Press R1 on the PlayStation 4 controller, and a star-shaped detector rises, emitting a blue shockwave that marks all the dangerous landscapes around. Odradek in Death Stranding, a 2019 video game by Kojima Productions, functions as a terrain detector that provides various diegetic information. The origin of odradek, as explained by a Death Stranding character Heartman, connects deeply to Sigmund Freud’s fort-da game, Franz Kafka’s The Cares of a Family Man, and video games as a media. The relationship between odradek, Freud, and Kafka has three aspects: odradek as a manifestation of fort-da, odradek as a reverse fort-da in video games, and odradek as a classical fort-da in video games. The meaning of the word “odradek” needs to be understood first to see through this relationship.
In his short novel The Cares of a Family Man, Kafka describes a mysterious creature called odradek, which shares multiple similarities with Freud’s fort-da game, and the concept odradek is then used in Death Stranding as the name of terrain scanner. Kafka’s odradek connects to Freud’s fort-da game in two both physical and mental means. Kafka’s odradek, at least considered from Heartman’s perspective, looks like the toy in the fort-da game. Kafka elaborates on the description of odradek’s physical appearance, saying, “it looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread…a small wooden crossbar sticks out of the middle of the star, and another small rod is joined to that at a right angle” (Kafka, “The Cares of a Family Man”). In general, Odradek is a star-shaped reel of thread with a wooden handle. Although its unusual appearance, especially its star shape, adds an unfathomable fog of complexity and a grotesque feature to its possible implications, a simple description would be a weird spool. Freud describes a similar toy that his grandson plays with, saying, “The child had a wooden reel with a piece of string tied around it” (Freud, 12). Sharing the basic shape of a wooden reel with Freud’s description, odradek is, therefore, a Kafkaesque variant of a usual reel of thread that Freud’s grandson Ernst plays with. Their similarity in physical descriptions implies both the interactive nature of a wooden reel and the unsettling existence of odradek that takes form as a reel. Ernst is captivated by the playful wooden reel, and his game, in which the reel is thrown away and then pulled back, is coincided as fort-da by Freud. The significance of fort-da, according to Ian Buchanan, is Ernst “transforming an unhappy situation, one in which they have no control over the presence of their parents, into a happy one in which the parents are at the beck and call of the child” (Buchanan, “fort/da”). By making the reel disappear and reappear, Ernst tries to control the situation where his mother is absent. Therefore, the fort-da game provides an emotional catharsis to Ernst and functions as a “coping system,” according to Heartman’s understanding (Death Stranding). Without the fort-da game, Ernst would be disturbed by anxiety, apprehension, and negative emotions caused by his mother’s absence. Similar emotions and situations are depicted in Kafka’s The Cares of a Family Man. Odradek carries the anxiety and the “cares” of the narrator, a family man, when he says, “the idea that he is likely to survive me I find almost painful” (Kafka, “The Cares of a Family Man”). The short novel is filled with unsettling wonders about the unknown living object odradek, and the quote is where the narrator expresses his emotion directly as “painful.” The narrator’s mental state can be characterized as anxious and apprehensive, so does Kafka’s attitude. According to Yanbing Zeng, Kafka possesses persistent apprehension to his ethic, Jewish people, and “卡夫卡对犹太人的忧虑，亦如…无名主人公对奥德拉德克的忧虑一样[1]” (Zeng, “格莱姆与卡夫卡的奥德拉德克[2]“). Willi Goetschel quotes a similar interpretation, saying that odradek is memory in the form of Jewish tradition (Goetschel, “‘The Cares of a Family Man’”). Anxiety and apprehension dominate both the narrator and Kafka’s tone. They are the emotions that correlate to what Ernst needs to cope with when his mother is absent. Freud and Kafka’s ideas are, therefore, distantly yet tightly connected. Freud’s fort-da game helps to cope with the anxiety described by Kafka, using a reel of thread coincided as odradek, which then becomes a literary manifestation of the fort-da game. Hideo Kojima believes in the fort-da game’s coping power and brings odradek to Death Stranding, making it the name of a terrain scanner. Carrying its origin from Freud and Kafka, odradek in Death Stranding represents a coping system that is commonly used in video games.
