23 July 2007

By: Alexandru Stanescu, Editor, Gaming Reviews (Consoles)
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga Secrets (PS2)
The perfect way to unlock the New Game+ mode
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga is a PlayStation 2 role-playing game. It is a spinoff of the Shin Megami Tensei series of video games; the main difference between Digital Devil Saga and the main series is the focus on specific characters rather than summoning demons to fight alongside your party. The story to Digital Devil Saga is continued with its direct sequel Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2, similar to the.hack series of games. Notable features of the game include the ability to shapeshift between demon and human forms in battle and a return of the "press turn" battle system from Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. A large difference between Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga is the ability to change equipped skills at will, instead of at level up. Unlike in Nocturne, unlearned skills are not lost forever, which allows for much greater character customization. The game features a mantra system where Atma gained after battle can be used to "download" new abilities at a saving terminal. Atma is gained by devouring enemies in battle. Digital Devil Saga was released in 2004 in Japan, 2005 in North America and 2006 in Europe. The band Etro Anime provided "Danger", the introductory song for the U.S. version of the game and Houko Kuwashima provided "Pray", the introductory song for the Japanese and European version of the game.SecretsNew game+Beat the game. After viewing the ending and credits, the game will ask you to save your file (This save will have the words NEXT CYCLE and EXTRA on it). Load that file to begin a new game+. You start back at level 1 with minimal money and items. However, all learned combos and mastered/purchased Mantras from the previous game will carry over into the new game. A next cycle game also lets your characters learn the Human Form skill and unlocks an optional super boss for you to fight. Wondering how the game looks like? Here's a trailer:
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Stephen F. Teiser, Having Once Died and Returned to Life: Representations of Hell in Medieval China, Journal of Asiatic Studies 48, no. 2 (1988): 43537. 8 E. A. Budge. Egyptian Heaven and Hell. p. 86-89; Miriam Van Scott. Encyclopedia of Hell. New York: Macmillian, 1998. p. 102-103. 9 Robert J. Sharer, Sylvanus Griswold Morley. The Ancient Maya. Standford: Stanford University Press, 1994. pp. 181-183, 270, 280, 522. Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Game Worlds 4
1.3 The Influence of the Underworld in Media
Figure 1. Rio Frio cave system in Belize. The caves were linked to Xibalba, the underworld in classical Mayan mythology.
Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Game Worlds 5
Figure 2. Entrance to Actun Tunichil Muknal, a Maya archaeological site in the Cayo District, Belize. Actun Tunichil Muknal was ritually and mythologically connected to Xibalba
Figure 3. Crystallized human remains within the Actun Tunichil Muknal site.
Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Game Worlds 6
Chapter 1: Introduction The underworld trope has inspired works and discussion in many media. Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516) painted fantastic landscapes with grotesque depictions of bird-headed demons inflicting physical torments on the bodies of the damned. Auguste Rodin took the Inferno for the subject of his epic La Porte
de lEnfer (figure 4). Jean Cocteaus Orphic trilogy, in particular Orphe (1950),
adapts the myth of Orpheus descent into the underworld to the directors contemporary Paris, while Guillermo del Toros more recent El laberinto del
fauno (2006) weaves an underworld descent narrative throughout a tale of the
conflict during the Spanish Civil War. The underworld has appeared often in literature from classical works, the best known being Homers Odyssey, Virgils
Aeneid, and Ovids Metamorphoses. Underworld narratives informed much of
medieval literature, the themes and motifs crystallizing in Dantes late medieval
Divine Comedy, while Renaissance authors like Spenser used the underworld for
structural as well as thematic purposes.10 In modern literature, underworld tropes appear in writers as diverse as A. Checkov, Kathy Acker, Salman Rushdie and C.S. Lewis.

