A Queer Departure: The Role of Queer Studies and Thanatology in Narrative Videogames Focused on Grief

Abstract

This Masters thesis studies representations of young people in videogames through a transdisciplinary approach within the academic fields of Queer Studies and Death Studies, and their fused counterpart known as Queer Death Studies (QDS). Through the methodology of Fairclough’s (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis, this thesis analyses four narrative-heavy videogames titled Gone Home (2013), Journey (2012), Valiant Hearts (2014), and That Dragon, Cancer (2016), with the intentions of seeing what queer and / or deathly attributes are within the game, and where are they in relationship to the child(ren) in the videogames. With the assistance of multiple theory-heavy books from varied disciplines, including Ahmed’s (2014) The Cultural Politics of Emotions, Harrer’s (2018) Games and Bereavement: How Video Games Represent Attachment, Loss and Grief, and Mbembe’s (2003) Necropolitics, the thesis discusses how a Queer Death Studies lens can be developed to understand new modes of understanding for representations of young people.