In Defense of Silent Protagonists

[veloper]

It would be better to say that a silent protagonist doesn't make a bad game.
You could even go as far as to say that a silent protagonist doesn't have to make your mediocre game story any worse.
Still a blank canvas is not a good character.

Game: good in it's day. Character: neither good or bad, just blank.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Personally, I find it really strange to have a voiced protagonist in a first-person game. I can't see my character's face, and I can't see his mouth. (Or, in extremely rare and exotic circumstances: her mouth.) I don't know when he's talking and I don't know what mood he's in. Then suddenly a voice enters the scene. It's supposedly mine, but it's not saying things I want to say and it's not expressing emotions I'm feeling. Why am I inside this guy's head if I'm not privy to what's going on in there?

Smells like Far Cry 3 in here. Jason Brody also felt like some weird disembodied voice that was hitching a ride with me.

There's a sliding scale of silent vs. characterized, and far too many developers are haphazard and thoughtless about which tropes they use for different points on the scale. If you're going to have minimal characterization, then you need to give your hero fairly broad, easy-to-fit-into motivations. If you're going to have the character act in ways that run contrary to how the player is going to react to a situation, then you need to pull out to third person a lot and actually define the character as a separate entity who has motivations that make sense.

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

You know who are really the people who complain about silent protagonists? It's not the ones who want video games to have better stories or characters, it's the ones who think good game stories/characters must be identical in form to those of films or books, despite the huge disparities between the mediums being used and, therefore, their methods of delivering a narrative. (Plus they seem determined to overlook games like BioShock wherein the silence of the protagonist is itself an essential component of the story.) Not that silent protagonists are always a good fit and can't be executed or implemented poorly (Dead Space comes to mind), but just like the closing paragraph says, they're a tool as legitimate as any other, and one that video game storytelling would be worse off without.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I'm sick of 'em.

Silent protagonists are fine in games that are entirely gameplay focussed (eg Doom). But in games with a story it's just awkward. Dishonored and the Metro games are good examples, especially since those two protagonists do technically talk (Corvo picks silent dialogue options a few times and Artyom narrates during loading screens).

Yes, fine, Valve gets something of a pass because they're really good at it.

Bioshock Infinite proved that you can have a good story and a good chatty protagonist in a first person game.

Really, if developers can't create a decent main character then they have no business putting a story in their game at all.

Counter: RPGs. Specifically, RPGS with a blank slate protagonist. Give him a voice and he isn't a blank slate anymore. Suddendly, the charater has any emotion the voice actor chooses to convey in any given scene. Elder Scrolls games, New Vegas, Dragon Age: Origins, and SMT games would be ruined for me.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

But there's a bigger thing. You see, I don't play games in order to "project my personality" onto anything. I'm a pasty white guy who spends too much time in front of a computer screen and types up long retorts to Internet articles, why on Earth would I want to take that with me into a game? No, I play games to forget who I am in real life for a while, and step into the life of someone else. Video games are at their best not when the protagonist is acting as I would act in real life, but when I've forgotten how I would act in real life and become invested in this person who is not me. Sometimes I find, in the midst of a game, that my inner voice has taken on the voice and speech patterns of the character I'm playing as, and that's how I know the game has really grabbed me.

That's something that other mediums do far, far better than videogames. That's the kind of experience that a good first-person perspective novel excels at. Video games aren't suited to detailed character studies, and usually come off as half-baked in comparison.

Video games have an unparalleled ability to tell a story by giving the player a world to interact with. Myst told a more compelling tale just through environmental design than most "cinematic" games have even come close to. Hell, Doom 3 was a stronger narrative experience when I was wandering around in the dark listening to audio logs than any game I've played that tried to build up a strong main character.

 

[MetricFurlong]

There's an interesting conflation going on in this thread, in that a fair few people seem to be using 'silent protagonist' to include the player characters from various dialogue heavy rpgs. This is missing the point, as characters like The Warden and the Courier do in fact have lines of dialogue - and frequently participate in involved conversations - it's just that these lines aren't read by an actor. They aren't 'silent', they're 'unvoiced'.
This is in contrast to the silent protagonists like Gordon Freeman, who has no dialogue, or indeed communication.


In regards to the article, while I do agree there is some room for silent protagonists (because some players do prefer having an avatar to inhabit rather than a character to control), I must point out that the final paragraph is a pretty weak argument. By the same logic, you might as well argue that games shouldn't have stories because most game writers aren't very good at them.

 

[Breywood]

I'd like to quote something from the Fallout 2 manual which I think is on topic.

"Your character will never use combat taunts. We fully expect you to scream those out loud, and scare your neighbors."

 

[Dfskelleton]

Because I've had to read it again recently: The Odyssey is a fun collection of events following an almost entirely uninteresting dude and the recent events in the lives of his almost entirely uninteresting chums. But then, those guys aren't really the point. Freeman is exactly the same, he's unimportant.

I can totally agree with you there, Freeman isn't really the point. He may be an important player in the events at hand, but the story definitely belongs to the setting and the NPC's.

Although, I personally wouldn't put Gordon Freeman on par with Odysseus. I always thought that the point of the Odyssey was that all these fantastic and deadly trials and tribulations are due to one man's refusal to see his own flaws. Odysseus' flawed character, I felt, was the ignition and the fuel for the whole story, whereas Freeman is more like a vessel for the player to witness the story unfolding around them.

Then again, you may be right; it's been a fair while since I've read the Odyssey. It's sitting on my shelf, and I'd like to get around to it again sometime. Although, one thing I clearly remember: of my class of nearly 30 students, I was the only one who liked Odysseus. Yes, he was a self-righteous douchebag, but he was a smart self-righteous douchebag. For some reason, I always saw him as an early example of the type of characterization that would later be prevalent in 80's action heroes, something which I came to appreciate.
Then again, it is all pretty subjective.

 

[Saviordd1]

Eh I disagree, but that's okay.

What's not okay is just throwing the entire reasoning under "The extroverts want it!"

I'm an introvert and I do not like silent protagonists, so that's generalizing.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Not gonna lie. I kinda resent when people talk about silent protagonists, and every time the go-to-guy is Gordon Freeman; never with even a faint mention of the mega-popular game that started the silent protagonist trope: Chrono Trigger. Maybe I'm just old, but that's my go-to when I think of a silent protagonist.

 

[Woodsey]

Because I've had to read it again recently: The Odyssey is a fun collection of events following an almost entirely uninteresting dude and the recent events in the lives of his almost entirely uninteresting chums. But then, those guys aren't really the point. Freeman is exactly the same, he's unimportant.

I can totally agree with you there, Freeman isn't really the point. He may be an important player in the events at hand, but the story definitely belongs to the setting and the NPC's.

Although, I personally wouldn't put Gordon Freeman on par with Odysseus. I always thought that the point of the Odyssey was that all these fantastic and deadly trials and tribulations are due to one man's refusal to see his own flaws. Odysseus' flawed character, I felt, was the ignition and the fuel for the whole story, whereas Freeman is more like a vessel for the player to witness the story unfolding around them.

Then again, you may be right; it's been a fair while since I've read the Odyssey. It's sitting on my shelf, and I'd like to get around to it again sometime. Although, one thing I clearly remember: of my class of nearly 30 students, I was the only one who liked Odysseus. Yes, he was a self-righteous douchebag, but he was a smart self-righteous douchebag. For some reason, I always saw him as an early example of the type of characterization that would later be prevalent in 80's action heroes, something which I came to appreciate.
Then again, it is all pretty subjective.

