The Eighth Sphere: DMC4 - Lady

Thus did the circulated melody
Seal itself up; and all the other lights

Were making to resound the name of Mary.
- Paradiso, Dante Alighieri

The Eighth Sphere
Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition - Lady

Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition struck me as somewhat weird. The main story of the game revolves around Vergil attempting to open a portal to the demon world with Dante having to stop him. Meanwhile Lady is hunting down her demon-obsessed father (and accomplice to Vergil) who killed his wife for power. With how the game's story progresses I would argue that Lady is to DMC3 what Nero is to DMC4. So when they added a new playable character for the special edition besides Dante it was obvious who was going to be the secondary playable character.

Vergil.

No seriously, they picked Vergil. Here we have Lady, who in the story progresses alongside Dante, has even more of a character arc than Dante, shows exceptional skill at vanquishing demons and even lands in the killing blow on the game's villain, but instead of having her as a playable character, we got color-swapped Dante (That's a simplification since Vergil does have a different moveset and ended up with a sizable fanbase, but still). In short, I was more than a bit disappointed that I didn't get to play as Lady back when I picked the game up in 2007.

Fast forward about 8 years and imagine how hyped I was with the announcement of Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition, which not only brought the main Devil May Cry series back from reboot hell, but also promised Lady and Trish as playable characters. You bet I was excited.

Unlike all the other melee-focused characters, Lady's main method of disposing demons is long-ranged and gun based. She does a tremendous amount of damage with the downsides being that she needs time to charge her guns and she's a bit slower. Story-wise her focus on guns is a result of her being the only human in the cast. That in itself is a big reason why she's so awesome: she can hold her own despite not being a super-powered (half-)demon. That's also why her devil trigger is just her tossing grenades around and why, unlike all these guys with healing factors, she has acquired quite a few noticeable scars (unfortunately they used the same texture for both her legs so somehow her scars are symmetrical).

She doesn't really have a story this time around though. It's just the same levels as Nero & Dante from the main story, with Lady & Trish taking their respective places as playable character. As such character development is basically out the window entirely. However we do get an insight in how Lady has progressed as a character since her introduction in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening. That game had her seeking revenge against her father (and thus closure) for the murder of her mother. We saw her relentlessly chasing a goal her life had revolved around (a Personal Legend in a kind of messed up way, if you will) and as such the events were a bigger deal for her then they were for Dante, who matured a little but all in all was just there to have fun.
Back then she was emotionally vulnerable and broken as a result of the terrible experience her father had put her through. So when we catch up with her again years later in Devil May Cry 4, it's heartwarming to see that she turned out fine, is bursting with self-confidence and now enjoys her job as a demon hunter about as much as Dante does.

So yes, the special edition of Devil May Cry 4 doesn't add a lot of new content, it does add someone I've been wanting to play as for about 8 years now. That alone made it worth my money. All in all, thanks to this and Bayonetta 2, it's been a pretty damn good couple of months for spectacle fighters. Now I just need to get good enough to actually make decent progress in Bloody Palace.

They also added in Vergil, again.

Links & References

Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition on Steam

Screens from:
Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition
Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition

Devil May Cry 5 hinted?

By Order of the Princess

In case this is your first time visiting my page: I believe that in order for us to build more and better female protagonists in the media we love, it is necessary to acknowledge the positive aspects of the ones that already exist (and also to not always cry foul whenever they don't act like perfect role models. In order for characters to be great, they'd have to be people first). Apparently there's this weird fear in certain people that once we accept existing characters as having the right to exist on their own terms, somehow artists will stop making new or even better ones. I'd argue that it is in fact this incredibly negative criticism and ridiculously high standards that female characters get almost by default which holds artists back from even trying.
Furthermore I fear that constantly and exclusively highlighting negative aspects plays a large role in perpetuating exactly those negative aspects by constantly reintroducing them into the cultural zeitgeist (the full-force resurrection of "true love's kiss" just for the sake of subversion comes to mind, even though the straight-up example hasn't really been relevant since the 1950's).

And as always, there will be spoilers for the movie Aladdin (1992).

By Order of the Princess

Disney's Aladdin

Princess Jasmine is the daughter of the Sultan of Agrabah. Her father intends to have her married before her sixteenth birthday, both to satisfy the law and to make sure she is provided for (I guess he didn't consider their massive wealth as the ruling class of Agrabah). She refuses to marry for anything less than love and hates being treated like a prize for some prince. Because of this conflict, as well as her desire to see the outside world, she runs away and bumps into Aladdin. He gets arrested by the guards, and she fails to free him due to Jafar's influence. She returns to the palace, only to be told by Jafar he has already been beheaded for the crime of kidnapping the princess. Aladdin, having been used as Jafar's pawn to retrieve a magic lamp but failing to deliver thanks to his thieving monkey, returns to Agrabah in the disguise of prince Ali. However due to her previous experiences with her suitors, she refuses to even talk to yet another prince until she realizes who he really is underneath the facade.

