”

“You’re threatening me,” she hissed, her proud façade gone.

“I don’t want to threaten you. I just want to know what is going on with these rituals. I

just need you to report back to me what happens.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll think about it.” And she strode off.

Following the Ordeal I had been avoiding Moon. I needed to apologize to her, gain her

confidence again in order to help her. However, the last words she said to me buzzed in my

head. That I thought everyone needed help except me. It was true that most of the people I

315
saw around me were broken in some way, but I had not considered that I might need some

care too. It was also true that I was stressed. I was an outsider on the margins of the

community with only Glass, Heart and Comrade to keep me company, but they integrated

with the others in a way I found impossible. Though it was impossible that Moon would be

able to help me in this regard (she wasn’t able to care for herself, but seemed to let Nimbo

direct her every action), I could at least try and win back her trust and perhaps convince

others to admit me to the inner circles of the community. If nothing else it would put me in a

better position to help those who needed me.

Thinking of the advice Voivode had given me, to accept Moon’s gift and to offer myself

in return, I resolved to put that whole episode to rest. It was pointless waiting to find her on

her own – Nimbo was her constant shadow – so I gathered my determination and approached

the pair as they lolled in the courtyard.

“Would you mind if I spoke to you alone?” I said, looking only at Moon.

She looked to her companion. A silent conversation seemed to flicker back and forth

between them, until at last, Moon nodded and Nimbo moved begrudgingly away, glaring at

me warningly.

“Thank you,” I said to Moon when we were finally alone.

“You don’t have to say sorry,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “I want to make things right. I wanted to let you know that I accept your

gift. And I want to give you something in return.”

She was silent for a moment. “What will you give me?”

“Myself,” I said sincerely.

She giggled childishly.

“What?” I said, slightly affronted.

“How can you give yourself? You don’t know who you are.”

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 “Of course I know who I am. I’m a teacher, an academic.”

“That’s what you do, not who you are, silly.”

“Well, I’m…”

“You’re giving me nothing. If you can tell me who you are, then I’ll accept your gift.”

“How can I do that? I don’t know what answer you want.”

She drew closer and whispered. “You need to go on a quest. An epic quest. Inside

yourself.” She moved away, laughed her childish giggle and went off to join Nimbo again.

Thus began my ‘epic quest’.

ii.
For several weeks I paid Moon’s quest no thought and life carried on as it had. I

continued as an outsider while the community continued as it had. Things generally were no

worse for me, and Wine’s investigations into sacrificial rituals turned up nothing. “It’s all just

metaphor,” he assured me. “People’s way of making sense of things.”

Meanwhile, Bird-Speaker had been avoiding me. I worried that I had been too soft in my

approach to her. I should perhaps have been more threatening and not shown that I needed

her services so badly. Though I held the information that could destroy her, I had pushed us

into a stalemate.

I wondered whether she had been spreading malicious rumours about me, since people

with whom I had little to do seemed to look at me suspiciously. On one occasion, the one

who called himself Uchronia, a man I had barely exchanged two words with, confronted me

directly.

“What’s your problem, Pyramid?” he demanded, a small throng of cronies crowding

behind him.

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 “I don’t have a problem,” I replied, taking a step away from him.

“Why are you here? You don’t belong here.”

“I’m here to teach English, that’s all. I was invited.”

“But you don’t belong here! You belong in the grey world. You’re not part of this

community. At least Comrade tries.”

“Comrade? What do you mean?”

“He joins in with the Death Rituals.”

“He joins in?”

I didn’t wait to hear a response from Uchronia but went off in search of my old student. I

didn’t know what to make of this. Observing the rituals would have been fair enough, but

joining in? I worried that Comrade was becoming enchanted by the community, and worse

that it was my fault for bringing him here. On the other hand, was I to believe Uchronia?

Perhaps he was attempting to stir up trouble, or to make me feel even more ostracised. For no

logical reason, I was entirely convinced that Comrade had betrayed me, had wandered from

the true path.

I went to my private room instead and threw myself down on the bed. I was angry at

Comrade. And, I realised, I was jealous. How had he come to be so much part of the

community he was supposed to be dispassionately observing? Why would the community not

accept me, when all I had was its best interest in my thoughts? I decided then that the next

time an opportunity arose I would try and integrate.

I didn’t have to wait long. The next day I wandered down to the swimming pool with

Glass and Gea. By the time I had plunged into the icy waters and swum a few laps, a group

had gathered on the terrace overlooking the pool. Once I had climbed out of the water,

instead of sitting apart and talking in private to Glass I decided to be among the crowd.

Though I felt like an interloper, I hid my discomfort in silence. Sure that my presence would

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soon be found unwelcome by the other and that I would be asked to move away, I waited,

gazing at the sunlight glinting off the water. But when I was approached by the founder

Sigmund, it was not to dismiss me but to include me.

“There is this beautiful song in Spanish,” he told me. “We are trying to write a translation

in English. We could use your help.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m always glad to help. That’s what I’m here for after all.”

And so the rest of that morning was spent debating the finer points of word meanings and

trying to make the lyrics scan, and laughing too. Though I knew it was there, I found little

evidence of madness in our conversation. In fact, I found some of these people – Sigmund,

Hypnos and Shine – to be quite charming. By the time I had to leave to take my class, we had

translated several verses and the chorus. I thanked them and apologised for having to leave,

but promised to return to complete the translation when they next met. As I walked to the

academy, I found myself smiling quite uncontrollably.

My efforts at integrating paid off. The following week my class numbers swelled. To my

surprise we were joined by Moon and Odysseus. Moon’s presence I saw as a welcome sign of

her forgiveness, and reminded me of the promise I had made her. However, I could not help

but be suspicious of Odysseus. Had he come to disrupt or make fun? I was on my guard, but

prepared to give him a chance. The topic of the class was writing poetry. I had long given up

on explicitly teaching the rules of English grammar which only served to bore the students, so

taught a hidden curriculum through creative writing.

My aim with this particular lesson was to get the students to write about their lives before

they come to the ‘Republic’, to help them focus on reality. To this end I explained that the

poetry would be written in relation to concrete objects and situations. I led the students

through a visualisation, imagining themselves back in a specific place from their past, and

writing about the things they could see, hear, touch and smell.

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 The results were magnificent, touching and revealing in equal measure. Moon had

produced a humble, desperate poem about the neglect she suffered in childhood. Voivode had

written about a military parade in honour of his father, the beloved and noble patriarch. Even

Odysseus had come up with a poem, a somewhat shallow piece about pancakes, but full of

joyful imagery nonetheless. However, it was the one who called herself ‘Shadow’, a pitiful

creature who believed herself to be invisible, whose writing sent me soaring. Full of the

interplay of light and darkness, it belied a deep and sensitive soul and a mind capable of

crafting the most beautiful verse. The most striking image was the one that began the poem, a

raven circling a blue sky. I sensed that the raven, a dark shadow in the sun-filled sky, held a

deeper significance.

I thanked all the students and tried to drive home my message. “Do you see how

important confronting reality is?”

