Jimquisition: Think of the Children!

camazotz

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The Tall Nerd said:
i... i cantgo with jim on this one
this is one of those times i have to admit that coke-head Sigmund is right and the real issue is hidden in plain sight.

kids are dicks, i was a kid once im a teen ager now, they are dicks to make kids stop being dicks to me when i was a kid i threw a desk at one, he does have kinda of a point if the kids never evovle as a character i suppose that's one thing.

but children will react differently to different situations, what jim describes as a well written child, is just a mini adult, sorry jim but all children just arent that mature, alot of them probobly would have been eaten or the only reason they are still alive in the apocolypse is because of an adult.

i give children credit for being intelligent, however for being the level of mature that jim asks for, or just asking for all of them written to be is unrealistic, kids are dicks....deal with it?
Life does get better though. It sounds like you've had some exceptionally bad experiences....but trust me, its possible to meet decent and thoughtful kids (just maybe not wherever you are unfortunately).
 

dessertmonkeyjk

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I wholeheartedly agree that Clementine is a great definition to what a child is like and should be like.



Too bad you didn't warn them about Duck... you sneaky man.
 

Eric the Orange

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Apr 29, 2008
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Jimothy Sterling said:
Dragon Zero said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
Think of the Children!

Children are the holy grail of conflict.

Watch Video
What about Duck? What do you think of him? Granted he is just a side character and not really a big focus of the story, like Clementine.

OT: I really have to agree with you about the Heavy Rain kids. Hell I think the only time I had any connection with them is at the very beginning, when the pet dies and you see the child reacting to it. Kids are really hard to get right, at least in an audio/visual medium IMHO, you either wind up with obnoxious little jerks or just adults with smaller proportions, hell I can't even think of a child in game that I remember other than kids in Fallout/Fable/Elder Scrolls, which my opinion varies and Pandora from God of War 3, whom I despise but I have issues about GoW3 that cloud my judgement and I don't really care to go into detail.

Anyway, great video as always!
I didn't have time to talk about Duck, but I liked him. What I loved was how he started as the stereotypical annoying, helpless kid, then subverted expectations by being funny, charming, and even useful (in his own useless way). Duck will get written off by many due to his introduction, but there is a lot more going on with him than he'll ever credit for.
You know, YOU KNOW, they put that bit in the beginning of episode three to make you get attached to him just to fuck with the player, those sadistic bastards.
 

Vault101

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Sep 26, 2010
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I'm glad to know people don;t hate children charachters becuase they are children...

they hate them because they are lazy and poorly implemented

so yeah...sorry ME3 but theres no denying yoru kind of guilty of that...
 

Dead Seerius

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The Walking Dead was a perfect example to use in a discussion like this.

In fact, when Jim said there was one game in particular that did the child character right, TWD was my first guess. Reminds me I still need to get Episode 4.
 

Redd the Sock

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Tell me about it with Clementine. At first you keep her around as it's the decent thing to do, but by the end of episode 4 (which I assume this was recorded before) I'm actively letting her convince me to do stupid things.

After Ben grabs the hatchet from the door letting the walkers into the school and then decides that's the best time to come clean to kenny about the bandits, she bats her eyes, calls him her friend and I go, damn it, you're going to make me defend and save this scrawny screw up aren't you, you little twerp. Then in the aftermath she runs off to find her parents like all those dumbass kids in other games, and I unfortunately give a damn.
 

Dragon Zero

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Apr 16, 2009
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Jimothy Sterling said:
Dragon Zero said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
Think of the Children!

Children are the holy grail of conflict.

Watch Video
What about Duck? What do you think of him? Granted he is just a side character and not really a big focus of the story, like Clementine.

OT: I really have to agree with you about the Heavy Rain kids. Hell I think the only time I had any connection with them is at the very beginning, when the pet dies and you see the child reacting to it. Kids are really hard to get right, at least in an audio/visual medium IMHO, you either wind up with obnoxious little jerks or just adults with smaller proportions, hell I can't even think of a child in game that I remember other than kids in Fallout/Fable/Elder Scrolls, which my opinion varies and Pandora from God of War 3, whom I despise but I have issues about GoW3 that cloud my judgement and I don't really care to go into detail.

Anyway, great video as always!
I didn't have time to talk about Duck, but I liked him. What I loved was how he started as the stereotypical annoying, helpless kid, then subverted expectations by being funny, charming, and even useful (in his own useless way). Duck will get written off by many due to his introduction, but there is a lot more going on with him than he'll ever credit for.
Well, thank you for responding!

I have to admit that Duck does have a charm about him but, as you more or less point out (or I hope you meant), the biggest point against him in my book would be:
The event at Hershel's farm. I know that it wasn't his fault really but, really, getting another person killed is a steep obstacle to overcome. I didn't know whether or not to put this part in the spoiler since it occurs fairly recently, however I will as a courtesy to others.

I did look into his story (among other characters) on the wikia for the series, simply because I was uncertain whether or not I'd want to save up the money to purchase the other expansions. It's certainly a mark of good story telling that even though I know his fate I'm really interested to see it.

