The protagonist is more important in a video game than in a book or a movie. In a book or a movie, the protagonist is a vehicle. We see things through their eyes, and sometimes a book about a flawed or terrible protagonist can still come out to a worthwhile experience. In video games, I have an impossible time playing as a tragically flawed protagonist. I've started up a Warden who's only goal is to eradicate the Darkspawn at all costs in Dragon Age: Origins with the goal of fulfilling all achievements -- and I hate playing her. I'm playing a Light Side Jedi in the first KOTOR, and the insane brutality of the Dark Side achievements aren't luring me at all. As a protagonist, you act in their shoes. Reading about Holden Caulfield bothered me. I can't describe how painful it would be to act out and play through his journey,
There are different types of protagonists, all with their own flaws in games. The medium is still immature -- maybe I'll be able to play a Holden Caulfield type and the game will be constructed so that I feel the same mix of empathy, pity, disdain and fear that I did when I read Catcher in the Rye. But here's what we have for now:
The Unmolded Clay: The Exile from KOTOR 2, The Vault Dweller, the Chosen One, the Wanderer from the Fallout games, Shepard from Mass Effect, The Warden from Dragon Age
The Unmolded Clay is a character who always has some consistancies - the Exile always chose to follow Revan and Malak, the Dweller always went to find the Water Chip for his Vault, the Chosen One always went to find the G.E.C.K. and ended up saving the world, the Warden is always a Gray Warden who is fighting the Archdemon, and Shepard was always the first human Spectre.
The Unmolded Clay is interesting because of the amount of variety you can have in one character (usually determined by a morality bar). Shepard, whether Paragon or Renegade, is always slightly single-minded, fiercely protective of her interests and beliefs, able to build and lead a crew and stoke loyalty in their hearts and save the day. However, Shepard can be male or female, xenophobic or inclusive, empathetic or violent, loyal or treacherous. Shepard is, to me, always a Paragon woman who is backed by her second-in-comman Kaiden at all times against all dangers, a protector of the galaxy. To you, Shepard might be something completely different.
There are obvious strengths to the Unmolded Clay - I always have insane amounts of fun talking to people about how we solved different conflicts in Dragon Age - but weaknesses too. In Dragon Age, my character never seemed to show much emotion. She was a literal blank slate. Technological limitations led to a lack of animations or voice acting for the Warden, and it limited my experience somewhat. There's also the old stereotype of saving a bucket of kittens from a villain or eating those kittens alive - the extreme black and white morality that the Unmolded Clay is only beginning to grow out of.
Fallout 3 handled the Unmolded Clay clumsily - I could shoot an innocent woman and her family in the head, but as long as I was willing to hand bottles of purified water to a hobo over and over again, I'd turn out to be an okay guy.
The Silent Protagonist: Gordon Freeman from Half-Life, Isaac Clarke from Dead Space, Mario from the Mario Brothers, Link from the Legend of Zelda, Samus Aran from Metroid.
The Silent Protaganist grunts, breathes heavily inside their armor, nods, squints, or makes facial expressions sometimes - Wind Waker Link and Twilight Princess link almost don't fall into the Silent Protaganist category at all - but otherwise they are silent, unspeaking and meant for the player to simply be.
There are of course, immediate flaws to this theory. Gordon Freeman is a white male with glasses and a degree. I'm a woman. There's an immediate suspension of disbelief there, so I have work a little bit harder to get into his head. This could arguably be solved by putting a mask on him and calling him "Doctor Freeman", but that could also eliminate the greatest strength of the Silent Protagonist, and that is his allies.
Alyx loves Gordon, not Cassandra, and the way they interact is clearly heartwarming. As was watching Link try to deal with Tetra, or save his sister. The silent protagonist allows us to inhibit an existing character and pick up his baggage, skills and charms without ever having to disagree with him. If Gordon ever told Alyx "Wow, you're really annoying. Can you shut up?" That would not be a hero I wanted to play (although some people do have this reaction to Alyx!)
Of course, it's always painful to see Alyx grin at you and go "Silent type, huh?"
Finally, we have the Full Fledged Character: Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Niko Bellic from Grand Theft Auto IV, Altair and Ezio from Assassins Creed, Harry, James and Heather from the Silent Hill series
This seems to be a less popular protagonist nowadays, and part of that is one of the earlier flaws I mentioned: sometimes you hate the guy you're suppose to be controlling. Niko Bellic was a well-rounded, well-written character. I hated him. I didn't want to play him or romance ladies or go bowling with Roman. Maybe the GTA download packs are for me, maybe not. In any case, I never beat GTA IV, because as soon as I hit a hard spot and got stuck I realized I didn't care what Niko's ultimate fate was and put in Mass Effect instead.
The most well-done protagonist of this type, in my opinion, is Nathan Drake. He shouts "Shit, shit!" when you have no cover and a grenade is thrown. He scoffs "Yeah, THIS will help" at machine gun ammo when you're up against a helicopter. He speaks for the player - he's simple, but very well written. Snake is another great example. The codex is a brilliant, optional way to bring him to life.
What sort of protagonist have you loved? What kind have you hated? I love Bioware Unmoldeds, Silent Protagonists are fine if a little weak for me, and Characters are hit and miss. It all comes down to preference -- but it really makes or breaks a game for me.
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First of all, great post! You really nailed the archetypes.
ReplyDeleteBrowser just ate my big post, so I'll do a short version.
I like Characters if they're well written. I find they're especially memorable if they do things I wouldn't if I had the choice. Like CJ from GTA San Andreas, or Agent 47 from Hitman Silent Assassin. Poorly written characters can be far far worse than silent protagonists. Take the guy from Prey. Arguing with your grandfather that you don't believe in Native American mysticism while you're in the aforementioned afterlife after dying on an alien spaceship, ugh.
Silent Protagonists work well if they don't encounter a lot of (friendly) people during the game. Like Samus, Gordon, Chell, Point Man from FEAR. Not so well if character intereaction is a bit part of the game, like in Morrowind and Oblivion, which had little to no dialogue options and felt very weak as a result.
Unmoldeds can work well too if done right. I think Mass Effect has been one of my favourite. Paragons can be good without being overwhelming naive or pacifistic. Renegades don't have to eat puppies or club baby seals either. KoToR 1 and 2 had this problem. And the main questlines usually make little sense if you take the really evil path anyway. So basically less Black and White, more shades of grey works well for me. I love Shepard(haven't finished the game yet though), I still enjoyed Revan and the Monk from Jade Empire, but only on the good/neutral path. I didn't like the Vault Dweller quite as much, probably because she didn't have followers by default to help reinforce her character.
It's so funny - I actually adored GTA 4 for Niko, because he was a guy who'd "been through some shit", as he said. I've played through the story four times now (trying to get all the achievements), and for me, it was only the presence of Niko, hating what he was doing, wanting only to finally get away and stop doing it, recognizing his own brokenness, that made the game playable.
ReplyDeleteIf it weren't for that, if I didn't care about Niko and want to bring him to the apotheosis, I'd never have been able to shut my ears to the constant stream of racism and sexism and transphobia and homophobia and...
Interesting how people can have such totally different takes on characters. When it came to Starkiller from SW:TFU, I never even finished the game, playing maybe ten hours or so, because I found his character so blank, so unmoulded clay, that I couldn't identify with him at all.