I spoke to Glass about Moon’s quest. He was the only one I spoke to about it; it felt

foolish to even think about it with others, but with him I felt I could mention anything and it

be met with a sensible and incisive logic.

“She set me on this quest, and I want to give her that, to show that she can trust me. But I

don’t know what answer she wants.”

“What is the true answer?” Glass asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you should find out.”

So it was that we went down to the Waters Divine. This hot spa was held sacred by the

members of the community and was the site of many of the rituals of those who believed they

were possessed of magical powers. Anyone entering the Waters was supposed to emerge

transformed. In reality it was a place of calm reflection, at least when there were no rituals

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being conducted, where one might meditate and introspect. I had suggested visits to this

place to many of my more anxious students but had never entered yet the Waters myself.

When Glass and I arrived at the Waters it was calm. Magician, Mistress and the rest must

have had their fill or exhausted their inspiration for making up rituals. We undressed and left

our possessions in the small changing room. The light inside the bath was soft and dim. As I

lowered myself naked into the pool, the hot saline water enfolded me in its embrace. It

seemed to suffuse my skin, as if I was dissolving into it. Around me people were chanting in

harmony, the acoustics of the space disembodying the voices so that they seemed to come

from everywhere and nowhere at once. The atmosphere was intoxicating; the impulse to

allow my own voice to join those others overwhelming. A vibration in my throat hummed a

single bass note which reverberated through my body and in the air around me; an

involuntary compulsion. With that note, I felt care and anxieties – anxieties I had been

unaware of to that moment – expelled from my body as well. I was hanging in the water with

that beautiful music drifting around me like steam. The atmosphere had taken me – I was

entranced.

I had gone there to seek myself, my centre, the crystalized essence of me, so in my

hypnotised state I allowed my mind, in the hope that it might happen upon the answer to

wander.

It was impossible to tell how long I lay there suspended, as if curled in the belly of the

Earth. Images arose from within me: faces, buildings, landscapes, sites of past triumphs and

indiscretions, beauty and terror intermingled. Between these images arose a form, a towering

vortex of dust. Whatever thought or memory I turned to it seemed to be there; near or distant,

central or peripheral, it loomed. It became clear that the answer lay within the vortex, that I

would find myself in its eye. And yet I kept trying to turn from it.

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 I became aware of Moon’s presence. She had entered the waters and was lying close to

me. Half in and half out of consciousness I murmured to her, “I’m here on my quest. I think

I’ve found myself. I’ve seen where it is, inside a vortex of dust.”

Through the haze I perceived a warm smile.

“But I can’t take the last step,” I admitted.

“Why not?” her voice came too softly to echo.

“I’m afraid of what I’ll find there.”

“If you don’t look, you’ll never know.”

And so I slipped back into my visions, turned to the churning column of dust and strode

boldly into it.

Inside there was nothing. It was empty space. I tried to find something, but there was

nothing see, hear, smell or touch. Just me and the wall of dust moving around me. It was as I

had feared. I was nothing. Without essence and without centre. Defeated, I remained floating

inside my vision. I could not return to my conscious state, for there, with this new insight, lay

only despair. Already I could feel a growing void in the pit of my stomach. The eye of the

vortex seemed safe somehow.

Then, as I watched the dust swirling, I thought I caught a glimpse of Heart – not exactly

seeing her, but the feeling that something in the dust resembled her. And then a glimpse of

Moon too. Glass, Gea, Voivode. As I concentrated more I could even glimpse Gothic,

Mistress and Magician scattered among the dust. The deeper meaning of this was not clear,

but what came to me in a flash of instinct was that I was not the Pyramid after all. I was the

Vortex.

Coming back to consciousness suddenly, I scrambled out of the water and hurried to get

dressed. The visions I had experienced, the thoughts that were running wildly through my

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head, these seemed pure insanity. And yet it all made sense. And for the first time in my life I

felt I knew myself.

In the changing room, I noticed Glass’s belongings had gone. He must have left while I

was having my visions, so I went off in search of him.

I found him alone, reading. He smiled when I sat with him. I told him about my vision,

the vortex of dust, and he replied, “It sounds like you have found your answer.”

“But doesn’t all this sound insane?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

“When I say it, it sounds completely crazy. But it makes sense.”

“If it makes sense then you should accept it.”

“But this can’t be it,” I insisted. “I still need to understand fully what it means to be

Vortex.”

“I’m sure you’ll work it out,” he said, and went back to reading his book.

The following weeks were a struggle, trying to make sense of the dust and its

resemblance to all the members of the community. And if I was the vortex, how did I relate to

the community? The logical conclusion I kept returning to was that I consisted of the other

members of the community, that they were within me, and I was nothing but the sum of them.

However the form of the vortex was unstable, and the feeling was dizzying. I had to find a

way of stabilizing it, of pinning down each part of it, transforming it into a slow-moving

constellation rather than the incessantly churning chaos it was now. To do that I needed to

connect with the other members of the community.

During that time Heart returned to the community. This event was celebrated with a feast,

dancing, singing and drinking. The mood was ecstatic, and no person there was more jubilant

than I was for seeing her again. However, I was too confused with the discoveries in the

Waters to approach her. I lacked any confidence. If I did not even know myself, how could I

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be any use to her? I avoided her out of shame, knowing that I had somehow failed her. If she

entered a room I would immediately invent an excuse to leave. If by chance we passed each

other, I would look at the floor, not even giving her the chance to catch my gaze or warm me

with her smile.

I would spend my days in virtual silence, sitting with Glass while he read his books

incessantly. I would pick one up from time to time, but was unable to concentrate on the

words. I was preoccupied by the image of the vortex which returned to me at every moment. I

stopped teaching my classes. I retreated further, into the vortex of dust, alone at its centre, the

community swirling mockingly about me.

There was a place in confines of the community one could go to explore the darkest

recesses of one’s mind. It was called the Shadow Space. From what I could tell, one imbibes

a hallucinogen and is visited by one’s inner demons. While this sounded like a horrific

experience, in my struggle for understanding I could think of no other solution. Most of the

community still distrusted me deeply, and I felt I needed to reveal and dig out whatever

darkness it was that prevented me from bonding with those around me.

Voivode and Gea also expressed a desire to visit the Shadow Space and, to their obvious

surprise, I volunteered to join them. However, they trusted me and I went with them to the

mouth of the darkened cave. The air inside was dank and smelled of stagnant water. Debris

was strewn across the ground and it was a labour negotiating the steep upward slope which

had been sloppily covered with cardboard to make it more even. The Shadow Space itself

was a large chamber with recesses carved into the walls. Some of these recesses contained

candles which filled the space with a dim, flickering light.

Gea ventured to one of the corners and returned carrying a small bottle filled with dark

liquid and a mask. “You drink this,” she told me, handing me the bottle, “then you put on the

mask.”

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 Taking the mask, I looked at it. It was a blank white face with empty eyeholes.

“You have to do it alone,” said Voivode. “We’ll be waiting outside.” And they exited the

chamber down the same passage we had entered by.

