Warcraft’s Arthas Menethil: a shakespearean tragic hero?

Abstract

Nowadays, several fields of knowledge such as teaching and learning (SADLER, 2017), genre theory (RACZOWSKI, 2012), narrative (KRZYWINSKA, 2008), among others, study computer games and their players. The object of this study is the character Arthas Menethil, from World of Warcraft, an online computer game from the successful game franchise Warcraft, created by Blizzard Entertainment. Inside the game, players create their own characters and can join adventures, challenging missions, explore new worlds and meet thousands of other players (KNAAK, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to discuss how certain elements of the Western literary tradition are brought to online games by describing and analyzing the construction of Arthas Menethil in comparison with the characteristics of the Shakespearean tragic hero (BRADLEY, 1992), seeking to investigate how this archetype is constructed in the computer game media. In order to do that, the character Macbeth was used as an example of the Shakespearean tragic hero. We concluded that Arthas Menethil shares many similarities with a typical Shakespearean tragic hero, however, the story of Arthas lacks the cathartic element from the theatrical plays. Keywords: