Research Catalog

Title

Being Dragonborn : critical essays on the lder scrolls V: Skyrim / edited by Mike Piero and Marc A. Ouellette.

Publication

Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, [2021]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Piero, Mike, 1987-
• Ouellette, Marc A.

Description

viii, 228 pages; 26 cm.

Summary

"The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the bestselling and most influential video games of the past decade. From the return of world-threatening dragons to an ongoing civil war, the province of Skyrim is rich with adventure, lore, magic, history, and stunning vistas. Beyond its visual spectacle alone, Skyrim is an exemplary gameworld that reproduces out-of-game realities, controversies, and histories for its players. Being Dragonborn, then, comes to signify a host of ethical and ideological choices for the player, both inside and outside the gameworld. These essays show how playing Skyrim, in many ways, is akin to "playing" 21st century America with its various crises, conflicts, divisions, and inequalities. Topics covered include racial inequality and white supremacy, gender construction and misogyny, the politics of modding, rhetorics of gameplay, and narrative features"--

Series Statement

Studies in gaming

Uniform Title

Studies in gaming

Subject

• Skyrim (Computer game)
• Video games > Literary themes, motives
• Narration in video games
• Video games > Design
• GAMES & ACTIVITIES / Video & Mobile

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction: Skyrim as an exemplary gameworld / Mike Piero and Marc A. Ouellette -- From hero to zero : nationalistic narratives and the dogma of being Dragonborn / Joshua Call and Thomas Lecaque -- Grounding the neomedieval gameworld : the Dragonborn between history and myth / Alicia McKenzie -- Expanding the frontier through war : Skyrim's ludic contribution to the frontier myth / Brent Kice -- Queer harpies and vicious dryads : hagravens, spriggans and abject female monstrosity in Skyrim / Sarah Stang -- All the wheels of cheese : hoarding and collecting behaviors in Skyrim / D'An Knowles Ball -- Escapism as contested space : the politics of modding Skyrim / Liamog S. Drislane -- Nature versus player : Skyrim players and modders as ecological force / Misha Grifka Wander -- Portraits of the neomedieval family-idyllic : patriarchal oikos and a love without love in Skyrim / Mike Piero and Marc A. Ouellette -- Skyrim's competitive cosmology : a fluctuating economy of power and parasitic deification / Trevor B. Williams -- Testing your thu'um : rhetoric, violence, uncertainty and the Dragonborn / Stephen M. Llano -- Emergent worlds and illusions of agency : worldbuilding as design practice in Skyrim / Wendi Sierra -- Taking your time as Dragonborn : reconciling Skyrim's ludic and narrative dimensions through a detective story typology / Andrew A. Todd -- The death of Paarthurnax : the "good temptation?" / C. Anne Engert and Tony Perrello.

ISBN

• 9781476677842
• 1476677840
• 9781476643564 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2021025218

OCLC

• on1257164268
• SCSB-14305400

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library