Uncertainly, I removed the stopper from the bottle and sniffed it tentatively. It had a

warm, spicy fragrance like mulled wine that reassured me, and thoughts of taking flight

evaporated. I took a small swig, restoppered the bottle and set it down. I looked at the blank

face one more time before affixing it to my head, making it my own. Then I waited.

The silence of the chamber was broken unexpectedly by a voice. It whispered to me, very

close behind me, but when I turned there was nobody there. “What are you doing here?” it

said, repeating the question over and over. It was joined by another voice, “You don’t belong

in this community. You are grey and mundane. You want to destroy us.”

“No!” I protested. “I want to help.”

“You don’t want to help us, you want to change us.”

“Yes,” I said. “I want to help you to change.”

“We don’t want to change. We’re happy. You want to destroy us. You want to destroy

our happiness.”

“No, I want to help you.”

“You want to turn this community into something else. You want it to be yours. You want

to change it for what you want. You don’t want to help us. You want to destroy us.”

“Yes, I wanted to change everything. I’m sorry. But I know now, I am the community. I

am nothing without it.”

“You wanted to change us.”

“Yes.”

“You wanted to destroy our happiness.”

“Yes.”

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 “You need to repent.”

“How?”

“You need to confess.”

The voices chanted now in canon, “Confess!” “Confess!” “Confess!” “Confess!”

“Confess!” Confess!” “Confess!” Until I could take no more. I dropped down to my knees

and, finally, collapsed.

When I came to I was still alone, but the mask had been removed from my face. I

staggered out of the cave and was met by Voivode and Gea. Bird-Speaker was there too.

“What do you remember?” Gea asked.

“Not much,” I said, catching my breath. “There were voices. I have to confess.”

“Confess what?” Voivode asked.

“I… I want to confess to Heart,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Looking at Gea then, seeing her smile softly at me, I realized that this was the first time I

had seen her as a person, not as a problem to be solved, a bundle of symptoms.

Bird-Speaker was smirking disdainfully. I turned to her as said sincerely, “It’s not too late

for us. We can confess, and perhaps if we just believe in this community and these people, we

might find ourselves.”

Her smirk became a frown. She turned and bustled off, shooting me a glare before she

disappeared around the corner.

I turned back to Gea and Voivode. “I think I’m ready to believe,” I said. “Once I confess I

can start on the path to redeeming myself.”

I waited until the following day before I mustered the nerve to speak to Heart. Her smile

as I approached seemed to bake her whole being glow, but that glow did not disappear when I

told her in a serious tone that I needed to speak in private. We walked and sat close to one

another on a bench in a secluded courtyard.

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 “What is it?” she asked, warmly.

And I laid my confession bare if front of her: how I had wanted to change the community,

how I had aimed to destroy what it was and turn it into my own ghastly vision, how I had

thought the worst of its members and worked against them.

“These are not bad people,” she said, “but they need stability. That’s why I brought you

here. You need to be their centre. I love every one of them, each n their own way. But I

cannot be their shelter, I can only comfort them when they hurt. That’s why I need you.”

I listened to her closely, her words, the softness with which she spoke them, and I thought

about the vortex of dust. I need to be their centre. I need to help them. I need to be their

shelter.

In that moment, I saw that my desire to help the community had been an instinct to help

myself. But the way I had been trying to help them was, I realized, entirely wrong. I had felt

removed from them, but had discovered that I was them – I was the Vortex. Helping them

meant knowing myself, and in order to know myself I would have to get to know each of

them, on their own terms. As a teacher I had wanted to give these people knowledge and to

shape them, not to gain from or be shaped by them. I understood, finally, that I needed to

know the truth of each member of that community, and only then would I know myself.

I looked into Heart’s eyes and was filled with longing. This was the first time I had

spoken to her in months and it felt like such a release. I had knotted myself up and just being

in her presence loosened my body and mind, brought me clarity and peace. I wanted to tell

her this, but I couldn’t find the right phrasing, so I let the silence hang.

Finally she asked, “Why have you avoided me for so long? And why did you speak to me

now?”

I told her about my experience in the Shadow Space, and she nodded.

“I think I need to pay that place a visit too,” she said seriously.

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 “Why?” I asked, wondering what darkness could possibly lie in that pure and virtuous

mind.

“We all need answers sometimes,” she replied. “Will you accompany me?”

“Of course,” I said. “I’ll always be here for you.” I wanted to bludgeon myself for saying

something so meaningless.

We strode together up the hill to the place where I had found my salvation the day before.

I hoped that whatever darkness was plaguing Heart would be similarly resolved. When we

reached the cave, Heart looked at me apprehensively. I smiled and nodded, and she entered

the passage. I followed behind her into the central chamber where I lingered by the entrance.

I watched her swig from the little bottle and lower the mask over her face.

It took a few minutes for the drug to take effect and during that time I could sense Heart’s

eyes look to me from the deep eyeholes of the mask, despite hardly being able to make her

out in the dim light. I backed off down the passageway, leaving her alone.

Then it hit. I heard her shouting, “No! No!” I moved instinctively towards her, back into

the passage, but I knew there was nothing I could do now that the drug had taken her. She

kept screaming “No! I can help them! No! No!” Until finally the energy was spent. The

whole thing had lasted a matter of minutes. There was silence, though I thought I could hear a

muffled sob escape from the chamber. I waited anxiously for her to emerge back into the

sunlight.

She shuffled out, shoulders slouched and wide eyed. She had cried and there was dust on

her clothes and in her hair. I moved to her instinctively and went to put my arm around her in

comfort, but she looked at me and said, “I can’t… I’m too weak.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I can’t…”

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 She turned and walked away, leaving me shrivelled at the mouth of the cave. What had

happened? What had she seen or heard in the Shadow Space? Had she not found the answer

she was seeking? Remembering her face emerging from the shadow of the cave, the darkness

seemed to have multiplied in her, not diminished. And my own hopes – I had brought her

here, I had attested to the positive power of this place – could Heart trust me again? After

being so close, sitting so close to her and offering up my confession – were all my hopes

nothing?

I decided to focus on the task I knew I had to complete in the search for myself.

Understanding finally that I am the whole community, and that I had to keep it together

through knowing each of its members, I set about finding out about my fellows on their own

terms.

The first I spoke to was Wraith, an ancient soul who stood permanently on the brink of

death. He told me about his life and his relationship with the rest of the community, how he

saw himself as the father of us all. When I told him of my revelation and the task I was

undertaking he said I was doing a very noble thing and wished me well.

Others were not so open with me, and some made their distrust of me clear in their

hostility. Some, I could tell, were lying to me, but that was alright, I thought. I wanted to

know them on their own terms, so if they wanted those terms to be lies, that was fine. It

occurred to me that understanding someone through the lies they told was as good as

understanding them through the truth.

Odysseus told the most blatant lie. He told me he was on a great journey, though he had

been living in the Republic for many months, had only been away during all that time for a

week, and returned with a great many stories but nothing to show for it. When I pointed this

out to him he retorted, “You know your problem, Pyramid? You don’t understand pleasure.”

