Arknights and Modern Totems

Death and life, leaving and staying; puppets on a stage. When the single thread snaps—all falls free.

An Unimportant Introduction:

Having made it into the new millennium, Lévi-Strauss would surely have rejoiced at the extraordinary fertility of “structure” in the modern world. Myths spread and proliferate unchecked in this age, having long since broken free of relatively isolated human imaginations. The media and the internet have become new nests in which myths endlessly replicate themselves. On the one hand, this means that the universality of structure can no longer be traced back to common features that happen to surface among different tribes; on the other, it ties that structure more clearly and closely to humanity’s collective indolence. It is precisely this indolence that allows structures created by human beings to turn around and control their creators.

I. Animalized Postmodernity

The enormous popularity of Arknights is merely a splash on a “receding tide.” We can find similar “patterns” in countless games, anime, and manga: an abundance of characters and a richness of character design that, even as they bring a nearly extinct game genre—tower defence—back into the limelight, relegate so-called gameplay and the story itself to supporting roles. The relative success of Arknights comes from the balance it strikes between characters, gameplay, and story. Yet precisely because it “stands head and shoulders above the rest,” it reveals a general structure, a modern totem, all the more clearly. A totem is time solidified in space, and modern aesthetic habits are quietly shifting from diachronic narrative to intricate synchronic structures. The dissolution of subject matter in painting (modernism), the rise of atonality in music (Schoenberg), and the prospect of writing degree zero in literature (Proust) are undoubtedly tributaries of this tendency. At the beginning of history, totems reduced to human faces alone evolved into myths, where stories served characters, and then into epics, where characters served stories. There we witnessed the rising tide of narrative. Now we are experiencing the reverse, an ebb: from the single-player era to the online-game era, then to esports, and finally to gacha—the era of random character draws—narrative slowly recedes, leaving only ancient totems standing on the beach. Within them, history ceases to move. And as history stops, human beings shed their clothes, become animals once more, and vanish into sensual indulgence—music, women, “dogs and horses.”¹

Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals (2001) foresaw this tendency on the strength of just a few examples—Neon Genesis Evangelion and Pokémon—but by observing the son we can come to understand the father more deeply, as Nietzsche puts it in The Gay Science.² In Hiroki Azuma’s account, modern society before 1990 still rested on an entire system of “grand narratives.” These held sway over people’s minds through a series of surface-level “small stories,” just as meaning is pieced together correctly through everyday discourse. But as stories and discourse themselves fragment, so-called narrative and meaning also fall prey to the disordered reflections of a shattered mirror, shifting into countless equivalent possibilities. Taking Evangelion as his evidence, Azuma thus proposed a “database” mode of aesthetic experience—and consumption—in which readers no longer seek a complete story, but instead a “‘collection of information without a narrative’ into which they can freely project their feelings and from which they can arrange stories to suit their own tastes”: in short, a set of background details and character concepts waiting to be reworked by fans.

From a modern perspective, this shift might be condemned as a “loss of depth,” “mere formalism,” or “image worship.” From a postmodern perspective, however, we might equally celebrate it as the “free play of signifiers” (Roland Barthes): a movement from the readerly text’s “narrative—discourse—reader” to the writerly text’s “discourse—reader—narrative”;³ from classical to modern poetics; from “thought conveyed through signs” to “the signs themselves that construct thought.”

II. Database Aesthetics and Narrative Aesthetics

First, we need to draw a line between the “narrative mode” and the “database mode” of aesthetic experience. Take Shinichirō Watanabe’s Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo: which mode do they belong to? If fragmentation alone is our criterion, both must surely fall into the database category. Each story is relatively independent, and removing one or two would do little harm. The two Cowboy Bebop episodes “Toys in the Attic” and “Mushroom Samba” are positively “visitors from outer space”; we can only make sense of them as taking place in parallel worlds. Here, story takes a back seat. Once we have watched each series through, only the characters still shine—in this respect, the two works seem to echo Evangelion from afar. Yet these thirty years of creative abundance have produced another, more representative set of works: Fate/Grand Order (FGO), Touhou’s Gensokyo, Naruto (My Hero Academia / the Marvel Universe), Kantai Collection (Azur Lane / Tiedao Shaonü, “Railway Girls”), Love Live! (K-On!), Arknights (Honkai Impact 3rd)… They cry out: theory must yield to reality. Rather than mutilate our feet to fit the shoes, then, we should redefine so-called “database aesthetics.” For example—and only as a suggestion:

