War stories are world-shaping: tracing the feedback loop between narrative and reality

In this final chapter, Alice König broadens out from close readings of specific conflict narratives to explore the ‘feedback loop’ between narrative and reality; that is, the ways in which war stories not only reflect reality but also shape it by influencing how we think, feel and behave. Through a mix of ancient and modern examples, she highlights the direct and indirect impacts which dominant, recurring or unusual visualisations of war can have on our individual and collective mindsets; and she considers how narratives of conflict can also be leveraged by those in positions of social or political power to engender particular attitudes or drive behaviours, both within and beyond war zones. In the process, she explores the role played by interdiscursivity – as an extension of intertextuality – in connecting our habits of visualising war to other culturally-shared assumptions and expectations which structure our communities and govern our lives. In centring the real-world ramifications of interdiscursive war-storytelling, she considers how shifts in habits of visualisation can build better futures.