Though I specified in NARRATIVE DEATH-DRIVE PT 2 that narrative conflict did not require literal violence, narrative violence does have a potential, beyond that of any other literary device, for escalating the immediacy of the conflict. Even the kinetic appeal of sex—so earnestly defended by Legman above—cannot match violence in terms of fomenting the narrative principle of escalation.
So "escalation" in this sense refers to the way in which narrative conflict is increased when violent threats are made or carried out in a repeated fashion, in order to better engross an audience in the resolution of said conflict.
Then in 2021's ESCALATION PROCLAMATION PT. 2, I shifted the term's use "with respect to the concepts of high and low forms of both stature and charisma." I began by distinguishing two types of escalation, quantitative (which has a direct parallel to the quantitative uses of narrative violence in the previous formulation) and qualitative. My main criterion for the latter was that of a work, or a series of works, becoming a "cultural touchstone." A more precise way of wording this would be to specify that the only works that become cultural touchstones are those that realize concrescence in one or more of the four potentialities. Though I didn't consider the idea at the time of writing Part 1, I'll now state that there is also a qualitative form of "conflict-escalation," and that this is identical with the term I styled "variety."
I articulate this distinction in order to focus upon the quantitative aspects of both forms. Within a given text, narrative conflict is enhanced by repetition of a threat even if the text manifests an extremely low level of concrescence-- for example, one of the worst slashers of the 1980s, TO ALL A GOODNIGHT. But levels of stature and charisma do not multiply within one text; only in a series of texts with icons in common. In ESCALATION 2 I mentioned two characters, Miss Victory and Magik, whose levels of individual stature were low because they simply hadn't starred in many serial stories as solo characters-- but who went on to accrue greater collective stature once they became members of comparatively more popular teams, respectively "Femforce" and "The New Mutants." In a separate post I mentioned that despite the fact that Marvel's Ant-Man/Giant-Man had enjoyed a solo series for a couple of years, and was better known to contemporary readers than either of my other two examples, over the next sixty years he also became better known for his participation as an Avenger, and thus his fictive career was dominated by collective rather than individual stature.
In yet another 2012 essay, GRAVITY'S CROSSBOW PART 4, I set down two significant values that should serve to explicate these two functions of escalation.
One significant value I termed "conviction," which I aligned with the reader's generally subconscious sussing out as to how much emotion, and of what type, he should invest in a text. Conflict-escalation within a text is one technique used to stoke a reader's identification with fictional concerns, though clearly there are very types of conviction involved between, say, a slasher in which a killer knocks off several victims, and a Roadrunner cartoon in which the Coyote suffers one injury after another until the story reaches some usually arbitrary conclusion. Though I didn't continue using the term "conviction" on a regular basis, I've never contradicted this 2012 formulation, and I may find new ways to better incorporate this formulation in future.
In contrast, I've devoted several thousand words to centricity, and the entire formulation of stature/charisma is dependent on showing how this or that icon has the greatest resonance while the other icons in the narrative are of a lesser narrative order. So escalation that comes about due to an icon having appeared a few times, or many many times, is entirely congruent with all of my writings on centricity.
And all of these terminological ruminations will tie into an essay intended for tomorrow.
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