ACADEMIA Letters Fantasy Video Games and Archetypal Criticism Michael Barros, Northcentral University Carl Jung describes the archetype as “a fgure, whether it be daemon, man, or process, that repeats itself in the course of history wherever creative fantasy is fully manifested.” [1] Archetypal criticism, also called mythological or Jungian criticism, is the study of this phe- nomenon as it occurs throughout literature. Unfortunately, archetypal criticism has never gained much traction in the world of literary scholarship; it’s largely been set aside as an unpopular subset of psychoanalytic criticism. [2] However, as academia gradually widens its gaze to include video games, archetypal criticism may fnally fnd its home. While archetypal criticism can be of use in the analysis of any genre, with fantasy games in particular, it ought to be regarded as a necessity. The outsized cultural impact of the fantasy genre alone makes it a prime target of academic inquiry, while its connection with fantasy literature introduces players to archetypal themes and characters. In order to recommend a specifc form of literary criticism for the fantasy genre of video games, it’s important to establish that literary criticism is called for in the frst place. The extremely limited amount of attention that the stories of fantasy games have received from the academic community is a testament to the implicit notion that video games and litera- ture are to be categorized separately. This antiquated view may have been well applied to Galaga and Frogger but has little to say about the symbolically dense Legend of Zelda series or the complex Elder Scrolls mythos. Eric Hayot argues in “Video Games & the Novel” that the diference between video game story and the stories we fnd in novels is one of degree, rather than category. [3] Many games depend as much on their story as they do their game- play mechanics; they participate in and draw from the same narrative history as novels. [4] Take, for example, popular role-playing games such as Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Both of these games draw inspiration from and make reference to H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos. Lovecraft himself drew heavily in both prose and concept from Lord Dunsany for much of his work. [5] Academia Letters, June 2021 Corresponding Author: Michael Barros, barrostheology@gmail.com Citation: Barros, M. (2021). Fantasy Video Games and Archetypal Criticism. Academia Letters, Article 1346. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1346. 1 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0