Most of her characterization here isn't found at all in the original One Thousand and One Nights / Arabian Nights version of the story (which supposedly isn't in the original Arabic version but was added by Antoine Galland, who allegedly heard it from a Syrian storyteller[1]). A notable example is that the Disney version added the meeting between Aladdin and Jasmine in the market to create a more genuine relationship before it is revealed she is the princess. The Arabian Nights princess (named Badroulbadour or Lady Badar al-Budur) by contrast is treated far less respectfully by modern western standards. That version's Aladdin falls in love and intends to marry his princess based solely on catching a glimpse of her without ever even talking to her.

Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823-1903) -
Scheherazade (storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights) 

Consider this short fragment from Penguin Popular Classics Arabian Nights (adapted by Jack Zipes from Richard F. Burton's translation), in which Aladdin asks the jinnee to kidnap the princess and her husband from their bed for fear that they should consummate the marriage. The sultan previously having promised his daughter's hand to Aladdin:

However, he did not allow his burning desire to get the best of him and treated her with respect.
"Oh, most beautiful of princesses," he said, "don't think that I've brought you here to dishonor you. Heaven forbid! No, it was only to prevent the wrong man from enjoying you, for your sire, the sultan, promised you to me. Have no fear and rest in peace."

- Arabian Nights, p.162 [2]

This continues for two nights with the princess and her husband shivering in fear until they have no choice other than to annul their marriage. The princess of the original story submits to the law and is forced to marry whomever her father deems worthy through increasingly ridiculous dowries, for instance requiring Aladdin to produce forty platters of pure gold filled with gems, brought by forty white slave girls and forty black eunuch slaves (The song 'Prince Ali' functions as a rather nice satire of these gifts). She is presented as overjoyed that her new husband can produce these massive amounts of wealth in such short time, but otherwise she's marrying a strange man she only previously met while he kidnapped her and her then current husband. Aladdin's benevolence is that his entitlement to the princess stops short of raping her.
Her most meaningful action during the story is to be tricked into handing the magic lamp to the sorcerer who previously tricked Aladdin into getting it from the cave (Jafar from the Disney version is a combination of the Moorish sorcerer who traveled the world searching for the magic lamp, and the sultan's vizier who intends for his son to marry the princess). A far cry from the intelligent princess we know from Disney's adaptation who refuses to let anyone else decide her destiny.

The Tvtropes page for Aladdin characters lists Jasmine as "taking a level of badass" in the series, implying she was less so in the first movie. I disagree somewhat. Not so much when talking strictly about Jasmine engaging physically, for which she does get a lot more opportunities in the sequels, but as a reflection of her general character. As with several of the infamous Disney sequels, I feel the sequel movies and TV series get a very integral part of her character wrong and as a result reduces Jasmine's potential.
In the first movie, Aladdin dreams of a comfortable life in the palace while Jasmine is the one who wants to go out to see the world. In fact as Prince Ali, Aladdin manages to get Jasmine to fall in love with him by taking her on a magic carpet ride to see the world during the "A Whole New World" sequence  (as well as a result of her realizing he is the boy from the market she liked). His ability to free her from palace life is what she finds so attractive and it's something her other suitors couldn't possibly provide.
Then suddenly at the end of Return of Jafar, Aladdin announces he would like to go see the world instead of living in the palace. First movie Jasmine's frustration with palace life and her every intention of going out to see the world gets reduced to her basically nodding and realizing that ... "oh yeah, I guess I kinda wanted to do that too", but otherwise that motivation from the first movie has become rather lost. As a result we have a large number of situations in the sequel movies and series where Jasmine is perfectly fine hanging around the palace and usually requires an outside force to get her out. Despite her initial desire to get out of palace life, only occasionally does she end up the catalyst for the adventure.

In Aladdin, Jasmine is presented as being every bit Aladdin's equal, except with less experience of the life outside the palace walls. When she gets caught for accidentally stealing (having no concept of such things), she is saved not only because of Aladdin's intervention, but also because she catches on to Aladdin's scheme and manages to play along convincingly. Later just before the final battle with Jafar, she pulls off one of those schemes on her own to distract him in an attempt to give Aladdin an opportunity to steal back the Genie's lamp. Considering her sheltered upbringing, it's likely she learned that trick entirely from mimicking Aladdin (a fast learner indeed).

It's not all bad in the sequels though. When Jasmine is pushed into active duty, she proves very formidable indeed. In Sandswitch the witch Sadira uses a spell to take Jasmine's place. Subsequently Jasmine shows capable of dealing with the guards, infiltrates the palace and undoes Sadira's magic, even though the animals aren't all that helpful and she has to go up against the Genie. The episode Forget Me Lots even provides a nice 'what if' scenario in which Jasmine is turned evil, showing she would be one of Aladdin's most competent and deadly opponents if she were villainous by nature (although one could make the case that's she's probably not all that rooted in a good moral center if mere amnesia makes her comfortable with hostile takeovers).