Matthew A. Fike. Spenser's Underworld in the 1590 Faerie Queene Studies in Renaissance Literature, V. 24, 2003. Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Game Worlds 7
Figure 4. Auguste Rodins Gates of Hell (1880-1890) depicts the Inferno from Dantes Commedia.
Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Game Worlds 8
1. 4 The Historic Prevalence of the Underworld in Video Games
The underworlds influence, however, has been remarkably pervasive in games when compared to these legacy media. Underworld themes, imagery and references have saturated video games throughout their history. There has been relatively little scholarly inquiry, however, into underworlds and video games. This lacuna is striking, particularly when we consider the attention that underworld has received in other disciplines and media; there is an established scholarly discourse of underworld studies in film (Martin M. Winkler 2001), drama (June Schlueter 1990), literature (David Pike 1997; Rachel Falconer 2001), and fine art (Evans Lansing Smith 1995, 2001, 2003).
The influence of the underworld in games spans genres, target audiences, Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) content ratings, developers, cultures, platforms and time periods. The range of underworld references is also broad, with game developers using themes from the underworlds of other cultures. We find underworld elements from Asian cultures as well as from the Western tradition, and motifs from different cultures are often combined within a given title.
Kid Icarus (Nintendo, 1986) is a vertical-scrolling 2D platform game developed in
Japan for the Nintendo Entertainment System.11 The game world and narrative combine ancient Greek and Christian elements, including an angelic player character who must escape from the underworld ruled by Medusa (figure 5).
Figure 5. Kid Icarus (1986) for the NES.
NES in the US, but known as the Famicom in Japan. 10
Chapter 1: Introduction The Megami Tensei, or Megaten, games (Atlus, 1987-2008), also developed in Japan, are a long-running franchise that pulls from mythological traditions that span many time periods and cultures. The series has spawned over fifty titles on mobile, console and computer platforms. Most of the games fall into the roleplaying genre, although the franchise also includes titles in the adventure, puzzle, strategy and collectable card genres. The underworld connections are explicit, and game play and plots revolve around supernatural entities and places taken from a variety of time periods and cultures.

Chapter 1: Introduction i would like to see perhps (sic) a more powerful pre-Hellenic deity such as Dione who was a titaness theirs is a lot the could do if they go back to the pure untainted mythologies
As much as I love Hades and Duat I don't want Tomb Raider to overuse Egypt and Greece I think we should broaden our horizons a bit. There are just as many underworlds out there that are just as complicated if not more. 13
Eric Lindstrom, creative director for the game, has commented on the deep pull that underworlds have in video games. "A common theme that runs through the whole adventure and the mythologies [game protagonist Lara Croft] delves into are the Underworld myths of those ancient cultures. He explained that the games title expresses more about the object of her quest and has less to do with wandering underground settings.14 One gamer speculated:
What if TombRaider Underworld is a spiritual trip for Lara the player has to continue through the game only to find out that the whole game is nothing more but a near death experience as she is on a spiritual trip to
(http://www.tombraiderforums.com/showthread.php?s=6fd77712316d075216f04047b2 615354&t=117241) 14 GameInformer, January 2008. Tomb Raider: Underworld The Next Logical Step, pp. 66-7. Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Game Worlds 13
Chapter 1: Introduction find her soul back to come back from the underworld by going through several test to show the will to survive. I would love to see this happen15
The underworld setting is useful for creating interesting game environments, but these statements show that players also respond enthusiastically to the mythopoetic chthonic structures and themes in games.
The underworld presence permeates video games with little differentiation for audience. It emerges in games with a wide range of budgets, with varied intended players and ratings, in games of different genres, and in games from developers across the publishing spectrum. It appears in games from first-party (console maker-owned) AAA console titles to budget PC and independently developed games.
Beyond Atlantis is an adventure game from third-party developer Cryo
Interactive, published by The Adventure Company in 2000 as a PC value title. This mid-market game features the classical Mayan underworld Xibalba as one of its game world levels (figure 7). Folklore (Sony, 2007) for the Playstation3 is a single-player, action-adventure RPG. This AAA (or big budget, high profile) game bases its setting, the Netherworld, on the underworld of Celtic mythology (figures 8-9). At the other end of the game industry spectrum, independent

Figure 12. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Underworld elements appear in the structure, gameplay and content of the Megaten game franchise. The character Dante, from the Devil May Cry game series, makes a cameo appearance in SMTN. In the Devil May Cry universe, Dante is a demon hunter with a demonic twin brother, Virgil.
Figure 13. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. The Labyrinth of Amala contained 5 kalpas, or levels. Lucifer (who appears in the game either as an old man accompanied by a young woman, as above, or as a boy accompanied by an old woman) resides in the lowest level.
Figure 14. The Lost (Crave Entertainment, 2002 unreleased) game for Playstation2. The player takes the role of a young single mother on a quest to retrieve her daughters soul from Hell; the game was based on Dantes Inferno.
Figure 15. The Lost (Crave Entertainment, 2002 unreleased) game for Playstation2. Iconic figures from Inferno (and classical mythology) were re-imagined in the survival-horror aesthetic. Here, Cerberus confronts the player.
Figure 16. The Lost (Crave Entertainment, 2002 unreleased) game for Playstation2. The geography of Hell was also translated into the survival-horror aesthetic. Here, the River Styx has become a World War II-era train.
Figure 17. Dantes Inferno (Denton Designs, 1986) game for Commodore 64. The player controls the Pilgrim (without Virgil) through the nine circles of Dantes Inferno. The game is infamously difficult, as the player only has one life and the game originally did not have save points.
Figure 18. Dantes Inferno. Charon ferrys the Pilgrim across the River Acheron. This scene is not actually depicted in the poem, as Dante the Pilgrim faints after they leave the shore. The poems action recommences after theyve reached the first circle on the other side of the river.
Figure 19. Dantes Inferno. Phlegyas ferrys the Pilgrim over the River Styx.
Figure 20. Dantes Inferno, advertisement.
Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Game Worlds 33
Figure 21. Dantes Inferno, review in December 1986 issue of ZZAP!64 magazine.

She focuses too narrowly, however, when she bases her argument on the Western, Christian tradition that grew from the early middle ages. This actually works against some of her arguments, as this tradition has had an implicit exclusivity that unnecessarily undermines her argument. The qualifications for which souls goes where after death have varied over the centuries, but Heaven is exclusionary even in its broadest, most inclusive description. It excludes the wicked, unrepentant and unrighteous by definition, and while this may be morally defensible, it cannot be the standard from which inclusive is determined.
A broader view is also supported by the many elements she has identified with the New Jerusalem and the Heavenly City that appear in other cultures spiritual constructions. Wertheim is on the right track in seeing spiritual space in the online world, and the expansion of digital spiritual space has appeared in such work as Brenda Laurel and Rachel Stricklands Placeholder.41 The spiritual aptitude of digital space is more evident when we pull back and consider spiritual spaces from non-Western, non-Christian cultures. Traditional underworlds are usually inclusive, in that all souls pass through them regardless of destination. Anubis weighs the souls of the good as well as the wicked, and everyone gets to take a boat ride with Charon, although not all voyages end up in the Elysian Fields.
Brenda Laurel, Rachel Strickland, Rob Tow. Placeholder: Landscape and Narrative In Virtual Environments, ACM Computer Graphics Quarterly Volume 28 Number 2 May 1994.
Michael Benedikt takes up this more inclusive, universal character of the New Jerusalem that emerges in digital space. From Hollywood Hills to Tibet, images of the Heavenly City share common features of weightlessness, radiance, impeccable cleanliness, palaces upon palaces, and peace and harmony through the rule of the good and wise.42 This hopeful construct that appears in eastern and western cultures flows from our attempts to create earthly Edens in order to repudiate our mortality and fall from grace. Creating transcendent spaces is a response to the resentment we feel for our own bodies cloddishness, limitations and final treachery: their mortality.43
These transcendent spaces require equally transcendent bodies in order to fulfill the promise that Benedikt sees in them. A space is only a planar perspective if we cannot travel through it and experience it subjectively. Game avatars provide this spatial access to the transcendent.
2.3 Game Avatar as Spirit Body
Players are conventionally represented in MMOGs as game avatars. They engage the game world through the experience of their personalized character, and avatars frame players interactions with each other. In virtual digital worlds, the avatar also takes on the role of the souls spirit body that appears in

