"MAIN" CHARACTER VS MAIN "CHARACTER" - Writing your Video Game Protagonists!
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- Опубликовано: 14 окт 2024
- #genshinimpact #zenlesszonezero #gaming
We play video games through the lens of one character and that’s usually the protagonist - We’ve heard of them, we’ve seen them around, but today, I want to dissect the different kinds of Protagonists in video games and dissect the MAIN character versus the Main Character.
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I’d have referred to characters like Frisk as self inserts. There’s basically no personality in there so they’re you effectively. Someone like Aether/Lumine or say Link from BOTW are what I’d call silent protagonists because there are personality traits there but it’s as you said malleable enough that it fits a lot of situations and is rather low-key but you also get comparatively little choice in how they respond.
You haven’t played HSR but Caelus/Stelle are basically like Persona protagonists. They’re silent and you get dialogue options to shape their personality but there are a few canon traits to them. Much like how Joker has a strong sense of justice, Caelus/Stelle are noted to be chaotic.
Lastly the Doki Doki music is killing me.
This is also a pretty good categorization
@@ChillwithAster Thanks
Fallot New Vegas is insane in this regard.
The 2.3 quest where we get to observe the Trailblazer in the wild is one of my favorite moments in the whole game.
@@ThyFloorestFloor Yeah that was really cool.
The Traveler said it well, we are a witness
A witness that shouldn't even want/need to be there according to the games own plot
@treasure9342 that not necessarily true. Theres a hinted reason why we keep being told to observe everything, and why we as traveler are fit for that role
@@Accountthatexists even just by the travelers own identity, we know their job has something to do with traveling between defferwnt worlds for some reaason. The game just hasnt shown us exactly why and more of who/where we came from. But many people have made theories about possibilities
@@SoulHydron there has been no hint, no confirmation, no NOTHING what ur saying is complete guesses
@treasure9342 they arent blind guesses, they are educated guesses when you look at what inspiration Genshin takes from in mythology and other things, and also when you play thru the story there are obvious hints at the lore being a lot deeper than we realize at first. One example being we still dont know who celestia exactly are, another being why did our sibling join the abyss and how we will have to make the same choice. Being a "descender" from outside of the world of teyvat itself has had big implications in the lore in the past as beings like us arent held under the laws of teyvat. The 1st descender literally created teyvat. The travelers being the 4th descenders themselves ought to have at least some significance no?
It's why i love Aether and Lumine so much. If you don't dive deep into their story - you see them as selfinsert. But if you interested in twins - you find out their personalities, priorities, opinions. I love every moment we have update on their thoughts. I play this game cause their story and i enjoy this journey
i really appreciate the effort and level of detail hoyo put in to really make wise and belle feel like their own characters, as opposed to just making them interchangeable with one another.
one thing that stands out to me the most is that when you're playing as belle, at the end of each day wise approaches you, asks you how your day was, and either encourages you if he sees you're working hard, or guides you if you say you're being lazy. if you play as wise on the otherhand, you, as wise, are still the one to ask belle how her day was.
it would be so easy for hoyo to just swap their roles around and get the supporting sibling to check on you at the end of each day. but because wise is the responsible and caring older brother, it makes sense that he would check in with his little sister to make sure she's looking after herself properly, regardless of who you chose to play as.
small details like this that remain consistent no matter who you're playing as go a long way in making the two siblings feel like their own characters, especially when you compare them to aether and lumine, who trade personalities based on which sibling is the traveller.
Why I feel like Wise and Belle dialogue choices also different.. becuz I play as Belle, I wonder what Wise gonna say in certain dialogue choices
Not to mention some trust quests are completely different too. Like for lycaon trust event if you choose belle you get to pet his ears while as wise you get to touch his tail.
I think if we go into lore, Albedo would be the one of the best protagonists for an RPG. Not only he does have a diverse capabilities ranging from swordsmanship, geo vision and creation of minions to bombmaking and possibly abyss energy in the future, but even the story and goal of his creation actually favors variability - imagine that at the start we play as Rhinedottir creating Albedo, and choose the internal bodily layout of our artificial alchemist - ranging from "mostly normal human" to "chalk/limestone golem" to "abyss creature", or even combine those in various proportions. These are to affect gameplay properties of our Albedo as well as some parts of his plot.
That does sound like an amazing concept. I can imagine it being a super calm and relaxing game with a chill fandom. The gameplay would probably include collecting various items from the wild and during combat segments, Albedo can use his alchemy to combine those items to make things that can kill enemies, kinda like BOTW/TOTK cooking but turned into combat. We also get to bring companions that can give certain effects during combat and open world segments (Klee attaching gunpowder to alchemical creations during battle, Sucrose using bio alchemy to increase the effects of an alchemical creation, Venti helps you reach places you originally couldn’t reach, etcetera). I can also imagine a quest in which we use alchemy to cook and a feature where we get to draw and we can frame our masterpieces on the walls of our research lab cave.
@@Kureemy That would be a very cool game. I hope Hoyo decides to make a couple of single-player spin-offs in the future. They'll have to hire you as the game designer
Or we can just have khoi dao-bedo going all edgy
"welcome to hell bit-"
+TheDevilchilly That would be a dialog option for certain. Also, Our Normal Albedo is not alien to pranks, mischief, and trolling, so it's all in-character.
Interesting enough if you realize that ALL the OG characters and even the Mondstadt ones were so fleshed out that alone or in a small group could make a LOT of good short games.
EDIT: Fleshing the ideas better.
Ex:
- Fischl and Oz (with Mona and Klee) being the stars of a visual novel, trying to solve a local crime.
- Bennett and Razor being on a platform game like Mickey Mouse SNES in which both goes on adventures which leads in stopping a plan of the Abyss Order involving the Fatui too.
- Barbara in a Just Dance like game in which she wants to do the best performance ever.
- Even the Knights of Favonius (Jean, Kaeya, Amber and Noelle) might be on a SNES like platform game! I imagined them in a game similar of X-Men Mutant Apocalypse. In which in a more serious tone, they fight the Fatui and then the Abyss Order.
I like protagonists with personality since I don't have so much need for identifying myself with them and care more about observing personality of other people ( or well...protagonists ). I also loveeee when story is daring enough to not give us blank insert whatever fits your liking kinda stuff. Be daring, show us what you want writer, even if that means upsetting or alienating some, let us know what you had in mind. I feel like "less is more" is in some situations too much of a cheap trick.
Absolutely agree.
"A game for everyone is a game for no one". Same with protagonist.
This is especially true for story types, for example basically every hoyo game's story is safe enough to be read by children. There's like no adult topics (politics don't count). There's no blood. There's no depth. The world itself runs on good faith to the point where even just a single competent evil character could achieve whatever they wanted but hoyo will never write a competent evil character. The closest one to that is Otto from HI3, it's really sad.
Totally agree.. my recent example of this was Scarlet Nexus. Yuito and Kasane were COMPLETELY different from eachother and had their own developments throughout the story
Writer should have their right back to tell a story of a world where its not in hurry to explain themselves. Wheter Jack is bad guy or not, wheter the hero fear have been defeated or not, or the evil lurking? If it not needed so be it.
