Publication Date
2025
Advisor(s) - Committee Chair
Sophia Arjana, Tammy Van Dyken, Katherine Lennard
Degree Program
Department of History
Degree Type
Master of Arts
Abstract
This thesis explores the role of Christian Gnosticism in the Japanese role-playing video game (JRPG) Xenogears, developed by Square Co. Ltd. and released in Japan and the United States in 1998. In tracing its historical context, development, and localization I argue that Xenogears is an important text in the history of mediated religion in global popular culture. In comparing the game’s narrative against ancient Christian Gnostic texts such as The Apocryphon of John, The Reality of the Rulers, and the Gospel of Judas, I show how the game harmonized, mediated, and reproduced ancient Gnostic mysticism for its players to emulate. These factors combine to make Xenogears a mystical commodity. Xenogears functioned as a commodity on the mystical marketplace through its aesthetic and narrative use of real-world religion.
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Film and Media Studies | Religion
Recommended Citation
Sutton, Alexander, "“YOU SHALL BE AS GODS”: XENOGEARS, GNOSTICISM, AND GAMING ON THE MYSTICAL MARKETPLACE AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM" (2025). Masters Theses & Specialist Projects. Paper 3797.
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/3797