Thus the game avatar posseses an ambiguous nature. It is monumental, yet personal. It is individual, yet iconic. In this liminality, game avatars echo the heroes and characters from underworld myths not necessarily divine, but
Nasser Nassiri, Norman Powell, David Moore. Avatar gender and personal space invasion anxiety level in desktop collaborative virtual environments, Virtual Reality, Volume 8 , Issue 2 (September 2004) Pages: 107 117.
undertaking dangerous journeys and dealing with gods, monsters or spirits on other realms of existence.
2.4 Poetics Through Diverse Approaches
There are many different approaches to the idea of poetics, and the term refers to different things depending on where and by whom it is being used. I look at poetics as the essential characteristics of a phenomenon.
Angela Ndalianis chose aesthetics instead of poetics to describe her writings on the neo-baroque and contemporary entertainment, although previous work on the neo-baroque by Bornhofen has explicitly used poetics in analyzing the field. The difference lies in the nature of the media the authors consider. Bornhofen examines the neo-baroque as an influence on Latin American literature, and the result is relatively traditional literary criticism. Ndalianis, on the other hand, takes on a more spectacular and dynamic subject area that ranges from video games and to film to theme park attractions. Her subject is a largely visual aspect of modern leisure culture created to entertain and inspire wonder. As such, her choice of aesthetics rather than poetics emphasizes the importance of pleasure and taste to her subject.
This is not an inviolate rule, however. Turnbull could easily have called his
Poetics of Gardens Aesthetics of Gardens, as the topic is rooted in sensory
Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Game Worlds 55
appreciation. Likewise, Bachelard could have published the Aesthetics of Space, on account of his subjective and sensual approach to domestic architecture, instead of the Poetics of Space. But his choice is telling, as his work is decidedly poetic in tone.

2.5 Summary

Mazzotta, pp 7-8. Mazzotta, 8-10. 58
Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Virtual Worlds
The organization of the Commedia is regular and symbolic. Each of the three
cantiches (canticles, or poetic sections) describes a particular spiritual territory,
and each cantiche breaks down into cantos (or verses), thirty-four for the Inferno and thirty-three for the Purgatorio, and thirty-two for the Paradiso. The number three re-appears through the poem in different guises.52 The reference to the Christian Trinity is implicit; in addition to there being three distinct territories, the nine internal subdivisions of the Inferno and Paradise are multiples of three. Bright spirits sing heavenly praises three times in the latter, and Satan has a tripartite body in the core of the former. The Trinitarian influence written into the environment and creatures even in the bowels of Hell - reflects the ubiquity of Gods presence in Creation (His glory, by whose might all things are mov'd, pierces the universe, and in one part sheds more resplendence, elsewhere less).53
The sources the Commedia draws on reflect the complex context in which Dante was writing. The poem contains Christian and pagan elements, but it is as much a political work as it is a protestation of faith. The incongruities these factors pose contribute to its vitality rather than detract from it. Indeed, they support its power and continued relevance for later readers.
Musa, pp. ix- xvi. Dante, Paradiso, Canto I 59
3.2 Dantes Interpretation of the Body
It bears pointing out that Dante was not a medieval ascetic, nor did he abhor the body. The poet actively participated in secular politics and lived a cosmopolitan life.54 The Commedia is an inherently sensuous work that celebrates beauty and love while lamenting the treachery of sin. Abrams goes so far as to call the poet "a cognoscenti of sensual delight" and the Commedia his "valediction to the flesh."55 Dante, like Augustine, locates the soul rather than the body as the cause of sin. Furthermore, the body and soul have an "indelible" connection in Dante's mind, so that "it is reproduced temporarily after death." 56 Entering Paradise does not sunder that link. It merely defers the eventual "permanent transformation when soul is joined with glorified body" that is not discarded but is redeemed by being totally expressive of its purified soul." 57 Thus the body has a privileged position in the poems worldview. The souls in the Commedia are organized spatially as bodies, and the control mechanisms that organize them are directed at the spirit bodies capacities to feel and respond to sensual stimuli and conditions.