4:58 ngl i think this one of the travelers biggest problems is that they give dialogue options but all the dialogue options are are either
1. Saying bare bones thing relevent to the plot
2. Say the EXACT SAME THING but use differnt words
Thats 95% of dialogue options and like just dont give us it in the first place
I noticed in the newer world quests, like in the petrichor quest or the local colors quest, traveler is getting more interesting and silly choices. I rlly like it
Or it's not even a choice, if you read option 1 and 2 together it just forms a sentence and it's pretty obvious you said both.
Yea, new quests are getting more interesting responses. Like the new Puss in Boots quest.
Some Stanley Parable shiz that one is.
(or when it's..)
>(actually two halves of a sentence.)
And this, the legendary inspector (yours truly, right here), dubbed this blatant misuse of dialogue branches, as the "speech button abuse".
I'd be hard pressed to see an interesting response on the regular, since I regard genshin's writing of the MC in particular as bad on basically every account.
For how the Trailblazer is, i can say that they are canonically a dumpster diving, fairly good hearted, kinda crazy, loveable jokester weirdo (the good kind of weirdo i mean, i myself am one) goofball (unless something is really serious)
FR that one scene from firefly's perspective where they see us talking to birds and breaking balloons is how Stelle/caelus is
HSR is a good middle ground between Genshin and zzz. They feel like they’re interacting with the characters and not just witnessing, but they also don’t have much personality so you can personalize
and there's people comparing Caelus and Stelle personalities, forgetting the fact that they are biased to which character they played in the first place and their dialogue choices and their actions ultimately refers to the player.
notice how HSR is in between Genshin and ZZZ in almost every aspect?
@@LeBornMajes I'd say the three form quite the enjoyable balance, shown best through their protagonists
@@bigpoof3349 I just hate how they haven't made a tragic protagonist besides Kiana
@@LeBornMajes if we want to be technical, then Traveler can be considered tragic, though they don't show it as much. The Trailblazer doesn't even know enough of their history to have a tragedy yet
i like wise and belle cause not only do they have agency outside the players control but they also actively move the plot forward
Traveler is literally the reason why the nations we go to get saved every single time. Traveler, in the recent Dainsleif quest, is even referred to by their actual name rather than the name we give them, distancing him as a character from the player's control.
@@EnderBroadcast It's a step in the right direction, but it's regrettable that it wasn't that way from the get-go.
@@EnderBroadcast ehhh...not really Fontaine
@@Deathwings500 wdym
only Abyss twin calls Traveler by their name, not even Paimon does that.
game recently focusing on importance of names and roles too, you could theorize something.
they couldn't have done this before because Abyss Twin hasn't met Traveler from 1.3 till 4.7
@@motemo8413 The trial that ended with all literally only happened because of us. Focalors told Furina that all of this would end in a grand, magnificient trial and that's why Furina sees fit to witness most trials in her nation. She's trying to see which trial will be the one that will free her from the prophecy. It's also the reason why she came to meet us personally when we entered Fontaine and started shit with us. She thought that since we're so important, the trial will have something to do with us, which is why she immediately gets us to go on trial.
I think ive said this a few times to others already...
But genshin story is basically the story of the world while the others is the story of the characters.
Like star rail story is about the trailblazers
While genshin story is about teyvat and how its nations
how its nations what
@lenaalt2387 typo, typed how by mistake...but if I had to answer I'd say it's how it's nations thrive and their people change.
Yeah, I think that really, the archon quests are more or completely about the nation, but the interlude parts are either the world as a whole and tiny bite of aether/lumine, I think it’s nice like this, having a personality for the character I play can make it exhausting, but sometimes it’s really good
4:50 "However, Dialogue options in Genshin rarely have any kind of impact" masterful writing.
Wow, a content creator who doesn't just hate on the genshin traveler, while still giving criticism for the right reasons, and understands why certain protagonists are better with certain game genres👏👏👏
Traveller could have been a character but Genshin team are too lazy to care
think about it traveller VA main job is to do update live stream instead of voice the character that is really akward job position
I think the story shots traveler down. Traveler goal is to fine their siblings. But more and more you play you find no attachment for traveler other then a hero doing everyone dirty laundry. And since traveler is supposed to be the players. Its shown as the players just doing everyone dirty laundry. Which becomes unfun.
@@cossodummy188 the traveler isn't supposed to be the player
@gong-hl7fw hard to believe. I played to the plant realm story. And though the story i know nothing about the travelers. Oh course i haven't done any research but i shouldn't have too. If the traveler a nothing burger and not the player. Then what are they?
@@cossodummy188 they obviously have shown personality of their own, and made choices even we disagree with sometimes. You can think of them as a bad character, but I really think the Traveler isn't a self-insert char.
The background music is really giving me flashbacks. Kinda fits the topic of the video
The traveler is, like the dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes. The story doesn’t revolve around him, he’s just there to observe the things that transpire.
bruh what kind of comparison is this
I meanz I dont want to sound rude but why do you compare book to game completely different things
@@midnight.blue42 They were comparing the "characters" though?
Just cuz one is from a video game and the other is from a book,doesn't mean they can't be compared at all.
They may be from different types of media,but they can still share some similarities here and there
@@agenericguy1014 There's a big difference. Genshin Impact is a game in which you're supposed to feel like YOU are the main character. Like YOU interact with the other characters and everything
Traveler doesn't even have personality or backstory so you can be more immersed.
And when you're reading some Sherlock Holmes book, you're just a READER. You read the story written from John Watson's perspective. He describes what he saw, what he did, thought etc, you dont feel like you experienced all that - it's not how it works... Oh and he has backstory and his his own personality as all other characters from the books. And I disagree that he's just there to observe, no. In fact in "Hound of B
the Baskervilles" he did most of the investigation, while Sherlock was somewhere else.
Like the game itself said, we are an outlander, a viewer of the events to progress. The play of Teyvat is a story that we are here to watch, we are not the star, we are the sole audience.
Many people get this mixed up but Protagonist is the character who drives the plot forward, it’s possible for a protagonist to not be a main character, a main character is who we follow and the main person we see. Those two terms are pretty different because they aren’t always the same and shouldn’t be confused with each other, with Omniscient Readers Viewpoint, the protagonist and main character are two different people so it’s important to distinguish them.
Omg an orv fan :D
@@loreyxillumina yea the manwha’s great but i mostly used orv because that was the only story i could remember that had different protagonist and main characters
I disagree. It's like the video said, that the protagonist is our viewpoint. The protagonist is one of the main characters, but not every main character is a protagonist. In gaming terms the main character is often understood as the acting character, but in narrative terms a main character can be one or many. For example are Batman and Robin main characters, but Batman is the acting protagonist.
There lies a certain intent in the way an author chooses to highlight a character that witnesses the heroics of someone else, because the author wants us to experience the story through this lens, thus making the viewpoint our protagonist. It is not a story about whatever this hero does - even though it is important for sure - but a story about being the witness and bystander.
As far as I know the ORV makes it easy to dilute those terms, because our protagonist is witness of the protagonist in a story he is experiencing. But the story he engages in is not the same story we engage in, which makes the reader our protagonist, whilst making the hero the readers protagonist. It is an Inception-like-situation after all.
Protagonists and antagonists aren't moral positions, because they're roles relative to the narrative point of view.
