TY - JOUR AU - Stang, Sarah PY - 2019/11/11 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - The Broodmother as Monstrous-Feminine: Abject Maternity in Video Games JF - Nordlit JA - Nordlit VL - 0 IS - 42 SE - Articles DO - 10.7557/13.5014 UR - https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/5014 SP - 233–256 AB - <p>This article examines examples of the monstrous-feminine in the form of abject maternal monsters in a selection of commercially successful and critically acclaimed mainstream video games&nbsp;using conceptual frameworks and textual analysis methods established in the work of <strong>Julia Kristeva</strong> and <strong>Barbara Creed</strong>. The Broodmother from <em>Dragon Age: Origins</em> (2009) and the Mother from <em>Dragon Age: Origins—Awakening</em> (2010) are considered as problematic examples of the abject monstrous-feminine which fall into a long tradition in horror media of framing the female body and the birthing process as something horrific and repulsive. Kerrigan from the <em>StarCraft</em> series (1998–2017) is examined as a possible counter-example, demonstrating that the monstrous-feminine can exist in a playable and potentially empowered form, though she is problematically empowered within a violent, militant framework. Overall, this article critically analyses the ways in which video games remediate tropes of gendered monstrosity and reinforce the misogynist&nbsp;norms and values of hegemonic heteropatriarchal ideology by forcing players to enact symbolic violence against transgressive female bodies.</p> ER -