The depth of protagonists VS antagonists

[vlake0]

I think it can be broken down to: The villain is given this back story so you know what he is. The Hero's story is being told to you so you go along with him or her to find out who they'll become. So basically, the villain's story starts in the middle and hero's story starts at the beginning.

 

[Musashi]

Heroes are not good because they are heroes, they are heroes because they are good, but, like other people said, good and evil are not universal terms. A thief can be seen as evil to his victim but good to his family, we have lots of thieves/assassins heroes in games.

I don't like the idea of finding specific reasons why a character is essentially good or evil, because this is not how a good character is made. Two brothers raised in the same way could turn up quite different from each other. Most people are NPCs, a mix of good and evil, but without much action. What is important is what drives the characters actions. It doesn't matter if or why he is good or evil, but why he decided to act like a 'hero' or 'villain'. Why a good guy suddenly puts a mask and starts saving people on his city? What makes the bad guy start to kill innocent people? Being just good or evil is not a good reason. An NPC who says " My heart was broken when i was young, now i hate all humans! I would kill them all if i could!" is probably a bad person, but not a villain until he starts to act.

 

[Vox Novus]

I think it comes natural to explain the reason why villains act the way they do rather than heroes. The vast majority of people while not overtly "good" perhaps aren't evil in the sense that they want to cause genuine harm to someone (because of how they were raised, etc...) so that's why more focus is put on the development of the villain from that stance; we need to be convinced of why they act the way they do when that is not the norm.

One way of developing a hero is the story pushing them into something more becoming more than the rascal, jokester, fairly average nobody they were before. For all we know they could have turned out different if it wasn't for this event in their life. One example of this is Cloud from Final fantasy 7 by all means he was a relatively good person but he wanted to be a soldier, a tool of war for Shinra someone that would potentially kill innocents if those were his orders under the right circumstances. It is Sephiroth's Betrayal and fall to a Villain that keeps Cloud from straying too far down an evil path and ultimately motivates him down the path of good.

Going along with my example of Cloud above I think it's important to put perspective on what makes a hero a hero. Is it that they are good people? Yes and no. Now it would be hard to get players behind playing as some ruthless serial killer with no real morals but that isn't to say that the typical hero is good. In many fantasy game settings the hero is actually a killer; a soldier in the local kingdom's army who has slain enemy civilians or soldiers, even just some lad who goes around slaying creatures in their natural habitat. Under a different perspective the hero could be a villain. It thus becomes important to establish the perspective that makes the main character (s) heroic, either something changes there ways like Cecil in Final Fantasy IV or the hero is looked at from a perspective that justifies their actions. Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits does a good job of examining two enemy sides from different perspectives which makes the sides look both good and evil.

The current focus of the game I'm developing focuses on that perspective, it is made clear that the main character once wanted to be genuinely good in his interest in becoming a soldier but he has strayed from that childhood ideal and now become what it really means to be a soldier in the games setting, a justified killer. He can't even express his real feelings for his actions anymore. In this game the real villain isn't some person but rather war and hate itself. The main character ultimately changes due to his interactions with others all with their own viewpoints and sides and because of the events of the story we see him become a good person rather than the potentially evil person he had started as.

 

[Clord]

Good is subjective to various viewpoints.


Let's say you're fictional country's dictator and have a decision to make. Feed your starving population or send foreign aid to recently decimated ally who just barely won their war and need to rebuild so they have a great need for foreign supplies.


Now which choice is objectively good? I would say neither.

 

[dungeon diver]

Good people holding power often have to make the hardest, and most unpopular choices. I think some of my favorite heroes in media tend to have at least a brief window into knowing what it's like to be treated as a villain, to be subjected to an angry mob that disagrees with the hero's choices because they weren't present in the context in which they were made. Heroes are also in a position to make massive blunders when they don't have the full story about what's going on, because anyone with clear motivations will have a degree of tunnel vision obfuscating the big picture of the consequences of their actions.

I think the first game I played that made the player feel like both the hero and a hostile, alien force in the game's world was Ultima V. Throughout the game there's this recurring theme that because you basically abandoned the world after the events of Ultima IV, the void you left led to the virtues discovered in Ultima IV being taken too far into an authoritative mindset. NPCs are wary of you, and otherwise good people will call the guards on you for being suspicious because of the general air of paranoia about.