I agree -- another example is in the Great Gatsby, where, obviously, Jay Gatsby is the main character but the narrator is Nick. Well, I suppose we'd call Nick a narrator instead of a protagonist, then, since it's a book. Hmm....
While I'm still not a fan of Traveler, at least I understand moreso why they probably chose him. But I still can't get behind game protags who are just there to stand in because the gameplay itself should already express our personality in the character through the interactive media. A lot of the time while doing non-main story quests, it feels like Paimon is more the MC and the few characterization we do is still vanilla compared to other JRPG protags I DO like(Lenneth,Mint,Estelle,etc) and you have a much better form of that character in people like Hakuno or Robin.
Tho, I still like the vid
I think the Travellers stand out because they feel uniquely "distant" among Hoyo Protagonists due to Genshin's overall focus being more about the world around us. If we compared them to another RPG "protagonist" they feel most similar to Vaan from FF12 imo, The Traveller is a "view point character", they exist to give us a pair of eyes in the story but the main plot would mostly still advance without them...Maybe a little slower.
Mei, Bronya, Kiana...and all the other arc viewpoint characters in HI3 are truly defined characters and not self inserts at all.
HI3 part 2's Entropy is framed as a self insert but likewise is a fully defined character in the narrative with Adam in APHO being the most "self insert" but even then we have defined bit's of backstory and history with other characters.
Star Rail's Trailblazers are very much at the forefront of the story and even if much of the events we take part in are bigger than us we still feel personally involved and get more actual voiced moments and in stone traits...Like it's essentially canon that we ARE a chaos gremlin in universe. The fact that a couple patches now have even had "us" more or less completely absent from control yet we see ourselves still doing important stuff from an outside perspective really adds to the "we are truly an important cog here".
Now with ZZZ the siblings essentially playing the role of physical plot machine to give the properly playable cast an excuse to be here has been a really fun so far.
Technically though, the HI3 protag is the Captain, who is even more of a "viewer" than the Travellers, and basically makes no impact on the story
@notyou9061 "The Captain" doesn't exist in the main story and is only mentioned in bridge lines as an excuse to have bridge lines where the characters talk directly to the player.
"The Captainverse" is a different story and while The Captain obviously isn't playable they play a much more central roll in moving events along...I mean holy shit "they day you vanished with the stars" went full Steins;Gate and had The Captain reset the timeline countless times until near insanity until they found a way to stop Kong Ming from dying.
I'd say in ZZZ the siblings are just characters. The only reason they are "main" is because their shop is the key place where everyone's life intertwines. ZZZ is using a framed story technique, or a story within a story. The player is a purely an objective viewer and the characters are main characters in their own stories that intertwine with the siblings' life, purely due to their need of visiting the shop or making a business deal. We can see this in the latest chapter where we don't play as Bell anymore but as Jane Doe!
0:18 female protagonist players rn: 🥺🥺🥺
Krill issue 🦐🦐🦐🦐🦐
I would say HSR is something inbetween.
You have A LOT more agency with your character, you can end the game TWICE with your choices. But ultimately you go along the "script" (main thing of the game, everything goes along the mysterious "script" and cannot be changed).
You, as the main character, can have a very different attitude in the main story. You can be a shitposter who calls themselves The Gallactic Baseballer and does Among Us references or you can be normal.
You have as much wiggle room as the "script" allows you to.
There's one story quest where you have an option to completely skip the story and get to the ending.
There's a moment in the main story where you can skip a boss fight if you can make a convincing argument to another character. There are other quests where you get to make choices, two of them are life or death situations.
Sometimes it still feels like there's no choice where it would be logical to have one (Trailblazer reaction to events of 1.6 for example). But the meaningful choices are there and it's great.
Trailblazer also has a ton of inner monologue, much, much more compared to Traveler. We can see their thoughts when clicking on interactable objects, reading mission descriptions in quest menu or when Trailblazer reacts to whatever is happening.
Somehow Trailblazer's personality is more customizable thanks to the choices you, as the player can make and simultaneously more defined thanks to the amount of inner dialogue.
@@triplecatnip7413 WHICH QUEST
Exactly, in My case, Caelus is a serious and calm dude but with subtle jokester streak like Yu Narukami of persona 4
@@HeyYouFromThatGame the first quest they mentioned is Kafka's companion mission
@@Choco-kuru-kuru I meant the one where they skip an entire bossfight. Is that kafka's quest too?
I like this analysis a lot! Writing silent protagonists is actually extremely difficult. Too much silence and the player/reader feels like they're inconsequential in the story. Too much influence and the player/reader will feel like they're forced into choices they don't agree with and would never make. It's a little easier in games, because you can always just be the "muscle" or actor who makes things happen for others.
The latest summer adventure in Genshin is a good example where even the Traveller and Paimon wonder if they did anything. We did solve puzzles and fight at the very least.
if I had to compare, Cealus/Stelle is a better-done version of Aether/Lumine, mainly because there's no Paimon, and their dialogues are just written better, they can be as serious as you want or become an utter goober no matter how serious the situation is, very much better than Genshit's 2+ flavours of "OK"
Plus dialogues in HSR actually do matter in the story, Some (not main story obviously) side quests have you choose between things that 100% affect the world permanently, and NPCs can live or die depending on your choices in side missions.
the thing is, Stelle/Caelus does still have a Paimon and it's usually just March (or any other Express member 10% of the time you're not with March) so they're actually done the same, if not worse than Lumine/Aether because unlike them, they don't even have a goal to work towards so there's nothing to look out for when playing. They just exist in the story and have cool moments, but have no real reason of being there or a goal to work towards. At least the Travelers have an actual role and reason to be in the story, and have a goal they work towards that the players are invested in. It's like if you had Frisk from Undertale like normal, working towards escaping the underground vs a Frisk where their presence in the world is unexplained and they just dilly dally around with no goal.
In terms of their dialogue options being more entertaining, that's purely based on the fact that Star Rail has a more modern setting while Genshin is fantasy. Trailblazer can get away with saying more relevant and meme-ish phrases and references like "skibidi bop rizz sigma" and not break immersion meanwhile is a MEDIEVAL FANTASY character said this, it obviously wont work so they have to stick to safer forms of humour that match the setting. So that comparison isnt even fair (and lets not pretend Trailblazer doesnt have moments of saying 'ok' in two different ways)
Congratulations! This is going to be the video I send to people when I see arguments about silent and non-silent protagonists from now on. It’s really well done. And perfectly encapsulates what I’ve been trying to explain for years.
Also, as a bit of feedback for you regarding the video’s script: since you are presumably targeting a broader audience then Genshin carryovers like me, it’s probably best to treat Genshin with the same “generalness” as you treat other games.
For example at 6:38, where you mention “in previous Archon Quests, the Traveler revealed they had information about Khaenri’ah.” Non-Genshin players don’t know what an “Archon Quest” or “Khaenri’ah” are. I think they would feel a little lost at that point if they watched this.
On the other hand, I didn’t feel lost at all when you talked about Undertale, which I have not played. So I think it may be good to approach Genshin similarly. For example, at 6:38, maybe instead say “at certain points in Genshin Impact’s storyline, the Traveler has revealed through dialogue options he knows more about the world than the player themselves do at that point,” or something like that.
