| Abstract [eng] |
This master’s thesis examines the reception of ancient witchcraft in the video game Hades II. The research problem arises from the tension between the image of the witch often found in the ancient Greek and Roman tradition – a dangerous figure who crosses boundaries and disrupts social or bodily order – and the representation of witchcraft created in Hades II. In the game, witchcraft remains associated with dangerous magical power, chthonicity, transformation, and liminal states, but at the same time becomes a form of protection, resistance, community, and autonomous action. The aim of the thesis is to examine how Hades II draws on ancient images of witchcraft and to what extent it transforms them. The study is based on Anastasia Bakogianni’s concept of classical reception, according to which the relationship with antiquity is understood not as a simple repetition of an original, but as a dialogic reinterpretation of ancient material in a new cultural context. Therefore, Hades II is not evaluated in this thesis according to its fidelity to a single source, but according to which ancient images it adopts, how it reshapes them, and what new functions it gives them. The research material consists of a deliberately selected corpus: the ancient portrait of Melinoë is based mainly on the 71st Orphic Hymn, while the portraits of Hecate, Medea, and Circe are analyzed on the basis of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The Hades II material consists of game dialogues extracted from the game files. The thesis first discusses the ancient portraits of the four figures, then their representation in Hades II, and finally brings these two levels of analysis together in the reception analysis. The study shows that the game neither simply repeats nor removes ancient images of witchcraft. It preserves their connection with danger, liminality, chthonicity, and transformation, but changes the function of these features: Melinoë becomes a witch capable of autonomous decision-making, Hecate becomes a teacher and creator of refuge, Medea’s destructive power is represented as controlled and purposeful, and Circe’s transformations are connected not only with punishment, but also with self-control. Thus, Hades II reworks dangerous marginal power into a form of resistance, survival, community, and conscious action. The scope of the thesis was deliberately limited: it does not aim to reconstruct the entire ancient tradition of witchcraft. The study focuses on four witches important to the game and on the ancient sources that allow their representation to be compared consistently. Future research could expand the ancient corpus by including tragedy, epic, elegy, magical texts, or a broader tradition of Hecate, Medea, and Circe. It would also be possible to compare Hades II with other contemporary witchcraft narratives and to test whether the functional shift identified in this thesis is specific to this game or belongs to a broader contemporary reception of antiquity. The thesis may be useful to researchers working on classical reception, ancient images of witchcraft and video games as a contemporary form of interpreting antiquity. |