Jasmine as the big good

Jasmine is one of those Disney Princesses who often gets put up as one of the prime examples of being a princess in the tower (in this case, a palace) who must get rescued by the male hero. In other words the critics are once again reducing an awesome female character to a single, horribly simplified, event (here's one particularly bad image). Not only does Jasmine not act like a stereotypical princess in the tower, barely any of the Disney Princesses do, her role in the story is also much larger than her being the reward for the hero (again, princess Jasmine not being a reward and her ability to make her own choices is an important plot element).

Think about Jafar's motivation. What is he trying to accomplish and why does he need to lamp to do so? Well he is trying to rule Agrabah. Okay, well he already has the Sultan under his control and he has enough power to order the guards to murder a visiting prince (who do so with glee). The situation with Aladdin's (fake) beheading also reveals that he possibly could casually and officially execute people he has picked up from the marketplace. He only got reprimanded for it this time because Jasmine complained to her father about it. Even then he seemed more concerned with easing out their relationship than with Jafar's horrible abuse of power.
So why did Jafar so desperately need the Genie if he already had most of the power and getting rid of- and replacing the Sultan wouldn't be that hard? That's right, the one element he has no control over: Princess Jasmine.

Jafar can't order Jasmine around and she's not suggestible enough to be hypnotized (remember: even with phenomenal, cosmic powers changing reality to his wishes, Aladdin has a hard time fooling her), furthermore the guards won't lift a finger against her. So, unless he acts before Jasmine rises to power (the movie is a bit vague about it but it seems like she'll become queen/sultana as soon as she gets married, not necessarily after her father's death), he'll be kicked out of the palace and his time is running out.

"At least some good will come of my being forced to marry. When I am Queen, I will have the power to get rid of you."

So while being able to rule overtly was certainly one of the reasons why Jafar would want the power of the Genie, the most troubling obstacle in his way was not the Sultan, but princess Jasmine. So, until Iago suggested the plan of marrying her instead, Jafar's best plan to get the "helpless princess in the tower" out of his way required the help of an all-powerful Genie.

Aladdin as a criticism of the court

Jasmine's refusal at following the law by marrying one of her suitors and instead wishing to marry for love provides a rather interesting parallel to Shakespeare's King Lear (even more so if you consider Lear's motivation for staging his test of love as leverage to get his daughter Cordelia to marry the suitor of his choice rather than it merely being a gesture of his own vanity). Jasmine, like Lear's Cordelia, refuses to play by the rules of the court while their fathers are foolishly set in their ways.
You might even consider Jasmine's preference of Aladdin over her suitors as a sort of criticism of corruption and petty facades at the court. We are introduced to Jasmine after her latest suitor angrily storms out of the palace. When he entered the palace he rode on a horse with great dignity in a fabulous outfit. Then a couple of young kids get in his way and we find out this fantastic-looking prince is actually a massive jerk. Aladdin, a thief who had nothing in the world, is through his kindness and ultimately righteous personality preferable than these fake, abusive princes (we see this just a scene prior when he shares his food with the kids, which required a lot of efforts dodging the guards to acquire). The conflict there was that although Jasmine rejected the formal ways a princess is supposed to act, Aladdin himself was unaware of this and still played the courtly game as he thought was appropriate. This is in contrast to the original story where Aladdin's wealth is indeed by which he is measured.

In my previous article on Ariel and the Little Mermaid I argued that a reoccurring theme in the Disney Princess movies is not for the prince to save the princess with her being his treasure in the end, but for the prince and princess to learn how to work together to overcome the villain (or the shopkeeper near the beginning). They are partners who both have unique perspectives and skills they bring to the table and I even used Aladdin and Jasmine as an example. Aladdin lying about his identity to fool Jasmine really is what keeps them apart and prevents them from figuring out Jafar's deception until it is too late (although the movie doesn't really show Jasmine puzzling over how this guy could still be alive despite Jafar having him beheaded).

Jasmine doesn't really go through a lot of character development, she's a fairly static character. The only thing she lacks is a full grasp of all the facts, and even then she has everything figured out pretty early on (Jafar = no good. Prince Ali = boy from the market). In this movie it's Aladdin who needs to overcome the weakness in their relationship for them both to succeed, and for the Sultan to grow a spine for the sake of both his daughter and Agrabah.

Conclusion

Princess Jasmine is a bit hindered by not being the main protagonist of the story, but this doesn't mean we should sell her short as a mere princess in the tower. She's smart, craves adventure and doesn't like not being in control of her own destiny and this makes her a force to be reckoned with.