You're right, and he's especially interesting amongst epic heroes in that he does actually have some semblance of character development, but even then it's rather minor in my opinion - an excuse to have the adventure much more than anything else. The funniest thing to me about that book is how many of them seem to have PTSD from the Trojan War, yet the story itself has no interest in the psychology of its characters beyond a couple of very basic character arcs.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I agree. I'd much rather play as a silent protagonist that I can project onto than a fully voiced protagonist with a predefined character. Esp. if said predefined character is that of a dipshit I can't identify with.

 

[Wyvern65]

Not gonna lie. I kinda resent when people talk about silent protagonists, and every time the go-to-guy is Gordon Freeman; never with even a faint mention of the mega-popular game that started the silent protagonist trope: Chrono Trigger. Maybe I'm just old, but that's my go-to when I think of a silent protagonist.

Meh. Hard to argue. There are a lot of games that came before chrono trigger where the protagonist didn't speak but various characters spoke to them. Then there are games which had no characterization at all like the original Doom or Wolfenstein 3d.

You could just as easily claim early interactive fiction titles were the pioneers (see: zork, et al) of the uncharacterized protagonist who interacted with a gameworld.

But chrono trigger rocked.

 

[Olas]

Personally, I see this whole issue of "voiced vs silent" protagonists as a Morton's Fork. On one hand, you can make a voiced protagonist and end up disconnecting the player from the character (like Shamus said). On the other, you can make a silent protagonist but this has it's own set of problems; either the dialogue is meant to include responses from the character (which will disconnect the player as they won't respond) or everything is carefully worded so that the character never is supposed to respond - which can lead to a disconnect because the player is being railroaded. Either way, you are going to disconnect the player at some point.

So this whole issue is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario.

Or you could just do what Valve did and create scenarios where the protagonist is never actually expected to say anything. The dialogue bits in Half Life 2 never came across as awkward or unusual to me because they were always framed in such a manner that Freeman never needed to respond to anyone. Does it honestly break your suspense that much if your character doesn't blabber off every time someone talks to him? To me Freeman's silence was just something of a running joke that the series fully acknowledged but deliberately avoided correcting, and I'm glad they didn't.

There are simply some levels of realism that are unnecessary if you have even the tiniest suspension of disbelief, and trying to "fix" these can ruin gameplay. Another one from the Half Life series is ladders. When climbing ladders your hands never touch the bars (usually because they're gripping a gun) and you can even turn around and face the opposite direction. Is this realistic? No. But I've played games where they added ladder climbing animations for the characters and all they do is create a pointless, time consuming segment where you jarringly lose control over the character, and sometimes even glitch up or have bugs.

[sub]Progress?[/sub]​

I'd generally prefer a game that's a little unrealistic if it makes it more enjoyable. And it's never fun when you have to play as be a character who you despise.

The legend of Zelda games have typically solved the problem of a silent protagonist by giving Link a companion who can speak for him, with mixed results. Midna was likeable, but Navi and Fi were notoriously annoying and unhelpful.

Perhaps it's an issue people will have to agree to disagree on, but at least we can all agree that it's better for a protagonist to remain silent than to end up like Samus.

 

[wadark]

Neither situation is perfect. While I hate characters with stupid lines or whatever, I can't inherently say that a silent protagonist would be better by default. Most of the time, from what I have seen, silent protagonists don't really add anything to the experience, because the game is still ascribing a personality to him, and therefore to have him spoken to throughout the games but never responding just leaves it feeling like a giant hole in the game.

Freeman is one of the better silent protagonists, overall, but I still never felt like he was a blank slate for me to ascribe my personal motivations to. Clearly, these other characters were not speaking or referring to him as some sort of lone-ranger guy. In my opinion, they clearly spoke to him in ways that ascribed him a character without him ever uttering a word. Even if they never specify a reason as to why you go and save that guy, the way in which they ask you to save that guy can say infinitely more. As they say, only a very small portion of communication is in the words, so much more is said in body language and expression and tone of voice. And when I hear the NPCs in Half-Life ask Freeman to do something, it was always done with an air of expecting him to be the noble hero who'll do this, if for nothing else, to save the world.

