My second creative response explores, through providing some questions and their unexpected or abrupt answers, how Galatea is moody and responds differently to the same questions; I feel that Galatea is easily irritated when annoyed by some questions, and her anger may mislead a player or at least hinder his/ her progress while navigating toward the end of the game. Her mood changes easily and quickly, and a player does not always know exactly why. I started the game by asking about mind.
>ask Galatea about mind. She answered: “I’ve said everything I know.”
In fact, Galatea did not say anything before that question, and she befuddled me on how to start the second question. Then, I decided to greet her to calm down her anger.
>Galatea, hello. She answered: “A little late for that, don’t you think?”
Galatea is mad because I forgot to greet her earlier. She is right; however, I decided to repeat the greeting.
>Galatea, ok but hello. She answered: “You’ve already launched into the conversation without that nicety — it would be a little hard to go back now.”
Galatea is tough with me and does not offer concessions; her reply exposes her zero tolerance when committing the slightest error, and this fact adds reality to her personality. That response hints to the fact that if a player enters an error or commits a mistake while giving instructions, commands, and moving toward the end of the game, he/ she would lose his/ her navigation. However, I, then, decided to switch the topic and ask about love.
>ask Galatea about Love. She responds: “That it makes people behave like idiots,” she replies harshly. “That it takes more than it gives.”
I noticed that either Galatea had a bad experience with love or her answer still reflects her bad mood in the previous conversation. Galatea needs time to recover, and I need to get to the end of the game quickly to write my response; I recognized that I might need more time to coax this mercurial personality. I wanted to talk about something else, so I said to Galatea, “Listen”.
>Galatea Listen. She responds, “You might try speaking to me,” she prompts. “It’s not polite merely to stare. And I’ve gotten very bored, standing here.”
I have never even stared at her, I was actually staring at the laptop’s screen, waiting for her response; in this line, Galatea misunderstands me and that is another reality. What rejoice Galatea are some other threads that deal with topics like truth, cheese, life, etc. I spent hard time at the beginning with Galatea before reaching one of the game’s ends, so be careful and do not upset Galatea.
I think it’s interesting how you describe the mutual mis-understanding here. What do you think then of variable “mood” as a literary device? I find it very intriguing to think of a literary work as having this kind of complexity or variability.
Right Tareeq! I felt the same as well. She was clearly mad. And I tried to ask about topics, by which I can measure her attitudes, she answered toughly that I do even have much to say about! That was funny. I keeps saying while asking, why are you angry?
Variable mood is a literary device, and it exists in Galatea; it is developed actually through different ways such as setting, tone, theme or diction. Galatea creates certain feelings in readers through words, phrases, and some descriptions. I feel that Galatea creates different moods, while proceeding, in the readers just as any other regular piece of literature. And this is similar to what great writers do in their works. Moreover, Galatea creates note through tone; she speaks as if she use the first personal pronoun, telling about her preferences. Her choice of words, when answering a question, conveys deep feelings, and that creates mood. The variable “mood” in Galatea gives the text literariness and looks exactly a literary work.
Nourah, yes, it is an amazing experience to have such a text in our course. Galatea’s changing mood lets the reader to change the questions and then the topics, and that is an excellent literary device in digital literature, which leads to different conversations and creates different plots; I think this device is intended to lead readers to variable interesting endings, and every single reader encounters a different experience.