<태원지>의 서사적 특징과 대중문화적 가치 - 게임 스토리텔링과의 유사성을 중심으로 -

초록

This study analyzes Taewonji for a fresh reading through applying the characteristics of game storytelling. Taewonji displays some of the characteristics of game storytelling, including the exploratory narrative of stage migration, storytelling about space, and alternative universes. Its core narratives relate to “drifting in the ocean and extermination of monsters” and the “conquest of Taewon and founding of Daeheungguk.” In the novel, the extermination process of monsters is similar to game storytelling, which involves acquiring items, getting attacked by enemies and responding to them, carrying out a quest, and moving to another place. Its conquest process is very similar to that of strategic simulation games, involving securing a base, forming power by fighting against enemies by stages, and expanding one’s territory. Taewonji assumes a fictional world called Taewon and fills it with the order of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Its way of embracing the imagination of old novels and building fictional spaces is the same as the spatial storytelling style of games. Most RPG games, including the ones developed by Blizzard, construct fictional spaces according to the literary inheritance from The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. The spaces of Taewonji are not entirely fictional spaces outside of historical and real contexts, but it is true that a fictional world called “Taewon” was created as an alternative universe of the times in a way that is similar to the spatial construction of games. Taewonji has narrative characteristics similar to game storytelling because it is a popular fantasy work, characterized by the playful building of a fantasy world, rather than a serious reading. Identifying with the protagonist in a fantasy world and enjoying one’s self in fantasy play provides a kind of comfort and escape window. When fantasy play remains an imaginary playful activity or is done for the simple pleasure, it is nothing but a daydream. In Taewonji, the author combines a social meaning, called Cheonmyeong, with a fantasy world, thus attempting to find internal satisfaction. That is, he repeatedly emphasizes the cause of Cheonmyeong as a strategy for inducing readers to immerse in the novel. In terms of the immersion process, the ideology may be a fiction that serves as a boundary between good and evil for the legitimate cause of the subject. Imagining an ideal world as the subject of good is to protect oneself from the violence of reality, in which the values that should be naturally observed are not observed, thereby constructing a fantasy to comfort oneself for being forced to live in reality.

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