You may be wondering what the iconic Frank Sinatra song "My Way" has to do with a blog about gaming, besides from being a fun and informative way to start off quite a cool little topic (ok, its only semi informative). Today, I'm going to be talking about protagonists, characters and the classic epic story arc seen in so many of our beloved interactive story telling experiences.
As with any post that reviels story arcs and plots and other stuff like that, here is a massive
You have been warned!
 |
| The UNSC Pillar of Autumn, on its way to be "thrown into conflict" |
So what exactly is the classic epic story arc? Well pull up a chair and a decent cuppa, because it's a long story. Most modern day video games follow a system called The Three Act Structure, it follows a set of guides that layout what should and should not happen to the protagonist of the story. Act 1 introduces us to the characters and begins to scratch the surface of their personality, but crucially must always end in some form of tragedy/incident/battle/explosion delete as appropriate, that throws the main character (or in the case of video games, the player) into conflict. For anyone who has played Halo: Combat Evolved, the introductory sequence on the Pillar of Autumn when we are introduced to Master Chief and Cortana would be a good example of a first act, and the crashing into the planet in flames and screams would be a good example of an event throwing the min character into conflict, literally in this case. Act 2 is all about the main character leveling up. Yup. It's that simple, the main character ranks up in some way or another, until they have the power to take on the big bad guys that somehow managed to evade them in the first act (my personal favorite is the obligatory cheesy rocky training montage). Act 3 is even simpler, it's the big fight, the boss match, the duel to the death, pour duello a la mort swiftly followed by a happy ending.
That's the Three Act Structure, however if we want to make a classic epic story arc, sometimes also referred to as a Greek epic, we have to make one or two tiny additions. First off, no happy ending. The hero MUST die. Full Stop. End of story, literally. It's a classic moment from film, TV and games that we've seen a thousand times, after defeating the bad guy, the hero quietly succumbs to his wounds leaving us with an artfully shot image of his eyes flickering shut for the last time. It rarely ever happens like that in real life of course, but what the hay! Its a story! Secondly, there is a much larger emphasis on the second act than there is on any of the other. An epic is about the journey, the struggle for power to defeat the obligatory bad guy and save the world. A great example of this is the Lord of the Rings films, the inclusion of the hobbit films, shows that a good epic story arc doesn't even have to be delivered in chronological order for it to be worth watching. But I digress.
 |
| The Choice of Death. Note that here, there is no choice to live. |
What originally got me thinking about this topic was an a thought I had in the kitchen whilst making my lunch. I was standing next to the microwave, waiting for my sausages to defrost and letting my mind wander when suddenly I thought "You know what, I really miss Commander Shepard".
It's been a while now since the release of the final instillation in the mass effect trilogy, and I seem to be one of a very small minority of people, who considered the original ending to be excellent. However, the point still stands. I feel the almost primal need to play the Mass Effect games again, as I'm now being denied the release of a new game. My question is why? Why do some characters grip us and tug on our heart strings, to the point where we wont let them go, and yet others fade into the background? One small answer to this question may be simply that some characters are named, and others we give names. It would certainly explain why I feel more of an epic attachment to Commander Shepard than to my Skyrim character.
My follow up thoughts will follow sometime later in the month, as always I welcome your opinions on the topic, just pop them in the comments section!
Matt.
(Die you piece of shoddy Geth machinery!)