Soon after beginning this task, Nimbo paid me a visit. Moon was requesting to see me.

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 “She’s in love with you,” Nimbo said.

“What?” I said.

“Do you love her?” Nimbo asked in her typical direct manner.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I love someone else.”

“Don’t you dare do anything to hurt her,” she said, pointing out of the door to the

courtyard where I saw Moon sitting with Gaze at the long table.

I walked out and smiled at Moon before sitting with her.

“You can’t speak to me,” she said. “You have to speak to Gaze. He is doing my listening

for me.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Nimbo told you?” Moon asked.

“Yes,” I said, addressing Gaze.

“So?” She said.

I took Gaze’s hand. “I’m sorry, but I can’t,” I said.

I could see Moon’s head drop in the corner of my vision.

I looked into Gaze’s eyes which looked back at me blankly. “I’m sorry,” I said again. I

decided not to mention Heart. “But you set me on this epic quest, and I discovered that I can’t

offer my love to just one person. The whole of this community is within me. I need to love

them all the same.”

I saw Moon’s head bob a little nod. “Ok,” she said.

“I will always be thankful to you for helping me to understand myself,” I said. “You will

always be important to me.”

“Your quest,” she said. “Tell me about it.”

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 I told her at length about collecting the truths of all the members of the community, about

the lies some of them had told me, and about how I was coming to understand myself better

with each passing day.

I thought of the Shadows inside me that had thought to deform the community and

wondered how I could have had so little understanding before, in my grey life. I thought of

Heart and how the Shadows had filled her with terror.

I needed more than anything to understand Heart and her truth.

I found Heart weeping in private. I sat beside her, as we had sat the week before when I

confessed to her, and took her hand in mine. I said nothing, but just let her weep softly. The

Shadows had shown her something awful, I was sure of it.

Eventually she said in a voice barely audible, “I have failed.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Of course you haven’t failed.”

“Yes,” she said. “I can’t help this community. I made an asylum for broken people but

was not strong enough to keep it from descending further into madness.”

“That’s not true. You’ve helped so many people here.”

“I thought that the money would be enough, but I don’t have the strength. I am too weak.”

“You are the strongest person I know.”

“Why did you tell me to beware of Bird-Speaker?” she asked.

I was taken aback for a moment. I had forgotten that as the Pyramid I had once warned

her to take caution around certain members of the community.

“I don’t know,” I lied. “I thought she was dangerous,” I corrected myself. “But I know

now that she is filled with terror and dread. She is letting fear guide her. But we can help her.

We can help everyone. They are all in me. I hold them all within me. We can help them,

together.”

“No! You aren’t listening!” She drew her hand away from mine. “I can’t help anyone.”

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 I was silent.

“I have spoken to Mistress,” she said after a moment. “She told me that I must stop

thinking of everyone else and think about my own happiness.”

“But your happiness is the community,” I said. “The same as me.”

“Then I need to find something else. I need to find something which is actually going to

make me happy.”

I was overwhelmed with sadness. She was in despair. Despair over the community. I

could not blame her for wanting to think instead about herself. Our shared vision for helping

the community was lost.

She looked deep into my eyes and I felt my pulse surging beneath my skin. “I’m looking

for something to make me happy. I’m glad it was you who found me, Pyramid.”

I thought back to that evening when I had told mistress of my deepest desire. Had she

delivered it to me now? I felt strange. Undeserving of such a prize. I had been actively

destroying the community in my ignorance. To be given this before I had atoned for my

wrongs, it didn’t make sense.

“I’m not the Pyramid any more,” I found myself saying. “I am the Vortex.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am the whole community. I need to know them to know myself. To help them. I

thought that was what you wanted.”

“It was,” she said, “but now I just want to be happy.”

I looked at her and shook my head. “I don’t know how to give you that.” I grasped both

her hands. “I need to hold this community together,” I said. “Do you understand? Otherwise I

am going to fall apart.”

She drew in a sharp breath and stood. I thought I could see fresh tears welling in her eyes.

“I understand,” she said. “Good luck.”

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 She turned and I watched her as she left the room.

I felt my heart slow as if my blood had turned suddenly to sludge.

One evening a general meeting of the community was called. It wasn’t often that the Free

were expected to be in one place all at the same time, so I knew it was important. As it turned

out, it was more than simply important, it was wondrous. We sat around the courtyard shaped

like a small amphitheatre and awaited whatever was coming.

The founders stood in the space that was designated as the stage, along with a young

woman with heavy eye makeup, standing proud and confident at the edge of the space.

It was Wine who made the announcement: “It is with greatest pleasure that we welcome a

new member to our community. The shadow which once skulked in the shade has faded

away, transformed and taken flight. Fellow citizens of the free, I present to you, Raven!”

I looked again to the young woman who was now approaching the centre of the space.

Wine had said that the shadow had faded away. Could this woman, so self-assured, be the

student in my class who had never spoken? The one who had believed herself invisible?

Then she spoke in a clear alto voice. The words she spoke confirmed the wonder. They

were the words of the poem Shadow had written in my English class all those months ago.

She had been transformed by the poetry I had facilitated. My heart nearly burst with pride.

But more than this, I realised that real transformation was possible. A glistening shard of

hope – perhaps I too could transform from the Vortex, this confused churning of thoughts,

emotions and identities, and become something else.

However, this transformation had a darker side I had not been aware of. Later that

evening I went to speak with Moon, but she greeted me with a look of confusion and asked,

“Sorry, have we met?”

Nimbo explained to me. Moon had performed the final transformation of Shadow into

Raven in exchange for a memory of her past. The memory she had chosen was me. I could

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not blame her for this. I understood the love she had borne me was too painful to live with. I

felt saddened though, that I had lost something so precious – my guide and mentor.

Soon after this I discovered that Heart had married Voivode. In all likelihood the wedding

had been a sham, some ritual invented by Mistress, but the intention behind it was obviously

real enough. I saw them parading around the grounds of the estate. Voivode was virtually

unrecognisable, no longer the grounded, intelligent man from whom I had sought advice, but

rather given to fits of extreme megalomania, styling himself paradoxically as ‘King of the

Republic’. Heart would follow along with him, happy in his attention and in his arms. I

watched her in her blissful abandon and berated myself for my weakness, wishing it was me

causing her joy.

iii.
An, as ever, inspiring conversation with Glass! I was afraid that he would think me

deranged for wanting to change my identity, so I was surprised when he told me that he too

was planning a transformation. He was planning to be baptised as Glass. Admittedly not a

great change, but he told me he was now choosing the identity which had been given to him.

The transformation, he assured me, was an internal one.

His insight and understanding never fail to overwhelm me! When I explained to him that

I too was seeking a transformation he smiled at me and asked, “What are you transforming

into?”

“Everyone,” I said.

“What form?” he asked.

“I’m legion,” I said. Then after a moment’s thought I added, “Or a globe.”

“Yes!” he said. “That’s who you are. You are Globe.”

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 “I am Globe,” I repeated.

