Experiencing History
Two weeks ago, my family and I switched on the projector and watched Prehistoric Planet. We were enthralled as David Attenborough narrated the stories of the dinosaurs on the screen. We cheered for their births, picked sides as they fought, and mourned their deaths. We experienced life with them so deeply, we forgot they weren’t real. Much of it was based on the fossil record, but 3D animation and scripted fiction filled the gaps. The trickery worked. I sat there, ill at ease. This was designed to erase the lines between fantasy and reality, so imagine the lies it could peddle. But… what else could it peddle?
The documentary’s take on that era is a feat of innovation, but Attenborough and his team didn’t invent the idea of immersing people in history. As Historian Caroline Wazer wrote last year, 19th-century painters depicted their versions of the past in intricate detail to give viewers a sense of what it was like. More recently, video games like Assassin’s Creed set the action in past epochs portrayed with striking minutia. Then and now, the public was hooked. Then and now, critics scoffed. The more details, the higher the risk of getting facts wrong, they chided.
“Historical facts aren’t set in stone,” says Wazer, now an editor at Lapham’s Quarterly. “They can change as new evidence comes to light. Instead of accuracy, it might be better to see how plausibility and coherence work together to create an experience that feels alive and accessible to people with no prior interest in history.”
Producers are leaning into this notion and taking it a step further. Short of making historians out of their audience, they want to create empathy and encourage reflection. Embedded in Attenborough’s series is a warning that what happened to Earth happened to the dinosaurs. What happens to Earth will happen to us, too.
In 2020, the visitors of the Grand Palais in Paris basked in Pompeii’s beauty just before Mount Vesuvius enshrouded it in ashes. For that moment, they were Pompeians. Relying upon the latest archeological findings, the 3D animators had created an immersive “trip into a tragic, but resilient humanity,” wrote Eric Biétry-Rivierre, Le Figaro’s cultural writer.
Dream of Darkness is an “indie Aztec horror game” set in Mesoamerican times. It’s still in development, but the designers say Assassin’s Creed’s treatment of history as a mere “backdrop” is “disappointing.” Instead, they focus on “historical meaning” to preserve this heritage and subvert traditional narratives of Latin America’s colonial past.
Storytelling may well be the most powerful learning tool at our disposal. VR headsets in place, what’s to stop us from facing the good and the bad of our histories — critics be damned? Still, I can’t stop asking: who is telling these stories? And between fact and fiction, who gets to be the referee?
Prehistoric Planet, by David Attenborough — Apple TV, May 2022. If you are in the U.K., watch Attenborough’s Dinosaurs: The Final Day — BBC, April 2022.
"It’s Time for Some Game Theory," by Caroline Wazer — Lapham’s Quarterly, November 2021. Follow Caroline Wazer on Twitter. Paintings mentioned in her essay include John Martin’s Belshazzar’s Feast (1821) and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s Death of Pharaoh’s Firstborn Son (1872). She also mentions: Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag (2013); Assassin’s Creed: Origins (2018); Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (2020).
Pompéi, promenade immersive — Grand Palais, summer of 2020. More videos. Note: the fall of Pompeii was the theme of a number of immersive exhibits in turn-of-century U.S.A., including 1882 Coney Island, 1893 Chicago (World Fair), and 1902 Des Moines.
Dream of Darkness mission statement. Read their blog post "Historically Meaningful Game Design (aka: how do we avoid being Assassin's Creed?)" — May 2022.
For historical research and games, visit the site of the Historical Games Network, an organization dedicated to creating a dialogue between historians and game makers.
Earlier this year, our co-Host Latif Nasser took us on an audio tour of 536CE, possibly the worst year ever. It was a true exercise in empathy for our predecessors.