Complex Characters

[Dragonpit]

Complex =/= better.

Spoiler: Take Cable from X-men for example (as much as I love the character)

Child of famous X-man Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey, abducted as child and taken to limbo, rescued and infected with techno-organic virus. Taken two thousand years into the future by alternative universe half-sister. Cloned. Son is kidnapped. Travels back in time, son is killed in present. Defeats clone and evil dictator from future preventing own timeline from occuring. Wanders earth looking for meaning. Meets amoral mercenary, becomes pseudo-messiah for earth, makes perfect society on island, it is destroyed. Fakes death. Returns to take and raise a potentially re-incarnated Jean Grey (though it looks like that's going to be jossed) to the future before returning to preventing another bad future. Older than his father.

Okay, that's just messed up. I bet if you wrote it out, you could probably publish it as a book, and that's just the explanation! I often hear people complaining about George Lucas milking his franchises until they vaguely resemble raisins or saggy breasts, but that doesn't even compare to the stories of the Marvel/DC heroes. Sadly, that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the character's persona, just his story. To be perfectly honest, we still have a long ways before the human race as a whole can write truly deep characters (See The Escapists' news article entitled "Females on Female Characters" [or something like that]). We'll still keep trying, of course, but I'm left wondering about the standards.

 

[The Apothecarry]

Complex Character Development? Use the Task Force Games Central Casting Heroes of Legend to roll up a background for a D&D character. It will mess with with how you want to run your character.

I rolled a up a character who was victimized for most of her adolescent life. Needless, she has a very good reason to become an Inquisitor of the church.

A more relatable version of a complex character would be Commander Shepard. "It" is designed to be human in an alien world and the emotions "it" displays help us to identify with the character (I AM FULLY AWARE THAT EMOTIONS ARE CHOSEN BY THE PLAYER).

I would hardly call Marcus Fenix soulless. He may be a killing machine but he wasn't exactly uptight and dickish when Dom had to kill his wife. Master Chief's complexity is very shallow, as he is designed to have only enough character to make him unique amongst other game characters while allowing to players to slide into his boots and call themselves the "Master Chief."

 

[WolfThomas]

Okay, that's just messed up. I bet if you wrote it out, you could probably publish it as a book, and that's just the explanation! I often hear people complaining about George Lucas milking his franchises until they vaguely resemble raisins or saggy breasts, but that doesn't even compare to the stories of the Marvel/DC heroes. Sadly, that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the character's persona, just his story. To be perfectly honest, we still have a long ways before the human race as a whole can write truly deep characters (See The Escapists' news article entitled "Females on Female Characters" [or something like that]). We'll still keep trying, of course, but I'm left wondering about the standards.

Oh shit I completely forgot the part about his twin/half brother (it only works with clones of parents), from an alternative universe who was born in a test tube and is genetically identical except a very different person due to his upbring. But yeah, it was actually quite enjoyable when they mocked their own continuity frequently in Cable and Deadpool.

But I agree, what I love about him is not his backstory, but his personality. He's a character whose been fighting monsters since he was a boy and a villain a hundred times worse than hitler in his own words who when he wins his personal war and survives is completely lost existientially. A guy whose also gained and lost the powers of a god and instead of breaking down without them, still has the strength and endurance to keep fighting, be it with a gun or knife or even metallic fist.

 

[RelexCryo]

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Upon finding out that there is a funeral in their honor, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer hide in the rafters of the church holding the funeral. That is reacting to a stimuli.

Upon finding out that his home is full of suitors hitting on his wife, Odysseus kills them all.(Though that is the Odyssey, not the Illiad, admittedly.) That is reacting to stimuli.

One could argue that both are also development of character traits. But they do not function any more as development of character traits than any game mechanic.

But you can imagine other characters reacting really differently to the exact same "stimuli" right? What if Romeo got back home and found Juliet getting woo'd -- Odysseus decided to kill all the other guys but Romeo would be just as likely to kill himself. And Huckleberry Finn would be like "well, that sucks" and run away again. And Othello would maybe jealously kill the woman being woo'd! And Hamlet would whine about it until everyone ended up dead.

Because we have an idea of their characters we can speculate about how they'd all react differently (even though it would be open for debate, of course.)

True. And of course, Sonic would run past enemies, Mario would jump on them, Marcus Fenix would kill them, the kid from Pokemon Snap would take pictures of them, Pyramid Head might molest/rape them, and the guy from Amnesia would hide/run away.

The way in characters react to their environment reveals the nature of their character. You are certainly correct, I am just saying that characters in videogames tend to reveal a lot about their character traits in how they act.

 

[RelexCryo]

I will use these to speak for me.

The Sean Penn Mystic River scene made me chuckle. It wasn't funny enough to make me laugh, though I suspect they were trying to make the audience cry instead. In which case, at least in my case, they failed.

I would be inclined to wonder what sort of character development a character who cannot form new memories would have.

I have nothing to say on the machinist.