There was even a rough choice to be made if your party got captured; the villain demands you give him knowledge that will help him conquer the world, or he permanently kills your companions one by one while you look on helplessly. There is no convenient heroic "out", you're either aiding the villain or being responsible for the deaths of your allies.

Ultima VI continued this general theme, except more based on the Avatar's action than inaction. All the events and conflict in the game stem from the Avatar accidentally stealing a holy relic from another race of beings and trying to patch things up again.

Those games had some really strong premises to them, even if they're rough to play now from a gameplay perspective.

 

[hian]

I think you kind of *have* to make your villains a little more developed than your heroes.


In most games--and in fact, most stories--the villain is trying to upset the status quo,


whether it's committing theft or murder or kidnapping, or taking over the world.

Except in many stories, where the villains are the status quo, such as oppressive regimes, or


large shadowy corporations, but I get your point.

Most people will just go on with their lives,


so a person would have to have some pretty good reasons to put in the effort to mount a


campaign of world domination.


Now look at your heroes. They are knights, soldiers, detectives and government agents.


It's their job to stop the bad people who want to muck things up.

As are most people who're in heroic professions - there is literally a point, where the average


person, soldier or not, are going to need some real thorough motivation to go into


"let's save the world"-mode - especially if the villain isn't the "let's destroy everything" kinda guy/gal.

Cecil is a knight. Mario's girlfriend was abducted. Donkey Kong's bananas were stolen.


Mega Man is following his programming.


Isaac and co just don't want their world destroyed,


and there aren't a lot of other people who can prevent it.


Also, not making the hero super-super developed makes


it a little easier for the player to immerse themselves in the game.

These are good examples of heroes that don't need much development. I am not necessarily lamenting lack


of development in and of itself, as I've touched on earlier, certain types of stories


don't attempt to be complex to begin with.


I'm primarily looking at stories that are inconsistent in that they treat their villains with


care, but not their protagonists.


Especially in scenarios where most people would make the self-interested choice.


Simply put - when the average person can't even be bothered to check if the guy passed out


next to them on the subway is dead or not, to the point that a corpse can ride the subway


for hours on end (true story), then when a hero decides to suddenly get involved when he


sees a girl being accosted by a bunch of soldiers by the wayside, and decides to "get involved",


because hey, "I'm just good that way", and then keeps that up until he selflessly tries


to save the entire world against "undefeatable" odds, with no real back-story, I feel like there is


something missing.

I don't like the idea of finding specific reasons why a character is essentially good or evil,


because this is not how a good character is made.


Two brothers raised in the same way could turn up quite different from each other.


Most people are NPCs, a mix of good and evil, but without much action.


What is important is what drives the characters actions.


It doesn't matter if or why he is good or evil, but why he decided to act like a 'hero' or 'villain'.


Why a good guy suddenly puts a mask and starts saving people on his city?


What makes the bad guy start to kill innocent people? Being just good or evil is not a good reason.

This entire paragraph is internally inconsistent.


If or why a person is "good" or "evil" is the reason why he decides to act like a hero or a villain.


If you are providing the hero or villain reasons for the behavior, than that is the explanation


of their motivations, and by extension their character.

An NPC who says " My heart was broken when i was young, now i hate all humans!


I would kill them all if i could!" is probably a bad person, but not a villain until he starts to act.

If he starts acting however, you would know why. Also, people are defined by their actions.


You are what you do, not what you think.

I think it comes natural to explain the reason why villains act the way they do rather than heroes.


The vast majority of people while not overtly "good" perhaps aren't evil in the sense that they want


to cause genuine harm to someone (because of how they were raised, etc...)


so that's why more focus is put on the development of the villain from that stance;


we need to be convinced of why they act the way they do when that is not the norm.

This presupposes the explicitly and overtly evil antagonist though - since most


"evil people" don't consider themselves evil, nor are they acting out of bounds of ordinary human behavior.


Bad, dictatorial governments for instance do not require much explaining at all.


Neither does actions motivated by greed, or anger or sadness, which feature prominently in all


humans and motivate us to hurt people all the time without taking up much notice from anyone


except the victims of the act.


