the.com/hamartia
The crack in the hero that was there all along, just waiting for a plot.
means The fatal flaw or error of judgment in a tragic hero that leads to their downfall.
from From Greek hamartia, meaning 'error' or 'failure' — rooted in the verb hamartanein, 'to miss the mark,' like an archer's arrow gone wide. Aristotle picked it up in the Poetics to describe the misstep that topples a tragic hero, and it's been stalking literature ever since.
- not villainy
- a flaw, not evil, that triggers the fall
- aristotle coined it
- poetics, 4th century bc, still ruining heroes
- greek root
- literally means missing the mark, like an arrow
- not fate
- the character causes it, the gods just watch