Links & References

Images from:

Disney's Aladdin (1992)
Disney's Aladdin (TV series) (1994)
Scheherazade (Wikimedia commons) by Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823-1903)

Links
Alaeddin; Or, The Wonderful Lamp by Sir Richard Francis Burton

Sources
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin#Sources_and_setting

2. Jack Zipes, Richard F. Burton, Arabian Nights: A Selection (1996), p.162

A Shift in Values

Lately I’ve been in a bit of a Dragon Ball mood, which is odd because I never particularly liked the franchise when I was younger. TV reruns always stopped after the Cell games though so curiosity about the rest of the series finally got the better of me. Quite possibly the Great Saiyaman stuff will now become my favorite part of the series, in no small part because of how awesome Videl turned out to be and how cute the relationship between her and Gohan develops. Once the tournament and Majin Buu stuff starts up the storyline sadly slows down to a crawl again where endless fights take over everything (Saiyaman episodes tend to be from day to day, but Goku’s one day back on Earth lasts between 50 to 60 episodes and his time even got reduced because of the Super Saiyan 3 transformation). Still, I liked it enough to make me want to try out Dragon Ball Xenoverse (2015), and so far it’s been awesome.

A Shift in Values
How Dragon Ball Xenoverse made me reflect on H.P. Lovecraft

It has a surprisingly deep character creator for a DBZ game.

Xenoverse provided me with an opportunity to add something I found sorely lacking in the series: female warriors. Oh sure, Videl is cool and Android 18 is super badass but in the grand scheme of things they are sideshows at best (although to be fair, unless you are a Saiyan, everyone becomes this eventually). What Xenoverse does is give you the ability to revisit important plot points and inject your warrior of choice into them, fighting side by side with the likes of Goku.

When I started out I was fairly certain what I wanted to play as: a female Saiyan who kinda resembles Videl without looking exactly the same (that would be kinda lame). That’s what I did and I’m having a great time. All in all it's a bit of a Mary Sue plot to suddenly have an original character be necessary to save the heroes but hey, you primarily play Dragon Ball Xenoverse to kick ass, not for the high art story.

I named her Amelia, but for reasons
of canon I refer to her as "Selerie".

Since the recent update for They Bleed Pixels (2012) hit, I’ve been playing a bit more of that too (the addition of a Novice Mode meant I could finally beat some of the harder levels). They Bleed Pixels is a 2D platforming game with a simple yet surprisingly deep combat system and features a young girl who finds a strange book that in her dreams transports her to eldritch locations and turns her into a clawed monster. The entire thing is explicitly Lovecraftian in nature, though not quite so pessimistic.

There isn’t really a lot of overlap there but Dragon Ball Xenoverse giving you the ability to inject female characters in an otherwise male dominated series did spark a realization: that’s exactly what the gaming culture itself has been doing with the works of H.P. Lovecraft with games like They Bleed Pixels.

H.P. Lovecraft as an author was brilliant and has had a massive influence on the horror genre (The Colour Out of Space is currently my favorite story). Neil Gaiman going as far as saying he built the stage on which modern horror is played on. However Lovecraft as a person was considered less than progressive even for his day back in the 1930’s.

Consciously or unconsciously, this means that his stories very rarely included female characters at all, let alone as protagonists (on top of the racism). Amusingly the video game world has shown a bit of a tendency to flip this on its head when adapting his work. Possibly the cinematic tendency to employ women as the final survivors (the final girl) of their respective movies has rubbed off a bit on gaming when it comes to horror.

Alone in the Dark (1992-2015)

It’s undeniable that Edward Carnby is the main protagonist of the Alone in the Dark series. However female alternatives do occasionally show up, starting with Emily Hartwood as the second playable protagonist in the first game. Occasionally the player controls Grace Saunders in Alone in the Dark 2, although Carnby is controlled the majority of the time. Grace does star in the short promotional game Jack In The Dark. Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare/ Alone in the Dark 4 features Aline Cedrac as an option, who has an entirely different storyline from (though still connected with) Edward Carnby.

Although hardly Lovecraftian, with Resident Evil taking inspiration from Alone in the Dark I would wager Emily Hartwood also served as the inspiration for making Jill Valentine playable (and in turn Claire Redfield, Rebecca Chambers, Ada Wong, Sheva Alomar and all the others). 

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (2002)

Personally I have not yet played Eternal Darkness and the nature of its plot is such that I’d rather not research into it before having done so. However since it is a beloved cult classic I feel it would be a disservice not to mention it along with its main protagonist Alexandra Roivas. Now if only I had picked it up when I had the chance.

Eldritch (2013)

It’s a roguelike that looks like Minecraft, the enemies have a cutesy design and it somehow still manages to be absolutely terrifying. No wonder as this one has a story definitely set in the Cthulhu Mythos. Eldritch’s protagonist is customizable but is female as a standard, and is advertised as such. It's a pretty weird experience overall (again, it manages to be silly and terrifying at the same time), but one I highly recommend checking out.

Is it too late to move permanently to Draenor?

