About: Tragic Mistake   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

In a formal Tragedy, there is a specific scene where the Tragic Hero is given a clear choice, and they choose wrongly. Often this wrong choice can be blamed on the hero's Fatal Flaw, but sometimes they just get screwed over by fate. (Classic Greek theater liked to give their tragic heroes dilemmas with no correct choice.) The literary term for this is hamartia, a Greek term from Aristotle's Poetics (and an admittedly vaguely-defined one--it can also be interpreted as a Fatal Flaw). Which also means this device is Older Than Feudalism. Examples of Tragic Mistake include:

AttributesValues
rdfs:label
  • Tragic Mistake
rdfs:comment
  • In a formal Tragedy, there is a specific scene where the Tragic Hero is given a clear choice, and they choose wrongly. Often this wrong choice can be blamed on the hero's Fatal Flaw, but sometimes they just get screwed over by fate. (Classic Greek theater liked to give their tragic heroes dilemmas with no correct choice.) The literary term for this is hamartia, a Greek term from Aristotle's Poetics (and an admittedly vaguely-defined one--it can also be interpreted as a Fatal Flaw). Which also means this device is Older Than Feudalism. Examples of Tragic Mistake include:
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:all-the-tro...iPageUsesTemplate
dbkwik:allthetrope...iPageUsesTemplate
abstract
  • In a formal Tragedy, there is a specific scene where the Tragic Hero is given a clear choice, and they choose wrongly. Often this wrong choice can be blamed on the hero's Fatal Flaw, but sometimes they just get screwed over by fate. (Classic Greek theater liked to give their tragic heroes dilemmas with no correct choice.) This moment may not be obvious at the time, but looking back, it becomes clear that this moment was crucial to the hero's tragic downfall. The results of this bad choice lead inexorably towards the hero's catastrophic end--had the hero chosen correctly at this point, the catastrophe could have been averted. The literary term for this is hamartia, a Greek term from Aristotle's Poetics (and an admittedly vaguely-defined one--it can also be interpreted as a Fatal Flaw). Which also means this device is Older Than Feudalism. To clarify, this is not supposed to be an event that gets the plot moving. The Tragic Mistake occurs well after the plot has been set in motion--it's the Tragic Hero's personal Point of No Return. Structurally, this moment is the Crisis of the story (or just this character's story arc), and everything afterwards is Denouement. Not to be confused with the Moral Event Horizon. Also compare with Karmic Death, which is reserved for outright villains and tends to be faster-acting. As the Tragic Mistake is one of the most crucial moments in the story expect a lot of spoilers below. Examples of Tragic Mistake include:
Alternative Linked Data Views: ODE     Raw Data in: CXML | CSV | RDF ( N-Triples N3/Turtle JSON XML ) | OData ( Atom JSON ) | Microdata ( JSON HTML) | JSON-LD    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3217, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Standard Edition
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2012 OpenLink Software