Machina ex Dea, Dea ex Machina: Gaia/GAIA/All-Mother and Lugones’ “World”—Traveling in Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that through video game mechanics and internal narrative elements, Horizon Zero Dawn employs Greek mythology to encourage a perspective shift in the player who comes to inhabit the protagonist, Aloy's, worldview. While inhabiting Aloy, an outcast within her own storyworld, Horizon Zero Dawn subtly subscribes to the tenets of standpoint theory which privilege the perspective of the marginalized, and encourages the player to employ Lugones’ “world”-traveling, a skill in which marginalized knowers particularly excel. Horizon Zero Dawn thus engages with Greek mythology and uses the connection that is built between player and avatar to encourage the transcendence of the player situation and to employ Lugones’ “world”-travel in order to respectfully and lovingly engage with others, both within and without the game's storyworld.