World of Warcraft (2004)

That’s a bit of an odd one, isn’t it? To a passing observer, Warcraft is set in a fairly standard fantasy setting (or mistaken for Call of Duty by completely clueless moral guardians) and you wouldn’t think it being much inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Well that is until World of Warcraft where the standard evil fire army (from space!) attempting to destroy the planet has taken a bit of a backseat to the more mysterious Old Gods who have been influencing the history of Azeroth from the shadows for the worse.

While World of Warcraft has an artstyle far too cheerfully cartoony to provide a legitimately pessimistic setting, they are frighteningly effective at introducing cosmic horror elements into their lore. Traveling Northrend in pursuit of the Lich King is bad enough, but then you learn something far worse is locked up deep beneath the continent, and it is whispers are spreading madness throughout it. He’s also not the only one.

I don't raid so I have no screens of Old Golds.
Here's something living at the bottom of the ocean though.

Considering World of Warcraft’s character creator (and the equal opportunity nature of the lore in general) I would call this a pretty big triumph for cosmic horror. Sure, you aren’t fighting Cthulhu or Yog-Sothoth personally (that would be a slap in the face of what the Cthulhu Mythos stands for anyway), but you are fighting as the most diverse cast of characters imaginable against their Warcraft counterparts C’Thun and Yogg-Saron.

It's not quite notable enough for a separate entry, but I should probably also mention that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) quest "A Shadow Over Hackdirt" is obviously based on Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Given Elder Scrolls' character creator, this puts it somewhat in line with World of Warcraft.

All in all, hurray for video games for updating Lovecraftian horror.

And I'm off to beat Cell.

Links & References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_girl

Images from
- Dragon Ball Xenoverse (2015)
- They Bleed Pixels (2012)
- Eldritch (2013)
- Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (2002)
- World of Warcraft (2005)
- http://wowwiki.wikia.com/Yogg-Saron
- http://eternaldarkness.wikia.com/wiki/Alexandra_Roivas

BioShock Infinite & Main vs. Player Characters

BioShock Infinite left me with some mixed feelings. On the one hand the general design of the world is absolutely stellar and the story, while either not making much sense or being in need of some serious explanation near the end, was engaging enough for me to keep playing to see what happened next. On the other hand the gameplay aspect continued to plummet compared to previous entries. It's perfectly functional, sure, but compared to some of its predecessors like Deus Ex, System Shock 2 or the other 2 BioShock games, there sadly isn't really a lot of meat to it.

In terms of story however there's a lot of possible conversations and perspectives to be analyzed. The nature of storytelling and sequels, the continued deconstruction of political ideals and extremism, even bloody quantum physics. For the moment I will be focusing on the game's wireframe as a 'Maiden in the Tower' story (with inspiration taken from the Disney movies)  and Booker and Elizabeth as candidates for main characters from a story aspect.

The following article was written while I have played BioShock 1, BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite, however I have yet to check out the DLC for BioShock Infinite. Serious spoilers have been kept to a minimum.

The Tower Protects The Lamb
BioShock Infinite & Main vs. Player Characters

The first BioShock introduced us to Andrew Ryan, the founder/bloody king of Rapture. He was certainly an interesting fellow and produced one hell of a mind twist when he revealed that the main (playable) character Jack was actually under some serious mind control courtesy of Frank Fontaine. It provided an effective punch to the player because, at the time, we had no reason to doubt the instructions given to us and were just following wherever the game's story would take us. Only later did we realize how, like the mind control, the parameters of the game chained us and only allowed us a very limited amount of freedom. It was a pretty nice deconstruction of player agency. This also means however that despite the mental programming of the playable character eventually wearing off in the story, we as players never gain true freedom. We are still bound to the rules implemented by the developers. Like subtly suggested at the start of Spec Ops: The Line (2012), the only winning move there is to stop playing the game (although BioShock, unlike Spec Ops: The Line, at least allows for a happy ending).

However I hope I'm not the only person who thought the story after the "a man chooses, a slave obeys" section was considerably less interesting or memorable. For having such a spectacular mind-bendingly end to the first half, it quickly evolves into a fairly standard "go get the bad guy" after meeting Andrew Ryan. BioShock Infinite handled it better by sprinkling the mind-bends all over the game. Although, like in a Christopher Nolan movie (1), a serious case could probably be made for the writers themselves losing the threads in between all the plot twists. It was also pretty great how, unlike Rapture, we got to see Columbia before the setting devolved into chaos.

A Story of a Girl in a Tower

Okay, if there's one thing anyone who knows me should know about me, it's that I'm a pretty big Disney fan, particularly of Disney Princess movies. As such I was pretty pleasantly surprised that BioShock Infinite is essentially Rapunzel retold in a mature (as in violent plus complex subject matter) setting. (One article on GameSpy made the same observation along with a nonsense difference that Elizabeth is no old-school damsel in distress, even though the entirety of Tangled consists of Rapunzel getting Flynn Rider out of trouble, even while he's trying to help her. Watch those movies before throwing criticisms at them and stop devaluing those badass princesses, damnit).

