what about the kinnies

I think it’s safe for us to say that qualifying the identification with or as characters in games is a bit complex. Shaw notes the ability of any one character to mean multiple things to people, and does not question the validity of those different, potentially opposing, ideas of the character, complicating the idea of representation as well as identification. So we have a serious question of what it means to identify with or as a character in a video game, or other pieces of different types of media.

Even so, with all the difficulties in relation or identification that there may be, there are those who do strongly identify with characters in different properties. (And if you’ve come across this before, I sincerely apologize.)

This is where it gets a bit difficult to explain, though the phenomenon goes something like this: rather than a lack of identification, some people, particularly in fandom circles on the internet, have rallied around specific characters that they very actively or very strongly identify with, equating their identity or personality with that of the character. This equating of self with a character is “kinning” that character.

Often, people who “kin” a character, or “are kin with” a character, will reach across many potential lines of identification or, perhaps, of culture. This may include race and ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality lines, though some people override any canonical demographic or identity information embedded in the character, and substitute in their place, identity markers or demographic information of their own preferences.

So how can we try to reconcile the difficulty and ease of identification? What does it mean, then, if people identify with a modified version of a character? Is that still identification as or with a character, if there may be such differences?

The concept of “kinning” is itself already hard to grasp, considering the conflation of identity and self is not something that people, largely, will grapple with. And “kinnies” can and often do more casually identify with characters, some having more major or more minor kins.

But I think this concept really lends itself to understanding role play games like Assassin’s Creed: Liberation. If the game mechanic is supposed to be the return of an individual to the memories and identity of someone in the past, then rather than slide into the past, like in the game, a kinnie might slide into some narrative structure, in their minds, or into some specific personality. You could argue that the player character is a kinnie of their assassin ancestor. Of course, this also creates a question of the nature of identity and what constitutes identity and personality in the first place, even further complicating the idea of identification as or with basically anyone or anything.

So what might we be able to get out of the concept of kinning that might help us better understand the nature of role playing games or even, more broadly, identity?