Neutrality is the one thing that requires the least amount of explanation, because most people are


neutral. Most people however, will not put their life on the line for altruistic reasons,


except for close and familiar relations.


I can grant a hero going out to save his family or spouse without the need of much explanation.


When the hero is superman-level of goodness, especially if the rest of the narrative is complex


when concerning other characters, then I start raising an eye-brow.


Although I have mixed feelings about the series as a whole, "Arrow", based on the comic, is actually very


well written in regards to the Arrow's motivations. He isn't actually interested in doing good


at all, to begin with. He is out for revenge. He starts being good and altruistic as the result


of a personal journey of introspection fueled by the influence of people he grows close


to throughout the series. Specifically, a lot of his altruism is tied to the concept of atonement


for past wrongs.


That's a motivation that's relatively easy to understand, which also makes the Arrow feel like


an actual human being, not just the "born hero" of heroic sagas.

One way of developing a hero is the story pushing them into something more becoming more than the rascal,


jokester, fairly average nobody they were before.


For all we know they could have turned out different if it wasn't for this event in their life.


One example of this is Cloud from Final fantasy 7 by all means he was a relatively good person but he


wanted to be a soldier, a tool of war for Shinra someone that would potentially kill


innocents if those were his orders under the right circumstances.


It is Sephiroth's Betrayal and fall to a Villain that keeps Cloud from straying too far down an evil path


and ultimately motivates him down the path of good.

Agree with your point - but as a FF7 fanatic, I disagree with your reading of the story =P


Cloud joined soldier because he dreamed of becoming a hero like Sephiroth from his early childhood.


At that point, I don't think he had given any thought at all to the moral implications of being


a soldier for Shinra.


In fact, like many people, through the Shinra propaganda tool, at the height of their


economical growth, he probably though they were the good guys, and the Wutai rebels the


bad guys.


After the events of Crisis Core however, Cloud adopted a personality of what he thought


a 1st class soldier was supposed to act like, based on general knowledge and the limited knowledge


he had of Zack's personality poorly stringed together.


At that point, Cloud was neutral, bordering on very self-interested.


If anything, Cloud's 1st class soldier persona is nothing like Zack's, which would be


the more generally "good, up-beat, altruistic" hero.


He only cared about earning cash as a mercenary, and was goaded into helping Barret and Co


through "emotional blackmail" (a bad conscience - I don't think Tifa meant it in a bad way)


per his childhood promise to Tifa.


It isn't until Cloud meets Aerith that he actually starts to become more altruistic as


she gets under his skin.


Even in the beginning of their pursuit of Sephiroth, Cloud isn't really doing it to save the world,


but because, again, of his personal desires - this time for revenge.


This becomes even more pronounced once Sephiroth kills Aerith.


Cloud doesn't really develop into a truly good and altruistic person until after Tifa


fixes his broken mind, and he manages to partial cope with the loss of Aerith through the


support of Tifa and the rest of the cast.


The irony of it all, is that Cloud as a character is actually much more similar to Zack


as a character, post his mind being repaired, than prior, when he had their personas confused.

 

[Musashi]

There is a difference in finding reasons for actions and finding reasons for being a good or bad person.

Let me use an example:

A game about a police officer (protagonist) trying to catch a thief (antagonist).

A game about a thief (protagonist) trying to scape from a police officer(antagonist).

 

In a simpler world, a police officer is good person and thief is bad person, right?

Usually players don't want to play as a bad protagonist, so if we are using the thief as the protagonist, we have to make him a good person doing a bad thing. So, why a good person is doing a bad thing? Ok, he stole a potion to his dying mother. This is why he is doing a bad action. But he is a good guy, we can see it, he helps his mother, he treats others well...why? It doesn't matter! The reason behind his action is important, not his essence, we don't have to look into his childhood to find a reason why he is a good guy.

 

Now, the police officer, he is just doing his job, chase a thief is a good thing to do, but we want a bad antagonist for some reason. So, now, our police officer is a dirty cop working for the mob. why? because he is a bad guy looking for some easy money. why he is bad? it doesn't matter, again.

