Classical world and game learning. The case of Athena in God of War

Athena is a key character in God of War saga. In all the episodes the goddess intervenes according to her own needs, influences the protagonists and their choices according to their own purposes and thus plays a fundamental role in the development of the plot. The literary tradition reports specific actions and qualities of Athena, while the history of art investigates her aesthetic and postural aspects: through her words, her gestures, and her superpowers it is possible to understand the great complexity of this divine Greek character. The same complexity shines through during the game. The main purposes of my article are: to demonstrate what elements the goddess of mythology and Athena of the video game have in common; and illustrate the didactic potential in the use of this game to learn classical mythology through identification with the events of the protagonist and the scripts inspired by the classical world.