 

[mew1234321]

I can't say I'm an expert, especially compared to some of the people n this thread, but, can I put out the three story types?

There are Plot based stories, where it's all about what's happening in the story, Character based stories, which focus on character development and that nice stuff, and Setting based stories, which are like, 'look at this wonderful world I've created', J.R.R Tolkien having a lot of his work being that.

Of course, it's all combinations of the three, to varying degrees, but character based stories do have a lot of their appeal hinged on the people within them, the 'Haruhi Suzumiya' series, I think is a nice example, as are a lot of 'school life' anime.

Still, I have to say that real life people aren't that deep either. I for one know that I'd probably be described as a 'cardboard cut-out character'. My loves in life are videogames, music and being happy, with hints of romance, and pretty much everything I do do follows on from that.

Edit: I wish I was more eloquent than this. D:

 

[The Wykydtron]

Complex characters hmm?

Lelouch from Code Geass is pretty complex, what with the changing motivations and endless lieing.

 

[RelexCryo]

Well, looks like I'm back up for a bit, so for completeness' sake:

Generally speaking, Game mechanics are native to the content of the character.

No. Game mechanics are native to the game mechanics. They have nothing to do with "content of the character." They have to do with the decreed objectives of the game.

Example: Lara Croft kills other people simply to obtain rare artifacts that she wants. She risks death leaping across ledges to get rare artifacts that she wants.

No. "She" doesn't "want" anything except in that the player has been told these things are the objective of the game. If asked why Lara Croft "wants" artifacts badly enough to kill for them (mostly animals, I think) or risk death for them, there is no answer to be had beyond "because the game says so." That isn't true of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, nor is it true of Odysseus (who is astonishingly richly-conceived for a mythical culture-hero character and can be construed as acting at various points out of a sense of martial, familial and social duty or, less nobly, out of wounded personal pride). Similarly, your response to @Evidencebased indicates that most of the videogame "characters" you mention have only game mechanics, not characters. Why would Mario jump on something? Because he's Mario. That's the game mechanic, he stars in platformers. There's no other answer.

I would be inclined to wonder what sort of character development a character who cannot form new memories would have.

Then you should watch the movie. Seriously. It's a good movie. (And you should google "Memento" and "Anterograde Memory Loss." The premise is more complicated than simply "cannot form new memories.")

A) "Why would Mario jump on something? Because he's Mario. That's the game mechanic, he stars in platformers. There's no other answer."

Because he needs to save Peach. Peach is someone he cares deeply about and needs to rescue. Sonic needs to rescue forest animals, Marcus Fenix is fighting for his species, the character from Amnesia is trying to survive, etc. etc.

Your answer implies a basic lack of understanding about videogames in general.

B) As for this little gem: "can be construed as acting at various points out of a sense of martial, familial and social duty or, less nobly, out of wounded personal pride" describes quite a few characters I could name. Chris Redfield comes to mind, (Leon Kennedy does except for not having strong familial ties to any on screen characters,) Alex Shepard of Silent Hill Homecoming fulfills all of them. Heather from Silent Hill 3 fits the description except for the martial aspect, and there are many, many RPG characters I could name that fit that entire description.

 

[RelexCryo]

Because he needs to save Peach. Peach is someone he cares deeply about and needs to rescue.

No, he doesn't "need" to. Peach (in the vast majority of her iterations, anyway, I can't speak to things like Mario RPGs) is an arbitrary game objective. We never know why she's this, or even any specifics of Mario's relationship with her. Because we don't need to. Characterization is not what's going on. Same with most other arbitrary game objectives; you're told a thing is happening or must be done and plopped into an avatar that does it. "X-Men!! Go, and save the city!!" It's not characterization, it's an excuse to indulge the game mechanic.

(The examples in the latter half of your post are more false parallels. You mistakenly seem to imagine that if a game mechanic does something vaguely or remotely similar to a thing that happens in fiction, this makes the "characters" equivalents to those in literature. Again, I think you just are having trouble accurately synthesizing and comparing information here, in much the same way as you appear to simply not know what a "cardboard character" is.)

Your answer implies a basic lack of understanding about videogames in general.

Hiss-hiss, now, no need to get petty about it. FWIW I think there's the germ of some genuinely interesting thinking about game mechanics, characterization and interaction in what you're saying. And like I've said, there are instances of real characterization in gaming. Unfortunately right now you're just too focused on defending a fallacious and uninformed equation of game characters with all other characters to have useful comparative insights. I'd urge you to keep working at these ideas, but toss out that preconceived notion and do some more reading.

And for God's sake get rid of whatever checklist they used in that horrid "Accelerated Reader" program you talked about and go find some real textual analysis. For some close analysis of Shakespeare's characters, for instance (which is a good place to start) get some critical editions of his plays or put them on your Christmas list (Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet are good places to start). A great place to start for literary criticism is Eric Auerbach's classic Mimesis, which spans almost the whole history of Western literature.