Glass’s baptism was presided over by Mistress. At the pool, Glass descended naked into

the water and shouted his name to the stars. The beauty of it infected me.

Was Mistress manipulating things or did she really dream about me? What could she

possibly have had to gain? Heart found me and told me that Mistress had dreamt about us –

Heart and me. Mistress’s question returned to me: “What do you want most in the world?”

Was she giving me my deepest desire now? Had she deemed me worthy?

Heart stood before me. Was it anger or pity or sadness or despair or disappointment in her

eyes? She asked me directly. “Do you love me?”

“Yes,” I said. This was the first honest thing I had said in my life. It felt strangely

uplifting and hollow and frightening.

The look in her eyes changed. Was it pity or sadness or despair or disappointment or

something else?

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she asked.

“I followed you here,” I said, not sure what these words were intending to express.

Her voice trembled with several of the many possible emotions. “I thought you saw me as

just your student. If I had known before I married Voivode… Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t sure what for.

She nodded. “So am I.”

She touched my face with her small, soft hand and looked into my eyes.

Then she was gone.

I heard Gea shouting during the party. That was what alerted me. Her voice was fear and

anger and disgust. She was shouting at Gaze who seemed to be pursuing her.

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 The word Gea was shouting was of particular interest. “Murderer!” She appeared to be

trying to evade him. Out of concern for her, I intervened. I intervened physically, placing my

body, or parts of it (specifically my arm and my leg) between the pursuer and the pursued.

“What has happened?” I asked.

“This man,” Gea said, her voice still raised, “is a murderer.” She moved away quickly

leaving me alone, or at least in conversation, with a potential killer.

“Who did you murder?” I asked.

“You’re collecting people’s truths, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Find me tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything.”

So I did.

We sat together and he told me his whole story.

He told me he was a photojournalist. A war photographer.

He told me about the things he had photographed. The destruction. The death. The horror.

He told me how he relished it.

He told me how he had to be in the right place at the right time. How he never left this to

chance. How he gathered intelligence on where and when the next day’s carnage would be.

He told me about his rivalry with another photographer, the one who had won all those

awards. About how he had failed to pass on to her the intelligence he had. About how he had

in fact arranged to meet with her in a specific location at a specific time when, he had it on

authority, that location would be obliterated by an air attack. About how her body had been

exhumed from the rubble and her face had appeared on the cover of all the papers, ‘in

memoriam’.

He told me finally about how he perceived the world: populated not with people, but with

opportunities to harnessed and threats to be eliminated.

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 I listened to all this without comment.

At the end I said, simply, “Thank you.”

I will admit to feeling disturbed by what Gaze had told me. I was contaminated by him.

His truth was part of me now. I had not imagined such frightening discoveries from what I

believed to be a wholesome and noble task. I wanted to cleanse myself of the memory of

Gaze, to reject his truth. But so long as he was part of the community I had to accept him.

And on his own terms. He had to be included if I hoped to hold the Republic together.

I felt sick.

Perhaps this was the wrong path to follow. Did Gaze deserve to be part of our

community? The perfect Republic that I would create within me.

Heart was playing, as ever, on my mind. What was the meaning of our last encounter?

She had given herself to Voivode. But was she offering herself as well to me? That

seemed impossible. For all her self-doubt, I knew her to be the purest of souls still. Or I

imagined her to be. I had resigned myself to the project of collecting and containing the

community when she had told me she wanted to live selfishly. Was this purity? Despite my

disappointment at the choices she had made, I still believed she was essentially incorruptible.

My thoughts chased themselves, trying to consume their own tails. I could make no sense

of any of it.

It was with thoughts of Heart, then, that I went once more to the Waters Divine.

The chanting and the warm, saline water enveloped me. I dissipated into it, exploring. My

voice washed into the strange harmonies which echoed in the ceilings.

I lost myself and encountered unfamiliar, alien substances, sounds, visions which, it

transpired, were with me the whole of time, since before memory.

In all these discoveries there were no answers, only vibrant recognitions.

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 Arising and finding myself an organic being once more, my sight settled on a face. To be

precise, the face of Odysseus. It was grinning, laughing, glistening. I approached that face,

which I wasn’t surprised to find attached to the body of the very same Odysseus.

“You told me I don’t understand pleasure,” I said.

The eyes turned on me, glimmered. “That’s right,” the voice said. “You don’t.”

“Show me,” I said.

“Alright,” he said. “When the time is right you will be my Hero’s Companion.”

How could I have known it was all for nothing? Could I have predicted that? How could I

have known Heart would do that?

When I saw her body –

When I looked into her empty eyes –

The body was not dead. It was very much breathing and beating and doing all manner of

other bodily actions.

But the eyes were dead.

She had drowned herself. Her soul.

Her essence had dissipated into the Waters Divine.

I spoke to the body. But it was Nobody. I touched its hand and it looked at me

quizzically. I wept softly and it smiled ingenuously.

A sudden desire to destroy the body seized me, to grasp something blunt and heavy and

smash it into dust and pulp.

But I just wept softly and it smiled.

Nothing I could ever say or do would be adequate to describe…

There were things that happened, but they seemed so far away. Voivode beheaded a man

with his ceremonial sword. Someone should probably have taken it from him when he went

mad. But people don’t always think of these things.

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 Wraith died, but no-one seemed to notice. He simply left his body and did not return.

I felt these events through an anaesthetic of despair. The community was tearing itself

apart, and me with it. Having no other self than the members of the Republic, I felt myself

fragmenting.

These people lived on, in any case, within me. I had collected their truths.

It didn’t seem to matter much, though.

No one else seemed to notice what was happening on the mountain top, so I struggled up

there myself.

The truth of the one called Voice was the very last I had to collect. Perhaps it was because

of this that I felt compelled into action at that moment.

Voice was there at the top of the mountain, engaged in some kind of battle with Magician.

It was not a physical fight, but a battle of wills. Something unhuman had possessed Voice.

His eyes were blazing. The look frightened me as he turned to face me. It bespoke murder.

Magician caught his attention again with some words spoken in a strange language. Voice

laughed wildly, goading Magician who had started performing some incantation, presumably

in an attempt to contain or exorcise whatever demon was in control of Voice.

I stayed far off, not wanting to get close.

“What’s happening?” I shouted to Magician. “What’s wrong with him?”

“It is The Enemy,” Magician replied.

“What?” I said, unfamiliar with anything known as simply ‘The Enemy’.

“The Enemy Within,” Magician said, not taking his eyes off Voice for a moment. “Get

Odysseus! Bring him here now!”

I raced back down the mountain to the caves where I found Odysseus regaling a rapt

audience with tales of his travels. I blustered in and stammered my confused version of what

I had just witnessed.

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 Odysseus’s perennial grin disappeared and the glimmer in his eye became steel. He

looked like a different man, suddenly grim and determined. I could see in him suddenly the

hero from his stories.

“Come on, schoolmaster,” he said. “It’s time for you to taste pleasure.”

I followed him as he strode out into the fury of the sun, the crowd following in our wake.

