In Defense of Silent Protagonists

[Parker Chapin]

snip

I do like to roleplay. I roleplayed the fuck out of Morrowind, defining my character's personality, how she spoke, how she reacted to things throughout the game and what decisions she made, even though in the game she was more or less blank. But in a game like Half-Life 2 I don't feel like I can roleplay, because I can only play a pre-defined role, and all I can choose is how I feel about it. The impression I'm left with of Gordon is that he's a pushover; he does what people tell him to do in all cases, he never does anything of his own initiative, and if he has any thoughts of his own, they're his feelings about being railroaded into all these events he has no say in. He's powerless.

I know that a lot of what I'm saying is personal taste. I'm trying to show Shamus (and the people like him I've seen before) that there's more than one way in which people experience games, and the people who dislike silent protagonists don't do so because we want backstory "shoved down our throats" or because we want dipshits shouting fratboy dialogue in our ears. This article makes several fallacious arguments like this, from the sweeping and unfair generalization that "extroverts" are to blame (I'm about as introverted as they come), to the argument that games will inevitably do characterization badly, so they shouldn't even try. That's what I'm trying to argue against.

I'd also like to respond to those comparing the concept of silent protagonists to literature such as The Odyssey or Isaac Asimov's books. I don't feel that a silent protagonist compares to even the blandest character in literature; a silent protagonist is a bland character to the extreme. Even a passive observer in a novel will have a voice, will have thoughts of their own, and may even make decisions and develop as the story goes on. There's plenty of room for characterization in a game where the real story is that of the world; a storyteller who knows what he's doing doesn't have to sacrifice the main character to tell an interesting story of the world, or the other way around.

 

[DataSnake]

Special shout-out to Far Cry 3, for exactly proving the point as to why we'd sometimes rather have a silent protagonist.


LISA I'M COMING!!

That was an especially jarring example, since he SHOUTS AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS during what's supposed to be a stealth mission. I just wanted to reach through the screen and slap him at that point.

 

[Kargathia]

Special shout-out to Far Cry 3, for exactly proving the point as to why we'd sometimes rather have a silent protagonist.


LISA I'M COMING!!

That was an especially jarring example, since he SHOUTS AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS during what's supposed to be a stealth mission. I just wanted to reach through the screen and slap him at that point.

Don't forget the burning building, where he insists on continually shouting at her - even though he can be pretty sure she ain't going anywhere.

But it's ok, I guess his brain doesn't need oxygen anyway.

 

[bificommander]

I'm not a big fan of the silent protagonist myself. I can't recall that many cases where my voiced protagonist's words were so unlike my own thoughts that I was pulled out of my immersion. It happened in Far Cry 3 recently, true. But more often it's my protagonist's actions that bug the shit out of me, and prevent me from thinking I'm running the story.

That's not to say I can't stand any game without a voiced protagonist. I like Zelda games and Portal. On the other hand, Gordon Freeman did really get on my nerves in HL2. Because unlike in HL1, people around him had emotional interactions with him, and it lasts only so long before that becomes silly. Especially since unlike, say, Zelda, HL2 isn't just pretending that Gordon is speaking and we just don't hear it, Alyx even makes jokes about it and all conversations are perfectly well structured as to leave no gaps where Gordon might be speaking. And it just killed my Immersion when Alyx all got head-over-heals with a guy who had never spoken a word to her.

 

[Mestizaje]

If the character is heavily scripted, like in RPGs, then it's better with someone who can speak. They're clearly not a blank slate anyway, and it feels weird when they don't talk, but give answers. The older RPGs usually had a silent protagonist though, and it didn't bother me then. Maybe it's more because the times changes, and after you get a voiced protagonist a few times the silent ones feel empty.

If it's the average totally bland male FPS character, then I'm happy that they made them silent.

 

[Mr. Clarinet]

Reading this made me wonder if we can have our cake and eat it too by including non verbal cues like abstract thought bubbles or maybe just a few more sequences when Gordon actively responds to the world around him. Like when he gets a weapon he always seems to examine it and test it. Why not have a few more body expressions when he sees inanimate objects that aren't designed for killig like a photo of the science team or another character.
You make a good point in that it serves the game to not boldly state Gordon's opinions/feelings on Alex but what if he saw a picture of her he could pick up the frame and react tenderly towards it. He might not be infatuated with her. But if he isn't a sociopath he must have bonded with her at some point and cluing us into that would be really sweet.