(1) In database aesthetics (the synchronic mode), characters are usually arrayed across a plane defined by a shared characteristic; from the outset, therefore, they all stand at the same psychological distance from the reader. In narrative aesthetics (the diachronic mode), characters weave a story together simply because they happen to meet. They draw closer to the reader or recede as the plot unfolds.

If the shared plane linking FGO’s characters is defined by the “Heroic Spirits” of myth and legend, in Gensokyo it is “yōkai,” or supernatural beings; in Naruto, “ninjas”; in the Marvel Universe, “heroes”; in Azur Lane, “ships”; in Love Live!, “idols”; in Arknights, “Operators”; and in Honkai Impact 3rd, “Valkyries.” We may have grown accustomed to these labels, but in fact they have only become popular in recent years. In the classical novel, they would have been inconceivable: traditional literature concerns itself with “people,” all kinds of people. Only by going back to a much more distant age can we find a similar way of creating ensembles, through the special identities of “gods” and “heroes.” Here these labels, like the passé simple, the French literary past tense, disclose their own “unreality” from the outset. Homer’s purpose was less to record the stories of the gods than to invent an entire pantheon through stories, displaying each god’s powers in turn and ultimately offering guidance in the “choice of faith”: to win a war, we pray to Ares; to gain wisdom, we praise Athena. The pantheon is thus inseparable from “choice.” In choosing which god to believe in, we also choose a whole hierarchy of values, an ideal way of life, and the person we hope to become. Just so, the epic poet displays a hero’s particular talents by linking him to a particular god. This pattern can ultimately be traced back to tribal “totemic” thought.

Lévi-Strauss writes:⁴ “‘I am a bear’ is a declaration about the world and the individual’s place within it; it shows the individual’s standing in the community and relations with others.” We encounter and understand the world through the totemic system of discourse. It is in precisely this sense that database aesthetics revives a kind of wild thought: Heroic Spirits, ninjas, heroes, idols, and Operators are a series of “modern people’s totems.” By choosing to become one of them, we “symbolically” establish our place in an imaginary world and sustain an ideal form of interpersonal relations. These ideal relationships are precisely the compensation otaku—devoted fans of anime, manga, and games—make for themselves after rejecting reality. Interestingly, Arknights is more explicitly “atavistic” than the others, since it directly endows its Operators with animal identities and temperaments. From the aloof orca to the irascible fire dragon, from the elegant snow leopard to the sensitive cats, Mousse and Jessica, we witness a more direct tribute to humanity’s origins.

(2) In the synchronic mode, story serves the design of characters and their world. Differences between characters can be displayed in an illustrated compendium, which means that the characters are, to some extent, interchangeable within the plot. In the diachronic mode, the design of characters and their world serves the story. Each character is an independent object, not comparable with the others, embedded in their own story, driving it and being driven by it.

Take Episode 04, “Burning Run.” It does not really matter which members are sent out on the reconnaissance team. Even if Frostleaf and Meteorite were replaced by someone else, the plot would still follow the same rhythm. The only requirement is that someone be willing to sacrifice themselves. But it is easy enough to imagine any Operator making that sacrifice, so it can hardly be called a quality belonging uniquely to one character. By contrast, the story of Samurai Champloo could only unfold with those three eccentric misfits. They are always ready to go their separate ways, yet they follow one another’s fates and meet again. Remove any one link, and the long, absurd journey would dissolve into nothing.