Disregard all that if it’s not helpful or not something you want to do though, lol. And obviously this doesn’t apply when you do Genshin-specific content.
9:16 people kind of fed up with self-inserts in gacha scene and MCs to have at least SOME personality
Personally I dislike self-insert characters. I don't like naming the character after myself (I named the Traveler Aether, Lumine, Caelus or Stelle) depending on who I chose) or even thinking that "I" am the character in question. This is largely why I don't find the Travelers appealing in any way nowadays since 90% of the time they were seated so far back I didn't even notice they're in the conversation. Mix in their bottom of the line gameplay performance and you have a main character I heavily dislike.
HSR's Trailblazers, on the other hand, are clearly their own character. They're self-inserts, sure, but even if they're meant to be one, they certainly don't feel like one. Even the game itself agrees as they gave the TB various dialogue options that go from tame to unhinged to fourth-wall breaking. Not only that there are several portions of the game dedicated to just fleshing out the TB's personality (Belobog's Perfect Closet scene, the storytelling event, ghost-hunting squad, the hotel manager scene and then that time when you switch to Firefly's POV just to see how much of a gremlin the TB really is). Sure that may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sure as hell is mine 🤣. The recent updates to the TB's kit make them all the better (they're actually gameplay-relevant too).
The Proxies are main characters I can completely get behind. They aren't playable, they don't fight, but they remain relevant in the story due to their role's importance. They're just well-written overall. Are they the best? Probably not - but they're completely fine and still quirky as heck (they're different characters and they handle situations differently).
personally I prefer actual characters instead of self inserts. I'd rather play a game for its storey not to project myself into a character's shoes.
I LOVE THAT JJK REFERENCE
Also, my favourite Hoyo protagonist is Kiana. Cuz altho she follows general shonen style writing she’s got years of story under her and it’s kinda unfair
Out of all of the Hoyoverse Main Characters. It's only Wise and Kiana that don't feel like a black slate, since you have no idea about Trailblazer, he's basically the same as Aether although he has his unique traits unlike the Traveler such as the racoon, trash cans, jokes at the wrong time, etc. which are traits we never really see on Traveler. Another difference about Traveler and Trailblazer is that with Trailblazer, the story does not revolve entirely around them due to the scale of the world they're in. If the Trailblazer is not involved, they're not involved as stay out of another character's spotlight, which is something I see rarely on traveler cause I feel like with Traveler, the world revolves around them and everyone treats them like they're royalty for some odd reason. About Wise and Kiana, they are not blank slates because of the fact that they talk a lot, only difference is that with Wise, we can control the things that he says.
The dokidoki theme just gave me both PTSD, and nostalgia
For me traveler fails to accomplish their job because they feel like they don't exist in any of the conversations. It is always Paimon talking for us which is frustrating. And one more point of discontent is the fact that many of travelers' dialog options are two parts of the same sentence. If you want to see traveler done better just play HSR
Idk, for me Aether does a much better job than hsr, simply because of the dialog options of hsr. In hsr the main character feels way too much like an self insert. While Aether has emotions, although he doesn't talk much but when he does, it's straight to the point. The dialog options in genshin makes you feel like an observer of the siblings rather than a self insert. The predetermined nature of the dialogs is what drives it home. Aether feels more alive so to speak.
Although Belle/wise definitely take first place for good main character
By such logic Trailblazer to fails to accomplish that.
Traveler at least has something for him with their story being expanded on.
Trailblazer is just brain rot gremlin with amnesia(with literally zero expansion upon their story. At least Traveler had 2 Dain quests to talk about them, while TB has shitty guessing game with Kafka in her SQ and that’s all)
Genshin has been out for 4 years, hsr has been out for a bi more than 1. Of course Genshin explored more of the Traveler's secret past, HSR is technically still at the start of its story
@@Gabrielzinho7891235 Travelers secret past was explored in 1.6 already with 2 Dain quests with one being where his sister appeared.
In HSR we only got Kafka quest and even then we didn’t get much.
Aside from that we explored absolutely nothing about TB in Herta station,Belobog,Xianzhou and Penacony
An observation I had that you kinda mentioned at the end. Game characters are very unique in that apart from the narrative, there's another factor that affects their characterization. The Gameplay. Characters are often defined by their actions, and what better way to show this than to center the gameplay around that. Even the smallest game mechanics can be a great building block for characterization.
Even with silent protags you can easily differentiate by referring to their gameplay and their game's premise alone. Link is noble and adventurous, Doomguy's the embodiment of rage, and each Persona MC while sociable have distinct behavior based on their game's themes.
Still, gameplay as a characterization tool while effective can be misused or outright ignored. Especially since player experience is connected. This could lead to some discrepancies ranging from minor annoyances to glaring contradictions. Genshin has already been given criticism for, so I'll give other examples.
Fighting games come across this alot, though mostly from player input. These games have always a hard time doing storytelling, but their characters do have a backstory somewhat. But ask a fighting game player to describe a fighting game character and you won't hear that character's backstory. They'll tell how high or low they are on tier lists, how OP, broken, or weak they are, the frame data, their special moves, or how annoying the people that play as them are. Their focus is in the gameplay after all. See May from Guilty Gear for reference.
Here's another example. Nathan Drake from Uncharted. In that game you play as a adventurous witty explorer to discover ancient ruins and parkour through landscapes. The game obviously reflects his job of discovering ancient ruins and there's parkour, and Drake is a lovable protagonist that has clever banter with his equally lovable side characters.
One small issue. You kill lots of people in these games. Normally this wouldn't be such an issue since most are bad guys and even Indiana Jones had to kill many bad guys in his films. But they were just so many. Nathan Drake has such an incredibly high body count that was not acknowledged in the games and still treat him like a good guy that fans eventually started to notice this. At one point the devs actually lampshaded this in a later game then moved on for other things. This may be a result of overthinking, but it happened.
Ah, our old friend Ludonarrative Dissonance has come to visit us. xD
@@blackcitadel9 Oh yeah, that's what it's called.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people dog on the traveler JUST because they don’t always speak- there’s literally a lore reason probably as to they they’re silent. Silent does not mean the protagonist or hero is bad!!
I think theres also a lot of inspiration from botw, so its kind of like a self insert style of mc like Link who doesnt talk much either
They do speak we just don’t hear the dialogue option vocied
@Yami-mugoni613 they technically do, but for the most part we arent super involved in the conversations, more of just absorbing info and reacting, and paimon does most of the talking for us too. Its very different in zzz where we feel a lot more involved in the story, and feel like the mc is also an interesting char with a clear unique personality and will
@@SoulHydron the way I see it is for Genshin, we’re observing a MCs choices and story, but in ZZZ we’re watching the MC as if we’re watching a character in a TV show
For real
Hey aster i know your rebranding from genshin content but i thought of something interesting and i just wanted to post it
All the archons politically represent different groups of people
Venti- citizens/artists (he can only cause change by producing propaganda and accumulating allies)
Zhongli- emperor
Raiden- military leader
Nahida- children (she has no effects politically and requires adults to bring about change. Also she's at the mercy of the institutions around her)
My favourite type of Protagonist is Kris
I don't know where to put them, but the idea of the controlled character and the player being two different entity is genius, also, I like how the game still find some way to give Kris quite a good chunk of personality despite this (Like with the Tea, who allow us to see his opinion on the other character, the fact he genuinely love Susie is very wholesome)
This
Such a great video! and I agree with the mix in-between characteristics of the traveler.