Blank canvasses are all well and good but I still think that at least having an inkling of a protag's intentions (or feelings about his intentions) beyond not being able to shoot/damage friendly npcs would be great.

As for my version of Gordon's motivation I picture him being sentimental. At least enough to care for Eli without having to be wholly convinced by Alex's pleading. (although he still struggled with whether it was a good idea to storm the prison and save Eli)

It's a bit like the end of MGS Snake Eater, I/he knows he has to kill xxx. I know that no matter how long I hold off I will still get the same cutscene but I hold off for all the projected inner tension, self loathing, and love.
I mean who says we can't give even scripty average mcjoe-douche nuance by controlling the time it takes for him/her to come to the inevitable decision?

Still there are some silent protags that I really wish would just say something/make a noise even if it's just a whistle. Like take Corvo for example. He's running around with all of these aristocrats and listening to handily provided intimate life details and he doesn't even make any sort of grunt or yessir nossir response. But that's the only game of late where I think silence was a complete disservice.

 

[Strain42]

Overall I tend to like silent characters, mostly in games like the MegaTen franchise or Pokemon. However, there are several games that have silent characters that probably shouldn't. But here's my big thing with silent characters.

I will always prefer a silent character over an annoying character or a badly written one.

To sorta paraphrase Extra Credits here, look at a character like Link. If you're one of those people who automatically believes that a character with a voice and personality is automatically better than a silent character, then by your logic the best version of Link is the one from the animated cartoon show.

Also, in some cases this is true, but I don't believe that a silent character is automatically devoid of any personality. There are several silent characters who while they may not speak, they have reactions to things or do something that is completely outside of the players control. Even if the character doesn't speak, what they do that isn't determined by player control, is a sign of their personality.

To use Persona 4 as an example, the character Rise pretty much constantly hits on the protagonist, and while the players are occasionally given choices to flirt back, to reciprocate those feelings, or to even date Rise in a side quest, often in story scenes when she flirts with him, he gets panicky sweat drops above his head, implying that maybe he doesn't like her forward approach, or simply feels embarrassed being hit on around his friends.

The P4 protagonist is silent, but there are a lot of little things he does outside of player control that really do give him a fair semblance of personality.

 

[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.

Yeaaahh...

See, I hate it when RPGs do that. Dragon Age Origins and Knights of the Old Republic were significantly worsened in my eyes because of the silent protagonists. When my character spends every conversation standing stock still with all the expressive power of a fence post while the NPCs chatter away like actual people, it ruins the illusion. It doesn't feel like a conversation between two or more people because one of those people isn't participating, it just feels like me picking from a list of if-then/query-response options.

It works a bit better in the TES and new Fallout games because those are first person, so I can't actually see my fence post of a character trying to take part in non-conversations. Not that it matters, since the the dialogue in those games was complete garbage anyway.

Differences in opinion. I imagine my character saying those things and I am happily immersed. I understand some people just see a mute staring blankly at a NPC. But for me, adding a voice establishes character to the PC that I don't want there.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I see the divide of opinions falling more in how the players view themselves in relation to the character. From what I've heard from Shamus, he's the type of player to view the protagonist as his own character within the limitations the game's narrative provides. In this instance, having a character speak, have ideas/opinions removes him from the character Shamus is portraying, even when spoken to in-game. When spoken to by an npc, the character does respond, just in the player's head. So while the player doesn't choose what they are going to be doing next, they know why they have chosen to do it. Basically, the player chooses the flavor of the food they're eating within the confines of what they're eating. They are told they've eaten their favorite ice cream, the player makes it mint. If that makes sense.