(3) In the synchronic mode, character concepts and the story framework are complete from the outset and relatively independent of one another; the plot emerges from the free combination of characters and story. In the diachronic mode, story and characters develop together, each woven into the other. The characters’ personalities gradually take shape as the plot unfolds, and each new turn in their formation sends the plot in a new direction.

Arknights leads us by winding paths into hidden depths, planting intriguing details in its character and world design and building a complex web of relationships among the different parties. Yet the Operator profiles have told us all this from the outset. Readers enter the story already knowing the characters’ personalities and find their way effortlessly among the many names that appear in succession. Since the story itself no longer bears the burden of fleshing out the characters, it can make time fly in a few words and show us a broader panorama. Apart from science fiction, which has to supply background exposition—as in Death’s End, the third Three-Body novel, or the first Foundation book—traditional novels rarely present their background and character details as ready-made dossiers. This is partly because of the limitations of print as a single medium, and partly for fear of drawing readers’ attention away from the plot’s continuous rises and falls. It is precisely here that fragmented narrative gives all this its rationale. Once freed from the temporal dimension, authors no longer need to trouble themselves with organizing all that information into an elegant sequence that builds step by step. That work is handed over to the readers themselves. From the countless permutations of information, then, arise countless truths, countless stories, and countless Hamlets, all coexisting harmoniously in the world of signifiers at play. Here Barthes’s ideal is carried forward. Derrida complains: “Once a literary text is completed, it becomes an object of religious worship” (Writing and Difference).⁵ This is largely because traditional readers believe that the story has already ended and lies sealed within the words themselves—an object now glimpsed, now hidden.

Database aesthetics, however, suggests that we should overturn this assumption and regard a work as a symphony jointly composed by reader and author. It is never completed on the page, but comes into being through speculation, discussion, and fan works. Even so, a considerable gap remains between the splendour of theory and reality. A barrel holds only as much water as its shortest stave allows; the quality of such works will therefore depend no longer on the author’s calibre, but on the reader’s. The labyrinth constructed by a database work leads its bewildered readers back to where they began. Unlike classical drama, it can no longer guide emotion step by step towards the climax of a conflict. Instead, it gives readers a mirror in which they can see only themselves. In other words, it degenerates into what Plato called “theatrocracy”—rule by the audience: “Audiences drag down poets’ IQs, when they ought to be hearing the poetry of people better than themselves, and thereby continually experiencing better pleasures” (Laws).⁶ Perhaps readers who can find only themselves in books will never experience a genuine shudder, for our aesthetic habits take shape through countless small encounters with a thousand-year tradition. In narrative aesthetics, it is not only the protagonist who grows with the plot, but we readers too. We stand on Rei Ayanami’s shoulders and look down with her upon this absurd planet; we are driven mad alongside Shinji; we find the answer alongside Asuka. And at the end of all this tragedy, a fortunate few may even break through “the rigid principle of individuation and sink in rapture into the womb of the mother of all things,” looking back from a seat in the theatre of the thing-in-itself upon the vanished splendour of the human world (Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy).⁷

III. The Desire to Collect and Modern Totems

It is worth noting that there may never be a purely synchronic or a purely diachronic mode: these two elements work together, weaving a story along different axes. Yet if we examine the history of popular games, we can indeed discern a general tendency for the synchronic mode to come to the fore. Story becomes an accessory to the characters, a platform devoted to displaying them.

(1) The Single-Player Era (c. 1980–)

In the earliest stage-based games, players were strictly confined to a single timeline. Whatever freedom the gameplay afforded had nothing to do with the plot, since the plot had already been written. In this sense, we can classify them alongside galgames—games centred on relationships with female characters—as visual novels. The difference is simply that in the former, reading progress is closely tied to the player’s actions, whereas in the latter, several plots are woven into a single game, and players can choose for themselves whether to view them. Narrative form thus remained intact in the single-player era.

