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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Player Character's Journey: The Hero's Journey In Moldvay's Dungeons & Dragons, Robert Leopold Dec 2019

The Player Character's Journey: The Hero's Journey In Moldvay's Dungeons & Dragons, Robert Leopold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the archetypes, motifs, and stages of the Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey as they are found in the Moldvay revision of the rules to Basic Dungeons & Dragons, that emerge from playing the game using the seven adventure modules printed for these rules. Using narratological concepts, the definition of what makes narrative is expanded to include the narrative that emerges by playing story-based roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons. These narratives, based on the seven adventure modules, are the analyzed using Campbell's monomyth as an interpretive tool, showing that these types of narratives are up to …


Children Of A One-Eyed God: Impairment In The Myth And Memory Of Medieval Scandinavia, Michael David Lawson May 2019

Children Of A One-Eyed God: Impairment In The Myth And Memory Of Medieval Scandinavia, Michael David Lawson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the lives of impaired individuals catalogued in the Íslendingasögur as a narrative framework, this study examines medieval Scandinavian social views regarding impairment from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Beginning with the myths and legends of the eddic poetry and prose of Iceland, it investigates impairment in Norse pre-Christian belief; demonstrating how myth and memory informed medieval conceptualizations of the body. This thesis counters scholarly assumptions that the impaired were universally marginalized across medieval Europe. It argues that bodily difference, in the Norse world, was only viewed as a limitation when it prevented an individual from fulfilling roles that …


The Unsung Hero Character: A Harbinger Device Of Misfortune, Eutimio Talavera May 2019

The Unsung Hero Character: A Harbinger Device Of Misfortune, Eutimio Talavera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis introduces an obscure storytelling device, The Unsung Hero character, as one way of examining how movies function as stories. This character is often overlooked, as it frequently cloaks its idiosyncrasies, thus it lacks any apparent signs of internal conflict. This analysis foregrounds the character’s overall functionality, found only in rare instances and typically in the story of a movie. With effective implementation in a story, as a functional harbinger device, brief appearances of The Unsung Hero character demonstrate flashpoints or disclosures of a forthcoming misfortune in the story. This movie analysis shows how The Unsung Hero character functions …