If we want to make him more complex, we can find a reason why he joined the mob. So, maybe he is a not such a bad guy, because he 

joined the mob just because he also needs the extra money to buy potions for his mother! So if he is not a bad person, maybe when he catches the thief he could give him a second chance and let him run again. But why this "good- bad- actually good - antagonist" is "actually good"? It doesn't matter. Maybe he wont give the thief a second chance because he is a bad guy after all, doing bad things for the mob for a good reason (help his mother). He is fine doing terrible things because he is a bad person, while the thief feels bad doing bad things and wouldn't go too far (like killing a person). If you want to say "He is comfortable doing bad things because he is a bad person because *trauma*" than you're looking for some bad psychology.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

I'm a bit confused by this topic? Maybe I'm playing different games/watching different shows, but most always have some flashback sequence describing where the protagonist came from and why they are fighting for good (or for change; or for whatever they are fighting for) It's typically pretty eyerollingly lame, but they are there. "failed to defend someone in the past and now hung up on some selfless save everyone even if it hurts myself complex' 'watched the 'evil' destroy their home/family/friends and wants to stop that from happening to other people/get revenge'

In short  - 'saw bad stuff and wants to stop bad stuff.'  ((Which, I personally find most of these things pretty boring overall, but then the "Main Character" is almost always the character I like the least anyway, so whatever))

The only stories I can think of where the main character is given ZERO motivations are open ended games where your main character is meant to be a blank slate so you can project onto them what you want and roleplay to fit the bill. (and those sorts of games quite often give you the opportunity to be evil for no reason just as well as good.) Giving in-depth backstoryand drive to a character like that would defeat the purpose of the character having little personality to begin with, so it makes more sense not to.

My personal bigger issue with the typical Heroic Main Character is that I find they are given very little room to grow as a character. That whatever goodness they hold from past trauma mostly goes unchallenged throughout the story, or whatever challenge it faces (even logical, practical, TRUE challenge) is usually pressed back by "they are heroric and good and therefor right" and not much else. That their position as the Main Character gives them some sort of immunity to being wrong - which to me is just lame writing. I get so sick of seeing Heroes who are always right to the point of even when they are wrong, it ends up working out right.

I also don't feel that the majority of villain characters are given any more depth than that either. They are given a reason to be 'bad' and to be seeking their goal and that's that. (Which is often all you need to start a story) It just feels like their ideology is more developed because, unlike the hero, when their morality and behaviour is faced with challenge, it is shown that they are 'wrong' and that forces the character (and the writer) to continue to work the character to allow them to continue to project why they think they are in the right. And, normally, stopping them is going to make some sort of change happen (or it would feel like a waste of a story) So it builds a false illusion of development, when really they are being built off the same stepping stones.

Now, I do absolutely agree that a lot of character development is hinged on the assumption that 'good people do good things,' and I do agree that I wish the mentality of a 'Hero' was faced with more opposition by the stories that use them, that the trope was better explored and picked apart, that 'good' wasn't a magical force that can defeat all logic, but I just don't fully follow the point in the topic that villains are any more developed than heroes in most stories.

I'd be curious to know what story-driven games with a developed main character who has ZERO given reasons to be who they are we're referring to here.

 

[Vox Novus]

Agree with your point - but as a FF7 fanatic, I disagree with your reading of the story =P

Yeah I've played Crisis Core, seen advent children and even played dirge of cerberus so I'm somewhat of a fanatic myself and understand what the story is supposed to be. I didn't mean to imply that Cloud wanted to be a killer for Shinra, just that regardless of his actual intentions that's what it meant he aspired to be and who knows how he would have turned out if there wasn't a catalyst to push him down one way or the other more long term.

I"m sure many of the shinra troops would have felt like they were the heroes in the war with wutai and that wutai was the enemy. That's part of where the perspective comes in in situations like this; wutai is the evil to Shinra and Shinra is the Evil to wutai. Both sides view themselves as good and the other Evil. In many rpgs from the villains perspective he/she wouldn't view themselves as a villain either; imagine replaying FF 7 written from Sephiroth's perspective the player could be convinced that he was a tragic hero and Cloud and the gang were just a group of brigands trying to stop him from seeking out revenge for what he thinks is his mother and his race. Granted annihilating the planet is an extreme for a hero but you get what I mean.

It is through comparing the villain against the hero and vice-versa (as well as the scenario of the story) that we can establish what is good and what is evil as the game progresses. For example the main character as a soldier kills but given the proper context (compared to the villain's actions and the story scenario) his actions can be forgiven.

