The unexpected link between gaming and medieval literature.

When I’m travelling in cities in Europe I often find myself taking photographs of stairways and doors. There is an obvious stylistic difference between a Georgian Irish doorway and more  ornate, elaborate brightly coloured doors you see in continental Europe.  But perhaps this desire to photograph and record these images isn’t simply the aesthetic, but is more about what a doorway or stairs represents, which is possibility. A stairway brings you from one place to another and doors are quite literally a way in. From outside to inside (unless it’s a courtyard door!) a door suggests transition from one state to another and perhaps, possibility.

The significance of doorways was represented in some of the literature I studied  as part of a module on Victorian literature. The door which incarcerated the titular character William Gould in Gould’s Book of Fish. The door of the asylum which at different times imprisoned both Anne Catherick and Laura Fairlie. And doors have a heavier symbolism and meaning in other novels like Alice in Wonderland where the doors in the hallway represent choices. The door which allows Mary to gain access into the Secret Garden in the book Frances Hodgson Burnett.  And the door at the back of the wardrobe,  which is the entrance to Narnia for Lucy and her siblings in the Narnia series of books.

Ken Rooney presented a seminar titled ‘Medieval and Renaissance Romance Tradition and Elden’s Ring.’ The basis of the seminar was the influence of medieval and romance literary traditions on the action role playing game Elden Ring. Rooney presented gaming as a type of ‘doorway’ into medieval and romantic literature. Rooney spoke about the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Sir Gawain was one of the Knights of the Round Table and part of the stories of King Arthur. The story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an alliterative verse  from medieval (fourteenth century). The verse focuses on themes of chivalry and nature. And Rooney posits that similarly, the game of Elden Ring explores ideas around heroism, good and evil and chivalry. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, nature is portrayed as disordered and in turmoil and Rooney states that in Elden Ring nature is portrayed as a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Rooney also drew parallels between Elden Ring and Edmund Spenser’s sixteenth century poem ‘Fairy Queene’ stating that both the game and the poem explored themes of chivalry and the fight between good and evil.

I have never gamed. And although I am well acquainted with the Arthurian legend and stories of the Knights of the Round Table I hadn’t read any of the texts mentioned in the seminar. As a fiction writer my ‘way in’ to literature  is through story, plot,  characterisation and pace. Rooney presented a novel (!) ‘way in’ to literature and showed that these connections are made in the unlikeliest of places.