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

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.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A. Child and Youth Studies

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Faculty of Social Sciences

Department dc:contributor.department

Department of Child and Youth Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Brock University

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Myra Masley Hannett

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Hannah Dyer

• HUMANITIES and RELIGION::Aesthetic subjects::Literature
• HUMANITIES and RELIGION::Aesthetic subjects::Music
• INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AREAS::Technology and social change
• INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AREAS::Gender studies
• INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AREAS::Children

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10464/19299

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:brocku.scholaris.ca:10464/19299