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• 1 2025-03-25T19:09:10+00:00 Immersion Exercise Between “C ya laterrrr” and Murray 6 Yash, Arnesa, Shaun plain 2025-03-25T19:37:41+00:00

  Quote: “A good story serves the same purpose for adults, giving us something safely outside ourselves (because it is made up by someone else) upon which we can project our feelings. Stories evoke our deepest fears and desires because they inhabit this magical borderland. . . . we have to keep the virtual world "real" by keeping it "not there." We have to keep it balanced squarely on the enchanted threshold without letting it collapse onto either side.” (Murray 99 – p 2 of pdf)
   

  Analysis: Since stories are external to our real life situations, they provide a way for the user to explore their emotions in unique ways. The forms of fiction that we explore in this class often mirror deeper anxieties that we would normally not encounter. Once we find the boundary between our own realities and these modes of fiction, that is the true definition of immersion (inhabiting the “magical borderland”). This is classified as an “Enchanted threshold”, which creates a border between the real world and fantasy.  This connection helps for the user to “project” their feelings and perspective upon a work. It serves as a looking-glass into something outside of the reader's perspective. 

   

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Examples from “C ya laterrrr”: For example, in the game C ya laterrrr, the vivid description of the narrator’s emotions (as seen in the first image) in the aftermath of the bombing allowed players to immerse themselves in the narrator’s shoes. In this way, it can be argued that the detailed descriptions act as the “enchanted threshold” that Murray is referring to, in that the words allow readers to clearly visualize the narrator’s situation and empathize with him. However, to regulate this immersion, the narrator breaks the fourth wall in the second image. This aligns with Murrays ideas of how good examples of immersion do not truly push the reader into a state of fantasy. By stating that this story is a real life representation and is “never ending”, Hett’s qualifies this work as a true experience, while it was previously seen to the user as a game.