Being Dragonborn

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. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Mike Piero is a Professor of English at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio.

Marc A. Ouellette is an award-winning educator who teaches cultural and gender studies at Old Dominion University, where he is the Learning Games Initiative Research Fellow.

Series editor Matthew Wilhelm Kapell teaches American studies, anthropology, and writing at Pace University in New York.

• “Whether you are a games scholar, a student, or a fan of the Elder Scrolls franchise there is something for everyone in Being Dragonborn. Mike Piero and Marc A. Ouellette have curated a stellar collection of thoughtfully crafted and accessibly written critical essays on Skyrim that is sure to be added to many reading lists. Diverse in its perspectives, this edited collection dives into the complexities of one of the most compelling video games of its time in terms of world design, lore, and scope of possible gameplay. With Skyrim at the core, the chapters unfold through carefully interwoven topics including heroism, agency, ethics, emergent narrative, and more. A must read for anyone who is interested in the socio, political, and cultural impact of Skyrim in particular, and video games in general.”—Kelly Boudreau, Harrisburg University of Science & Technology

Edited by Mike Piero and Marc A. Ouellette
Series Editor Matthew Wilhelm Kapell
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 236
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2021
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7784-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4356-4
Imprint: McFarland
Series: Studies in Gaming

Acknowledgments v
Introduction: Skyrim as an Exemplary Gameworld
Mike Piero and Marc A. Ouellette 1

Part I: “Skyrim is our land”: Neomedievalism, Heroism and ­Ethno-Nationalist Gameplay
From Hero to Zero: Nationalistic Narratives and the Dogma of Being Dragonborn
Joshua Call and Thomas Lecaque 14
Grounding the Neomedieval Gameworld: The Dragonborn Between History and Myth
Alicia McKenzie 28
Expanding the Frontier Through War: Skyrim’s Ludic Contribution to the Frontier Myth
Brent Kice 45

Part II: “Then I took an arrow in the knee”: Agency and Alterity
Queer Harpies and Vicious Dryads: Hagravens, Spriggans and Abject Female Monstrosity in Skyrim
Sarah Stang 60
All the Wheels of Cheese: Hoarding and Collecting Behaviors in Skyrim
D’An Knowles Ball 75
Escapism as Contested Space: The Politics of Modding Skyrim
Liamog S. Drislane 91

Part III: “Sky above, voice within”: Ethics and Politics Within Skyrim’s Cosmology
Nature Versus Player: Skyrim Players and Modders as Ecological Force
Misha Grifka Wander 106
Portraits of the Neomedieval ­Family-Idyllic: Patriarchal Oikos and a Love Without Love in Skyrim
Mike Piero and Marc A. Ouellette 120
Skyrim’s Competitive Cosmology: A Fluctuating Economy of Power and Parasitic Deification
Trevor B. Williams 137
Testing Your Thu’um: Rhetoric, Violence, Uncertainty and the Dragonborn
Stephen M. Llano 154

Part IV: “Who wrote the Elder Scrolls?” Emergent Narratives and Difficult Questions
Emergent Worlds and Illusions of Agency: Worldbuilding as Design Practice in Skyrim
Wendi Sierra 172
Taking Your Time as Dragonborn: Reconciling Skyrim’s Ludic and Narrative Dimensions Through a Detective Story Typology
Andrew A. Todd 188
The Death of Paarthurnax: The “Good Temptation”?
C. Anne Engert and Tony Perrello 202

About the Contributors 221
Index 223

Review Fix chats with Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim co-editor Mike Piero, who discusses the efforts in putting this work together.

Review Fix: What’s the main reason why you decided to do this book?

Mike Piero: Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim began as a conversation at a Popular Culture Association conference publisher table with Layla Milholen from McFarland & Company. I had put hundreds of hours into The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios, 2011) since its release and had been writing and presenting a bit on the game, one of the most popular, enduring video games of the 2010s in an immensely successful and longstanding franchise. She was interested in a volume of essays on Skyrim, so I started working towards one with Marc A. Ouellette (Associate Professor of English, Old Dominion University) graciously joining me as co-editor.

Skyrim was a great game to work with in part because of its vast cultural landscape, history, and lore: from environmental concerns to white nationalist narratives, gender oppression to ethical turmoil for players, Skyrim is a rich, complex, and politically fraught storyworld that in many ways mirrors our out-of-game realities, power dynamics, and political controversies. Not all Skyrim fans will agree with some of the research-driven interpretations in the collection, but that’s a strength of the collection: it pursues rigorous thought, questions, rhetorics, narratives, social problems, and power dynamics that appear within the game with intellectual courage and humility. The best books are the ones that give you new ways to think about something familiar, books that de-familiarize a topic. Being Dragonborn does precisely that.

Review Fix: Why is Being Dragonborn special to you?

