The battles in a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) take place in real time, but within the context of fictional geographies and events. Since many soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are also avid gamers it’s now possible to fight alongside someone who’s taking a break from (real) battle duty to run a quest with guild mates from across the globe (including, potentially, an enemy combatant). To the outsider our mediated wars and hyperreal video games are increasingly intertwined as collaborative fantasies (to the point that analysts at the Pentagon recently released research detailing fears that World of Warcraft is being used by terrorists to plot another attack). Conflict becomes entertainment and the reverse; the teddy bears are transformed by fire.

Ragnaros and Cash contains scenes from World of Warcraft, images of teddy bears for sale at the Blackwater online giftshop, a BBC transcript of American pilots whose bombing run resulted in the "friendly fire" casualties of 3 British soldiers, a screenshot of a World of Warcraft in-game conversation, night vision video stills, news photos of Blackwater helicopters, assorted imagery culled from the web, a photograph of Johnny Cash and another of a "Ring of Fire".