Until the day comes we have full virtual reality games that we can literally close our eyes and wake up inside the game and be able to interact believable with the inhabitants, I don't think silent protagonist is a "perfect solution". Obviously, I don't want a bad character, but I'd rather a good character with good dialogue than a silent character who is spoken "at" for the whole game without ever responding.

P.S. What troubles me is the binary nature in which a lot of people seem to have this discussion, as if the ONLY other option besides silent protagonist is incessant blabbermouth. It doesn't have to be one extreme or the other.

 

[Something Amyss]

Usually when I hear people say this, it's in response to things like 'Gordon Freeman is one of the best video game characters ever'. In that sense there is some validity refuting it. If Freeman is indeed a 'blank canvas', then how can he be a good character when he essentially has no attributes of his own?

If anything it would make him a nothing character.

Of course, this is nothing new. Boba Fett was already teh best chaerecter EVAR before people even knew his name because they thought he looked cool and filled in all the blanks themselves.

We loves ourselves a blank slate to imprint on, so it's no surprise we take it one step further in our interactive media. Hell, I loke to play an idealised version of myself sometimes, too.

Still, it's utterly annoying to hear Freeman described as a "good character" when he has almost no character except what we ourselves add. That's like saying a blank canvas is a brilliant piece of art because of what we might paint on it.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Not gonna lie. I kinda resent when people talk about silent protagonists, and every time the go-to-guy is Gordon Freeman; never with even a faint mention of the mega-popular game that started the silent protagonist trope: Chrono Trigger. Maybe I'm just old, but that's my go-to when I think of a silent protagonist.

Meh. Hard to argue. There are a lot of games that came before chrono trigger where the protagonist didn't speak but various characters spoke to them. Then there are games which had no characterization at all like the original Doom or Wolfenstein 3d.

You could just as easily claim early interactive fiction titles were the pioneers (see: zork, et al) of the uncharacterized protagonist who interacted with a gameworld.

But chrono trigger rocked.

Granted, but in a lot of those cases it was basically you walk up to the character, hit the interact button, they belch-out their dialogue and you move-on. There wasn't much thought given to the fact that your character didn't speak back because that's just how things were back then. Stories weren't give a whole lot of drama with long-winded discussions. Chrono Trigger stuck out, though, because it was released during an era where every character got to have some input. Yet here we had Crono, a character who's only lines of dialogue were some "Yes/No" prompts that you as the player decided. We can assume he spoke, after-all, the characters responded based on what he said, but he never actually opened his mouth and said them. Presumably, his dialogue was basically what you were thinking as you selected whichever option, then the conversation continued-on with you personally having been a part of it. Basically, he was the exact kind of character that Shamus just wrote and essay about before the character he chose to focus on was even a glimmer in Gaben's eye.

 

[Toxic Sniper]

Remember Samus Aran?


Sometimes it's better when a silent protagonist stays silent.

 

[ungothicdove]

Both can work. As Jim reminded us, there is no perfect pasta sauce, just perfect pasta sauces.

I love Half Life and I really feel a connection with the characters when I'm playing. In Bioshock Infinite, I really liked Booker and Elizabeth's interaction. I didn't care much for the voiced protagonist in Far Cry 3 however. It's a mixed bag and there's good and bad both ways.

I will, however, agree that it would be cool to see it handled differently in some games. Maybe something happens at the beginning of the game that takes away your ability to talk. It could lead to comical mishaps where people don't understand your gestures and they misinterpret them and things get messed up and you have to fix it. Maybe that's a dumb idea but thinking outside of the talk or not talk dichotomy could lead to some interesting game choice designs.

 

[DataSnake]

Smells like Far Cry 3 in here. Jason Brody also felt like some weird disembodied voice that was hitching a ride with me.

Rex Power Colt, by contrast, felt like an AWESOME disembodied voice hitching a ride with me.