I guess to tie this back into your original topic question, games do try to explore why the hero is good from his past (maybe not enough mind you) however it is ultimately the experience and progression of the game that can truly define the hero as good (and perhaps that's why the focus is more on that). This let's us see who they end up becoming by the end of the game, the hero could ultimately turn out to be viewed as evil regardless of the intent of his past depending upon the events of the game.

 

[hian]

There is a difference in finding reasons for actions and finding reasons for being a good or bad person.


Let me use an example:


A game about a police officer (protagonist) trying to catch a thief (antagonist).


A game about a thief (protagonist) trying to scape from a police officer(antagonist).

No, because people are defined by their actions - A person who does bad things, is a bad person, and so their reasons


for doing bad things is, by proxy, the reason they are bad.


A "bad" person who doesn't do bad things, is not a bad person at all.

Usually players don't want to play as a bad protagonist, so if we are using the thief as the protagonist,


we have to make him a good person doing a bad thing. So, why a good person is doing a bad thing?


Ok, he stole a potion to his dying mother. This is why he is doing a bad action.

Except, if you provide the right amount of justification for the "bad act", then it isn't a bad


act anymore is it? Stealing isn't inherently bad - and nobody would describe what Robin Hood is doing


as a bad act.


And realistically speaking, this is the same for all villains. No villain is going to go around


doing bad things knowing full well that it's bad, and doing because it's bad -


Which is why the distinction between a good and a bad person lies in the "validity" of the reasons


for the actions they take.

But he is a good guy, we can see it, he helps his mother, he treats others well...why? It doesn't matter!


The reason behind his action is important, not his essence,


we don't have to look into his childhood to find a reason why he is a good guy.

My point is that the reasons behind is action is his essence. To make a distinction there is pointless.


If you're providing the reasons for his actions, you're doing the very thing I am asking for -


explaining why he is the way he is - because humans are what they do.


To say that a person is one thing, but does something else, or nothing at all, is meaningless.


A "good" person who does evil, or does not do good, does not magically still possess some essence


of "goodness".


Your example of a "good" person doing something "bad", like in the context of the thief stealing


for noble motives doesn't make your argument unless you presuppose that the moral value


of actions exist in a vacuum, void of both intent and concrete results.


However, the reason we see theft as bad is because of the impact it has on its victims, and on the reasons


of the person doing the theft.


So, when a thief steals for the "right" reasons - they're not actually doing something bad - they're doing something


good, and that's why they're still a good person.


This all matters if the protagonist, in a world of greys, written with complex justification for all other major characters,


is doing something as uncharacteristic of a human being as utter and complete selflessness.


There is a reason why Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi etc. are so memorable - and that's because the level of altruism


those guys exhibit is highly uncharacteristic of the vast majority of human's on earth.


To a degree, your point doesn't seem to address my actual contention here, because I've time and time again


specified that I am talking specifically about this as an issue of consistency - not as a zero-sum game,


where we have to provide thorough justifications for why average hero Joe doesn't murder innocent people -


however, to say that, if you're writing a story of some complexity, where you think your villain needs


ample justification for, let's say, attempting to become dictator of a country (which to be fair, is not


even all that uncommon for humans to attempt to do), whilst not bothering to created good reasons


for why the hero suddenly decides to start an armed insurrection to stop him - to me - seems like lazy writing.

Now, the police officer, he is just doing his job, chase a thief is a good thing to do,


but we want a bad antagonist for some reason.


So, now, our police officer is a dirty cop working for the mob. why? because he is a bad guy looking for some easy money.


why he is bad? it doesn't matter, again.

Actually, I think this matters very much. If you're content to write a villain as just "a bad guy looking for


easy money", then by all means - but that's the very definition of lazy writing.


If all you're looking to write is this Disney-esque good vs evil narrative, and you're consistent in that approach,


then you sure - no problem.


But, in any other story, that would be lazy.


If the cop is doing people injustice in want of easy cash, then that is the qualifying factor that makes him


a bad person - however, at that point I would want to know his reasons for wanting money so bad that he's


willing to do injustice to innocent people. Whether we're content to write him off as greedy, which is still


a bit lazy, or whether we write him as a person who's greedy because he grew up in poverty, it's still better than


nothing at all, in that specific context.


