Aristotle vs Arcane: Part VI
The Four Types of Tragedy
SPOILER WARNING: This section will be filled with spoilers from the first four episodes of Arcane, as well as a few Shakespeare plays including As You Like It, Macbeth, and Hamlet.
AUTHOR NOTE: The thoughts below are based purely on my own observations of the television show “Arcane: League of Legends” and the direct text of Aristotle’s “Poetics” based on the S.H. Butcher translation originally published in 1895. For this deep dive, I was too lazy to place footnotes on every quote, but any time you see quotations, know that the source is Aristotle’s words as translated by Butcher.
Introduction
If you have not read Parts I-V of this deep dive, I recommend going through them first. In this section I will often make reference to terms used in Aristotle’s Poetics by placing them in quotes. (Example: ‘thought’) These words sometimes have a special meaning that carries more complexity than the standard dictionary definition, so I explain their meanings to the best of my ability in that first section.
The Four Types of Tragedy
So if there’s one thing we’ve learned so far about Aristotle, it is that he loved making lists. Just like the Four Tragic Incidents, Aristotle lists Four Types of Tragedy which he ranks from strongest to weakest:
Complex
a. Depends on Reversal of Situation and Recognition
b. Events happen because of plot setup
Pathetic
a. The motive is passion
b. Events happen because of character’s passion about something
Ethical
a. The motives are ethical
b. Events happen because of a character’s ethical commitments
Simple
a. No Reversal or Recognition present that causes the change in fortune
b. Purely spectacular element: natural disaster, accident with no previous setup, random act of violence, etc.
To examine this order and what each of these definitions means, we have to remember one of Aristotle’s main premises of superior tragic writing: character is subsidiary to plot. So while the root cause of a tragic moment may be a character’s motivation, the cause can also be simply an intersection of events that affect the character tragically.
Complex Tragedy
With that premise in mind, it makes sense that Aristotle would label the Complex tragedy (tragedy resulting from a ‘reversal’ or ‘recognition’ or both) the strongest type. In this form, the character(s) are faced with a change of fortune that comes as a surprise and yet was the irrefutable result of plot leading to that moment.
Example: Oedipus’ reversal of fortune when he recognizes the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother was right all along because he had done those things in ignorance. (Notice Oedipus had no motivation to commit these specific acts of debauchery but they happened anyway.)
Arcane Example of Complex Tragedy:
At the beginning of Episode 3, Vander lets himself be taken by the police in Vi’s place which is a moment of ‘Reversal and Recognition’ for Vi—she recognizes Vander knew her plan and now a member of her family she was trying to protect is in the custody of police.
Pathetic Tragedy
In Aristotle’s second ranked form, Pathetic, the tragedy results from the passion of a character. Most often this is characters acting out of love, vengeance, anger, etc. Shakespearean examples might be Romeo and Juliet’s love for one another, Hamlet’s angst and hatred toward his uncle, or MacBeth’s fear of prophecies told by the witches. While these passionate motivations can be powerful cathartic triggers, Aristotle is arguing that characters whose fortune changes due to acts motivated by passion do not feel as tragic as characters who whose fortune is changed by elements of plot.
WARNING: EPISODE 4 SPOILER IN NEXT EXAMPLE!
Arcane Example of Pathetic Tragedy:
Jinx is motivated by her love and need for approval from Silco to blow up the theater and steal the most advanced Arcane stone.
This action was not clearly motivated by a ‘reversal’ or ‘recognition’ in the plot. You might consider the incident where Jinx mistakes the girl with pink hair for Vi as a possible ‘recognition’ moment that unravels into this action. However, where Jinx may or may not have been driven to commit this crime by the emotional instability brought to light by that trigger, it is absolutely clear that her primary motivation is the approval and love of Silco. This clarification is based on a monologue she gives and the moment she hands him the stone along with an embrace.
With this tech in the hands of Silco and Jinx, the ‘unravelling’ of this ‘complication’ will lead all the way to the final tragic moments of Episode 9.
Ethical Tragedy
Third ranked is Ethical. This would be tragedy that results from a character acting on their own moral obligations and ethical principles. So, when a character is just doing what they believe is right for themselves and the world, they end up causing terrible things to happen. (Example: In Julius Caesar, Brutus stabbing Caesar based on the ethical ideals of the co-conspirators despite his conflicted feelings.)
While this version often comes with some form of passion behind it, it should be noted that if the ethical motive did not exist, it could be possible the passionate motivation might not exist strongly enough to end tragically. Therefore, the ethical motivation would be the primary motivation in this type of tragedy.
Arcane Example of Ethical Tragedy:
Jayce and Viktor illegally develop the magic in the Arcane stones with hopes to bring peace and prosperity to their society, but their ambitions result in acts of violence and conflict between the upper and lower cities.