Piero: Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim holds a special place in my heart for several reasons, including it being my first edited collection. Beyond that, Being Dragonborn was an enriching collaborative experience with my co-editor and, at the time, doctoral advisor, Marc A. Ouellette. I’ll always be grateful for his kindness and expertise in helping me learn the process of editing a collection, writing a book proposal, and so many other writing/research/publishing processes. Thirdly, and most importantly, the academic contributors to this collection are brilliant, engaging, and rigorous in their thinking about this game. For me, Being Dragonborn was definitely a labor of love, one that allowed us to think critically about this formidable game and imagine how its themes, images, narratives, and mechanics overlapped with contemporary culture and systems of oppression.

Review Fix: What was the research process like for this one?

Piero: Well, I was also finishing my Ph.D. at the time (later published as Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice: Playing on the Threshold, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), so I was already neck-deep in game studies research. I replayed Skyrim as a Khajiit, taking notes on what I observed as I played, and read everything I could find on Skyrim, including all of its three-volume set of books of lore and history, The Skyrim Library. Since Being Dragonborn is an edited collection, we wrote and issued a call for papers (CFP) to solicit other book chapters from scholars and game enthusiasts. Since these interpretations of the game are research-backed, they help us understand more about the rhetorical, narrative, and ludic operations driving interest in the game but also the systems and structures of power outside the game that find representation, however subtly, in this video game—like in all video games.

As an editor, much of my work—beyond co-writing a chapter and the book’s introduction with Marc—was to champion the authors’ vision for their essays and help shape the chapters into a coherent sequence of readings for our audience. It was a Tetris-like endeavor in some ways, fitting chapters together into sections, looking for where they meet and fit snugly, and thinking about how the chapters talk to one another in the collection. I also worked to help the essays become as stylistically accessible as possible not only for a scholarly audience but for popular audiences as well. We had to turn away a lot of excellent essays due to the huge response we received due to spatial constraints, but I couldn’t be happier with each essay in this collection.

Review Fix: What did you learn that you weren’t expecting through this one?

Piero: Besides learning how to put together a book index (for which I think I have a natural predisposition, take that for what you will—haha), I learned how richly diverse players’ gaming experiences can be. We enjoyed a very diverse collection of authors in Being Dragonborn, and seeing how they braided their academic disciplines, research areas, and play experiences together was nothing short of magical. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of contributors, who seriously came through in support of this book, all during the start of the pandemic, no less!

Review Fix: Who will enjoy this one the most?

Piero: Skyrim and gaming fans will enjoy the thought-provoking analyses of this game, as will game studies scholars and other academics interested in popular culture and new media. We worked to make this volume speak to a crossover market of gaming enthusiasts and scholars, a challenging task, but one that offers field-defining research in a style that non-academics interested in gaming, philosophy, cultural studies, and history can enjoy.

It’s funny: the day after you reached out to me about this interview, Bethesda announced their surprise release of the remastered version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I just started playing it, and it’s incredible. Being Dragonborn, while focused on Skyim, would also definitely be of interest to those enjoying the nostalgic ecstasy of this new Oblivion release.

Review Fix: Why should people pick this one up?

Piero: Every essay in this collection is a gem, including and especially the first essay by Josh Call and Thomas Lecaque that grows more relevant each day: “From Hero to Zero: Nationalistic Narratives and the Dogma of Being Dragonborn.” Being Dragonborn speaks to how games serve as carriers of culture in a particular historical moment, and Skyrim’s continued popularity registers some of those dominant, problematic narratives in fascinating ways. There are some difficult, problematic, and sometimes downright objectionable political narratives in the Skyrim region during this time of civil war, and this essay—among others in the collection—interrogates these matters with clarity and insight.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Piero: My debut gaming-themed novel, Rogue Burnout, is seeking a home and is represented by Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Group in NYC. I’m excited about this queer coming-of-age novel that incorporates a lot of game studies ideas and philosophy into it as it follows and esports gamer, Pan, during a high-stakes tournament that his team must win to keep their corporate sponsorship. Folks can follow the link above to learn more about the novel and sign up for my free newsletter for updates on the project.

I’m also writing a popular nonfiction book, tentatively titled High Score: A Cultural History of Drugs in Games, which analyzes the presence of drugs in video games alongside the parallel history of drug laws, prohibition, enforcement, and cultures in the U.S. from Nixon’s “War on Drugs” through the present.

Review Fix: Where can people find out more?

Piero: Folks can find out more about my work on my website at www.mikepiero.org, BlueSky, SubStack, and LinkedIn.

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

Piero: Last thing: many people I speak with, especially those who don’t play games, tend to dismiss video games as either “merely entertainment” or even “a waste of time.” Being active in the interdisciplinary field of game studies has taught me that games—not unlike other media including literature, film, television, etc.—are complex cultural and narrative texts, ones ripe for interpretation, analysis, and even classroom use. It’s been exciting to think critically about these games and instruct my students how to consume such media critically and thoughtfully as well, especially in a sophomore-level course I teach, ENG 2770 Rhetorics of Gaming: Introduction to Video Game Analysis. The course always fills, and it’s a challenging, research-driven course. Games offer us a serious space to inquire about history, narrative, culture, and politics.