Again, it depends on how consistent it all is -


There is nothing wrong with simple stories. The issue comes with simple solutions opted for out of lack


of care, or just laziness, when people have otherwise spent a great deal of time and effort on other aspects


of the story.

If we want to make him more complex, we can find a reason why he joined the mob.


So, maybe he is a not such a bad guy, because he 


joined the mob just because he also needs the extra money to buy potions for his mother!


So if he is not a bad person, maybe when he catches the thief he could give him a second chance and let him run again.


But why this "good- bad- actually good - antagonist" is "actually good"?


It doesn't matter. Maybe he wont give the thief a second chance because he is a bad guy after all,


doing bad things for the mob for a good reason (help his mother).

Except, you've just now explained, throughout this entire paragraph why this character is good, or bad,


or a mixture of both. If it doesn't matter, why did you just do that?

He is fine doing terrible things because he is a bad person,

You're again putting the cart before the horse. It's the fact that he is fine doing terrible things,


that makes him a bad person, not the other way around. If it was the other way around,


that presupposes that you can have a person who is fundamentally bad, without doing bad things -


which is completely nonsensical.

while the thief feels bad doing bad things and wouldn't go too far (like killing a person).


If you want to say "He is comfortable doing bad things because he is a bad person because *trauma*"


than you're looking for some bad psychology.

Not really. Anti-social actions are, psychologically speaking, almost entirely certain to be tied together


to past formative experiences. Unless you want to run with the assumption that some people are just born


bad, which actually would be very bad psychology, then each and every person who does something "bad" are either


A.) doing it because they don't actually think it's bad (good, but misguided intentions), or because


B.) they're sadists (actually enjoy doing things that hurt other people).


That being said though, this is all irrelevant, because I am not saying that protagonists mental-states


need to be explained down to their basic personas as a result of formative experiences -


I am simply saying that I want rationales and motives that are convincing to the degree of the


heroic deeds they perform, granted the same is provided for their antagonists.


If the antagonists wish to destroy the world is explained through lengthy flash-backs involving


tragic pasts and a slow decent into madness, then I wish to know why the local thief turned hero,


suddenly decided it was a good idea to try to stop the guy who presumably has enough power


to destroy the entire planet, beyond appeal to general goodness.


As I brought up in my previous post -


Cloud is a really good example of a hero with depth in this regard -


He isn't a hero because he is essentially good - he is a hero because his actions accumulate into


heroic deeds, although they are by and large for personal gain.


The fact that he just wants to kick Sephiroth in the balls for torching his home town, killing everyone


in the process, and then murdering his next (maybe, depending on how you play) love-interest,


provides plenty of rationale, and I don't need more beyond that.


A character that fails miserably in this regard would be Link, in most of the Zelda games.


But then again, the Zelda games usually don't try to tell a story to the same extent as say,


most FF games, so I don't really see that as a real issue.


My real problem is if you were to insert a hero like Link, into a narrative like FF7 -


and unfortunately, that seems to be a thing at times.


@Makio-Kuta :


Well, to be fair, I don't think there are many stories that give zero thought to protagonist


motivations for doing good things -


I was talking comparatively, to say villains, within specific stories.


One story that comes to mind pretty quickly, is FF10 and its protagonist Tidus -


While Tidus is given motivations for why he tags along with Yuna and her followers


(to get back to Zanarkand), he is uncharacteristically goodie-two-shoes


throughout most the game, despite the fact that the narrative also establishes him


as a really self-centered person at other times.


This jives a lot to me, when he suddenly starts going on about helping this or that


character all of the sudden.


I think were the break really happens for me, is the side-tracking goodness of a


lot of characters in JRPG, where your party of protagonists will constantly step out


of the way to help this and that villager solve their personal squabbles, or kill


a dangerous monster, or stop the unjust local warlord from kidnapping the village


girls etc.


I get why the villains wants to blow up the planet - he is bat-**** insane due


to having been submitted to intrusive experiments (Kefka), or a narcissist with


illusions of grandeur (Sephiroth), or maybe just a guy who loves girls,


but doesn't care about consent (Don Corneo) -


However, when Claude and Rena from Star Ocean the Second Story stop every 5 god damn minutes


to save everyone and their grandmother just because, I start getting reeeaaal tired.

