Antigone Will Take The Stairs Today is an Art Game by Anavdora/Kitty, retelling the story of Antigone in a modern apartment block.
Creon, landlord of Thebes Towers, refuses to allow his nephew, Polyneices, to be buried; instead leaving him to rot in the room where he died. Antigone takes things into her own hands, meeting the apartment tenants along the way.
Antigone Will Take The Stairs Today
can be downloaded or played in the browser. It only takes about 30 minutes to play, and thus, spoilers will be unmarked.
▷ Run Tragedy:
- Acting Your Intellectual Age: Downplayed for tragedy. Antigone's room is full of reminders that she is a teenager, yet she is the only person to take a stand against Creon.
- Adaptational Villainy: Downplayed but still present. Much of the second half of the original play is dedicated to Creon being told how badly he did everything wrong and his breakdown as he realises it's too late to fix it. How sympathetic this is is up to individual interpretation, but none of it happens in this game, and this and the fact that the game is set almost entirely from Antigone's perspective leaves Creon an entirely offscreen and entirely antagonistic figure in the game with no suggestion of sympathy.
- All Are Equal in Death: Antigone certainly believes this should be the case, and it's Creon's refusal to adhere to this that prompts her to act.
- Big Brother Is Watching: There are security cameras in every room. Even Antigone's bedroom. Creon admits to using these to spy on her when she takes her brother for burial.
- Bystander Syndrome: All of the gods in the game do nothing to defy Creon and bury Polyneices. Justified that they're all worried about being evicted from Thebes Towers if they do. On the other hand, neither do they stop Antigone from doing it (and some of them help her indirectly), but neither do they try to stop Antigone from going to her death with him, which she is very open about being her plan.
- Domestic Abuse: Creon is stated to have, and, in phone conversations, openly admits to physically abusing Antigone in a variety of ways.
- Driven to Suicide: The game ends with Antigone killing herself in the basement beside her brother’s corpse. After learning of this, Haemon throws himself off the roof, and his mother slits her own throat.
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Genius Bonus: The game is best appreciated with prior knowledge of the stories of Oedipus and Antigone, and a general understanding of Greek Mythology. - History Repeats: Multiple Greek tragedies are referenced to highlight the inevitable ending of Antigone’s story. She eschews this, stating that those individuals were the children of gods, while she was merely Oedipus’s incestuous offspring.
- Improvised Lockpick: Tragically subverted. Antigone receives a crowbar to open the locked door to the basement where she means to bury her brother. One might expect her to jimmy the lock to get the the door open, but instead she just breaks the door down because she knows she doesn't need to be subtle or fear consequences; she knows she is about to die.
- Incest Subtext: The way that Antigone talks about Polyneices can be a little questionable. Lampshaded by Haemon, who really doesn’t have a leg to stand on in this situation.
- Kissing Cousins: Antigone’s boyfriend, Haemon, is Creon’s son.
- Neutral No Longer: Ismene eventually retracts her opinion that Antigone should obey Creon, and asks how she can help. Her efforts are rebuked, though the two of them do reconcile.
- Setting Update: From Ancient Greece to a relatively modern apartment building.
- Railroading: In order to emphasise the inevitability of tragedy, there are no choices to be made in the game.
- Womanliness as Pathos: While Antigone and her choices are the driving force of the story, her aunt Eurydice and sister Ismene are obedient to Creon and either try to dissuade her from her quest (Ismene) or do not say anything to her at all (Eurydice), much to her chagrin.
- You Can't Fight Fate: The main theme of the game, driven home by the occasional appearence of Teiresias, the seer.