The name of your channel it's perfectly fitting. This video was so chill 😅 I love the categorization you did of types of protagonist. Personally I'm loving ZZZ because I usually want to appreciate characters and not be so immerse in the game myself. Belle and Wise are perfect for me for that reason. I've come to like them a lot and their banter it's so cute.
The "main" character feels like a compromise between a fully silent protagonist and a full-fledged character protagonist, used because it's hard to have a complete story that involves them in any meaningful way when they can't ever act like a character in the world. Portal has a silent protagonist, but it's really just a puzzle game with dialog slapped on for humor; Undertale is built around player choice and commentary on it, so it's an unusual case.
Genshin is like Zelda in that there might be a lot going on story-wise, but the main character's goals are very simple (defeat Ganon, find sibling) and they're mostly carried along with everyone else's shenanigans... except in rare cases where they speak or their sibling appears, and keeping these events infrequent so they'd have more weight was definitely a deliberate choice. ZZZ is more like a movie (maybe that's why they live in a video store?) where the main characters are as involved with the plot as anyone else and have more complicated/nebulous goals (keep the store running, rebuild reputation as super hackers, figure out what Fairy is up to, etc.) so making them mostly silent wouldn't work.
1:00 In a good story, it'd be the 2nd and sometimes also the first. Choose your protagonist is a pretty important part of writing a story.
Frisk from Undertale fulfils his role perfectly, as a vessel for the player. The story is, at least partially, a meta-commentary on the dichotomy between the characters for whom the game is their entire world, and the player, a godlike being who may not care about said world. It makes sense that Frisk isn't a "real" character, but moreso a representation of the player.
I've never played Portal but the game also seems more concerned with the player's interactions with glados than the character's interactions.
This is where I have a bit of a problem with Genshin. It simultaneously wants the player to be interacting with the world, such that the protagonist must be a silent, blank state. However, the player can't really interact much with the world. Aside from quests, anything you do isn't really recognized by Teyvat. And during quests, that's not much interactivity - neither choices to make nor obstacles to overcome. The end result, at least in my experience, is that the Traveler is someone who only exists inside of quests (especially if you don't use Traveler in the open world), and he appears to be a real character (especially after the backstory with Khaenri'ah), but he is not fleshed out due to attempting to be a self-insert - which I can't actually self-insert myself into when I have no way of interacting with the world in a meaningful manner. If I 100% exploration for instance, while I am "interacting" with the world, no one in Teyvat will acknowledge it.
Main Character = character that's the focus of the story's action, said character can be good or bad or evil
Story Hero = unquestionably good and embodies true virtue and heroism
Protagonist = character that's generally good and follows a good moral code
Story Villain = unquestionably evil and rotten to the core, has no redeeming qualities and causes chaos for no other reason other than self-entertainment
Antagonist = character that's usually bad, is the protagonist's rival or directly opposes the protagonist through their actions
With the evolution of storytelling, antagonists have evolved from one dimensional characters that are evil/bad just because "plot reasons", to characters that have a deeply troubled past and can be understood why they are bad thus forming a more defined character. In recent years, antagonists can be either redeemed, or they are just good characters that aren't squeamish about soaking their hands in blood as long as it serves the greater good, contrary to the protagonist who can't do that due to a moral code.
The same goes for protagonists that can fall from grace or go through so many hardships that they break causing them to disregard their good moral code. This even can turn a protagonist either into an antagonist, or into a villain.
The Traveler is a sub-mediocre character that barely has anything to say. A poorly written character reduced to the role of "silent witness" while a high-pitched voice fairy presumably "talks for us" and the writer bottlenecks you into a choice or dialogue that doesn't represent the player's feeling/mentality efectively cutting away the player and giving a prime example of... stupid main character that represents "you" (in other words, here this is you and you are very stupid in this arc/conversation).
In 4 years all you learn about the Traveler is that he/she has vital information about X thing that you hardly give a hoot about anymore.
The only bit that i dont agree with is that protagonists arent really "follows a good moral code" but more of the main guy basicly
@@tryingmybesttodraw
It depends entirely on the story and character progression. You have protagonists that are usually good guys/girls even if they have a small percentage of "corruption" in their characteristics.
As I specified in my comment, characters can switch roles in the story; but this depends entirely on the writer's skill, story progression and how the character adapts to key events in it.
Protagonists and antagonists aren't moral positions, because they're a role relative to the narrative point of view.
protagonist is the character that pushes the story, can be good or bad or neutral depending on the narrative point of view.
Am i the only one who remembers when Thoma asked The Traveler to help with the resistance and They outright say "No"
Honestly they feel more like Gerualt from the Witcher. You never actual have control over the parameters for what Gerualt will do
You make choices that do matter but never outside what He would choose
The Traveler gets annoyed they hate being asked to do trivial tasks and like to tease Paimon
Personally i like the weird silent protagonist.
I like the "Oh Shit" moments
Its a nice contrast to the games HI3 is very Character Driven and Serious Genshin is very Story Driven ans Serious. Hsr is very Story Driven but Goofy while ZZZ is very Character Driven and Goofy
I think the final culmination to the Travelers Arc will be that one Quest where all there Dialogue is Voiced i think it will have a profound effect on the Audience
Like having that One Friend whose very Quite but when they speak you know to listen
Quite like the recent interlude quests, man it was so good listening to Aether and being on edge when he was asking Lumine questions
Traveler is really weird case, where they are technically a silent protagonist but voiced by Paimon, which creates this weird narativ hybrid between self-insert salient protagonist and full-fledged character, that wants to be treated as dual protagoinst but fails at being either of them
my fave protag is trailblazer from hsr
i know u said u dont play so i'll just tell wht i love about them
they r silent protags as well tht get voice lines sometimes (more than in genshin), however the dialog options r just the best. u can be ur typical hero or a complete doomer and my absolute favorite a total meemer. if i see funny option i immedietly pick and just enjoy other characters' reactions. they r like "and we rely on this weirdo to save us?" its amazing. this alone just give so much personality to MC which i missed right away when i played wuwa story cuz mc there was pretty boring personality wise despite being total badass.
I did not know what to expect at entering this video, but I liked it, a good explanation, not thinking one game is superior than the other and all valid points
Love the transition from Genshin lore to other stuff
Warning: Heavy FFXIV Shadowbringers and Endwalker spoilers ahead!
One of my favorite (and in my opinion most interesting/unique) ‘silent’ protagonists is the main character in Final Fantasy XIV. This is because while they are in most aspects a silent character who is almost completely a blank canvas for the player, they are also an established character with their own personality and connections. They do this by splitting the ‘you’ of the past (known more commonly as Azem) from the ‘you’ that plays the game; your character is a fragment of the original Azem but you’re still your own unique person. This makes it so that other characters can have connections to you, talk about your shared past, and mention specific things like your personality, without actually making any of these things set in stone as traits of the character you’re playing now. You can choose to embrace these things, the connections from the past, or you can go the complete opposite direction with your character. But no matter which way you go it still completely makes sense in the story and doesn’t go against any of the pre-established aspects of the story.
