Old Novels/New Games: Early Modern Forms of Chinese Algorithmic Play in Outlaws of the Marsh – Teaching Guide

Names of Note

• Shi Naian (1296–1372 CE) – author to whom the book is attributed. He lived in the early 14^th c., but the first reference to the novel appears in documents from the 16^th c. during the Ming dynasty. (It is, therefore, labeled as a “Ming dynasty novel.”)
• Song dynasty (960–1279 CE) –
  • Northern Song (960–1127; capital in Kaifeng)
  • Southern Song (1127–1279; capital in Hangzhou)
  • Mongol pressure throughout; Mongols establish Yuan dynasty in 1279–1368
• Ming dynasty (1368–1644 CE) –
  • Reestablishment of an ethnic Han imperial house, after a century of Mongol rule
• Song Jiang – a true historical figure who led a rebellion against the imperial government of the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE) in the early 12^th c.
• Fang La – another rebel leader

Teaching Note: The Outlaws of the Marsh (also known as The Water Margin or All Men are Brothers) is both history and fiction: based on a historical rebellion but popularized as a novel creating marvelous characters in a rebel group, some of whom personified many traits important in the Confucian tradition.

Outline of Presentation – with [Timecode]

Introductory Points

• Four Great Novels of the Ming Dynasty period:
  • Romance of the Three Kingdoms
  • Outlaws of the Marsh
  • Journey to the West (“Monkey”)
  • Jin Ping Mei
• Comparing an old 16^th c. novel with a 21^st c. videogame: what do these 2 forms have in common? [04:00]
  • Three approaches:
    • Games based on novels
    • Games situated in novels
    • Rethinking: games as novels; novels as games
• Are the 16^th c. “novels” really novels? [06:00]
• No psychological depth or character development
• No new developments of plot (people reading already knew the characters and the plot from stories told and dramatic performances)
• No realistic depiction; immersion in a fictional world
• Then how should we think about them?

How should we think about 16th c. novels? [08:00]

• Readers enjoy the novels for
  • Database attractions
  • Iconic interactions
• Example of “Suikoden” – Japanese video game of “Outlaws”
  • Released 1955
  • Followed by manga versions, action figures, and more
  • Fan culture involves art, manga, costume play

Videogame based on the novel, “Outlaws of the Marsh”* [11:00]

• Early 16^th c written version, but it is attributed to an author who lived in the early 14^th c. named Shi Naian (1296–1372 CE)
• Based on 12^th c. history, at the time of the fall of the Northern Song dynasty
• 108 rebels against the corrupt imperial regime
• Become “righteous outlaws” – escape to the marshes of the Shandong peninsula
• Return to attack capital
• Northern Song falls in 1125
• *But the videogame is completely different

Database – way to compare the videogame and the book [13:00]

• Videogame:
  • Gather all 108 characters
  • Gather into teams of 6
  • Two elements: appearance and how character performs
• Novel:
  • Characters become real to people
  • Poetry inserts often describe attributes
  • Woodblock prints provide images of characters
  • Some characters are real; others are fake copies of same
  • Think about “code”; think about reality vs illusion [19:00]
  • Jin Shengtan, a literary critic of the 17^th c., adds commentary right into the text (see red vs black text); this also destroys the illusion of reality [19:50]
• Reader sees the code of the writing
• Codes of numbers important to our understanding of the world
  • Examples given:
    • blood pressure
    • stock market
    • election results
• Stone tablet falls from heaven in the novel; on it are the 108 names of the characters, all named and ordered
  • The leader of the band, Sun Jang, receives the stone tablet – gives him the power, as he has the list, “by order of Heaven and Earth”
  • Rebel leader takes on authority similar to the emperor’s; mirror image comparison made to the iPhone or tablet screen [32:50]

Diegsis vs. Extradiegsis

• Diegsis = created world of space and time (e.g., the novel)
• Extradiegsis = moving outside the created world (e.g., the intertextual comments of the critic; list of names of the characters given to you over several pages of the narrative)

Iconicity – widespread in 20th–21st c. culture

• Immersion into the fictional world that lies beyond the screen; lose ourselves into the fictional world behind the screen and in the novel [39:00]
• Also possible by taking things out of the novel
  • Can take the 108 characters out of the story and create our own collections (of playing cards or in video game)
• Narratives can be thought of as
  • Stories we become immersed in, but take icons out of the text and apply them in our lives (characters that become models we copy or idols we love; we do the same with movies and movie characters)
• As the chapters progress in the novel of “Outlaws of the Marsh,”
  • The text becomes less and the illustrations greater; Eventually, no text; characters become icons
• Characters on playing cards in the 17^th c.
  • Pre-modern editions of the novel very hard to find, but playing card sets are more numerous
  • Mahjong tiles use pictures of heroes
• Tradition of taking the characters out of the text is as old as the text itself [49:00]
• Poems in text that describe a character represent the moment when the character becomes an icon
  • Literati gentlemen reading the story in the 16^th c and thereafter had experience of taking the characters out into their own worlds [50:25]
  • “iconic extraction” in the novel itself; space and time suspended when character is taken out of context of novel

Conclusion

• That is how experience of readers with a 16^th c. novel is similar to the experience of playing a videogame in the 21^st c.