5: The Portrayal of the Third Crusade and Crusading Ideology in Dante’s Inferno

5: The Portrayal of the Third Crusade and Crusading Ideology in Dante’s Inferno

Juan Manuel Rubio, @jmrubio120, Central European University, Dante’s Inferno is a 2011 game that offers the player a hack-and-slash adventure through the nine circles of Hell. Although based in the Divine Comedy, the game is set during the 3rd Crusade. Here Dante is a sinful crusader instead of a poet. Using shared ideas about the crusades, Dante’s Inferno condemns medieval religious violence in general, and the wars of the cross in particular through a key narrative change from the source, aesthetics and gameplay. Like the source material, Dante’s Inferno is a redemption story, but with a different focus. While in the poem Beatrice is key for the poet's redemption, in Dante’s Inferno it is Dante who must redeem both his wife and himself. In this sense, the crusader is an ideal figure for the game. The shift from poet to crusader is key in Dante’s Inferno, it places the player in the lowest moral point conceivable within the medieval imaginary; this justifies the redemption arc. Dante as crusader embodies all sins: cruelty, gluttony, lust. The Middle Ages in Dante’s Inferno is a narrative tool instead of a setting. Because the game takes place in Hell, it offers little to no exposition about the medieval context and the crusades. The context is provided by shared assumptions of the period reproduced both in authors and media. Making Dante a crusader goes beyond the need to provide the player with a warrior figure that fits the gameplay, it seeks to place the player at the lowest moral point in this “medieval” world. This makes the inversion of the redemptive arc from the poem possible. Violence in general, and religious violence in particular, is key in Dante’s Inferno in the procedural and visual rhetoric of the game. Dante isn't just a crusader, he is a hyper-masculine demon-eviscerating warrior influenced by God of War’s Kratos, whose 3rd title came out in 2010. Violence plays an ambivalent role in DI. The game constantly makes the point that it was Dante’s crusading violence that condemned him. However, it is also the main gameplay mechanic and the way to redemption; the player cannot choose not to engage in violence. The tripartite role of violence (as damnation, gameplay mechanic, and salvation) can be seen in Dante’s design. Dante is also a Christ-like figure who judges and absolves the souls of the damned, and (literally) uses the power of death (the scythe) to defeat death. Other visual elements further reinforce the game’s understanding of crusading violence. The design and color of the bishop preaching the crusade equate him with demons and the combination of dialogue and image argues the hypocritical nature of religious violence. The presence of crusader souls in the seventh circle (the violent) mechanically reinforces the idea. The fact that they are in the third sub-section (violence against the deity) makes the point that crusading was first and foremost a distortion of Christian teaching. This is not to say that crusading was not violent, even chroniclers at the time seemed shocked by some episodes like the massacre at the Temple in 1099. However, by portraying crusading the way it does, Dante’s Inferno tells us more about religious violence today than in the Middle Ages.

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