3.7.2 Ritual in Purgatory: Physical Trial and Spiritual Progression
The physical trial mechanic works differently in Purgatory, where the intent of the ritual suffering is to excise the sin from the soul, not enshrine it. Ritual suffering
Dante, Inferno, Canto VI 88
also frees the soul in a more literal way, as it provides the means of moving through the landscape and across geographic as well as spiritual thresholds.
The seven terraces of Mount Purgatory divide souls semantically and vertically based on the sins they committed in life, much as the nine circles organize the souls of the damned in the Inferno. Souls can only progress through the landscape during the day, in recognition of the animating and omnipotent light of God towards which they move. The orientation of progression is vertical and unidirectional; to move backwards or down would be unnatural and untenable. Purgatory is a ritual landscape for the spiritual cleansing of souls and its focus and function looks up to Paradise. Backtracking would be a literal and metaphoric return to sin. That sin, however, has been expiated and purged and thus no longer exists, and the soul cannot return to a previous state of sinful being. Once a soul completes the ritual trials associated with a terraces sin and passes through the gate to the next level, it is impossible to go back.
For the damned, this repetition becomes a compulsive but unwelcome reminder of their sin and a perverse memorial to the eternal life they lost through it. The souls in Purgatory, however, willingly endure their suffering as a just punishment that scourges the weight of sin from their souls, and consequently their spirit bodies.
and even as I turned toward him, I asked: What did the spirit of Romagna mean when he said, 'Sharing cannot have a part'?
And his reply: He knows the harm that lies in his worst vice; if he chastises it, to ease its expiation do not wonder.92
Performing the ritual trials successfully relies on their capacity for suffering but ultimately releases them from the bonds of sin. The active engagement of the souls in their own discipline rewards them with purer souls and spirit bodies capable of progressing further through space, and thus provides the means for their eventual entry into Paradise.
Dante, Purgatorio, Canto XV 90
Figure 30. Inferno (1972-1775) from Paul Laffoleys triptych of the Divine Comedy.

Figure 34. World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2003-2008). The symbolic and geographic orientation and organization of Undercity resembles that of Dantes Inferno.
Thus, their city replaces the human capitals pristine walls and bright spaces with decay and darkness, and its citadel with tunnels and catacombs. (Despite its dilapidated appearance, Undercity is ironically the more recently constructed of the two cities, according to the Warcraft timeline.) The ruined castle, with is crumbling walls and broken statues, that sits atop the city mocks the monumental architecture of Stormwinds Valley of Heroes. The moats at this upper level
contain eerie glowing slime an inversion of the clear, pure water in the canals of Stormwind. Elevators at crypt level, guarded by monstrous patch-work creatures, connect the surface ruins to Undercity proper. (This inverts the orientation of human architecture in the game, where the lifeless crypts are below ground, and the business of life goes takes place on the surface, where multistory buildings house reach toward the sky.) Undercity is roughly organized along concentric circles at different levels; these demarcate areas of communication, commerce, and training. The green goo is present here, as well, in concentric canals that separate the rings of the city.
Figure 35. World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2003-2008). Undercity uses a concentric spatial model and a descending orientation, much like the Inferno.
Geographies of the Underworld: the Chthonic Poetics of Embodiment and Game Worlds 101
Undercity uses inversion as a spatial construction of meaning much in the same way that Date does in the CommediaI (Figure 34). In addition, the similarities in the symbolic geography between the Inferno and Undercity are striking. They both employ a spatial model of concentric circles along a vertical axis. The axis of power in both places is also vertical, with the orientation pointing down; Sylvanas, the banshee ruler of the Forsaken, stands at the lowest point of Undercitys vertical structure, like Satan frozen in Cocytus. As the capital city of the undead Forsaken, Undercity recalls Dis, the infernal city of the Pit. Human characters find it as difficult to traverse as Dante and his guide did in the Inferno.

