Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

In Ursula K. Le Guin's short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” a society's happiness depends on the suffering of a child and the reader is presented as culpable this contract. In the video game Hollow Knight, the kingdom of Hallownest was also designed to thrive under a similar contract through the suffering of the Hollow Knight. However, the game presents the player with the choice of multiple endings: take the place of the child as an ignorant sacrifice, take the place of the child as a willing sacrifice after learning the truth about the bargain, or eradicate the bargain altogether. This retelling in a video game format gives the player an agency that is not afforded to readers engaging with a short story. Ultimately, Hollow Knight not only rejects passivity, but proposes a redemptive arc for the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Keywords

video games morality omelas utopia literature

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ahn

Grizzard

Lee

(2021). How do video games elicit guilt in players? Linking character morality to guilt through a mediation analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.666518

Brandt

B. E.

(2003). Two additional antecedents for Ursula Le Guin’s ‘the ones who walk away from Omelas’. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 16(3), 51–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/08957690309598220

Collins

(1990). Leaving Omelas: Questions of faith and understanding. Studies in Short Fiction, 27(4), 525–535. http://go.exlibris.link/ZyXD0qP9

Denisova

(2021). Research evidence. In Fashion media and sustainability: Encouraging ethical consumption via journalism and influencers. University of Westminster Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1kmj7g8.5

Fitting

(1991). Readers and responsibility: A reply to Ken Roemer. Utopian Studies, 2(1/2), 24–29. http://jsotr.org/stable/20719022

Goodman

M. K.

Bryant

(2014). Placing the practices of alternative economic geographies: Alternative retail, the spaces of intention and ethical ambiguities. In Zademach

H.-M.

Hillebrand

(Eds.), Alternative economies and spaces. Transcript Verlag. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1xxt0r.8

Herzog

(2021). Dilemmas of political agency and sovereignty: The Omelian allegory. Theory, Culture, & Society, 38(4), 71–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276420967436

Hirsch

A. K.

(2016). Walking off the edge of the world: Sacrifice, chance, and dazzling dissolution in the book of Job and Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘the ones who walk away from Omelas’. Humanities, 5(67), 1–12. http://doi.org/10.3390/h5030067

Knapp

(1985). The morality of creation: Dostoevsky and William James in Le Guin’s ‘Omelas’. The Journal of Narrative Technique, 15(1), 75–81. http://jstor/org/stable/30225113

10.

Krcmar

Cingel

D. P.

(2016). Moral foundations theory and moral reasoning in video game play: Using real-life morality in a game context. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 60(1), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2015.1127246

11.

Kristeva

(1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjections. Columbia University Press.

12.

Langbauer

(2008). Ethics and theory: Suffering children in Dickens, Dostoevsky, and Le Guin. ELH, 75(1), 89–108. https://doi.org/10.1353/elh.2008.0005

13.

Le Guin

U. K.

(1991). The ones who walk away from Omelas (variations on a theme by William James). Utopian Studies, 2(1/2), 1–5. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20719019

14.

Mamola

(2018). Walking towards Elfland: Fantasy and Utopia in Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘the ones who walk away from Omelas’. Extrapolation, 59(2), 150–162. http://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2018.10

15.

Ryan

Formosa

Howarth

Staines

(2020). Measuring morality in videogames research. Ethics and Information Technology, 22, 55–68. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-019-09515-0

16.

Trimarco

(1999). An analysis of lexical opposition: Le Guin’s ‘the ones who walk away from Omelas’. Journal of Literary Studies, 15(3–4), 407–424. https://doi.org/10.1080/02564719908530238

17.

Weaver

A. J.

Lewis

(2012). Mirrored morality: An exploration of moral choice in video games. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(11), 610–614. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2012.0235

18.

Wyman

(2012). Reading through fictions in Ursula Le Guin’s ‘the ones who walk away from Omelas’. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 25(4), 228–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2012.720854

The Ones Who Walk Away from Hallownest: Hollow Knight 's Radical Response to the Omelas Dilemma

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References