Harmatia

Hamartia: That quality in excess--perhaps even a virtue--that brings about the fall of the protagonist. Often used in context of Greek tragedies and translated as "tragic flaw".

What's your tragic flaw? Does it really matter? As a critical tool, defining the tragic flaw can be a helpful and interesting endevour. However, in real life, I maintain that people fail (yes, fail) as a result of a complex set of factors, not as a result of any single character trait.

If I were a character in a Greek tragedy, what would my flaw be? Let's call it a propensity for prolonged states of nondiscrimination.

In otherwords, indecision.

My English prof would probably argue that the meaning of the term hamartia as discussed by Aristotle in Poetics isn't really captured in the simplistic translation of "tragic flaw". The more literal translation of "miscalculation" or "missing the mark" is actually more accurate as hamartia can be seen as an incident of the plot or circumstance rather than of a particular person.

But I've long given up any aspirations of pursuing a literary degree, so let's forget that I said anything on this subject.