Both stories have a girl taken from her parent(s), who gets locked up in a tower, has a special gift and wants the guy who shows up in her tower to take her to see something she always dreamed of seeing (the floating lights/Paris). Elizabeth even shows her inspiration in some of the details such as her (initial) innocence, interest in art, knocking out her savior and dancing to the first street performers she encounters. Heck, at one point Elizabeth even bursts into song. I feel there's also a similarity in both having a body part cut off (although in Rapunzel's case it's just a lock of her hair) which are significant story-wise but that might be stretching it.

A bit too similar to be a coincidence if you ask me.

A major theme for Elizabeth is loss of innocence. That's also a theme for Rapunzel except, this being a much less kid-friendly environment, Elizabeth's loss of innocence is also a lot more brutal. Rapunzel just needs to figure out how the outside world works and learn to navigate it in order to grow out of her captor's shadow (and realize that she's in it in the first place) so she can find her place in that outside world (2). Her loss of innocence is just her growing up, which the songs in the movie all serve to highlight. Elizabeth however goes through a much more horrible ordeal than rapidly having to grow up. First she needs to adjust to her rescuer slaughtering the people attempting to capture her (her clothing becoming more messed up over time nicely symbolizing her shattering innocence), and then to having committed murder herself (her breaking down resulting in her cutting her hair and putting on a new dress). In the end she has to carry the responsibility of having reality-bending powers. All in all the game answers the question "what if a Disney Princess ends up in a legitimately violent setting" and the answer isn't all that pleasant to watch.

I guess it is pretty disappointing however how the player doesn't really have any effect on how Elizabeth turns out at the end of the game, unlike what they(3) did with Eleanor Lamb in BioShock 2 (2010). The story of that game is one where Delta's actions ultimately shape Eleanor's own morality and as such influences the way the story ends. One could argue therefore that although we play as Delta (who we learn very little about), the story is really about Eleanor and her character development. Elizabeth's character development is instead static to what the writers intended (The game does present us with several choices that ultimately have no effect).

Booker DeWitt or Elizabeth as Main Character

I have seen some debates on Twitter (too late after the fact to dig those up, I fear) about whether Booker DeWitt or Elizabeth is the main character of the story. Personally I think the answer to that is also another similarity between the game and Disney Princess movies in that they are simply partners. We don't just see Elizabeth's story unfold from an unimportant camera-character, Booker himself is a very important element in the story. We learn a great deal about them both and their stories are very hard to separate. Booker and Elizabeth are not in a hero-damsel in distress relationship either, they are helping each other out in an equal relationship (even if Booker is hiding his true intentions initially, which he also has in common with Flynn Rider). Heck, Elizabeth is very vocal about her "rescue" being on her terms and turns on Booker whenever she does suspect he has ulterior motives. 

"Don't get too comfortable with my company, Mr. DeWitt. You are a means to an end, no more."

- Elizabeth

For Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001), Hideo Kojima opted to distance the player from Solid Snake by putting us in Raiden's shoes/skullsuit instead. He explained in the accompanying documentary that this was done specifically to have Snake gain in stature, which he felt he couldn't accomplish by having him as the playable character again (a subject I intend to bring up again and expand upon in the future but since I haven't done so yet, I'll do it quickly here).

Since Raiden does have his own story within Metal Gear Solid 2 and the rest of the series, let me elucidate with some more clear-cut examples. Bayonetta (2010) is undoubtedly the main character and playable protagonist in her own series (ignoring unlockable characters obviously). Everything that happens in the game is meant to drive her own story and to make the player learn more about her or her backstory. Because the game is played from a third-person perspective rather than a first-person one, we also get feedback on how she reacts to the situations in the game (if she doesn't vocally do so anyway). The third-person perspective actually gets us closer to the character.

Contrast that with a game like Betrayer (2014) where we learn absolutely nothing about the character whose eyes we're looking through, not even what he or she looks like. Even the story has mostly already concluded by the time you're there and you are just there to figure out what terrible things happened to the settlements. The Maiden in Red has a lot more weight as main character than the playable protagonist does despite the fact that we're playing the game through his/her eyes. The first person perspective actually serves to obscure him/her further.
Thus there is a paradox where close proximity to your player character might actually hide them as a character.

Betrayer (2014)

What BioShock Infinite does is give us a story where we have two equally important characters, except the approach to which their stories are told is different. Unlike Betrayer's protagonist hidden behind the first person perspective, we do get to hear Booker talking to both himself and other characters and we know what he looks like. His and Elizabeth's stories are also unquestionably intertwined and can't be told separately. Meanwhile we also get to know Elizabeth by simply getting to know her and having her as an active force in the adventure. Given how much effort the developers put into making Elizabeth a believable person (on both a technical and story level) rather than just a character, I feel minimizing her part would be insulting.
Because Booker himself is hidden behind the first-person perspective however, he might still feel to us more like a stranger than Elizabeth (For me there's a bit of a disconnect anyway as I don't necessarily identify with the character I'm playing as). As such it is completely understandable that we identify with Elizabeth's struggle more than we do with Booker's (although it gets hard not to feel sorry for him since he gets it pretty brutal too). 