spatial freedom. The capability of flight enables the avatar to transcend the spatial controls associated with the terrestrial geometry.
Reputation determines which riding animals players may purchase. Players can acquire the mount for their characters race without any reputation qualification. Earning enough reputation from another racial faction, however, enables a player to purchase the mount peculiar to that group. This difficult achievement is highly spectacular and communicates a players high status and resources (in terms of time devoted to rep farming and adequate gold for the significant expense) to other players.126
4.2.4 Avatar As Physical Body
The avatar has a second aspect, the incarnation of a living character that exists within the material fiction of the game world. The physical body of the avatar obeys the rule set of the physical game world, such as collision detection, but it also conforms to the game worlds embedded cultural and environmental models.
All bodies are not equal. There are player avatar bodies (with their multiple aspects), but also non-player character (NPC) bodies, mobile creature (mob)
The official game guide makes this very clear: However, you will first need to obtain "exalted" reputation status with that race in order to do so. At this point this is very difficult to do, if not impossible. Its not impossible for dedicated players, but it is very difficult and cross-mounted players are still relatively uncommon. (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/mounts.html) Geographies of the Underworld: the Chthonic Poetics of Embodiment and Game Worlds 116
bodies, and boss or elite creature bodies. Different rules control these different types of bodies. Additionally, avatar bodies exist in WoW in different ontological states, as they can experience the world in both life and death. The rule sets controlling the capabilities and capacities of the avatar differ depending on the state, however.
Figure 41. World of Warcraft character screen. Character belonging to the Horde faction appears in front of a background that suggests strife, fire, and violence. Compare to the utopian background in the human character screen (Alliance faction) from figure 36.
4.3.4.1 Categories of Being: Player Avatars in Life
Player avatars have the potential to change functionally rather than superficially. Over the course of the game, the character gains improved physical and skill capabilities as it accumulates experience points. Experience is a key game mechanic that controls crucial development thresholds of the avatars body, but it is also controlled in turn by its spatial component.

4.3.4.1.1 Experience as Spatial Control
The experience mechanic structures much of how the character progresses through the game. Another embodied metaphor, it uses game rules and structures modeled on the assumption that a person receives rewards of wisdom and proficiency through repeated activity. Characters can gain new spells, skills and abilities as they gain levels, and experience points are the symbolic currency of this development. Characters earn experience points either by killing mobs near or higher than their own level, exploring new regions, or by completing quests. All these activities require players to engage with the environment on a physical basis. The mobs also act as a means of spatial control for the players
engagement with the world, though, regardless of how she pursues experience points.
Mobs reward experience points depending on the relationship of their levels with that of the avatar. Lower level mobs are weaker than the character and return increasingly fewer points, to the point that creatures more than 5 levels below the character will not return any experience. Higher-level creatures are stronger and more dangerous to the character. They reward more experience points, however, because they involve more risk and require more effort to kill.
The distribution of mobs creates geographic boundaries that control where the avatar can pass. There are rarely explicit limitations on a players movement.127 Instead, the game uses the threat embodied in higher-level mobs to constrain players to level-appropriate areas. Venturing beyond exposes the avatar to escalated violence, as mobs are more likely to attack a character lower than their level. Conversely, mobs ignore characters of sufficiently higher level. Consequently, a region like Stranglethorn Vale (with creatures in the thirty to forty-five level range) may promise instant death to a level ten character while simultaneously offering minimal reaction to a character at level fifty. Enduring the physical trials of combat with appropriate mobs rewards the character with the means to transcend physical threats embodied in the worlds geography.

