“Dogfight” in terms of Huizinga: What happens when a game ends?

In “Homo Ludens” Huizinga characterizes play as limited; as an act “played out” in the confines of a specific time and place. He says play has its own course and meaning. “Play begins, and then at a certain moment it is “over”. It plays itself to an end” (9). Unfortunately, Huizinga does not take the player into consideration, who has invested himself in the act of play, which inevitably will end. What then is the player to do? Like a junkie, the player must wait for his next fix; his existence is purposeless until he can resume his game of fancy or find a new game to sink his teeth into.

In Gibson’s “Dogfight”, all the characters experience a “what then?” moment, where the game they play spirals to an end. They are left in a transition period, with one game over and another yet to begin. Huizinga describes each game as “temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart” (10). When a temporary world ends how does it affect the player in the real world?

Deek, the protagonist of “Dogfight” begins the novel in limbo, inhabiting an empty existence until he is introduced to SPADS&FOKKERS, a flight simulator game. Deek hones his skills and refines his program in hopes of defeating the ultimate player, Tiny. When the two finally battle, Deek takes the illegal drug hype in order to maximize his chance at victory. Deek’s dreams of triumph materialize and he narrowly defeats Tiny. However, the means Deek uses to attain success leave him ostracized from everyone he knows. Gibson ends “Dogfight” with, “A starry old night like this called for big talk. But standing there with all of Jackman’s silent and vast and empty around him, he realized suddenly that he had no body left to tell it to. Nobody at all.” (167). Deek is in the same situation as in the beginning of the story; living an isolated, purposeless existence.

What is purpose? “The American Heritage Dictionary” defines purpose as, “an object toward which one strives or for which something exists; an aim or a goal”. This all depends on which perspective the word purpose is looked at from; biological or spiritual? Huizinga would argue that play cannot be looked at soli from a biological perspective, because play is more than merely a biological function. Huizinga asks, ““Why is a huge crowd roused to frenzy by a football match?”” (2). He continues, “This intensity of, and absorption in, play finds no explanation in biological analysis. Yet in this intensity, this absorption, this power of maddening, lies the very essence, the primordial quality of play” (2). To Huizinga play is above biological purpose because a key element of play is fun. Huizinga says, “…the fun of playing, resists all analysis, all logical interpretation” (3).

I agree with Huizinga that play serves more than a biological purpose; I would argue that this purpose is a self-realizing one. A key aspect of play is the capacity to put ones abilities to the test and to discover something about the self in the process. This self realization is the safety net which prevents the player from losing purpose when a game ends. Deek may be physically alone in his moment of victory, but his solitude will not take away from the self realizations he made while playing the game. These realizations or spiritual discoveries are not always positive, and in Deek’s case are quite negative. At the end of “Dogfight” Deek realizes that his selfish antics led to his exclusion and has a better understanding of his morality. These realizations will stay with Deek, till his death, through memory. They can be learned from or discarded, but could only arise through the decision to participate in a form of play. In relation to play and memory Huizinga says, “Once played, it endures as a new-found creation of the mind, a treasure to be retained by the memory” (10). Deek’s treasures (aka realizations) will guide him until he finds his next type of play where he can expand on them and form new realizations.

Similar to Deak, Nance plays the game of student as an engineering major at William and Mary University. The purpose of her game is to ace a job interview with I.G. Feuchtwaren. “Dogfight” ends with the reader never knowing whether or not Nance passes the interview, but odds are she does not, because Deek uses her second hit of hype. Without hype Nance will lack the ability to produce the same quality of work that she was able to muster for her final project. Even in the slim chance that she does pass the interview without hype, she will still lack the ability to consistently perform in the spirit of her final project, and her hirers will discover her fraud. Let us assume that Nance does not pass the interview and has to continue her schooling. Nance faces a game-over situation, and like Deek is presented with a “then what?”

