Although “narrative dissonance,” the English equivalent of the term “ludonarrative dissonance” introduced by Clint Hocking in 2007, is generally used to express the inconsistency between the message and the story pattern in computer games, I believe it can also be applied to real life and used to analyze social patterns in many subjects, since everyone has a narrative about their own life and also the reality.
Its use in computer games generally manifests in the following scenario: The character played by the player has a cause and is a good person. This person actually has a “good” purpose and wants to do good things. However, the game is an action shooter, and the only way to interact with the environment and continue the story pattern is to kill people with the weapon you cannot put down. Even if the narrative you see in the game includes a justified cause, peaceful rhetoric, or a hatred stemming from the crimes committed by the opposing side, your actions in the game progress through a maniacal serial killer committing massacre after massacre.
To give an example of this situation from one of the games I play, in The Elder Scrolls Online, to save Vivec, I need to kill hundreds of Dark Elves using horrific methods. If we could progress stealthily in many quests, capture one of the key characters, and make them talk using various interrogation methods, there wouldn’t be a need for so much death. Moreover, when we think about the story, is Vivec really a character worth all this death?
If we give an example of narrative harmony, we can point to the necessity of going and killing orcs for any quest in Lord of the Rings Online. The story already depicts orcs as harmful pests in a way that justifies committing genocide against them. Therefore, what we do perfectly aligns with the story.
People, too, have a narrative that they both convey to third parties and accept internally, and upon which they base their own choices and actions. However, this narrative may not always align with what they actually do. In my opinion, “narrative harmony” in a relationship is the most fundamental psychological need for that relationship to be sustainable. The depth of the bond we establish with someone depends on the consistency between the story they tell us and the behaviors they exhibit. If the actions of the person in front of us constantly contradict their narrative, an “uncanny” space is formed there. This uncanniness prevents a healthy foundation of trust from forming between the parties. Because where there is no narrative harmony, there is also no predictability. Therefore, in order to trust someone or establish a sense of belonging with them, we must first see that they are not at odds with their own story and that their actions align with their narrative. The absence of this harmony can create irreparable fractures even in the most fundamental bonds, such as friendship or even family.