To people who don't project their personality onto the character as strongly, this feels very wrong. The character has a defined past, has had relationships with various people, his/her character is set, naturally, they should have a voice. These people don't live their character, they see it as a position already taken by the protagonist who, as a separate entity, should be voiced as much as the npcs that talk to him/her are voiced. It feels weird to see a conversation between two people, one of whom you are just sharing the sight of, and have one side just staring as the other continues a one sided conversation. In the food example, it feels more natural to have the foods flavor and how the character feels about it defined after being told what the food is because the character already has a taste for it. They are told they've eaten their favorite ice cream.... what flavor is it? My understanding of this character and his/her views would improve if I were told what flavor of ice cream is so good to be their favorite.

...

......


Well, I'm sleep deprived and probably projecting on quite a few people so I'll stop my rambling.

EDIT: Oh, right... I'm the second type.

That is actually a very good explanation for the two different kinds of players and why they disagree with each other. I wish I could be that coherent when I'm fully awake.

 

[verdant monkai]

I have to say I find silent protagonists a problem a lot of the time.

Shamus says how directors force emotions on your character like NOW YOU ARE SAD or NOW YOU ARE TRIUMPHANT. At the end of the day I'm not playing as me... hell I'm not even playing as my character. I'm playing as the directors character so they can convey whatever emotions they want through their character.

I am not there to BECOME booker Dewitt I'm here to experience the characters journey through Columbia. Some characters the silence is part of. Like Delta from Bioshock 2 since he is in a big helmet and can only groan. And other characters dont need to say anything because to be honest there isn't really anything that needs saying. Like Link all his dialogue would be pointless. Because he would only say hideously generic stuff like "I'll stop you Ganandorf!" or "Maybe I can get to the ledge if I use my hookshot".

But for some there is no excuse like Gordon Freeman YEAH I SAID IT. I have played the first half life and I didn't think "Its great he's not speaking because I would be shocked by these monsters, and this way I can imagine him being shocked". It took me out of the experience. Because how could a mute become a doctor of anything? I also wanted his opinion on his surroundings preferably not all the time, but he could have at least interacted the scientists. He just felt inhuman and boring.

So yeah I know its only my opinion and I acknowledge that silent protagonists do have a time and a place. But for the most part you can shove them because I'm not playing as me I'm playing as a character.

 

[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.

Doom and Wolfenstein came out well before Chrono Trigger. And, they too were "mega-popular". They're often included in the discussion of silent protagonists.

Even before Doom we had characters like Mario, Link, and a slew of others that almost never uttered even a single syllable.

Doom and Wolfenstien also had no story segments during which they could speak. Same goes for Link and Mario, who didn't really fall into the silent protagonist category until the N64 and Game Cube respectively, when other characters were speaking enough that it actually stuck out form them to never talk.

 

[Breywood]

For what it's worth, if I make a character and give it a name like in Baldur's Gate, it gives me a whole different feel than if I was playing Booker DeWitt. In Baldur's Gate, I have never had a voice package I liked, no matter what I chose, and in some ways I wished I didn't have one. Since, say, Bioshock Infinite is a story and the character you're controlling has a background, then having Booker with his own dialog is fine as long as it's handled properly. Where does this put Freeman? Kind of in the pasture because he has a name and supposedly a past, so his own personality and dialog might have helped the game a bit. On the plus, we don't have to worry about Freeman being memorable because they had a half-baked script for some staffer to read.

Before I found out he was just called Doomguy, November Frost was the name I gave him. Cheesy, but so was Doom.

 

[Vigormortis]

Doom and Wolfenstien also had no story segments during which they could speak. Same goes for Link and Mario, who didn't really fall into the silent protagonist category until the N64 and Game Cube respectively, when other characters were speaking enough that it actually stuck out form them to never talk.

Perhaps.

But there were still quite a few narrative-driven games well before Chrono-Trigger that saw the player character never speak.

I'm just saying Chrono Trigger wasn't the first.

One of the more prolific, certainly, but not the first.

Two things. First, it doesn't necessarily have to be your personality you project. It's basically roleplay, like what you do with Shepard in Mass Effect. You're just filling in the blanks as to why you think the character is doing what they're doing. Does Gordon really love Alyx, or is he just using her to save the earth? Is Gordon really being kind and trying to save the earth, or is he just trying to survive and doing whatever it takes to accomplish that end? That's all up to you. The narrative isn't trying to force a whole backstory and motivation down your throat. You are simply given the world and situation on a plate, and you decide what you do with it.