Simple Tragedy
Finally, Aristotle gives two descriptions of Simple tragedy which seem to make ‘simple’ the most complicated to understand:
“…the change of fortune takes place without Reversal of Situation and without Recognition.” -Poetics X
Pretty straightforward: the characters’ situation changes following a clear line of events but (theoretically) no real surprise or revelation occurs with the change. Aristotle gives his second clarification of Simple Tragedy a little later:
“<We here exclude the purely spectacular element>, exemplified by Phordices, the Prometheus, and scenes laid in Hades.” -Poetics XVIII
What Aristotle means here is more ambiguous. Unfortunately for us, the “Phordices” is a lost play, so who knows what he means there. Based on the myths of Prometheus and Hades, however, I would presume these types of scenes would be the “special effects” plays of their day.
So, one interpretation of this might be that simple tragedy could be events caused by the purely spectacular elements of a play— “Acts of God”, so to speak. These events might result from something like a chance storm, a random explosion, or being tortured by Zeus indefinitely for stealing fire from the gods (a.k.a. “the ol’ Prometheus”.)
Arcane Example of Simple Tragedy:
This one is tough to find in this show because they do such an exceptional job of setups and payoffs, but one example might be the moment that follows Vander turning himself in to the police.
Once Vander is outside having locked Vi in a basement, Vi witnesses a bloody ambush on the arresting officers. While it comes with little setup, the reasons are quickly explained so it could be categorized as a ‘recognition.’ For the sake of this exercise, however, this tragic moment does contain a purely spectacular act of violence that does not reverse Vi’s situation from bad to better, but it does transform it.
SIDE NOTE: This scene is also a great example of using the four types at once: 1) Reversal & Recognition when Vander takes Vi’s place with the police, 2) Vander’s love for Vi causes him to turn himself in, 3) Vander’s ethical motive to keep the peace between the upper and lower cities, and 4) the random attack of violence that ends in Benzo and Grayson’s death. We’ll explore using of multiple types at once more deeply in Part VII of this deep dive.
The Problem with “Deus ex Machina”
Simple Tragedy events often fall outside of the ‘law of probability and necessity’, which Aristotle obviously dislikes very much and refers to with the term Deus ex Machina (“god out of the machine”.)
“It is therefore evident that the unravelling of the plot, no less than the complication, must arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the Deus ex Machina…. The Deus ex Machina should be employed only for events external to the drama, —for antecedent or subsequent events, which lie beyond the range of human knowledge, and which require to be reported or foretold; for to the gods we ascribe the power of seeing all things.”
-Poetics, XV
The way I am interpreting this quote means the deus ex machina (an event that has no previous explanation or reason for happening) should only be employed to actions that happen outside of the main drama or ‘action proper.’
For example, the witches prophesying about Macbeth’s future offers no explanation how they get this knowledge. This lack of explanation is acceptable, however, because the witches exist in the realm of gods and their circumstances lie outside of the main plot. Macbeth’s tragedy lies not in what the witches foretell, but in how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth act on the information they are given.
Alternately, if a deus ex machina is employed within the main plot, it is often considered lazy writing—a quick means of getting a writer out of a corner. In Shakespeare, one of the most classic examples happens is in As You Like It. This play is a comedy of errors (not tragedy) that ends up so romantically convoluted that it seems the happy ending will never work itself out.
However, as Shakespeare is running out of runway to land on in Act V, he introduces Hymen, the god of marriage. Hymen conveniently pairs up the proper couples and clears up any misunderstandings Bill created earlier for laughs.
The point is deus ex machina' can be a means to the ending a writer wants, but it betrays Aristotle’s guiding principle for great tragedy, ‘the law of probability and necessity.’
“For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.”
-Poetics VI
In other words, the action of life is neutral. The ‘quality’ of life is dependent on what is positive or negative for the characters because results that may be positive for one character may be negative for another.
So, if a play is to be a believable and cathartic tragic experience for the audience, the plot should foremost meet our expectations based on previously established actions—not simply whether the end results are negative for the characters.
Arcane Example of Deus Ex Machina:
The opening flashback of Episode 2 is a good example of Deus Ex Machina. The wizard shows up randomly to save Jayce and his mother when they are lost in the snow. The scene introduces Jayce to the Arcane stones and sets him on the path of learning to harness their power through science.
Though there is little explanation for his arrival, the wizard exists in the realm of the gods, so the action is acceptable. Jayce’s consequent tragedy is not a result of the wizard introducing Jayce to Arcane, but instead a result of Jayce’s choice of what to do with that knowledge.
NEXT TIME:
In the last two parts of this extremely longer than expected Deep Dive, we will pull all these Aristotelian terms together to examine the final scene of Arcane’s Episode 3, and why it works so well from a writing perspective—and crushes your soul in the process!
Sterling Martin is an artist and designer living in Chicago, IL. His background includes drawing, writing, theatre, teaching, improv & sketch comedy, and whatever else he can get his hands on to be creative. You can find him on the internet at:
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Note: All images above come from Wiki-commons and Arcane: League of Legends