You mean like how Calliban is a racist character fundamentally designed to positively portray European imperialism? Been there, done that. Characters in videogames that are well designed and fleshed out aren't exceptions, they are fairly common. The exception to this rule are characters that are avatars, rather than truly characters.

 

[Fawcks]

-Snip-

You need to play Silent Hill 2. Right now.

RIGHT NOW!

 

[RelexCryo]

Because he needs to save Peach. Peach is someone he cares deeply about and needs to rescue.

No, he doesn't "need" to. Peach (in the vast majority of her iterations, anyway, I can't speak to things like Mario RPGs) is an arbitrary game objective. We never know why she's this, or even any specifics of Mario's relationship with her. Because we don't need to. Characterization is not what's going on. Same with most other arbitrary game objectives; you're told a thing is happening or must be done and plopped into an avatar that does it. "X-Men!! Go, and save the city!!" It's not characterization, it's an excuse to indulge the game mechanic.

You know, something occured to me. You keep trying to compare literature that you think are excellent works of art, and which have excellent characterization, to the videogames that have the least characterization. You are not comparing the best literature to the best videogames, you are comparing what you percieve as having excellent characterization to genres(platformers/beatm 'em ups) which have never had characterization as their strong point. One could undoubetdly find a lot of literature with poor characterization if one wanted too.

You are not comparing this literature to franchises such as Silent Hill, which has protagonists whose motives and thoughts are extensively explored, or any game from entire genres dedicated to storyline, such as RPG's.

Your inequitable comparison implies that you either don't have much experience with videogames, or that you lack real faith that the Illiad, for example, does have better characterization and character development than Silent Hill 2.

 

[gundamrx101]

You want depth in videogames? The Persona series, the characters are well rounded and have more going on rather than the 'tough guy' cute schoolgirl' and 'by the book leader' that you're introduced to in the beginning. Even the comic relief character gets serious as the story goes on but STILL manages to crack jokes, meaning that after everything the characters go through and facing their burried secrets they still have their core traits in tact but they also show the maturity they've gained. If that's not complex then good day sir and or madam

 

[RelexCryo]

If you sum up characters like that of course they wont have depth. DUUUH....
You could argue Juliet did, she started out naive and innocent about love, then married and saw what love brought her(happiness with her beloved) and finally the will to die for that person.

The question is not, do characters in literature have depth, but do they have far more than characters in videogames that also feature character development? It is a question of comparison.

 

[RelexCryo]

You know, something occured to me. You keep trying to compare literature that you think are excellent works of art, and which have excellent characterization, to the videogames that have the least characterization.

Uhhhh... I didn't bring up the majority of those comparisons. You did. And you're absolutely right to perceive that Lara Croft and Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog in fact do not compare favorably to characters from the Iliad or classic American literature. That's good, that's progress.

I did, for the record, say that there are indeed exceptional video games that do feature complex characterization. (You'll recall I cited Deus Ex as an example.) Whether or not I'd class anything in them with the great classics of world literature... probably no, not as characters in and of themselves. But then there's a fundamental difference between game characters and novel characters, which is the interactivity of games in which character protagonists -- and the actions of antagonists -- are ideally the sum of the developer's work and the player's actions. I think there's a pretty interesting conversation to be had there, for sure.

True, I did bring them up while replying to another poster. But while western RPG's do allow players some degree on control over the story, JRPG's are rather famous for being on rails, simply to allow for maximum characterization and storytelling. Meaning that both the actions of the protagonist and antagonist are simply the sum of the developer's/authors work. Moreover, well explored motivations and past history are actually pretty common these days in many games across almost every genre.

That said, I apologize for accusing you of using inequitable comparisons, since I was the one to bring most of them up.

 

[GotMalkAvian]

I think one of the fundamental flaws in this whole argument is that we seem to be arguing under the assumption that video games, film, and literature all serve the same purpose. They don't.

Literature and (except for minor exceptions like completely mindless action movies) film are mostly character driven. We are merely passive observers watching as events unfold. Complex characters are important for this, since their reactions to situations drive the story.

Video games are an interactive medium, and thus most of our entertainment is derived from interacting with the game world and solving conflicts that way. If we look at video games from this perspective then complex characters aren't necessary to the experience.

I'm not saying that complex characters don't have a place in video games; of course they do. I'm mostly an RPG gamer, so I thrive on complex characters, but I take far more joy in characters whose personalities I can shape myself as part of the interactive experience. On the other hand, I'm perfectly capable of enjoying a game like Gears of War for what it has to offer, and don't find a lack of complex characters detrimental to that particular experience.

In a nut shell, I think we can make the following comparisons:

Mass Effect = The Wrestler = Great Expectations - primarily character-driven, with any conflicts acting as a catalyst for character development

Devil May Cry = Die Hard = The Dresden Files - mostly character-driven, with character development sometimes secondary to action

Gears of War = Shoot 'Em Up = X-Men - mostly conflict-driven, with characters sketched intentionally thin to focus on action