8: Cultural Spaces and Hybridity in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

8: Cultural Spaces and Hybridity in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Jéssica Iolanda Costa Bispo, @JIBispo1996, Nova University of Lisbon Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, a video game developed by Ninja Theory and released in 2017, draws attention to mental illness and episodes of violent psychosis. These are, undoubtedly, its main themes. However, most of the research on this video game has not shed light on its cultural significance, let alone analyse it from a certain theoretical framework within Cultural Studies. Therefore, I aim to briefly explore it considering Homi Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space of Enunciation. In his well-known work The Location of Culture (Routledge, 1994), Bhabha theorizes that hegemonic cultures are unable to obtain the purity which they sometimes brag about, since systems and cultural statements are constructed in an ambiguous space, which “(…) challenges our sense of the historical identity of culture as a homogenizing, unifying force, authenticated by the originary Past, kept alive in the national tradition of the People.” (37). Contrarily, the notion of an ambiguous non-unified cultural space is highly disruptive, since from it stem cultural hybrids, people who dwell between two or more cultural identities, namely the one in which they were born and the one eventually brought by a colonizer.

In Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Senua is one of these cultural hybrids. Her Celtic heritage is confronted with that of the Norsemen during the latter’s invasions of Britain in the Early Medieval Age. As a result, Senua embarks on a journey in which her fear emerges as Nordic mythological creatures and distorted manifestations of Vikings.

Senua’s primary goal is to save her lover’s soul. For that to happen, she must reach Hel, one of the Nine Worlds in Nordic cosmology, as stated in the poem “Seeress’s Prophecy”, included in the foundational Medieval Icelandic work Poetic Edda compiled by Snorri Sturluson. Senua’s journey is hard not only because she needs to master combat skills but because her cultural identity becomes divided. Her cultural hybridity is manifested, for instance, through Druth, a Celtic slave of the Norsemen, whose voice Senua hears from time to time. Through his narration, she learns Nordic legends and we, as players, can unlock them through runestones. We are collecting stories, which symbolizes how Nordic culture is becoming embedded in Senua’s mind. If we do not ignore the runestones, the ending will reveal more about her father and the violent colonization of her village, as if Senua relying on Nordic myths ultimately leads her to the whole truth. However, the inevitability of her cultural hybridity and her acknowledgment of it becomes obvious during the final battle, where she confronts the Nordic goddess Hela: her mirror image. Senua realizes she is both Celtic and Nordic. She is in-between. In the place where the battle ensues, even before confronting Hela/herself, Senua faces a swarm of Vikings. As players, we fight them, we refuse to give up despite Hela’s whispers telling us to “Let go”. In the end, we realize that we cannot progress further without indeed giving up. This symbolizes Senua’s ultimate acceptance of her hybrid identity: she is in a Third Space of Enunciation. Her identity is not Celtic nor Nordic but a third one, a mix between the two (also represented by the fragmented space in which the fight with Hela takes place). By accepting herself and making peace with the Nordic culture, Senua is empowered and encouraged to finally let go of her lover, previously slain by the Norsemen, proclaiming “Goodbye my love”. She has reached her objective in her journey of self-discovery.

17