This was randomly recommended to me, and I must admit it was interesting to watch, and it gave a new found respect for Traveller.
the trailblazer in HSR would've been a great in between for these two kinds of protagonists. Made out to be the silent protagonist but oozes so much personality that I wouldn't consider them to be a stand in for the player.
Well articulated! Makes me really want to hear your thoughts on side characters.
As you said, lack of character in game protags (especially silent ones) is mostly "necessary" and is understandable...but what about side chara?
Characters who are a "concept" first, and a character later. For example, Lingyang of Wuthering waves.
I like how Traveler being a silent character works narratively, in a sense that at the start they barely cared about Teyvat and the focus was in the abyss sibling, but each time the Traveler has more friends, more knowledge, each time they know more about the world and it's history and each time they're closer to be part of it, during Fountaine Story Quests and Archon Quest, the Traveler took a more important role in the Quests, (Xianyun, Cyno 2nd part, Arleccino,,Navia) the Traveler Voice is more active than never, and each time their more open, friendly, direct, or even eager to explore and help by owm decision, the Traveler starts to feel familiarity with Teyvat.
Still hate the lack of voiced protagonist’s. I don’t wanna see myself in a game (or you can make dialogue that can somewhat reflect you which choices) it’s lazy. The only reason a character shouldn’t be voiced is if they can’t talk or prefer to not (but still do at times) I’ve said it since day one the traveler should be vocal all the time not just random
It's hard to see yourself in the shoes of a silent "protagonist" when the illusion of choice of the dialogue prompts are blatantly obvious. it's like the writers want the cake and eat it too, when it comes to telling a story. In Genshin, for example, most of the times, I see the traveler as an empty shell of a character, like the other characters are talking with a brick wall or some toddler who needs his mommy Paimon to speak on his behalf.
@@GentlePunch4U I 100% agree I like the voice actor and some of the dialogue “choices” are fine I just would like the character to talk instead of being a brick wall. It makes no sense for the character to have a lot of dialogue in the character menu but not in the world. Besides the time they were very opinionated on twins in Fontaine. When they decide to give the character diaolgue or very open opinions it almost feels out of character which I wish wasn’t the case I think the game would be better if traveler just talked. Ask establish why nobody calls them by their name lore wise. You’d think people would call them it or at least ask them it
@@MoraxnI might be misunderstanding the last part, but they've definitely started to establish why nobody calls you by your true name
true
i dont mind traveler being silent but why the fuck is there 2 dialog options with 1st one being the beginning of a sentence and the 2nd one being the continuation of the same sentence?
wht the point of making 2 option just make it 1
@@kishi_K0 also a very good point
I didn’t know fischl made small scale video essays. You learn something new every day
to put it simply, Wise/Belle from zzz is the main "character" because they are a character that happens to be the center of attention in a story, they have no control of everything around them even if they conclude a chapter
Aether/Lumine on the other hand, is a force of nature, they change anything they touch in the story, they are the "Main" character because their character is an unstoppable force, it is embed into them to be the saving heroes
"the difference between main character vs main character" sounds like what a main character would say
I love aster’s new content! She’s honest but also not condescending and gives reasonable criticism.
You can say what you want about Inazuma, but I love the character arc Traveler gets there.
Them refusing to help the nation shouldn't have been a surprise if you paid attention :)
It doesnt work because You need to interact with the world to had some kind of development and that only screws that with the traveler a lot more
What I really love about Wise/Belle is that they never feel as awkward positioned as the traveler.
The traveler feels like the world revolves around them, just to become an awkward observer most of the time. Since they sometimes DO decide to take action or make decisions, instead of them being a blank slate, they often came off as uninterested or disengaged to me (and just being bugged by Paimon and the people around them to take care of problems). On the long run that hurt my own relationship with the game.
In ZZZ, there is a balance between Wise/Belle actvely taking on a job, being offered one or deciding to follow people into the hollow because they are ACTUALLY curious. They are also sometimes allowed to not be directly involved (I was pleasantly suprised they were minimally involved in Janes Mission). Of course we need to wait for ZZZs further development until we can truly compare it to the other games, but so far I am more engaged with ZZZ simply because the Protags seem to be more engaged with the world.
1:01 love this reference
I am morbing over getting jumpscared by "Your Reality"
1:11-1:27 a good example would be shrek right?
goes against the normal archetype by making an ogre the main character and hero as to where thay normally play a supporting villain role sometimes (I think?), same with lord farquad, the king in many stories are shown as good, a respectful ruler with pretty much no flaws, where as he is a lord and seeks to be king by marrying a princess and therefore gaining for authority and power (for the worst).
so making shrek the protaginist (despite being an ogre who most see as bad); someone who doesnt have to necessarily good or bad of whoms story we follow, and lord farquad the antagonist (who is a lord and an equivilant to a king (similar roles story wise) who is normally seen as good);someone who goes against the protaginist of whom we follow
the movie demonstrated this exactly correct? (just tell me im wrong if im wrong, not a movie or archetype expert)
Ace Combat is known for silent protagonists (the self-insert kind) becoming legendary ace pilot known by friends and enemies alike. The catch is that sometimes the fame is shared by the player character's squadron who are not silent. In Ace Combat 5 the mythological association with "Razgriz" shared by the entire squadron (the player character happens to be the leader). In most Ace Combat games, the ace pilot reputation is concentrated on the player character: In Act Combat 7 the wingman Count admitted to riding the coattails of player character Trigger. In Ace Combat Zero, the player character Cipher is faceless and is only characterized through player decision and documentary interviews with various pilots who fought him.
The flaw of Ace Combat silent and faceless protagonist shows when the player character is an important participant of a war and we can't dive deep into his mental state and political opinions at all. Especially when they went to jail, got betrayed or must enter high-stake missions.
i like my boy aether but i can not help but to say that he is kinda of a problem for the story, mainly character quest and lack of on screen personality
I would disagree with the lack on screen personality , their personality mostly lies on facial expressions.
@@loreyxillumina lumine has better facial expressions than aether, there voiced conversations between the traveller and paimon in charechter screen its where their personality really shines, they are all voiced wich bafels me as to why other things arent voiced
Hmmm I really like Aether. You can clearly tell what his place is most of the time, for example from his dialogue with March and Dan Heng, you can clearly make out that he is the jokester of the group. There are a lot of interactions from which you can make out his idiocy, for example being able to jump in the closet and scare the waiter in Goethe hotel. There is also Hoyo’s official social media accounts, where you can see Traveller digging through trashcans in the promotional video for example. His voicelines and poses also have a lot of personality. While Stelle says her lines calm: ‘Rules… are made to be broken.’ Caelus screams most of his voicelines: ‘Rules… ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN.’
Overall, I think his personality is conveyed through his actions and words instead of his facial expressions, because his facial expressions are indeed pretty subtle.
BUT I know a lot of people irl whose expressions are also very subtle. To me it makes him more realistic.
Sorry for the ramble I just woke up
using DDLC Soundtrack is Inducing PTSD
I want to give a shoutout to White Knight Chronicles. We get to create a silent witness character, but the story follows Leonard as the protagonist through the 2 games.
