The Rants of an Angry Game Dev Girl: Jane Austen, The Pirate Tales

That's right people you read the tittle correctly, the subject of this blog post is Jane Austen and Pirates. Now you are probably wondering what Jane Austen and Pirates has anything to do at all with a Game Design class, well that's actually my Prototype assignment for this month. Now a lot of people in my class started freaking out about how on earth they were going to incorporate pirates into a Jane Austen novel, or who on earth was Jane Austen. Now having studied Jane Austen in high school and read her novel, Pride and Prejudice, I was extremely excited to be doing a game based on her works (I really love Jane Austen and her novels, in my opinion they are very well written and a definite must read).

Now for anyone who doesn't know who Jane Austen is (I have a feeling a lot of people don't since if you aren't a big reader and your English teachers in high school were not pro Austen you probably didn't have to learn about her) I will be providing a quick overview of Jane Austen's history and her novels along with a few summaries of her works.

THE HISTORY OF JANE AUSTEN

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist during the age of romanticism (for more info on the romanticism period click Here) whose works represented the lives of a largely historical British social class called Landed gentry ( this basically refereed to people, land owners, who lived entirely off rental income. For more info on this click Here). She earned her place as one of the most widely read authors in English literature, and is known as one of the pioneers of the romance novel genre (you can read more about this genre Here).

Austen lived her entire as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry (basically Jane wrote what she knew and many scholars believe that many of the heroines in her novels are loosely based on her life) and was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as her own reading.

Some of her most notable works are Sense and Sensibility (written in 1811), Pride and Prejudice (written in 1813), Emma (written in 1815) and Persuasion (written in 1916).

Sense and Sensibility:

This novel is a work of romantic fiction set in southwest England between a span of seven years, from 1792 - 1797, which portrays the life and loves of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne.

Pride and Prejudice:

This story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues such as manners, upbringing, education and marriage among others in the Landed gentry society of early 19th century England. Although Pride and Prejudice is set at the turn of the 19th century, it retains a fascination for modern readers (which means even people today can relate to the topics presented in this book) which has contributed to it becoming one of the most popular novels in English literature, as well as one of the most loved books (Guys this book is really good, I love it and in my opinion everyone should read it at least once in their life).

Emma:

This book is about the youthful hubris (which means excessive pride or self-confidence) and the perils of misconstrued romance (misconstrued means interpret wrongly). Austen's goal when writing this book was to create a heroine who no one but herself will like.

Persuasion:

Persuasion was Jane Austen's last completed work before she passed away in 1817, and marked a break with her previous works, since it was both more biting, even irritable satire directed at some of the books characters and in the regretful, resigned outlook of the admirable heroine.

Now that you know a little bit about Jane Austen I will quickly speak about pirates (if anyone doesn't know about pirates I'm going to assume that you were forced to live under a rock all your life, no offense).

THE HISTORY OF PIRATES

Now the first thing that anyone probably thinks of when you mention pirates is either Captain Jack Sparrow from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean or Captain Hook from Disney's Peter Pan.

Captain Jack Sparrow:

Captain Hook:

Now these are the generic type of pirates we think of; Jack Sparrow, a cool, Suave, and slightly ethical pirate, and Captain Hook, a silly, obsessive pirate, who are always looking treasure or gold, however actual pirates were very different.

Piracy is defined as the act of robbery or criminal violence at sea (it also can include acts committed on land, in air or in other major bodies of water) and those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates (you can find more info Here). Now many people believe that pirates where bloodthirsty, ruthless murders who stole and buried their treasure, however most pirates rarely buried their treasure or killed those on the ships they captured. Often the treasure they would steal would be food, water, alcohol, weapons or clothing. They sometimes stole household items like soap and gear such as rope and anchors.

While it was believed that pirates ruthlessly killed those whose ships they commandeered that is not actually the case. Pirates tended to kill as few people as possible aboard the ships they captured, since if it became known that pirates took no prisoners, their victims would fight to the end since they knew they would be killed anyways, making victory very timely and costly. Therefor as long as the ships surrendered the people on board would not be injured, which actually make ships surrender quickly because they knew they would be spared (What a bunch of nice guys, they take your stuff but spare your life, only for it to possibility happen again).

I'M SUPER EXCITED TO COMBINE THESE TOGETHER!!

I know this may seem like my inner literature and history nerd is showing but I'm really excited to combine both these topics to make a game because I think the people in my class can come up with some seriously interesting ideas.

In case You Were Interested

Here are some links for info on the books and movies I mentioned in my post.

Jane Austen:

Sense and Sensibility: