Représentation et valeur politique du conflit ethnique en ex-Yougoslavie dans Tactics Ogre : de Sarajevo à Baramus

Abstract

Released in 1995 for the Nintendo Super Famicom, Quest's Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is an ambitious video game in terms of narrativity. Inspired by the conflict in former Yugoslavia, it discusses the issue of ethnic war. Potentially used as a political tool, a slaughter like the one occurring in Sarajevo in February 1994 should complexify its translation into a video game. How can a war crime become a narrative device? From that perspective, what remains of the historical truth? What is the relationship between political events and video game fiction? Addressing these issues, this paper will study what video games can say about ethnicity, considered as both a social and political debate. This will lead us to see how the video game industry contributes to the constitution of a socially shared imaginary of political power without which it is not possible to make society.