Finally, I do remember a child character from a videogame I do like, Nanna from the excellent El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. She is a warm and loving character and even befriends one of the Nephilim. Anyway, that totally wasn't just me looking for an excuse to bring up El Shaddai to someone who might enjoy it. I'm rambling, aren't I? Anyway, thank you for responding!
 

el_kabong

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Callate said:
SonOfVoorhees said:
So much this. I really wanted to slap them to show them a bit of respect, mouthy little fuckers. So annoying and when you do shoot them, i feel that im entitled to and they do deserve it, no damage done. But they can shoot you and you have to leave....or be killed by the brats. I so wished i could lead a Deathclaw to their little hide out.
I always wondered why anyone was so incensed by the inability to kill children in Skyrim. And then...

"Another wanderer, here to lick my father's boots. Good job."

GRRRAAAAAA die you little...
100% agreement on that. My friend thought that I was "wrong" for wanted to kill kids in a game (has only been a desire in Skyrim). However, the sandbox/immersion aspect of the game is really halted when my Brotherhood assassin has to take lip from some brat on a street corner. I'm surprised the uppity bastards didn't get mentioned in the video.

OT: Good video all around. You could easily do a extension of this video on how we're supposed to care about a character because she is the shoe-horned love interest. She has boobs, right? So, clearly she's compelling and makes total sense for a character to pursue, regardless of how annoying/shallow/useless they are.
 

Bat Vader

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Clementine from The Walking Dead and Nanako from Persona 4 are the only two child characters in games that I actually care about and feel sympathy for them.
 

purifico

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Jim, I am mildly surprised that you didn't mention Final Fantasy IX in this episode. Considering that it is one of your favourite games and has great kid characters.
 

The Last Melon

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I had my fingers crossed when he started talking about the one game that got children right because I was going The Walking Dead game, The Walking Dead game, please be The Walking Dead game...

And Jim delivered.
 

Ferisar

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I can't agree with this. I also can't agree with how people are reacting to the child in ME3, which was a giant fucking obvious plot sign that said "Hey, Earth is fucked, here's how we're going to make Shepard REMEMBER that Earth is fucked. Because, all throughout his star campaign children don't just get mercilessly blown up in front of him without even a second thought."

A child is not a small adult. A child is a child. To pretend otherwise is mental. A PERSON, sure, but a very impressionable, very dependent on conditioning and environment, and generally innocent. A shitty adult is someone who's so desensitized to the world they have the gall to call children just some little shits who wet the bed every now and then. Humans are the product of their environment, if you want children to be strong and not helpless, you're not going to find too many outside of borderline fantasy. When the "child stereotype" is being used, it's not because a child is like a grown woman or a grown man, they aren't out there to prove anything to you. They ARE helpless, or scared or otherwise. They have trouble because they haven't made the mistakes to learn anything from yet.

And as far as not being invested in a plight of a parent in search of their kid: no. It's the same thing as every other "____ in distress", except this one makes sense. Just because you don't have emotional attachment to a character does not mean you can't sympathize with such a loss when the parents are losing their mind over THEIR SON OR DAUGHTER. You can't sympathize WITH THE KID, sure, but that's the thing you should be complaining about. A parent who isn't upset about their kid being stolen is utterly freaking ridiculous. It's how NORMAL people work, because normal people get upset about their offspring suddenly up and vanishing.

If you need more exposition on a child, sure, ask for it. If you want more diversity in some child characters, yeah, fine. But don't pretend for even a second that they aren't what they are the majority of the time: fairly simple, fairly helpless, and have very little personal motivation that wouldn't already relate to a known conflict within the family. Values and personality types all come from somewhere, and that all can be covered, again, in exposition.

EDIT:
And I'm not saying there's no value in this, but this ridiculously aggressive view of the matter is just... bothersome. A plea for good characters I can understand, but kids innately aren't that good of characters. The only thing you can gain from them most of the time is how they learn to approach new issues which the medium they're put in is presented. Some can be portrayed as little shits or melodramatic because those types of people exist. To not acknowledge that is... well, lying to yourself?
 

mdqp

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Ferisar said:
I can't agree with this. I also can't agree with how people are reacting to the child in ME3, which was a giant fucking obvious plot sign that said "Hey, Earth is fucked, here's how we're going to make Shepard REMEMBER that Earth is fucked. Because, all throughout his star campaign children don't just get mercilessly blown up in front of him without even a second thought."

A child is not a small adult. A child is a child. To pretend otherwise is mental. A PERSON, sure, but a very impressionable, very dependent on conditioning and environment, and generally innocent. A shitty adult is someone who's so desensitized to the world they have the gall to call children just some little shits who wet the bed every now and then. Humans are the product of their environment, if you want children to be strong and not helpless, you're not going to find too many outside of borderline fantasy. When the "child stereotype" is being used, it's not because a child is like a grown woman or a grown man, they aren't out there to prove anything to you. They ARE helpless, or scared or otherwise. They have trouble because they haven't made the mistakes to learn anything from yet.