Odradek represents a reverse fort-da mechanism in video games and usually serves as an information gatherer. The original Freudian fort-da game incorporates three distinct phases when Ernst throws the reel away and pulls it back. This cycle of actions changes step by step from the reel’s presence to the absence of the reel, then the reappearance of the reel. Ernst possesses control over the reel in the first and third phases, where the reel is present. In contrast, a reverse fort-da only provides control in phase two. In other words, the reverse fort-da game refers to the phases change as from not possessing control to possessing control, then losing control again (see table 1).
Table 1 Classical and Reverse Fort-da Game
In an imagined scenario of the reverse fort-da, Ernst does not have control over his anxiety before start playing the fort-da game, which is phase one. After completing a classical fort-da game, Ernst successfully copes with anxiety for a given amount of time, which is phase two. The sense of control does not last long, and anxiety returns in phase three. The reverse fort-da process takes a broader perspective and illustrates the need to play the classical dort-da game repeatedly in order to cope with the persistent apprehension. In the context of video games, odradek, the reel, stands for an information gatherer that soothes player’s anxiety in an alien and potentially dangerous game world. The odradek terrain scanner in Death Stranding is the most evident example of how odradek functions as a reverse fort-da game. The scene faced by the protagonist is desolate and dangerous since the topography is constituted by treacherous rocks without clearly cut passages (see fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Still from Kojima Productions, Death Stranding.
Fig. 2. Still from Kojima Productions, Death Stranding.
A star-shaped detector extends from the backpack, and multiple information, including colorful marks about dangerous terrains, distance to targeted points, and footprints, are revealed in the head-up display (see fig. 2). Armed with various information about the world surrounding them, players can safely travel through the terrain, and the anxiety is relieved until the head-up display fades automatically. The information cycle provided by the odradek terrain scanner complies with that of the reverse fort-da game. Phase one represents the player without head-up display; while in phase two, the player initiates the odradek terrain scanner and gains control over the terrain with sufficient information; finally, in phase three, the player loses control again and becomes uncertain about the terrain, subsequently leads to another cycle. Therefore, the odradek scanner in Death Stranding functions as a reverse fort-da that yields a large player agency and a sense of control. This mechanism represented by odradek is commonly applied in video games. In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, odradek takes the form of Witcher Senses. In phase one, the scene contains various objects that the player has no idea what to interact with (see fig. 3). When Witcher Senses are activated, collectibles in the scene are highlighted with a yellow hue (see fig. 4). Witcher Sense can also visually present sound, enemies, and footprints on the screen that help the player assessing dangers and clues in phase two. When Witcher Senses are deactivated in phase three, the player gradually loses control over collectibles and enemies’ information, thus encouraged to repeat the process (see fig. 5).
Fig. 3. Still from CD Projekt Red, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Fig. 4. Still from CD Projekt Red, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Fig. 5. Still from CD Projekt Red, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Witcher Senses, the odradek in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, allows the player to turn an unfamiliar and potentially hostile environment into an explorative one. The player can plan and prepare for different encounters, just like a witcher in the game. Odradek, as a reverse fort-da game, is an effective gameplay mechanic that makes the strange game land pleasurable to play.