Without giving away too much plot details, I suppose Booker's weight also gets amplified in that we also get to see alternate interpretations of his character and the potential for what he might be if he had made alternate life choices. For Elizabeth we only get to see a glimpse for what she might become if Booker fails. I suppose you could say it's an origin story for Elizabeth and a redemption story for Booker.

It's a complex issue, but I don't think it's possible to minimize either Booker or Elizabeth's contribution to the story. I would say they both jointly deserve the title of main character. Their character development and the effect they have on each other and the story are woven together too closely to have it any other way.

Conclusion

I liked BioShock Infinite, although creating interesting gameplay felt like one of the last issues on the developers minds compared to world building. Elizabeth is probably the most fleshed out non-player character I have ever seen. As such it's not surprising that she's generally loved even by people who dislike the rest of the game.

A Fahrenheit 451 reference right after a library.
I see what you did there, game.

Footnotes

(1) Since I'm probably going to get called on that: a careful viewing of The Dark Knight reveals that the Joker's plan basically required him to have near-omniscience, especially for the events leading up to the creation of Two-Face. For The Dark Knight Rises, Bane and the League of Shadows didn't show any indication they were planning to leave the city before the bomb was about the explode even before Batman returned with mere hours to spare, meaning they were apparently just going to blow themselves up for no reason while Bruce Wayne survived with his guilt in the prison (although I guess that would add to the theme of Batman Begins where he has nobody to take revenge on).

(2) The Art of Tangled reveals that a major problem for Rapunzel's design was figuring out her motivation for wanting to get out of the tower as she had yet to realize there was something missing in her life.

(3) Yes, I am aware BioShock 2 was made by a different team from BioShock 1 & Infinite. 

Links & References

- BioShock Infinite on Steam Store

Images from:

- Betrayer (2014)

- BioShock Infinite (2013)

- Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty - Making of the Hollywood Game (2001)

"Look Mr. Bubbles, it's an angel!"
(I suspect B:I's similarity with Tangled isn't the
only reference to Disney in the BioShock series)

Silent Protagonist - DreadOut

If you followed me on Twitter for the last week, you might have noticed I developed a slight obsession with the Indonesian indie horror game DreadOut (which I hear is a pretty big deal over there) and its main protagonist Linda Meilinda. I connected with Linda as a character early on because I entertained the thought of her being an actually mute protagonist rather than just a silent one and I found that interpretation charming. So if you'll allow me, I'll attempt to talk you through the thoughts I had related to those concepts.

Once You Open Your Mouth...

DreadOut and a Portrait of a Silent Protagonist

Linda as a Mute Protagonist

The idea behind having a silent protagonist is generally so that the player can project their own interpretation of what the character should be like on them as a form of identification, as if they were a blank piece of canvas that the player gets to fill in. It makes sense since, just like how in horror nothing is scarier than whatever your own mind concocts, so would you probably be more likely to identify as (or simply like) a character that you get to fill in the blanks for yourself. The character does have the ability to speak, we simply aren't shown their textbox or hear their dialog because those could break our idea of what the character is like.

"I mean, by having the voice actor speaking out the main character's opinions and messages, I'm afraid that they are going to narrow down the actual characteristics that people can imagine or apply to each character they are controlling, for example."

- Shigeru Miyamoto on Link (Legend of Zelda)

Alternatively there is the possibility that the silent protagonist is simply mute (which I suppose is in itself a way of filling in the blanks).  Personally I think this interpretation works nicely for Linda as a character, although I don’t think a really solid case could be made for either option short of a statement from the developer. However the primary tool and weapon of the game being a smartphone (technically an IrisPhone) and the irony of an apparently mute person wielding a phone of all things did make me wonder how such a character could be handled, which in turn made it an interesting thought experiment for me personally since I myself am trying to insert a mute character into a story.

I guess I won’t just be attempting to make the case for why Linda could work as a mute character, but also why her phone is such an invaluable object to her that she’ll rarely put it away (even before the ghosts show up). This with the intention of dissecting how these characters are developed right now and brainstorming a bit on how actual mute characters could be inserted in fiction in the future.

In DreadOut the IrisPhone functions as both a flashlight and as a method of fighting off ghosts because somehow they are shy about having their picture taken (perhaps Linda's innate psychic powers are simply channeled through taking pictures). In a haunted village at night that by itself would make it invaluable. However to a person incapable or unwilling of speech, text messaging would also be a great tool to help with communication. This isn't explicitly shown in the game since, again, most of this is just me filling in the blanks of a silent protagonist for a certain “what if” scenario.

Stupid doll ...