(2) The Online-Game Era (c. 2000–)

In online games, the synchronic mode manifests itself in the abundance of characters, classes, outfits, rebirth options, weapons, pets, and so on available to choose from. I still remember my first encounter with Fantasy Westward Journey in primary school: I really agonized over which character to play. Each seemed to have a soul and a destiny of their own. That dizzying sense of abundance stayed with me even after I had chosen a class and entered the game. It constantly reminded me that beyond any one path through the game lay countless other possibilities. The illustrated compendium thus became an important home for synchronic aesthetics. With only slight changes in stats, descriptions, and appearances, we can imagine another way of life. The feeling is no different from the anticipation of shopping. Yet the crucial distinction between online games and FGO or Arknights is that “subjectivity” remains paramount. The player’s character intervenes forcefully in the plot and plays a major part in driving the story. Choices of class, clothing, and weapons likewise revolve around making “me” stronger and better-looking. Totemic consciousness therefore finds its characteristic expression in the online-game era: by projecting ourselves into a totem animal, we enjoy, in imagination, the pleasure of a will to power that keeps on rising. Most gacha games, by contrast, try to reduce the player’s presence to a minimum. The player becomes faceless, loses their personality, and is reduced to a mere spectator of the story. Here Honkai Impact 3rd, which forces us to play the janitor, is clearly the most successful example.⁸ On reflection, this is very strange, since it means that gacha games are aimed squarely at an entirely different pleasure. The evidence that these two pleasures are distinct is this: totemic consciousness alone clearly cannot give rise to the desire to collect, yet it is precisely that desire that drives spending in games. As Lévi-Strauss says, the totem declares the ideal relationship between myself and the world. As a symbol of “me,” it forms a natural unity. Most online-game players remain faithful to the end, harbouring a “firstborn complex” towards the first character they created—an attachment that tends, if anything, to exclude characters created later. In short, we are usually devoted to only one way of life; our interest in another goes no further than curiosity. Gacha games must therefore represent a “modern totemic consciousness” distinct from “traditional totemic consciousness”: the traditional form leads to the will to power, the modern form to a compulsion to collect. We need to define more closely the prototype of this kind of totem.

(3) The Esports Era (c. 2000–)

The esports era originated with Spacewar! and flourished with Street Fighter (The King of Fighters). Yet games ranging from Red Alert to DOTA all followed the same pattern: neither characters nor factions had any barrier to entry; all were available to players from the outset. The synchronic mode appeared in the abundance of characters and factions, but included no element of collecting. Offline, Yu-Gi-Oh! emphasized “card collecting + battles,” yet its online form likewise put no pressure on players to collect. The change came with League of Legends and Hearthstone. Their development teams recognized the possibilities for consumption inherent in the “database” itself and introduced random draws.

(4) The Gacha Era (c. 2010–)

The concept of “drawing cards” can be traced back to the capsule-toy machines in amusement arcades. Gacha originally referred to the sound made by the handle when turned. In 2002, Sega pioneered a system of “user accounts and trading cards” in World Club Champion Football (WCCF), bringing the capsule-toy model online. This game became the prototype for a succession of later gacha games. What makes gacha work is a vast array of exquisitely designed characters. But this presents a problem: almost no story can accommodate so many characters while preserving each one’s distinctive appeal. Tolkien and George R. R. Martin are among the finest artists in this field,⁹ yet even The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire keep their core casts to a dozen or so—and that is the result of years of painstaking work. To overcome this problem and connect so many characters to the story “simultaneously,” the only solution is to place them on a plane defined by a shared characteristic, restricting the characters to particular identities, organizations, or species. Take Pokémon: the main storyline follows Ash as he leads his Pokémon in challenges against the various Gyms. Which particular “Pokémon” accompany him has no substantial effect on the plot. This is why we define the database mode of aesthetics through “the interchangeability of characters within the plot.” Yet this is precisely where we encounter the most important contradiction in this essay: if characters are interchangeable within the plot, players must find it difficult to connect emotionally with any particular character. What, then, could make them stake everything on that character? In other words, interchangeability should have spread the player’s feelings evenly across the characters, making those feelings weaker than in a traditional story. But this is not what happens. We not only become obsessed with a particular character; we also want to establish strong “bonds” with all the characters at once. Yes, “bonds”: a moment’s reflection reveals that this concept recurs in all gacha games. From the protagonist’s trust in his cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! to the deep friendship between humans and Pokémon; from the engagement rings linking Commanders and shipgirls to the Command Spells linking Masters and Servants; from the guidance linking Producers to idols to the Doctor’s appointment of Operators (apparently only the janitor has no human rights!)—the concept of the “bond” runs through almost every gacha game, even though it ought to contradict the mechanics of these games. Is this merely a coincidence? I do not think so. On the contrary, this contradiction reveals the essence of the modern totem: if the traditional totem declares the position of the subject in interpersonal relations, the modern totem brings the object of those relations to the fore. The traditional totem—likening the self to a totem animal—satisfies our desire to display power; the modern totem—likening a companion to a totem animal—satisfies our desire to establish intimate relationships. It must therefore manifest itself in some form of emphasis on bonds.

