This doctoral project examines how TV series and video games foster long-term attachment to antiheroic characters, even though their actions are characterized by violence, manipulation, and moral transgressions. The central question is which dramaturgical, aesthetic, and interactive mechanisms enable this attachment and how they differ between serial reception and active gameplay in video games. The gender-specific coding of antiheroic characters is also taken into account.
Methodologically, the project combines a comparative analysis of selected TV series and video games with an artistic research component. Key sequences from *House of Cards*, *Killing Eve*, *The Last of Us*, and *Red Dead Redemption 2* are examined in terms of perspective, vulnerability, moral framing, as well as agency and the illusion of control. In parallel, a branching text-based video game is being developed in which the mechanisms of character attachment, decision-making power, and narrative coercion are tested in practice.
The goal is to develop a cross-media model of character attachment that explains how moral distance is overcome and long-term engagement is generated, as well as which mechanisms operate across media or are specific to each medium.
Artist Statement
Georg Agardi is an author, musician, dramaturg, and media scholar. After studying film studies and history at Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin), he completed his master’s degree in screenwriting and dramaturgy at the KONRAD-WOLF Film School in Babelsberg with honors. His work spans film, television series, video games, and academic research, exploring moral ambivalence, social power dynamics, and characters who exist on the margins of society. His projects include short films, screenplays for television series and feature films, as well as interactive narrative formats. In addition to other nominations and awards, he received the Sehsüchte Prize for Best Pitch in 2023. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. as part of a scientific-artistic research project on audience attachment to antiheroes in television series and video games.
