Do You Choose Him or Does He Choose You?

Analyzing Character Archetypes in Otome Games

Resumo

The relationship between fiction and humanity is long-established and, since the beginning, people’s involvement
 With fictional characters has aroused emotions as if the latter were real. This parasocial relationship, where a person forms a long-term socio-emotional bond with a media persona, can also be seen in digital games, especially in otome games. This intense connection may be due to a multitude of reasons, including the unconscious appeal of the characters and the tropes intertwined with the characters’ personality. In this sense, a research was developed in order to obtain a richer understanding of the players’ strong affective bonds with character tropes from otome games through the archetypal typology developed by Margareth Mark and Carol Pearson. The classification developed by these authors was used to analyze eleven popular character tropes, selected from blogs and online discussions related to otome games. Through this analysis, it was possible to perceive that otome character tropes are connected to the archetypes defined by the authors, and, of the eleven tropes studied, all had at least one dominant archetype active in them. This study’s findings can contribute to a better understanding of parasocial relationships between fictional characters and humans by identifying the reason for their intensity. Additionally, such results can aid game developers in creating more intricate characters infused with the power of archetypes, and also provide useful information to assist players in understanding the connection between their love for a character and their own internal necessities and desires.