He bounded up the mountains slope effortlessly as I staggered behind.

Magician and Voice were still locked in their mysterious struggle. Magician looked

weaker now, as though he might be overwhelmed at any moment, the force repelling his

tormentor waning by the second.

“Enemy,” Odysseus yelled.

Voice swung suddenly around, his eyes burning more wildly than ever.

“Come and face the mythic hero,” Odysseus bellowed.

The Enemy inside Voice seemed to hesitate a moment. It eyed Odysseus suspiciously.

Then it charged. Odysseus was ready, retreating back down the mountain, making for the

Shadow Space. Voice pursued relentlessly. I and the crowd kept our distance.

I followed Odysseus and Voice into the Shadow Space with trepidation. Magician, who

seemed to have regained some strength, and a small group of others came with me, urging me

onward. Before my vision could adjust to the darkness I could hear the scuffling of feet and

an animalistic breathing in the deepest recess of the cavern.

Odysseus’s voice echoed, “Quickly, over here.”

I scrambled over to an archway leading to a separate small cavern.

“Here is where we must face it,” said Odysseus. “All those who are with me must follow

now. Schoolmaster, now is the moment.”

I followed Odysseus into the small cave along with two others. Voice was backed up

against the far wall.

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 “Seal us in, Magician,” Odysseus commanded.

Behind me I could hear Magician intoning an incantation as Odysseus approached The

Enemy. We were trapped together, we and The Enemy. By breathing felt shallow and I found

my feet unable to move. Every fibre of me hardened.

“No need to panic, schoolmaster,” Odysseus said, and produced a pipe from the

adventurer’s pouch on his belt. “The only way to fight this beast is with the pleasure it seeks

to destroy.”

He put the pipe to his lips and lit it with a match. He inhaled deeply three times and

handed the pipe to me. I copied what he had done, inhaling the smoke deeply, and passed the

pipe to another of our companions.

The effect took hold of me almost instantly. Eyes unfocussed, muscles relaxed, limbs

floated. Some explosion in my brain with the softness of petals. A rain of sparks across my

face and shoulders. And a vision of her. Heart. Smiling her bright smile. And touching me.

My skin. Beautiful warmth. My heart bounding. Swimming in her.

Then another voice reverberated through the caverns. “No! I won’t let you do this! You

can’t kill him!” Through the haze I recognized the form of Gea in our midst.

I smiled and sank myself back into Heart. I basked there for as long as time.

When time ended, I was outside.

The gaping mouth of the Shadow Space.

A turning in my head or in my gut. Breathing. Definitely in my body.

Magician.

Voice. He looked weakened.

He apologised, kept on apologising.

Odysseus. Leaning against the white stone.

I approached him. Said, “That was… incredible.”

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 He turned to me sharply. “Fuck off, schoolteacher.”

I backed away.

I joined Magician, walking slowly back down to the domiciles. He smiled at me.

Something emanated from him, a small, humble, warm power.

“You’ve come a long way,” he said.

I looked at the ground, but felt my heart swell.

As we reached the domestic caves I stopped Magician. I wanted to speak to him before

we could be heard by others.

“The Enemy,” I said. “What is it?”

“It is a part of Voice. A part which he must keep contained.”

“I see.” I hesitated. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I took The Enemy as Voice’s

truth,” I said. “Now I think it’s a part of me too.”

Magician nodded. “So long as everyone else is part of you too, you will be alright.

Remember, it is only a small fragment of you. It is not strong enough to take hold on its

own.”

I will never know why Sigmund threw that pistol into the water, and it doesn’t matter.

I don’t know why I decided to retrieve it, and that doesn’t matter either. Perhaps one of

the parts of me could sense the future.

Having collected Voice’s truth, I finally understood something of each member of the

Republic. When I closed my eyes, the vortex I saw moved as though in slow motion. I could

see and acknowledge each tiny fragment of dust flowing in it. It was time to change its form,

to harness it and make myself whole.

Glass once again proved himself the most incredible support in this, organising the whole

ceremony. As it transpired I was just in time. Mistress had undergone her own transformation

into Universe in preparation for her transcendence out of the physical form she had been

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occupying and back into the unity of the cosmos. My baptism would be one of the goddess’s

final acts on Earth.

We descended to the pool at sunset. I escorted the goddess, and others joined us. All was

suffused with the amber glow of the setting sun. The surface of the water shimmered in it.

The evening was mild and the warm air cocooned me as I removed my clothes. The

Goddess asked me my new name and I whispered it: “Globe.” She invited me to enter the

pool.

My breath was slow and deep and even as I stepped naked down into the water. I lay

back, suspended in the biting cold liquid, so that only my face broke the surface. I looked up

into the vastness of the darkening sky. My mind calmed. The Vortex abated. All was still.

The goddess commanded me, “Tell us who you are.”

“I am Globe,” I said, my voice strong and steady.

“Now shout it to the universe,” she said.

“I am Globe!” I yelled.

“To the universe!” she said. “To the universe!”

I filled my lungs deeply with the sweet soft evening air. “I am Globe!” I bellowed again.

“I am Globe! I am Globe! I am Globe!”

I lay there a while longer. I breathed and listened and wandered with my eyes in the sky

above me. When I shut my eyelids I no longer saw the swirling chaos of the vortex. Instead

the shining dust, each particle a member of my community, moved as though on the surface

of a perfect sphere. It was beautiful. And I felt complete.

I emerged from the water. The goddess smiled at me affectionately and kissed my

forehead. “Welcome, Globe, Keeper of Truths.”

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 The gathered assembly applauded and each in turn held my shivering naked frame in an

embrace and kissed my forehead. Their closeness, their touch, the warmth of them, all was

miraculous.

On the way back up the steep path towards the domiciles we encountered Bird-speaker.

She was standing at the brow of the slope, gazing, perhaps listening. I took my leave of the

others and went to speak with her. She seemed startled by my presence, as though her

awareness had been so completely absorbed in whatever she was contemplating that she had

temporarily abandoned this world.

“I have decided to trust you,” she said.

I looked directly into her eyes and smiled.

“He knows I’m here,” she said. “Samuel. He sent me a letter. He’s going to come for

me.”

“Are you going to run?” I asked.

She shook her head. “You’re right. If we give this community a chance…”

She seemed lost again for a moment somewhere beyond the sensible world.

“Do you promise to protect me?” she said finally.

“I don’t see that I have a choice,” I said. “You are part of me.”

For the first time I heard her break into a sincere laugh. The sound of it was soft and

sensuous, as though her throat were made of moss.

“We’ll all protect you,” I said. My thoughts settled for a second on Sigmund’s pistol,

which I had concealed beneath my bed. “All of us.”

We walked together towards the courtyard which served as the general meeting space.

There was some commotion. Wine and some others were trying to calm Gea down. Seeing

me, Gea gasped onto my arm.

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 “Oh Pyramid, thank God!” she said. Her breath seemed ragged and shallow. “They’ve

killed him. They’ve killed Voivode.”

