Can visual novels be literature?

maybe the current market for this kind of media is pretty lacking, but is the concept of interactive stories a good thing for start? how can we take advantage of the genre to expand it's potential? if you are choosing the path of the story, are you really seeing the perspective of the author or just putting your own?

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obligatory subahibi post

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"no"

lol EOPs

They could be, but they're not.

>if you are choosing the path of the story, are you really seeing the perspective of the author or just putting your own?

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no
/thread

I want to sniff Yuri farts so badly

video games themselves have the potential to combine the artistic merit of painting, music, literature, and film together in one medium but it'd take someone with the mind of Mozart, Goethe, Caravaggio, and Tarkovsky to actually do something like that while also being able to program and design the assets themselves because most artistic masterpieces are the vision of a single mind and most video games are the result of a team of workers with their own individual strengths. basically, they're too much effort for a single person to create anything meaningful. that's not to say it can't be done, it's just going to be a while before anyone does it. the genre of VN is less than a decade old, and video games are only a few decades old themselves and only recently broke into the general public's consciousness.

Of all things, I think manga might break into a higher level, but VNs are not quite there yet.

>visual novels are less than a decade old

>what is literature
Either way I think you're looking at visual novels wrong, the choice mechanic is not exactly a form of interaction(in terms of choose your own adventure) but more of a way to present the story. It's unique to some books and most films in that it gives a detailed introspective look into the thought process of characters and explores themes in unique ways(could be seen as pretentious or not but that's beside the point).
Anyway, I think what your asking is if it can be a validated form of story telling within literary circles, for which the answer is no.

I haven't finished SubaHibi — haven't touched it in over a year. When I got to that point where the girls were going to get raped in the park, I somehow had the edgy boy beat the guys up. Then, I realized that it wasn't the real ending and I'd have to sit through the girls getting raped to advance. Its interpretation of Wittgenstein was extremely interesting and in an unfortunate minority among academics, and I could sit through the giant end-of-the-world meth party, knife violence, and forced shota bukkake but I cannot find it within me to revisit that scene and make the other choice.

Is the ending really worth it?

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there is no park rape, finish what you started
>Is the ending really worth it
One of the endings in the chapter with the park doesn't really matter it's just a Kimika happy ending( one that surprised me because it was comfy) , if that's the only ending you got then yes you have the wrong ending for that chapter, but if you don't play all the chapters up till the very last End Sky 2, then you're just gonna be another one of those subahibi shitposters complaining that it doesn't make sense.
Back to you question of if the ending is worth it, well it was worth it for me but you might rage and feel like you wasted your time when you finally read it.

Not because the ending is edgy ( the conclusion to Sca-Ji's philosophy I mean) but because the ending throws all the complicated stuff discussed throughout the visual novel for a simple phrase. A lot of people seem to dislike that conclusion. I'm okay with it.

You won't find me complaining about SubaHibi. I just got the "wrong" ending where all three personalities are peacefully reabsorbed into the main guy and didn't want to push any further. Is there really no park rape? Pls tell me what happens instead of the tough, aloof persona beating up the potential rapists..

>tfw no sayori gf

humiliation, drugged gangbang then delusional mindbreak into group suicide There are no wrong endings all endings are worth exploring, and in my opinion the depressive elements of parts like the park path that you're avoiding is worth experiencing for the rest of the ride even if they're gonna put you in a bad mood for a while(the outro song of that ending is my favorite song).
I can't recall which end it is you're referring to where all three personalities are peacefully reabsorbed into the main guy
but the idea of what those "personalities" are is explored more in Hill of Sunflowers End and End Sky 2(which is the "true" end) and the Wonderful Everyday End is the one where you get the conclusion. None of these parts have anything as dark as the earlier ones so I think you should tackle it.

I just realized how humiliation, drugged gangbang then delusional mindbreak into group suicide sounds like I'm describing the end of world party

I think that VNs have the potential to be great but for the most part they fail to live up to their potential. There are some VNs that I think are good but the vast majority are dumb high school waifu dating simulators.
I think that if VNs can break free of otaku culture (while still retaining the anime girls) then they can seriously develop as a medium.

It's coming back to me. The point where I gave up was when Tomosane saved Zakuro from getting raped which led to the false "happy ending" (which is the same as your "comfy Kimika ending" IIRC). This is in Looking-Glass Insects. The alternative is that Zakuro gets raped and commits suicide because Takuji hates impure women but I already know that Zakuro commits suicide, so I should just press on.

I'll probably have to replay all of SubaHibi to remember wtf is going on. If you're around in a week or so, I'll make a bait thread like OP's. Hope to talk with you then.

VN dev here, and I'm largely convinced that reader choice is a terrible gimmick in storytelling. The more freedom you allow the reader, the weaker your protagonist becomes as a character. The reader is almost guaranteed to be angling for a "good" ending, which means you can't have your protagonist make a bad life choice unless you arbitrarily limit the reader's control, or don't offer choices at critical moments.

Choices do have some utility. Firstly, they drastically reduce the expectation that the story will have a happy ending. Secondly, they force the reader to give serious thought to a question you pose them, because they're invested in the story's outcome and want to get it right. This allows you to challenge them on issues of morality and philosophy whenever you like.

Rin's route of Katawa Shoujo remains the one and only visual novel I've read that I thought had actual literary merit. It's thematically brilliant, its sentences are beautiful, and once or twice it manages to be legitimately profound. At the least, I think it's up there with the best of Murakami's work.

What is it like to know you'll never get to read Sakura no Uta?

All Western VNs are terrible simply because they're Western.