This thesis examines video games as a unique storytelling medium, aiming to answer a central question of how video games create compelling characters and narratives that engage their audiences. I argue that the games' music is the primary vehicle by which the video games create empathetic characters and interesting stories. By examining three acclaimed, narrative-driven games from the 2010s and drawing from the narrative theory of Northrop Frye, I aim to reach conclusions about the types of stories told by modern video games, and the important role of music in video game storytelling. Frye's theories provide useful information on the narratives themselves, and my transcriptions and harmonic analysis of score examples allows me to relate the emotional content of the stories back to the music. I observe the unique characteristics of music that enable the games' scores to articulate complex emotions and communicate unspoken ideas to the audience. The three scores examined in this thesis are dramatically different in compositional style, and one of my goals in choosing such aesthetically different objects is to observe how the scores all achieve similar functions within the context of their games despite their apparent differences. In so doing, I aim to extend Frye's theories into a novel field of scholarship, and contribute to the growing body of scholarship surrounding video gaming by examining them through a lens of musical scholarship and analysis.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 23857