Odradek, from a greater perspective, is also a classical fort-da game. Instead of odradek in video games, the classical fort-da game reveals the odradek of playing them. By playing the fort-da game, the player not only gains temporary catharsis but is also prepared for future traumatic events. As Freud states in Beyond Pleasure Principle, “When the child was five and three-quarter years old his mother died. Now, when she was really ‘gone’ (o-o-o), the boy showed no grief to her” (Freud, 14). The child receives the ability to calmly and quickly recover from a previously practiced trauma by playing the fort-da game. Considers the action of completing a video game from the start to the end as a fort-da game that prepares the player for similar traumatic events in life, the odradek of playing video game yields significance to playing and re-playing. In phase one, the player has not started the game, and the reel is still a toy that doesn’ carry any emotion. Once the player initiates the game, and predicaments and problems are created by the game, the player throws the reel away in phase two. The player completes the game in phase three and pulls the reel back, gaining satisfaction. Players are prompted to repeat the process to master the situation further. Hence, in general, video games can be considered an odradek that copes with anxiety in reality. Roguelike games are representative examples of odradek. Hades by Supergiant Games tells a story about young prince Zagreus trying to escape the underworld and his father’s authoritarian rules (see fig. 6&7).
Fig. 6&7. Still from Supergiant Games, Hades.
The game creates the problem and apprehension of being dominated by oppressive family members and asks them to break out from the family of origin. Failure is common for the player in the first few attempts to escape since the player has not fully mastered the situation. When Zagreus is powerful enough, successful escaping becomes easier to the player, who comforts the anxiety whenever a success occurs. The adverse effects of suffering from an oppressive family and the developers’ humanitarian concerns become more and more evident through every successful attempt. Hades intends to provide mental relief to players who are suffering from oppression. Based on the fort-da theory, it may also prepare the player for future oppressions and convey the courage to stand against them. Hades copes with oppression as an odradek, while Oxenfree by Night School Studio seeks to heal the trauma caused by the sudden death of a family member. Alex explores an island with her friends after experiencing the loss of her brother (see fig. 8&9). The player has to decide what Alex says and does to her friends to negotiate the friendship at stake and her relationship with a new stepbrother. The game includes multiple endings with a true ending, where in normal endings, some of the characters are trapped on the island forever, and some relationships are broken. A normal ending means that the player only gains a part of the control in phase three. Characters are still stuck in a time loop created by the island until the true ending is reached, where full control and catharsis of the trauma are achieved in phase three.
Fig. 8&9. Still from Night School Studio, Oxenfree.
This inherent and diegetic repetition in gameplay serves only to resolve friendships’ enigma, corresponding to a polarized fort-da game, where phase three is not completely reached until the player experiences enough apprehensions from phase two. The loss of a relative is a topic that resonates thematically with many gamers. Like Hades, the ultimate humanitarian attitudes are always the most important result in phase three as a fort-da game. When the player devotes to the odradek, Oxenfree, the player may be slightly prepared to overcome a future trauma by repeatedly playing it. Instead of limited to anxiety in Kafka’s novel, the emotions incorporated in odradek as a classical fort-da varies with the game it represents. The concept of odradek as a classical fort-da game reveals the cause of emotional effects in video games.
Heartman in Death Stranding gives a figurative explanation of the way odradek works, saying, “These interfaces through which we experience our BBs’ perception of their surroundings are not unlike spools of thread. A connection between our world and the other side, the living and the dead, human and BB...” (Death Stranding). Likewise, odradek about video games connects Freud, Kafka, Death Stranding, developers, and gamers. In three ways are they connected: Kafka’s odradek as a manifestation of fort-da, odradek as a reverse fort-da in video games, and odradek as a classical fort-da in video games.
Work Cited
Kafka, Franz. The Complete Stories. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. New York City: Schocken Books, 1995. 473.
Freud, Sigmund. “Beyond the Pleasure Principle, by Sigm. Freud. Authorized Translation from the 2d German Ed. by C. J. M. Hubback.” Beyond the pleasure principle, by Sigm. Freud. Authorized Translation from the 2d German Ed. by C. J. M. Hubback, The International Psycho-Analytical Press, 1922, 1922.
Buchanan, Ian. A Dictionary of Critical Theory. Oxford University Press, 2010.
Death Stranding. Kojima Productions, Sony Interactive Entertainment, 2019.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. CD Projekt, CD Projekt Red, 2015.
Hades. Supergiant Games, 2018.
Oxenfree. Night School Studio, 2016.
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