Is that the damn Doki Doki Literature Club song in the background
Silent Protagonist: Jack from Bioshock, Doomguy, Persona Protagonists
"Main" character: Harrier Du bois from Disco Elysium, Link, and Samus in Metroid Prime and Dread
Main "character": Commander Shepard from Mass Effect, V from Cyberpunk, The band members from Guitar Hero 3
I can't unhear the DDLC theme in the background
As everyone and their mother has already stated, the Trailblazer in HSR more or less has a defined personality as an eccentric but still benevolent person. Even if it doesn't change the overall outcome, they also tend to have more personal agency in dialogue choices, with different responses eliciting different reactions and demonstrating different feelings. Their interactions with Aventurine and Sam are the most immediate ones that come to mind. Conversely, the Traveler, as stated, tends to be given the illusion of choice and railroaded onto a single dialogue path. I feel a big part of this is how we see the world. The Traveler is glued to Paimon, and so have to interact and receive the world through her. Meanwhile, despite having an ensemble cast, the Trailblazer isn't tied to the other Astral Expressers as much, with a different team for each planet, and even extended periods of time where the TB doesn't have them at all (Penacony is the most noteworthy example). These stretches force the TB to show off more of their own personality, even independent of the player (see: the rooftop).
The thing with the Trailblazer is that You can determine the amount of excentricity and seriousness in them
Also in the rooftop You can determine the nature of the event with the dialogue like with me, when i leave clear to Firefly that My priority is the legacy and not her, i had empathy with her situation but nothing more
Only timed I liked playing a silent protag was in Fallout New Vegas since there was enough goofy dialog choices to pick from to where I can feel myself as that character I made or I'm trying to act like
8:54 what I love most is that Im pretty sure miyoho knew that and purposefully made the travelers not have much spoken dialouge for that exact reason- because when they finally do speak you'll know, and anything they say- the player will take seriously and will think in depth to what they say. The less words spoken- the sweeter the ones that are said.
TDLR: because they dont speak you'll know that when they do speak it means what they said was incredibly important, and you'll think about it more than anything any other character could say.
I like "main character"
Two words together, not just one of them
And that's why I prefer watching movies or series and not play the games. I hate how companies treat their MCs
early gang, big fan btw!
The traveler fills the archetype of someone who "records history" or "witnesses events", but inevitably gets sucked into the action even though they don't have an actual stake in it. Much like Elaina from The Journey of the Witch, or Kino from Kino's Journey.
If you want to cooperate more about those characters, we can also talk about the differences between most JRPG vs WRPG
JRPG storyline usually has a cast of named protagonists with personalities on their own and most of their decisions are bonded to their personas. Examples of this are Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy or Chrono Triggers.
Meanwhile WRPG the protagonist may have a canon name but the game still has the choice to be named as the player wishes, their past usually is almost blank, and the choices are freer open, giving the players more chances to play as themselves. Examples are Skyrim or Fallout.
I thought this would be about the player/POV character not being the protagonist in the narrative. It kinda is, I guess. Silent Protagonists tend serve as cameramen to the world/story. Writing the player in this manner is common in these live service/MMO style games because either character customization makes putting them in cutscenes expensive or breaking the illusion by having the character as the player would/should in that situation. So instead, a lot of times significant events happen to other characters while the player facilitates it through gameplay.
when talking about people aligning with main characters and protagonists, I always think of Little Nightmares 1. throughout the entire game, I've noticed that people refer to the main character, Six in the first person, saying things like "I need to escape these enemies" and "look at us go". then near the end of the game when Six does something people see as morally wrong, they start referring to Six in the third person, like saying "what did *you* do?" and "why did *you* do that?". I find it so interesting that only when the main character does something we don't agree with, we distance ourselves from them personally
Lil bummed out that our trashpanda weren't included. Great video tho!
There's one "silent" protagonist that really stood out to me : Lea from Crosscode (such an underknown game btw)
The game takes place inside a VR MMORPG, and Lea can't talk because of some disfonctionment with her speech module. However, she can still communicate with a very rudimentary word list implemented by a developper. I find it incredible how expressive she is despite her limited vocabulary
The "Main" chara things is becoming more and more like isekai trend, it take the writer creativity to make a blank character just enough so that everyone can relate to them. Cardboard cut out. This is why ZZZ and HSR(altho HSR still sometimes made me nod off) I consider as few good gacha story with C:S on top. I believe storytelling purpose is to told the reader or watcher how it feels to be the person inside the literature or inside that said art form, It made us think how it feels to be a cowardly hero, or to be a space ship captain, or even a simple bartender. I am sad that the character I play as doesnt give me anything, their thought, their principle, their ambition? there is none, those cardboard cut out doesnt even give me the novelty of reading a bed time story.
That's your natural, unedited voice? You should be a Voice Actress!
Damn, the Doki Doki Literature Club OST at the start gave me PTSD…
i’m seated
Traveler was a main "negative inspiration" for the protagonist I'm writing for my little game. Lumine in fandom is usually a bit of a gremlin too and sometimes a pervert one, kinda like the fandom Gudako from F/GO and Stelle from HSR, which is an exaggeration of her jokingly interactions with Paimon. I like Fandon Lumine way more TBH, and wouldn't mine if she became canon. But one trope it's rare to see with main characters is that of a sly, manipulator one, which is weird since when we have dialogue choices, especially meaningful ones, it seems quite manipulative, as if we are choosing the best word to achieve the result we want.
The main problem I have with Genshin's dialogue, especially with Traveler, is the blatant illusion of choice, for a character with barely any personality. We can't let the player choose all possible answers for words, or else we would need an entire language model for that, but for the few, limited choices of words, like 2-3, we need a "broader stroke", but it's more fun if those "broad strokes" weren't black or white.
I remember playing Artificial Academy 2, that hentai game where you create a simulation of a high school, and investigated the mechanisms behind it while trying to mod it, and one interesting thing it did was to have vectors for some broad emotions like anger, sadness, happiness, and corresponding dialogue choices like "Calm", "Cheer" and another ones which altered these vectors if it went successfully. It even used an array computing the likeness of a character for another( which lead to the hentai situations) where new results from interactions "pushed" the old ones out of the array, imitating forgetting past interactions. I found it really clever for simple mechanics which you learn with any basic Python or C++ tutorial on arrays and vectors.
I think with that, something like Lumine's 2-3 choices of dialogue that mean the exact same thing could be done, by having a more direct, a more obtuse, a more sly, etc... version of the same phrase, leading to different responses from the NPC, or even different endings like in the Hangouts. I can excuse being limited with voiced dialogues, but I can't with the unvoiced ones since it's just thrice more lines to be written, and I'd rather have that than "Fischl speak" in character kits and a skinner box in dialogue choices. Genshin ain't doing that for sure, but nothing impedes me implementing this as a core of my dialogue system in my game. Broad strokes of a personality painting the same answer in different colors, that will lead to the exact result in the end, but through different "means" emotionally.
But to be honest, I really wanted to larp Lumine as this sly, flirty gremlin she is in some parts of the Fandom. I want to flirt with Ayaka, to tease NPCs when they do some weird routine and to joke with Paimon calling her other things instead of Emergency Food.
In the end,both of them are great in their own way.
However,if there's one thing that I dislike about the Travelers,it's not actually about them haha.
