How Musical Leitmotifs Enhance Narration and Evoke Emotion

This paper argues that musical leitmotifs, which have received little sustained attention in English-language game studies, deserve a contemporary definition suited to digital games and accessible to non-musicians. Its central claim is that leitmotifs are fragmentary or more complete musical ideas tied to a specific character, location, sentiment, or story element, and that they perform a set of narrational and affective functions within games. The author distinguishes leitmotifs from broader thematic material, which evokes a work as a whole, and from motifs, which lack specific representational reference, using examples from Japanese-style role-playing games and related series.

The paper identifies nine intratextual functions of leitmotif: defining and differentiating characters and locations, seeding and substantiating emotion, modulating scene context, interweaving meaning across entities, foreshadowing, priming the player affectively, and constituting an emotional climax. Illustrations include the Shinra theme in Final Fantasy VII, the reprised "Home" theme in Undertale, and the "love" leitmotif in Final Fantasy VIII, which returns as a vocal ballad at the narrative peak. A tenth, intertextual function is proposed, in which leitmotifs support transmedial world-building, exemplified by the Chocobo leitmotif spanning games, manga, and mobile titles. The analysis is qualitative and illustrative rather than empirical, relying on close readings of selected games and on prior scholarship in film music and game sound. The paper was presented at DiGRA 2019 and draws on published analyses by online game music commentators.