Figure 44. World of Warcraft. The Dark Portal recalls the gate from the login screen. Here it leads to Outland.
4.4 Categories of Being: Other Bodies
Other bodies do not posses the capability to change over time; this is true for NPCs, regular mobs, elite mobs and bosses. They exist in a repetitive cycle whose steps follow established rules. Their movements are circumscribed to a set area and their behavior does not vary. In death they leave a temporary
Geographies of the Underworld: the Chthonic Poetics of Embodiment and Game Worlds 125
corpse that within minutes will fade and leave no trace. Death is a temporary state, for they reappear in the same place (or re-spawn), in the same form, and return to their previous ritual patterns.132 These ritual patterns also define the spatial limits for their movement. Mobs, bosses and NPCs spawn at prescribed points on the map, at prescribed intervals between death and resurrection. To watch their existence in the game is to see not a life that stretches indefinitely but rather an endlessly repeating slice of a life.
Figure 45. World of Warcraft. Night elf with the Great Bear Spirit, a quest-giver ghost NPC. There are living and ghost NPCs; they exists according to the same rules and conventions.
Some creatures may re-spawn so quickly that a player may encounter a location filled with one live mob walking among several of its own dead bodies.
Some NPCs, such as the spectral Captain Grayson of the Westfall Lighthouse and the Great Bear Spirit in Moonglade (figure 45), appear in the game as ghosts rather than living characters. Their soul bodies follow the same rule sets that control living NPC bodies, however; they wait or move according to scripted patterns. There is little ontological difference how the game treats the soul body of the dead night elf Yalda and how it treats the living residents of her village in Darkshore.
Figure 46. World of Warcraft. Mobs and other creatures in the game can also be living or ghost bodies. Like the NPCs, this distinction makes no difference in the rules and conventions that govern them.
There is a great difference between these static NPC and mob bodies and player avatars, however. The 3D models retain the same geometry and textures (excluding those relating to equipped gear) in all groups. Thus they may appear to be superficially equivalent, and this is true in terms of their capacity to be injured or controlled by the games rule structure. Player avatars, however, have the unique capacity for transformation through their experience to expand their unique capabilities and change their position in the rule structure. Like the penitents in Dantes Purgatory, player avatars have a future. The NPCs and mobs, on the other hand, resemble the damned of the Inferno trapped in an endless loop of ritualized action, consigned to their allotted space in the spiritual landscape with no hope of transcendence.

Geographies of the Underworld: the Poetics of Chthonic Embodiment and Game Worlds 137
The discussion has shown that capacity, the second force acting on the chthonic body, often appears in inverse proportions to capability. This force is the subjectivity of the body; it describes the avenues and degrees to which the body can perceive and experience forces manifested by the environment. Capacity expresses not necessarily the bodys weakness, but rather it reflects the bodys receptivity to stimuli and intentions directed toward it. It determines the bodys potential to be controlled by the space surrounding it. Changes in capacity affect the bodys ability to overcome the spatial control mechanism imposed on it.
Control is the third force that structures the embodied experience in mythic underworlds and game worlds. It describes the organization and discipline imposed on the body, and its effect is mediated by the bodys capability and capacity. The discussion has elaborated on how control is expressed through spatial structures and mechanisms that leverage the bodys subjective capacity to position it temporally and spatially within the landscape.
5.2 Chthonic Embodiment: Connections between Dantes Commedia and

World of Warcraft

The spaces of the Inferno and Purgatory manifest similar mechanisms of control but these bear different intentions when applied to the spirit bodies of the souls organized within the respective spaces. Thus, the souls consigned to Hell are
imbued with a great capacity to experience the ritualized torments that ritually commemorate their sins, and this capacity enables the sin to control them within their prescribed position in space. As the two spaces are inversions of each others geography, so too are the mechanisms that discipline the bodies in their respective spaces. For the souls in Purgatory endure ritualized torment with similarly semantic meaning in relation to their sin, yet the result enhances their capabilities and removes their capacity to engage with the control mechanisms embedded in the spatial structure.
Like Dantes Commedia, the avatars experience inWorld of Warcraft is the narrative of an imperfect bodys transformative journey through an landscape that posses both literal and symbolic geography. This liminal embodiment unifies the spatial metaphors and structures of the game. The gameplay and narrative goals focus on the body, but bodies in WoW inhabit their shared world in different ways. For the player avatar, the game frames a journey of purgation whose endpoint embodies the perfection of the spirit body. The character begins in a state of physical vulnerability and incompleteness, with little capability to control the space in which it exists but with an immense capacity to be controlled by it. The experience earned from enduring the ritualized trials re-makes the avatars body - and thus its relation to the space - at symbolic thresholds at the successive levels of its being. The end of this journey results in a character that possesses quasi-divine, or perfect, capabilities that enable it to transcend the