Even though Nance has been denied a programming job, she is left with two options; to continue pursuing the job or to give up and move on to another game. Huizinga believes that the ability to repeat a game until one is victorious at it is one of the most essential qualities of play. He says, “In nearly all the higher forms of play the elements of repetition and alternation (as in the refrain), are like the warp and woof of a fabric” (10). I agree with Huizinga that repetition is essential to play, but repetition is not always a possible alternative. For example, in 1988 Tim Dagget, a member of the U.S. Gymnastics team, had to withdraw from the Olympic Games because he had broken his leg and severed an artery competing in the World Championships in October of that year. In a New York Times article Dagget gave a comment about his condition; “I had reached a point it wasn't possible to do any more”. Just as Dagget cannot repeat the 1988 Olympic Games, Tiny can never restore the prestige the kickers at Jackman’s had for him. Tiny lived for the esteem of being the best SPADS&FOKKERS player, and Deak’s one-hit wonder changed Tiny’s life purpose. Ironically Deak’s victory over Tiny leaves him in the same situation as Tiny. Deak knows that he would never be able to defeat Tiny again, especially without the use of hype. Deak is left with a game in which the same results can never be reproduced. At the end of “Dogfight”, both Deak and Tiny are forced to create a new purpose for SPADS&FOKKERS, or find an entirely new game to play.

The game-over puts Deak (the winner) and Tiny (the loser) into the same situation. The winner and the loser are brought back to ground zero; the winner must find a way to keep on winning, while the loser must find a way to start winning. This parallels with Huizinga’s statement, “In the sphere of sacred play the child and the poet are at home with the savage” (26). The child and the poet are as the winner and the loser, and the savage or drive to win is the core purpose for both.

Some games cannot be repeated; in this case the winner and the loser are forced to find a new game. For instance, Australia’s swimming legend Dawn Fraser, winner of eight Olympic medals, twenty-seven individual and twelve relay world records. In 1964 due to inappropriate conduct, she was banned from competition for ten years, and spiraled into depression. Dawn recalls, “I wanted to die…I felt I had no friends, which was wrong, but I pushed away anyone who tried to help me….” (bluepages). She claims that pursuing another sport, golf in her case, brought her out of depression and near suicide. For some starting up a completely new game is an affective way to rekindle the spirit of play. Who knows, maybe Deak and Tiny might take up golf and be saved from the emptiness of their transition from one game to the next.

Unfortunately, not all players can successfully transition from game to game as Dawn Fraser could. For example, Austria’s ex-cross-country-skiing coach Walter Mayer attempted suicide, after he was relieved of his job because of a doping scandal he was part of. In this case, Mayer could not successfully transition from one game to the next, and felt that death was his only escape. Suicide is another option for both Deak and Tiny, and I consider it the antichrist of play. Suicide is the abandoning of play; it is a conscious choice to exterminate all forms of play, especially the solo form of play, the imagination. When the mind is abandoned, play cannot exist. Huizinga says, “But in acknowledging play you acknowledge mind, for whatever else play is, it is not matter” (3).

When a game ends ones mind is taken back to reality, and one is able to reflect on the choices made during game-play. In many instances the “absorption” or “maddening power” of a game will result in unintentional, yet severe outcomes for individuals involved with the player. An example in “Dogfight” is Deak taking advantage of Nance’s brainlock, and exploiting it to steal hype from her. After Deak had attained his victory, he had to come to terms with this unscrupulous act that enabled his success. This parallels to Huizinga’s example; “A Kwakiutl father in British Columbia killed his daughter who surprised him whilst carving things for a tribal ceremony” (23). The Kwakiutl father and Deak were both so involved in the “pretend” aspect of their play, that they were able to commit these devilish acts, which would never have been enacted outside the sphere of game-play.

The end of a game marks the beginning of another; for life consists of moving from game to game, self-actualizing in the transition period, and applying new found realizations to novel pursuits. Players cannot always cope with their realizations, or let go of previous games. In such situations, a player may be found in limbo, the heaven of a previous game out of grasp, and the hell of starting a new game to hard to bear. A Players life is comprised of an ongoing cycle of game-play, game-over, and start-over; only through death will one be relieved of such an existence. Or will one? Maybe death is just a form of game-over that enables us to reflect in transition and then be born again, able to continue our play. Huizinga was correct in saying, “…It seems to me that next to Homo Faber, and perhaps on the same level as Homo Sapiens, Homo Ludens, Man the Player, deserves a place in our nomenclature” (97).