Pathologic Character Analysis: Grace

We gravitate towards stories such as Grace's. Stories that tell of the fifteen year old steward of the graveyard. Stories that tell us of the haunted child who is left isolated and alone on the edge of town, yet who finds comfort in that same isolation. Grace, in short, is such an interesting character. As with all these videos, there'll be more that occurs to me to talk about in a few weeks time (or when comments start coming in and I kick myself for forgetting to talk about something obvious). But I love the relationship that Grace has with each and every character. It's easy to forget she's as young as she is because she speaks with such an adult cadence, and the place she inhabits is not typically the domain of nice, non-horror children. But Grace is nice. She is kind and tender and vulnerable and full of empathy. She is the subject of today's video essay. And it's been a long time coming. I've grown a lot as a creator since I first started making these... and it's scary to realize I made my Artemy analysis back in 2021... in fact, I released that Artemy analysis the day I finished Grace's, what the hell?! In other words: yay, I made another Pathologic Character Analysis video! Chapters: 0:00:00 Spoiler Warning 0:00:05 The Funeral of Youth: Threnody 0:00:42 Grace's Design Document Description 0:01:40 Intro 0:04:36 Grace and Loneliness 0:13:00 Grace, the Town, and the Player 0:24:00 Grace and the Dead 0:31:30 Conclusion 0:35:07 Post-Script Sources: Elferen, Isabella van. “Gothic Game Music: Hyperreality Haunted.” In Gothic Music: The Sounds of the Uncanny, 1st ed., 100–127. University of Wales Press, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qhh.... Nicolucci, Viola. 2019. “ A DEATH-POSITIVE VIDEO GAME FOR DEATH EDUCATION OF ADOLESCENTS” in Italian Journal of Educational Technology. Volume 27 / Issue 2. Louise C. Hawkley and John T. Cacioppo, ‘Loneliness Matters: A Theoretical and Empirical Review of Consequences and Mechanisms’, Annals of Behavioral Medicine 40, no. 2 (October 2010): 218–27, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-010-92.... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Rusch, Doris. 2009. “Mechanisms of the Soul – Tackling the Human Condition in Videogames” in DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory. Srinivasan, Sujata. 2019. "Saving Children from Cycle of Trauma". https://ctmirror.org/2019/06/16/savin...