 

[captainproton]

Thing is, the "stealing to feed family/heal sick" thing creates an erroneous equivalency between good/evil and legality/crime. What is legal is not always right, and vice versa.

That's why we have a legal system built around tempering law with compassion and reason.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Suddenly realized I had written a blog post on this topic not that long ago.

Its not my best written article, but it does discuss the idea of protagonists and motivation.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

@Hian: ah, thanks for that example. Tidus was such a nonexistant character to me when i played that game (because i found him boring/i could never fully decide if he was his own character or meant to be mostly blank for the player to be him) so he didnt come to mind. I don't honestly even remember what his deal was.

I wonder how the sidequest thing could be avoided though. Most sidequests are done at the player's will, so that shift in character to helping people with a character who otherwise might not is up to the person playing the game.

Anyway, I'm not a fan of the goodie-two-shoes hero even when they do have justification for it. It's really boring for me to suffer through a character like that.

 

[Vox Novus]

To circumvent the whole side-quest issue, if the characters are helping others out it should probably have some context in the story for why they might do so. For example in Resonance of Fate the main characters are mercenaries/hunters for hire they make their living by helping people out with whatever task they are hired for. It's made clear they aren't extremely wealthy or anything either so it's reasonable to believe they would take the time to stop what they are currently doing to help someone else out if there was some sort of incentive to it. 

Look at a character like Yuna from FF X or Collette from Tales of Symphonia, both are on missions that require they essentially save the world through their actions but it is also reasonable that they take time to help people out with other things that is much less important than saving the world because they must essentially live up to being champions of the people.

If there isn't good context for the hero doing those types of sidequests maybe it would be best to have sidequests that make more sense (for example it would make sense a soldier might go to an arena and participate or learn from a swordmaster to keep his skills sharp for the larger quest at hand), or to not have sidequests if nothing really fits.

 

[Bribolox]

This entire paragraph is internally inconsistent.

If or why a person is "good" or "evil" is the reason why he decides to act like a hero or a villain.

If you are providing the hero or villain reasons for the behavior, than that is the explanation

of their motivations, and by extension their character.

No, actually it is not.  Defining why someone is good or evil is NOT the same as finding a reason for their actions.  Not at all.

If you say this character is evil because of something that happened to him, that doesn't automatically explain every action he ever takes.  "He kidnapped that girl because he's evil" is not the same as "He kidnapped that girl because he needs the ransom money for his plans." 

 

[Bribolox]

Except, if you provide the right amount of justification for the "bad act", then it isn't a bad

act anymore is it? Stealing isn't inherently bad - and nobody would describe what Robin Hood is doing

as a bad act.

Yes, actually, stealing IS inherently bad - it's taking something that doesn't belong to you, something you did nothing to earn but just decide to take.  Robin Hood is make-believe.  And no amount of justification can ever make a "bad act" into anything else, EXCEPT TO THE PERSON DOING IT.  Which is exactly the point of this whole thread- why villians have more of a backstory than heroes do. 

 

[dungeon diver]

Yes, actually, stealing IS inherently bad - it's taking something that doesn't belong to you, something you did nothing to earn but just decide to take.  Robin Hood is make-believe.  And no amount of justification can ever make a "bad act" into anything else, EXCEPT TO THE PERSON DOING IT.  Which is exactly the point of this whole thread- why villians have more of a backstory than heroes do. 

This isn't some sort of inherent, authoritative moral code. Different lenses of ethics see stealing under a dire situation of necessity differently.

Under a Christian lens, for example, stealing for the end of feeding a starving family is not an inherently evil act because the sanctity of life trumps the sanctity of private ownership.

 

[9tkitsune]

I hope I'm not repeating anything that ha already been written.. : ) 

Personally, all background story fluff stuff aside,  I think one shouldn't risk missing the point, that the protagonist / hero is meant for. 

He is supposed to be a role-model of spirit and morale for the players (often kids). : )   Which I am okay with. For that, he doesn't really need a deep story.
Furthermore, the 'silent protagonist' is supposed to be mostly the player in front of the screen and thus has even less reason for an overly complex background story. : )