Binary Dynamics in A Plague Tale: Innocence

Jéssica Iolanda Costa Bispo (Nova University of Lisbon)

A Plague Tale: Innocence is a video game focusing on stealth mechanics that presents the player a narrative taking place in Medieval France. It follows the character Amicia de Rune’s struggles as she flees from her home with her brother Hugo – who is afflicted by an ancient curse (the Prima Macula) –, as they are persecuted by the Inquisition (which intends to acquire the Macula so as to gain power) and hordes of black rats that behave strangely and spread the Black Plague (which Hugo comes to control and use in his favor as a result of the curse). This paper explores how the game’s narrative operates through multiple dualities and binary dynamics, with a recurrent conflict between opposites, but also how the character Hugo can break these boundaries and emerge as an ambiguous figure.

Immediately in the beginning of the game, Hugo is presented as being utterly lonely. When approaching her mother’s study and the room where Hugo is kept, Amicia is told: “Close the door (…) He is not contagious. I realise you hardly know him, but he will be alright.” (Asobo Studio), hinting at the boy’s lack of socialisation. When the player controls Amicia after the Inquisition storms the house in search of Hugo, it becomes apparent that he quickly panics when left alone, is reluctant to leave his sister’s side, and is often anxious. As the game progresses, Amicia and Hugo meet several characters, and Hugo progressively becomes more confident, communicative and self-reliant, with the final battle being partially fought by the boy. So, loneliness and a state of innocence and naivety are set in contrast with companionship, experience and knowledge, and Hugo manages to effectively pass from one state to another.

The dichotomy between science and religion is also evident. While Hugo’s mother, her mentor and doctor Laurentius and Laurentius’s apprentice Lucas recurrently try to figure out Hugo’s condition through a scientific lens (and a treatment for it), Grand Inquisitor Vitalis Bénévent tries to capture Hugo in order to use the curse’s powers to install a new world order. Furthermore, the population’s lack of knowledge is evinced by the way they persecute Amicia and Hugo in several parts of the video game, and also contrasts with those willing to understand more about Hugo’s disease and how it differs from the Black Plague.

In another interesting take, the rats Hugo controls are black, and Bénévent’s rats are white. This is a curious binary that subverts expectations, as Hugo is seen as a “good” character and Bénévent as an “evil” one, and white is typically associated with purity and innocence (Chevalier e Gheerbrant 1108), while black is associated with evil and the underworld (Ibidem 93).

Again, Hugo inverts typical dualities that are present in our collective imaginary. And the reason why A Plague Tale: Innocence draws on so many binary dynamics (with many more besides the ones listed presently) may allude to the way the Middle Ages are perceived in our own contemporary times, as it can be (too) easy to give in to the stereotype of the Dark Ages against our own post-Enlightnment, postmodern age. However, in the Middle Ages, innovation and research did not stop: the first universities were created, cities were developed, complex buildings such as gothic cathedrals were erected, and inventions were made in sectors such as metallurgy and agriculture. As the game’s setting and construction may mirror this perspective, Hugo emerges, nonetheless, as an interestingly ambiguous figure, inviting the player to engage with him empathetically and to counter possibly non-critical, bleak and dualistic perspectives about the Middle Ages.

Works Cited

Asobo Studio. A Plague Tale: Innocence. Focus Home Interactive (PC Windows), 2019.

Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Translation by John Buchanan-Brown, Penguin Books, 1997.

The author, Jéssica Iolanda Costa Bispo, wishes to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Portuguese funding institution FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, through an awarded PhD Studentship (2021.04811.BD).