Adventure Gamers - Forums

Any literature geeks in here? BTW spoilers alert.

I was noticing how Black Mirror 1 (the first game from the series, where you control Samuel Gordon) has several parallels with Shakespeare’s play ‘Hamlet’. Both Samuel Gordon and Hamlet are sent out by their granfather and father respectively to find out the truth and avenge their family. Both have an evil uncle. Both are trying to purge their family/location from sin and misery. In the play, people lose their lives indirectly through Hamlet while in the play although Gordon kills, he is not in his right frame of mind so it is not technically himself.

There are also striking oppositions which to me suggest that Black Mirror is like an inversed ‘Hamlet’. Ophelia died by drowning, and Catherine allegedley died in a fire (Let’s not talk about what happens in Black Mirror 2 in case there are people who didn’t play that game yet). Hamlet decides not to kill himself and endure, while Samuel cannot live with himself. Also, while Hamlet feigns madness knowingly, Samuel is mad without knowing.

What do you think of these comparisons? Am i the only one seeing this?

Lady Kestrel - 26 October 2017 03:28 PM

I added some spoiler tags to your post, Pikafak, for those who have yet to play it.  Although I haven’t played the game myself, your comparisons are interesting.

Oops thanks! Yeah, there are too many similarities. I fear I may have been over-analysing the game but i am hoping someone will say he sees the resemblances too!

Randwulf83 - 27 October 2017 01:39 AM

I was an English Literature major in college, and studied Shakespeare for years. I can say that you are totally right! But at the same time, the themes in Hamlet are somewhat universal this day and age.

The writers of Black Mirror (one of my favorite adventure game series) may well have taken inspiration from Hamlet, but I would be interested in seeing if other adventure games were written with the same tropes. Hamlet, after all, was inspired by the classic legend of Amleth, which means it, like many folk tales, had some sort of inspiration preceding it.

Whatever the inspiration, Black Mirror is still one of my favorite adventures, and the universal inspiration from Hamlet and the sources that inspired it still make it an amazing game. So many adventure games can be derived from the tales of the past, and that’s what makes so many adventure games amazing—the ability to preserve tradition and lore, while also making them relevant in the current age!

I am myself a postgraduate student reading for a degree in English so I totally get what you are saying. I think that the uncanny similarities just emphasise how timeless and how relevant ‘Hamlet’ remains in spite of its having been written in the early 17th century. I do think however, that the script writers for Black Mirror must have been influenced by Shakespeare seeing that there are graveyard scenes, a sense of revenge, madness etc etc