And as far as not being invested in a plight of a parent in search of their kid: no. It's the same thing as every other "____ in distress", except this one makes sense. Just because you don't have emotional attachment to a character does not mean you can't sympathize with such a loss when the parents are losing their mind over THEIR SON OR DAUGHTER. You can't sympathize WITH THE KID, sure, but that's the thing you should be complaining about. A parent who isn't upset about their kid being stolen is utterly freaking ridiculous. It's how NORMAL people work, because normal people get upset about their offspring suddenly up and vanishing.

If you need more exposition on a child, sure, ask for it. If you want more diversity in some child characters, yeah, fine. But don't pretend for even a second that they aren't what they are the majority of the time: fairly simple, fairly helpless, and have very little personal motivation that wouldn't already relate to a known conflict within the family. Values and personality types all come from somewhere, and that all can be covered, again, in exposition.

EDIT:
And I'm not saying there's no value in this, but this ridiculously aggressive view of the matter is just... bothersome. A plea for good characters I can understand, but kids innately aren't that good of characters. The only thing you can gain from them most of the time is how they learn to approach new issues which the medium they're put in is presented. Some can be portrayed as little shits or melodramatic because those types of people exist. To not acknowledge that is... well, lying to yourself?
I am not sure I follow you. You are telling that is wrong for people to react negatively toward an obvious plot device, as you call it yourself? It is manipulative, that's why a child was picked for that role, and that's why people don't like it, because it's cheap.

A child is not a small adult, but mature children aren't so rare, either. Also, children learn quickly, and can adapt better than adults to a lot of situations, even if they lack the physical strength required to survive alone. Children throughout history had to partecipate to wars (even today, children are forced to be soldiers in several countries), there are slums in this world that have children survive as thieves, pickpocketers and beggars. Of course, if we talk of children from 0 to 7-8 years, it's unlikely for them to be able to do everything on their own, but you are selling them short if you believe that they are as helpless as you make them to be (also, you don't necessarily need to learn from mistakes, but this is another story).

I can't talk about Heavy Rain, so I am just going to say what I think Jim meant with that: in a game, players take an active role, unlike in movies, so to motivate them to act, you must give them something to care about. If the child doesn't get to play a big enough role in the game, the players won't be able to relate on the matter on a personal level. The fact that you can push your personal experience to substitute for the inadequacies of the plot doesn't make it a good plot, and in fact it cuts a lot of people from establishing a connection with the narrative. I don't think the point here was being unable to relate to the parents, but the fact that the sole driver of the narrative was someone (the child) we didn't know or cared about.

I just don't know what kind of children you have been around, or if I was blessed, but even the most whiny brats show clear signs of intelligence and initiative, even if in a roundabout, manipulative way (the child that cries because he wants a toy and you said him no, do so because they expect to get what they want when they cry, as this is what they are used to. If their parents are level-headed, he will learn the lesson soon enough, and won't cry for something like that forever. Children grow as long as their parents allow them to). You can also reason with kids, they aren't all so self-centered that they won't understand that context matters.

Also, this is fiction. Even if such a portrayal was the correct one (and I don't think it is), there is the matter that such "characters" won't make for an interesting narrative. They become just "obstacles" put in the way of the true characters, as they have to deal with them as well as with the task at hand, and frankly, add little to nothing to the whole. Not all kids should be "small adults" as you said, but the other end of the spectrum isn't good at all, either.
 

Kekkonen1

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I generally agree with you Jim, but regarding Heavy Rain, we aren't supposed to feel sorry for the kidnapped child but for the parent who's child was kidnapped, and frankly you dont need a good characterization for the child in order for an empathetic person to feel the pain of a parent who's child is gone.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

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Callate said:
SonOfVoorhees said:
So much this. I really wanted to slap them to show them a bit of respect, mouthy little fuckers. So annoying and when you do shoot them, i feel that im entitled to and they do deserve it, no damage done. But they can shoot you and you have to leave....or be killed by the brats. I so wished i could lead a Deathclaw to their little hide out.
I always wondered why anyone was so incensed by the inability to kill children in Skyrim. And then...

"Another wanderer, here to lick my father's boots. Good job."

GRRRAAAAAA die you little...


Pretty much the best reason to use the Skyrim Nexus mod site instead of Steam.

Allot of posters mention Psychonauts as a good example of children, I however found them to be pretty adult-like in personality.
 

leviadragon99

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Hmm... I do kind of take issue with a couple of your examples of bad child characters though, in the case of Dawn, she's a teenage character firstly, and secondly she was meant to be portrayed as an annoying teenager initially, a trial for Buffy to deal with and eventually come to protect after their mother died and they were all the other had left. Flawed characters can exist, it all comes down to how they are framed, to borrow a concept from the Nostalgia Chick. It also helped that Dawn later grew as a character, particularly in the seventh season.

Plus there was that whole "she's a mystical energy ball given human form" thing, which would pile on top of the usual teenage drama of kleptomania and not being emotionally mature enough to handle a death in the immediate family a fair bit of legitimate existential angst, which she eventually came to terms with.

Plus with the Dexter kids... well how are they to know he has important serial killer business to attend to?

Make no mistake, I didn't like children when I was one, but some kids out there, both real and fictional are more mature and likable than plenty of real/fictional adults...