And secondly, just because you personally don't like to roleplay doesn't mean the mechanic itself is a failure. More often than not those are the exact "tired defenses" I see from people who think they don't work. "I am bored by them," I find them to be dull," "I find them to be empty and hollow." Well, I find sports games to be a total waste of time and money that bore me to tears just thinking about them, but I'm not about to say that means their mechanics aren't solid. They are what they are, and the fact that I personally don't like them doesn't make them inherently bad.

Damn it Lilani.

I swear, half of the times when I see a post I feel I need to respond to I notice that you've already responded to them. And, with an almost identical train of thought to my own.

You really need to stay out of my head. It's getting creepy.

 

[blackdwarf]

Silent Protagonists can be fine and useful, but their is a difference between a blank slate character with no voice and defined character with no voice. I find it weird when people are saying that Chell or Gordon are their favorite Characters, because they either love blandness or are so narcissistic, that they love the projected image that they projected themselves on the slate.

Saying you don't like Gordon for being not being a character is like saying you don't like apples because they aren't oranges.

But they are silent protagonist who do have a character. Link does show some characteristics, especially in Windwaker, and Corvo of Dishonored also shows that with the interactions with the princess. do I think it are bad characters for not having a voice? Ofcourse not, I really don't care. So long the game/story is good, I don't mind.

I do prefer actual characters in story based games, except when the whole point of the game is role playing, like in Dragon Age, Origins. I that case I prefer the blank slate.

 

[Phearo]

Just make a game where the character is actually a mute and not a silent protagonist, and make him write stuff down on paper to tell people what he wants, but since he has no paper and generally is impatient, he just goes ahead and do his thing first before bothering to explain it.

 

[Farther than stars]

Really, I have no idea why this article exists. I pretty much don't read Shamus's stuff anymore, because usually it's plain nonsense, but this time it's just boring. Has this been written for the one person out there who doesn't have an opinion on the silent/talking protagonist issue? I mean, this topic is a front-runner for most overdone game discussion.

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

Agreed. No writer of novels or films would get away with an unexplained silent protagonist in their story.

Voiced != Interesting, and Silent != Flat.

Are you sure you don't mean that the other way round? (Not that I even remotely think that dialogue and punctuation are the same thing; your illustration is non-analogous as far as that is concerned.)

 

[Krantos]

Voiced != Interesting, and Silent != Flat.

Are you sure you don't mean that the other way round? (Not that I even remotely think that dialogue and punctuation are the same thing; your illustration is non-analogous as far as that is concerned.)

erm... not really sure what you said ("Not that I even remotely think that dialogue and punctuation are the same thing; your illustration is non-analogous as far as that is concerned." what?) , but is the confusion related to this: "!=" ?

If so, sorry, it's programming based logic shorthand. "!=" means not equal to. You might sometimes seen this written as =/= or , but C# and SQL (the languages I deal with at my job), both use !=.

Basically I was saying that voiced characters are not automatically more interesting than silent ones, and silent ones aren't automatically static bricks. This can be true, of course, but one does not always lead to the other.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Doom and Wolfenstien also had no story segments during which they could speak. Same goes for Link and Mario, who didn't really fall into the silent protagonist category until the N64 and Game Cube respectively, when other characters were speaking enough that it actually stuck out form them to never talk.

Perhaps.

But there were still quite a few narrative-driven games well before Chrono-Trigger that saw the player character never speak.

I'm just saying Chrono Trigger wasn't the first.

One of the more prolific, certainly, but not the first.

I don't doubt that, I suppose, though I can't really think of any examples.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I'm going to be blunt: were you talking about tabletop games you might have a point because those are meant to have characters built by the player with their own history and character traits along with development that comes via the players' actions. However, videogames will never, ever be able to do that. A silent protagonist, no matter what way you slice it, is a poor character. If I have to project my own ideas onto something then that's not a character. The silent protagonist in general is something that needs to go away in narrative-driven games, if not games in general. They're a lazy, borderline wish-fulfillment fantasy for players.