The Iron Cage of Jade and Ash: Bureaucratic Rationality, Sacrificial Economies, and Biopolitical Extraction in Black Myth: Wukong
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Modern adaptations of classical epics frequently invert heroic mythologies to critique contemporary structures of power. This research paper examines Black Myth: Wukong as a critical post-mortem on institutionalized rebellion, shifting the analytical lens from traditional hagiography to socio-political critique. Challenging mainstream literary scholarship that treats video game adaptations of Wu Cheng'en’s sixteenth-century epic Journey to the West as mere aesthetic subversions or dark fantasy power trips, this study argues that the game performs a rigorous "institutional autopsy." Utilizing Max Weber’s theory of the "Iron Cage of Bureaucracy," Eric Hobsbawm’s framework of "Primitive Rebels," Michel Foucault’s biopolitics, Silvia Federici’s primitive accumulation, and Achille Mbembe’s necropolitics, we investigate how the celestial regime depicted in the game operates not as a benevolent divine order, but as a totalitarian corporate administration driven by resource extraction, soul-harvesting quotas, and bio-pharmaceutical enclosure. Through a forensic reading of narrative arcs, item descriptions, and spatial design across all chapters, we demonstrate how localized spirits and marginalized entities are systematically pathologized as "demons" to legitimize imperial conquest. Ultimately, the narrative exposes the tragedy of co-optation, revealing that cosmic empires survive subversion not through outright annihilation, but by bureaucratizing, harvesting, and commodifying the very essence of resistance.
Author: Mohammad Huzaifa
Language: English
Topic: Digital Games and Media
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222337403
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