Rather,it's about how some people perceive them as "self inserts"
Calling the Travelers a self insert is like calling Link from the Zelda series a self insert.
Just cuz we control them and choose their decisions,it doesn't necessarily mean that we ARE them.
They get scared,happy,mad and sad.
They have emotions and personality.
They're their own person,not a mindless puppet with no character whatsoever.
Some good examples are how they refused to help Thoma during the Inazuma arc and were mad at Lyney and Lynette for lying to them.
It really shows how they aren't a self insert as we can't full control what they do
The only problem is that the Traveler tend to feel so "absent" despite actually being there since they talk way too rarely.
So yea,that's my take on it,a rather bad one since I'm not the best when it comes to literature so take it with a grain of salt
Overall,it was a great video and I really enjoyed watching it.
Also,an honorable mention to "Kris" from Deltarune as Kris was made to look like a self insert but is actually a character who unfortunately had no free will against us players.
It's a really cool concept imo as instead of us making the decisions that we want,it essentially turned into us FORCING Kris to do what he might or might not want
I feel like Issac Clarke should be brought up in this disscusion, the staggering difference between Dead space 1 and Dead space remake is tied to one key element they've added to the Remake: Giving him a voice.
In the first game he don't talk, being an action protagonist, his role is to be a vehicle for the player in the world and they did a wonderful job designing him for that purpose, YOU are Isaac, YOU are in the world. But then the Remake comes in, they decided to give Isaac a voice and this decission alone change SO much it could've been the sole reason why it's called a Remake. These two games are too different to compare thanks mainly to this one key factor, but it will be interesting to compare how they differs thank to it. In my opinions, both are masterpieces because of this difference.
Hangout quests in a nutshell, we're the main character's friend.
Man ZZZ got soo much slack for nothing. Remember when players screamed that every NPC looks the same in genshin? Now that we have soo much diversity in ZZZ no one talks about it. Thanks for the video it was great.
I think there's also a distinction to be made between silent protagonists ("characters" who are just cameras holding guns, who express no feelings or thoughts whatsoever at any point) and diagetically mute characters who still display personality by other means. Think Gordon Freeman vs Doomguy (2016). Gordon never has any reaction whatsoever to anything happening around him, even as his entire life burns to the ground. He is simply a camera taped to a crowbar, acting as nothing but a tool the player can use to interact with the setting. Doomguy is mute _in-universe,_ but oozes personality in every physical action he performs, from violently shoving the monitor aside when Hayden tries to cut a deal, to looking down at the corpse in the elevator before punching the panel (again to get Hayden to stop talking). Properly silent protagonists aren't characters so much as a vehicle for the player to navigate the game, and could be swapped out with any other character, or even like, a trashbin, and it would make zero functional difference to the narrative. I'm a big fan of diagetically mute characters because they're forced to be exceptionally visually and physically expressive to make up for their lack of a voice. I very rarely find entirely silent characters tolerable, as their complete absence of any expression of, well, _character,_ can be very immersion breaking. Why should _I_ care about a character's struggles if _they_ don't care about their struggles?
Caelus would be both then, at many point you see through the lenses of many other characters but he is still the one you are, things still happen around him because of him. In Penacony they actually touch on this with Ena's dream, spoiler alert:
From the very moment you entered Penacony, you are in a dream, the whole thing about switching prospective is how "you" think is going on, everything is seen through Caelus even though the prospective is someone else, it's clear that Caelus IS the protagonist and main character, but he still plays a supporting role, for example, in XianZhou LuoFu Caelus is clearly not the focus, Dan Heng, Jing Yuan etc. are
Based on this vid, I have a very good feeling that you'll enjoy HSR
As far as Hoyo goes, the best mc they ever made was Kiana Kaslana.
The only with the traveler is that the story and world building of Genshin itself is so good to the point where the traveler feels like they are being left behind. So in order to have traveler be a meaningful character the self-insertion has to be good, and the player base are definitely not good story writer, leading to their own characterization and hence their perspective of the traveler bad and feels lacking.
Hell in FPS games the MC is mostly a silent protagonists to make you fell like a badass and no ones got a problem with it, due to the fact that most FPS games are power fantasy fulfillment.
• Why don't you just say *MC vs Protagonist* instead of Mc vs mC(with a qoutation marks)? The main character is NOT always the protagonist, those are two different people.
Yes, we're used to thinking that the MC is the protagonist, but not all cases are like that. There are authors who intentionally separate the two roles.
*Protagonist* - 🚚 DRIVES the plot forward. . . .The majority of the plot revolves around him/her.
*MC* - 👀 IMPACTED BY the plot’s main conflict. . . (The point of view). . . .We experience the story through his/her perspective.
*Hero* - is a combination of both MC and Protagonist.(ex. Spiderman, Superman, Aang, etc.)
- In Genshin , Traveler is the MC, and the protagonists, are characters you can recognize depending on the chapters/story arc of the game. There's no difference between Traveler and the Proxies in playing their role as MC, since they are only involved in a story that doesn't belong to them.
• Your argument about the silent protagonist is irrelevant . . . It has nothing to do with identifying the main character.
Traveler can't decide what they want to be a cutout or a actual character, either way goody two-shoes are boring nontheless, also Traveler doesn't "witness" they play an active role in the stories of the world, wich fails at the whole "witness" part
i still think my favorite iteration of the silent protagonist trope is in the persona games.
if you ask me, i think that games that have the protagonist be a "blank slate" should allow the player to have more strong and story impactful dialogue options.
i'm not sure how others feel but it's hard to really feel like i'm a part of a story if i'm not allowed to have particularly strong opinions or otherwise shape the story.
additionally it allows th majority of character interactions ( protag / other character) to actually show how **I** would interact with this character instead of effectively that character monolouging to a strawman they came up with in the shower.
9:35 WOOOOOOOOOOO MYSTIC MESSENGER WOOOOOO I LIVE
I think one of the biggest problems with the traveler is that Paimon exists. Because she has her own personality, it leads to the writers doubling down on Traveler being a silent protag by just not really giving him much personality at all. Everything he says is extremely bland and surface level. At most you might get the impression that he is feeling sad or happy about something. Sometimes he doesn't even have an actual dialogue choice, and the "options" are just two parts of his one line of dialogue.
Compare this to Trailblazer from HSR or even Link from Legend of Zelda (especially BOTW and TOTK). Both of these characters operate on their own much more than the Traveler. Because of this, they are required to actually convey some sort of personality through their dialogue options. With Link, he often has options to be more quiet and serious where he gets straight to the point, or he might just make some goofy comment about something instead. When told to go somewhere, his options might be something like "Alright." and "What? All the way up there!?". Trailblazer gets a similar treatment. The options often allow you to either take things seriously, or just be an absolute goofball making meme references and joking with friends. The options for both these characters often lead to different dialogue too, even if its just one single line before getting to the same place. If Link says something goofy, a character will comment on it before giving the normal explanation. Same with Trailblazer. Traveler rarely ends up getting this treatment though. Even when he does, it tends to be Paimon who reacts to it, and she may as well just be part of the traveler. I will say that Traveler has been showing a bit more personality recently, but he still feels bland in comparison to other "Main" characters that operate solo.
What about Dante from Limbus Company?😥
"You want to feel like they actually like you!"
DO THEY NOT?!