“Oh,” I said. Sadness welled up in me. I turned my attention to the part of myself that was

Voivode and held it for a moment in my mind. It shone as brightly as a star and had the

comforting smell of leather.

“They’re crazy,” Gea said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“What about Rain?” I asked.

“Nothing can bring my child back, I can see that now,” she said.

“She’s your truth,” I said.

“Yes, always,” said Gea. “But she’s dead. You were helping me see reality. I understand

that now. And I can see it, very clearly. You were right, Pyramid.” She laughed weakly. “I

don’t even know your real name.”

I smiled at her. “I’m Globe, Keeper of Truths.”

“No, I mean your real name.”

“I’m Globe,” I repeated.

Some expression crept across her features, as though a light had been extinguished. “I’m

so sorry,” she said, retreating from me and looking defensively at my companions. “I’m so

sorry Pyramid.” And she pushed past me and disappeared.

I looked after her, then turned to Wine and, at a loss for explanation, asked him, “What is

she sorry for?”

Exploring the globe within me was endlessly fascinating. I watched, handled, felt each of

the bright particles flowing around its orbit. I studied the truths in intimate detail. I

discovered that I could see the world quite differently with each one. Heart’s world was full

of beauty and kindness, while Gothic’s was teeming with drama and grand romantic gestures.

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I was careful handling Voice’s, out of fear of The Enemy. But there was one I wished I had

avoided altogether.

Seeing with Gaze’s eyes was more frightening than the animal that dwelled inside Voice.

Gaze’s perspective was more like that of a machine – everything a calculation. There was a

glimmer of familiarity in this. And yet again, not. This vision seemed tinged with an

unspeakable cruelty. I was sure that I had never had that.

And I saw it plainly. The cool destruction of the community. Everything I was working

hard to keep together. So I decided. He had to be stopped.

He had put together an exhibition of photographs he had taken of the members of the

community. He had intended to present it that evening. I tucked the pistol into my belt and

went to find him at his makeshift gallery in the communal courtyard, where he was busy

mounting the images.

“You,” I said.

Gaze turned and grinned at me. “Well well. How are you finding my truth?”

“I have seen with your eyes,” I told him.

“Is that right? How was that?”

“You’re dangerous,” I said. “You don’t belong here.”

He laughed. “You think I’m a madman, yet I don’t belong among the mad?”

“You want to destroy us.”

“Nothing will give me more pleasure.”

“Why?”

“As I said, pleasure.”

“I won’t let you!” I said.

“How are you going to stop me?”

“I’ll kill you.”

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 “That won’t stop me from destroying you.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are many more copies of these photographs. You won’t be able to find them all.”

“What do the photographs have to do with it?”

“Look at them,” he said.

I glanced at some of the images on the walls. Members of the Republic. People sitting by

the pool. People eating. They looked ordinary. Mundane. Grey.

“What I love about photography,” Gaze said, “it’s just the light. It can capture the

objective truth. No feelings. All these poor souls I have captured here, they believe they’re

special. They’ve been cosseted here for months in this madhouse and told that their delusions

are true. You of all people should be able to see that. Collecting their truths!” He laughed. “I

bet that makes for some fun reading. We’re the same, you and me. We see them for what they

are.”

“I’m nothing like you,” I said.

“Ah, yes. You want to be part of it, don’t you? But just think of the fun when they gather

in here, and they see the truth. Not the rubbish they fed you but the plain, objective fact – that

they’re just ordinary people who eat and shit like everyone else. Do you think that Moon or

Nimbo can hold onto their pathetic constructed identities when they see what they actually

look like? How long do you think Magician can hold onto his pretence before he cracks?”

I pulled the pistol from my belt and pointed it straight at Gaze’s heart. He put his hands

up, revealing his palms to me.

“You really have gone mad, haven’t you?” he said.

I motioned for him to sit, and he did.

“Where are the other copies of these photos?” I demanded.

Gaze laughed.

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 At that moment the door opened. Through perhaps her own divine providence, Mistress

walked in. But when she saw me, gun extended, she froze.

“What’s happening here?” she demanded.

“My goddess,” I said, not taking my eyes from Gaze, “this man wants to destroy us all.”

“I command you to lower the gun,” said Mistress.

“No,” I said.

“I command it!” she said, her voice almost screeching.

“I’m sorry, my goddess, but I can’t. He wants to destroy the Republic.”

“He’s quite right,” said Gaze. “I fully intend to destroy you all.”

“My love?” she said, approaching him.

Gaze laughed once more. “You’re the first to go.”

“What are you talking about?” she said. She was caressing his arm. “You don’t want to

destroy me. I’m your goddess.”

“You’re no goddess,” he said. He grabbed the photograph of her and held it up. “Look.

You’re just a woman.”

“No,” she said, all trace of authority drained from her voice.

“No goddess would debase herself to do the things that you’ve done with me,” said Gaze.

“You pathetic –”

Gaze stopped abruptly, a red bloom spreading across his chest.

I felt my finger tight around the trigger.

I could see Mistress screaming as she tried to pull Gaze up, but the ringing in my ears

silenced everything.

I looked at Gaze slumped in his seat, Mistress weeping on him, and all my organs seized,

and surged, and seized again. He was part of me. Despite everything, he was part of me. I

turned away and wept softly into my hands.

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 The gunshot must have echoed across the whole complex of caves, because people

suddenly appeared.

Sigmund took the gun from me. “It’s alright!” he said with joy. “I doused this pistol in

mystic water. It can have no effect.”

Meanwhile, the last of Gaze’s blood seeped across the stone.

I knew at last what I had to do. I had to give her back to herself.

I had spent so many hours contemplating her truth, which was nothing other than pure

love. It was the brightest of all the fragments in my collection. I feared that in letting this

truth go I would lose her forever. What if I were to give it to her but she was unable to

receive it? The loss would be unbearable. I knew, though, that I had to try to make her herself

again.

The shell of Heart sat alone at the dining table outside the cave which served as the

kitchen. She looked so small, staring at nothing, her expression impassive. As I approached,

she looked up at me and an indecisive smile flickered on her lips. I half-hoped she had

recognised me, but her eyes were as vacant as they had been. She was Nobody still.

“Hello,” she said.

I sat down facing her at the corner of the table.

“What do you remember?” I asked her.

She looked back at me blankly.

“Do you think you would recognise your own truth?” I said.

She frowned and shook her head lightly.

“A part of you lives in me,” I explained. “The old you, the real you. I want you to take it

from me. Look at me. Look into my eyes. You can find yourself in there. You can take back

your truth.”

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 Her eyes met mine. I saw her searching, I brought the fragment of her truth to float at the

surface of my consciousness. Her expression softened when she saw it, her lips parting and

drawing in a long, deep breath.

Then something like a bolt of starlight passed between us, from me to her, and she

blinked wildly as though waking from a dream. She began to sob uncontrollably.

I put my arms around her. “Heart?” I said.

“Pyramid!” she replied.

“I am not Pyramid any more. I completed my quest. My name is Globe, Keeper of

Truths.”

“Globe?” she said uncertainly.

“I know myself completely,” I said.