The popularity of “Donkey Amiya” corroborates this view in a sense.¹⁰ What makes the meme funny is by no means simply the fact that “her ears look like a donkey’s,” but the cartoonish way that fact subverts the “intimate relationship” she symbolizes. The “rabbit” symbolizes a common, ideal kind of intimate relationship. Men always want their partners to be as well-behaved and lively as rabbits. But the symbolism of the “donkey” thoroughly scuppers this possibility. Donkeys are invariably associated with clumsiness and stubbornness, and this gives a tremendous spur to the imagination: just what would an intimate relationship resembling that between a person and a donkey be like?

As we grow up, we come to recognize a cruel fact: the interchangeability of characters does not occur only in game worlds. It is the typical pattern of interpersonal relations in reality.

For, given the ruthlessness of fate, there is really no reason why we establish an intimate relationship with one person rather than another at a particular time. We soon wake up to this: however steadfast the feelings born of a chance encounter may have been at first, when the time comes, the two moored ships will finally go their separate ways. As Nietzsche laments: “The immense power of our tasks drives us apart again, sailing different seas beneath different suns, perhaps never to meet again—or perhaps, even if we do meet, no longer to recognize one another: different seas and suns have changed us. We must become strangers to one another; this is the law that stands above us” (The Gay Science).¹¹ We are fated to become strangers, because this relationship was interchangeable with another from the outset. If we can become friends with one person, we can become friends with anyone. No fate or necessity stands behind the relationship to protect it, and the sincerity of friendship will drain away amid the fear of contingency and of missed possibilities. If gacha becomes an obsession, there must be reasons in real life for that obsession. It is precisely here that the act of drawing a character symbolically overcomes the contingency underlying intimate relationships. Once we draw a character, we possess them “permanently”; we form a deep bond with them, and no fate can ever tear us apart again. The allure of gacha therefore lies in that golden light which transfigures “contingency” into “necessity,” dispels reality’s gloom, and leads us away from life’s vicissitudes. Only by explaining the driving force behind gacha as the symbolic establishment of intimate relationships can we finally find a home for “the desire to collect.” Pokémon, ships, Servants, Operators—we do not desire them as property; they come to us as friends, as companions. If it were the former, six-star characters—the highest rarity tier in Arknights—would suffice. But we want them all, because they are all our friends, our wings.

Original Editor’s Comment: One further point: the gacha mechanism makes time spent playing and money spent in-game prerequisites for securing such relations. It redirects the player’s anxiety about failing to obtain the object towards their own inadequate spending power and insufficient effort. Implicit here is a logic of late modernity that imports the forms of labour in production into gaming as a leisure activity.

Original Editor’s Note 2: A reminder, lest any Azuma-sensitive subjects have a fit (…): the author’s main concern is not the opening discussion of Azuma. That is just a lead-in.

Author: Chuangzi (窗子)
Proofreader: 伦勃朗
Editor: 子厚
English translation: 甚谁bot
Lab on Roof

Translator’s Notes

Quotations follow the Chinese wording quoted in the essay; they are not quotations from existing English translations.