“Do you accept defeat? Is it all pointless? Give up here?” Anti-violence Rhetoric in the NieR Series Within a Japanese Context

Abstract

Video games seem to currently find themselves in a weird place between critical communicators of meaning or of entertainment. Sometimes they can be both, in a communication which seems to be rhetorical in a sense. This seems to be the particular case of NieR, a series of games which places itself in a somewhat critical position in terms of the violence and depictions it makes the player partake in. In terms of game elements like the combat and dialogue of the games, the intent of the rhetoric seems to be one of critique against the player, hence why it is important to look at such elements and research how they may appear and what their outlining characteristics are represented by. This rhetoric seems to be critical to the point where one may even talk about a video game anti-violence rhetoric. In many ways, the rhetoric itself seems to resemble some ideas observed from within a Japanese context, hence why the paper further discusses the game elements in terms of similar ideas and perspectives observed within the Japanese socio-cultural context, which may in part explain the ways in which the anti-violence rhetoric in NieR presents itself to the player. The goal of this paper is to examine what such a rhetorical communication of anti-violence might look like in a game context, both in terms of the more technical aspects of a game like NieR, such as its gameplay and combat systems, but also in-game elements the player might not have as much direct control over, such as the characters and how they are depicted in the games. The environments of the games also point to a critical depiction of violence, and their appearance is also further researched in the paper. One finds various forms of critique in NieR, even though its titles adhere to a the hack’n’slash genre where violence usually appears to be glorified. There also seems to be a contradiction between the rhetoric of the gameplay, and the meaning delivered to the player. Such contradictions are relevant to analyze, research and discuss, in an effort to further understand the video game medium. Although many of these in-game elements in NieR come across as somewhat experimental in nature, they are important to research in an effort to understand the more beneficial aspects of video games and how they may question themes of violence through the rhetorical situations they present to the player.