Adaptation Study: Henry V

Last week, I promised to return to the topic of adapting linear works to interactive media by discussing the possibilities regarding Shakespeare's play, Henry V.  That's a bit of a daunting task, but we'll see how it turns out.

Warning: there will be spoilers.  Though I do assume some familiarity with the play (so the context of some scenes will be missing), this discussion requires talking about specific elements of the story and how they could translate into gameplay, so naturally, if you've somehow managed to miss this story and you don't want it ruined, I recommend you watch one of the many film adaptations (Kenneth Branagh's is quite good) or simply read the text online before reading any further.  Otherwise, let's do this.

This particular play would work in many gameplay genres due to its nature as a war story, since combat is basically gaming's default setting.  It would likely take some interpolation, specifically the addition of various historic battles (since this play is based on actual historical events) besides those portrayed in the text, in order to elongate the game.  This would especially be necessary if this were an action game, since the action genre has little more than simple combat in the way of gameplay; an interesting way to present it in this case might be to present the story from the viewpoint of one of the soldiers, witnessing the events of the play from an outside but involved perspective.  In order to avoid such intense and widespread interpolation just to make the minimally accepted playtime, however, Henry V would more effectively be adapted as an RPG.  While it would be interesting to talk about gameplay and combat mechanics, this site is about storytelling, so let's talk about the story and the mechanics behind it.

Much of the personal conflict in Henry V comes from Henry’s struggle between his responsibilities as an authoritative king and his moral standards, especially those regarding his old friends.  In the story, he makes many difficult decisions along these lines, such as when he hangs his old friend Bardolph for insubordination.  These kinds of choices are exactly the kinds that RPGs thrive on; they will not affect the overall outcome of the story (it is perfectly reasonable to assume that, for instance, had Bardolph not been hanged, the overall story would be largely unaffected), but could have an affect on some of the details and allow the player to shape Henry into the kind of king they want to be.  These types of choices are ideal for a RPG.

In fact, this story lends itself quite easily to a traditional Western RPG model.  For one, RPGs in general are not completely centered on combat; they also include some degree of dialogue (often allowing the player to choose how the player character responds in various conversation events) and miscellaneous sidequesting.  This means that even the non-combat scenes of the text could be interactive to an extent.  For instance, the player could choose how strongly to react to the Dauphin’s insulting message; perhaps Henry could lose his temper and respond violently, reply in a composed but resolute manner, or he could shrink at the idea of war (though of course, for the sake of the story, his reaction would dictate his character more than the story's events, since the war kind of needs to happen).

That's assuming a model similar to Mass Effect's dialogue
wheel; there could very well be more options as well.

These scenarios can provide examples of another Western RPG standard: the morality bar.  However, in this particular case, the spectrum of good to evil may be better represented by a spectrum of friendship to kingship, or maturity to immaturity (which, conveniently, is a bit more clear-cut than morality and thus will lend itself better to this spectrum).  Since Henry’s main conflict in the story seems to be the struggle between his kingly duties and his responsibility to his friends and his personal morality, these themes would be very effective to explore in the context of the story.  This would mean that most of the game’s morally grey decisions would make him either choose his friends and personal comforts at the risk of compromising his leadership and respect, or defy his own needs, loyalties, and indeed his own personal morality in order to be a more effective leader.

However, all these choices fall flat if there is not some sort of impact on the story.  The player must feel like they are shaping things, which will not be accomplished if the story remains unchanged despite their actions.  Again, the nature of this particular story makes this relatively easy to implement.

But we will most certainly not be considering Roger Ebert's
"naked and standing on their hands" comment.

Henry’s placement on the spectrum (be it morality, maturity, leadership, etc.) can affect his standing among his soldiers.  This could be reflected in the types of quests he gets from them, the things they say around him, and could possibly affect the outcome of some minor battles and quests along the way.  The larger outcome of his standing among his troops would be the casualty report after the climactic battle of Agincourt.  If his men grudgingly follow him due to his standing, they may not be so motivated to fight well, and more may die.  If Henry’s standing with his soldiers is abysmal, perhaps the battle could be lost altogether.  Only the highest standing with his men as a leader would produce the extremely low body count presented in the original play text.  The player will have to decide whether it is worth the lives of Henry’s soldiers to retain the friendships and loyalties of his youth.  With very little interpolation, this could even be stretched to represent a choice between Henry’s maturation and his preservation of innocence.

Here, an interesting issue arises.  The insertion of player choice is allowing the story to be changed as the player sees fit, along the lines the developers draw, at least.  Fidelity is being compromised to a large extent, though there would definitely be a story path that could be followed to directly correlate to the story presented in the play text.  Allowing the player to alter the story progression would undoubtedly be a controversial move among Shakespeare scholars.  For that matter, it would require additional dialogue to cover for each option, meaning either some bold writer would need to try and mimic Shakespeare's style or the language would have to be jettisoned entirely.  Indeed, a simpler gameplay genre would make it easier to prioritize fidelity.  An action game, for instance, would allow the story to progress as intended through cutscenes, allowing the player to participate only in the battles, the outcome of which would be fixed.  The only way the player could alter the story would be if Henry died, in which case the game would simply deliver a “game over” screen and start the player back at the most recent checkpoint to give them a chance to do it right this time.

However, that would be overlooking the greatest potential of video games as a medium.  While Henry’s personal struggle can be observed while reading the text, attending a performance, or watching a film adaptation of Henry V, the player of a video game can actually experience this struggle.  Rather than learning from the way in which Henry responds to these pressures, players can learn more about themselves based on the decisions they would personally make in the situations the game puts forth.  As Daniel Floyd said in the Extra Credits episode Enriching Lives, “This is the unique power of games as a medium.  They ask us to live our decisions.  In this medium, we cannot be spectators.  We are forced to confront our own actions, and that forces upon us a level of introspection."

So in the end, it's actually quite possible to make this conversion.  It does take some flexibility; absolute, unshaken fidelity to the source material cannot be the driving force when adapting a linear story to an interactive form, though I'm sure some Shakespeare purists will not be happy about that.  More important than complete fidelity, however, is to take advantage of the storytelling elements and techniques that can only be accomplished through this medium, and in doing so, hopefully offer something to the story and the player that they could not have from non-interactive media.

Hopefully this little brainstorming session has been an interesting read, and perhaps has inspired some further thought into the idea of adaptation into video games.  See you next week!