“You found me,” she said. “I was lost, but you brought me back.”

She laid her hand on my cheek. Her touch was as soft as the skin of her palm. Then her

hand slid into my hair and she kissed my mouth. It was like a river rushing through my core.

When she drew away I felt purged and exhilarated.

“Voivode,” she said, pulling away from my touch.

I looked away. “He was killed,” I said.

“Dead!” she said. She stared as if into a void.

“Not dead,” I said. “His truth is with me always.”

She looked at me with ineffable eyes. “Pyramid –” she said eventually. “Globe. I can’t

explain. I have always loved you. You were always more than my teacher, my friend. But I

didn’t know – I love you.”

Her lips met mine again. That kiss could never last too long, and was over far too soon.

“I want to take you away from here,” she said. “I want to protect you. I’m fearful you’ve

been here too long.”

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 “Go away?” I said. “Leave the community?”

“Yes,” she said.

“We can’t,” I said. “This is our home. These people, they are me. They are inside me, not

just inside me, I am nothing apart from them. I can’t – I can’t –”

“Sssh, stay calm, stay calm,” she said. She pulled me in close to her. “Please, Pyramid.

We can’t stay. Can’t you see what it’s done to us?”

“My name’s Globe,” I reminded her. “I have found myself here.”

“I love you,” she said. “And we were supposed to save all these poor souls. But that’s not

possible, I can’t keep pretending or running away any more. I can at least save you though.”

“Save me?”

“Come with me. Please!”

I looked at my own hands for a moment and listened to my breath. I looked at her and

nodded.

She kissed me again, but tears were crawling down her cheeks. I held her tightly, all

feelings and sensations incomprehensible. The moment was perfection – she loved me – but

what she wanted seemed impossible. How could she consider leaving the community? My

heart raced with excitement or apprehension.

The woman named Utopia, dreamer of impossible perfections and gatekeeper of

Nowhere, was there suddenly, emerging from one of the caves. Seeing us wrapped in our

embrace, she swooped on us.

“I bless this perfect love!” she cried.

She surrounded us with the billowing sleeves of her kimono. Heart and I were

transported, taken away from ourselves.

And in that moment I allowed it to take over.

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 It was easier than I expected, pushing those other parts of me aside to let The Enemy

Within erupt.

It felt good. Conscious but no longer in control. The Enemy had a mind of its own. It

released Heart from my loving embrace and cast around, growling a horrific laugh.

The beast took my body in search of its previous host, Voice, and soon found him sitting

in contemplation in the kitchen. The Enemy revelled in hatred and waves of pleasure

followed on the heels of loathing at the sight of Voice.

It spoke through me – I was its instrument, though the voice that emerged from me was

unrecognisable. “I’ve come for you,” it snarled at Voice. “Your old master has returned. I’m

going to destroy you.”

Unbidden thoughts of Voice eviscerated arose in me. The joy these images produced

appalled me. I was afraid suddenly. What had been liberating was now frightening. The

destructive potential I felt and could not control. I wanted to take myself back, but the

feelings of hatred and anger kept exploding from my gut.

Voice rose abruptly and grabbed my forehead, his thumb and fingers at my temples. “You

cannot take this man,” he yelled at The Enemy. He drove me backwards and out into the

night air. He cried for help, and suddenly many hands were upon me, restraining me. They

dragged me away, up the steep slope to the Shadow Space. The Enemy struggled and

continued to growl, laughing mockingly at its captors.

My body was forced to the ground and laid out supine. Dust billowed up where The

Enemy fought against the hands binding it.

I was relieved to see Magician’s face above me. His lips were moving and he was looking

directly into my eyes. He was addressing me, not The Enemy. “Remember yourself,” he was

saying. “Use the community. The truths you have within you. Remember the power you

have.”

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 I searched inwardly, as I had in the Waters Divine. I saw all those now faintly glowing

fragments, scattered like stars in the space within me, and at their centre the fiercely burning

rock that was The Enemy. Using all my will, I gathered them, sending my energy inward

until the dust particles shone as brightly as suns, forming a sphere around the blazing ember

and overwhelming it. The beast was smothered, and I returned to myself. I stopped my body

from struggling. The hands which restrained me softened their grip. My breathing was deep

and heavy. Magician smiled down at me and nodded. “Well done,” he said.

The hands released me as Heart jostled between their owners and embraced me once

more.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

She whispered back, “It’s alright. You are safe.”

“I can’t leave here,” I said.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I will stay here and protect you for as long as I have to.”

She kissed me tenderly on the lips. I closed my eyes and drifted.

It was difficult to comprehend what Gea and Comrade did. More particularly it was

difficult to comprehend why. I felt the shock of it as if one of my own organs had taken

against me and poisoned my blood.

An audience was gathered in the courtyard, awaiting the performance of a play. Gea and

Comrade rushed unexpectedly onto the stage. People started muttering in confusion.

“Is this part of the performance?” someone called out from the crowd.

“My name is Melinda Robinson,” Gea bellowed, “and my daughter is dead!”

“My name is Tanel Pikssoo,” said Comrade, “and I am leaving this community!”

“You’re all crazy!” Gea added. “Can’t you see? You’re all crazy!”

They turned and fled out of the gates, into the grey world beyond.

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 There was silence for a moment before someone jeered, “Good riddance to you both!”

and the rest of the crowd joined in.

Wine took the stage and announced, “From this day, Gea and Comrade shall be exiled

from the Republic! They shall no longer be welcome within these walls. No-one shall speak

of them. They are gone!”

I was saddened and angry. I sought out those parts of me that were Gea and Comrade, but

found that I could not bear to touch them. Their truths glowed sluggishly, a putrid grey light.

“Wait,” I said. “They are not gone. I collected their truths. They still live with me. If they

are exiled, they must be expelled completely.”

Raven came forwards. “Come and fly with me,” she said. “We’ll drop those traitors and

their worthless truths from a great height.”

She grabbed hold of me and we soared into the cosmos.

Though I had hoped to help Gea, it felt proper that she be exiled along with Comrade. She

had renounced the Republic and denied her name. Even so, I felt a pang of regret as I sent

those parts of myself spinning out into the night.

I don’t know why I kept the part of me which was Gaze, why I didn’t expel it along with

Gea and Comrade. Perhaps because it burned so brightly still inside me.

I handled it only occasionally and always with great caution. But sometimes I thought I

heard it whisper to me in my moments of quiet contemplation: “You see these people. You

know what this is. You could blow this whole charade apart.”

Once the exorcism was complete and Raven returned me to the ground, the crowd

applauded.

Then began a great celebration. The community was pure and unified – I held their minds

and Heart, their souls. Together we made the community whole. We looked on as they all

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cheered and drank and played – Magician, Wine, Glass, Raven and the others. And I could

feel the fragments of them alive within me.

Then Heart embraced me, kissed me softly on the mouth and started swaying gently to the

music. She whispered to me, “Are you happy?” and I answered, “Yes.” We were dancing at

the centre of our Republic, at the centre of the universe. And I knew that it would last forever.

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