During a section in Act II where you get to communicate with a (somewhat playful) ghost through a possessed Ira, it appears as if Linda is asking questions and leading the conversation down certain paths. This plays out from a first person perspective so we don’t see (or hear) Linda talking but of course we automatically assume that she is. What if she was actually typing out messages on her phone for possessed Ira to see? If Linda relies on her phone as a primary method of communication it would explain her attachment to it beyond the phone culture we find ourselves in. She's simply naked without it. That's a rather cool idea for a silent character, isn't it?

I suppose a possible counterargument to Linda being mute is a brief scene during the reunion with Shelly where Linda makes an apparent attempt to respond vocally before being interrupted. Of course as this is the only scene in the game (that I caught, anyway) where Linda makes a seeming attempt to talk, this could simply be an example of "expressive silence" which I will briefly discuss next. The actual counterargument would probably be Shelly expecting a response though. If we assume she just fired of a barrage of questions due to panic over the situation and relief of seeing a friendly face however we can just as easily put this scene along with the others where none of the dialog implies that Linda somehow responded.

Expressive Silence

There's a certain paradox in having a (non-mute) silent protagonist in a third-person horror scenario, which requires the character having a visible reaction to their surroundings to be effective. It would be standard bravery in a regular third-person action game but for a horror game our own fear requires a certain vicarious connection to the protagonist and their fear. As such we can't just have Linda be completely emotionless while ghosts pop out with the intention to scare her. This means we still have a window into the character's personality, they just don't vocalize that personality. That makes it one aspect of the character we are supposed to identify with on which we can't project our own ideas.
Rather like how Link from The Legend of Zelda is supposed to be the player's link into the world of Hyrule, yet the designers opted for a cartoony style for Wind Waker so they could better show his reactions. There's nothing bad about doing things like that but it feels rather self-defeating and it naturally leads people to wonder if the character is supposed to be mute rather than be a reflection of themselves.

Linda does this too with big gestures whenever she interacts with her friends. She might not actually be speaking, but that doesn't mean she doesn't say anything. She makes hand gestures to mock Ira for speaking too much, she grabs her cheek after being slapped, she sulks when being teased, chokes Ira in jest and makes a pondering gesture when Ira starts reminiscing. That's her way of communicating with her friends without actually vocalizing. Humorously enough the one emotion she doesn't really show a lot of is fear, which I suppose adds to her backstory that she once threw a rock at a person disguised as a ghost while her friend was just scared. We can easily imagine what kind of a person she is even though she hasn't spoken a word.

Of course that still doesn't mean Linda was supposed to be a mute character, but perhaps developers themselves naturally attempt to compensate their protagonist's silence by proxy by exaggerating their characters' physical responses.

Also she's just really cute.

Coincidentally I read Deus Ex: Icarus Effect a couple of weeks ago featuring a character who has muteness as a character trait. Yelena Federova (spelled Fedorova in Human Revolution) is a Tyrant assassin who is implied to be able to speak, but simply hasn't in a very long time, probably due to trauma. The story is told from the perspectives of Anna Kelso (who is a target of the Tyrants) and Ben Saxon (who is a Tyrant). This means we get to see the Tyrants both as being scarily effective assassins operating in complete secrecy, and as the broken people they really are (exception being Jaron Namir, who has his stuff together so well that it offends Saxon he is allowed to have such a normal life).
So on one side we see Yelena as an assassin operating from the shadows (with cloaking technology, no less) with her muteness being just another factor that enhances how intimidating she appears to Kelso. She is being hunted by an assailant who is difficult to read and one who would be hard to reason with. On the other side the exact same character traits are simply evidence of a broken person whose muteness is the result of trauma and probably acts as a self-defense mechanism.

DreadOut Recommendation

I personally loved DreadOut and its protagonist Linda, however it is a pretty hard game to  simply recommend.

Negative
The difficulty of some of the puzzles is such that you occasionally have to remember environmental details (or take pictures and save them to your gallery) long before they become relevant, and thus likely having missed them. Other puzzles are simply so obscure it required me to consult a walkthrough quite often. These puzzles clearly make sense from the developer's point of view but a bit more playtester input could have been useful (or I'm just bad at these sorts of games). There's also still a fair share of bugs and translation errors that need to be fixed (and a character is named Doni in Act I and Donny in Act II). These things could be frustrating or throw you out of the experience so keep that in mind.

Positive
If the entire above article wasn't enough of an indication, I really love DreadOut's protagonist Linda Meilinda and despite them not being all that developed, I also came to care for her friends. The somewhat weaker gameplay is compensated by how well-crafted all the scenes, atmosphere and character models are (relative to the game's budget and status as an indie game, of course). The game's story is rather confusing but this being a horror game, that ultimately helped in keeping the game in my mind trying to figure it all out. Act II even gives you a bit of player choice regarding the outcome of the story.

All in all, I did love the game, but you should keep in mind that it's still a fairly unpolished indie title.

Playtime to completion: roughly 5 hours to complete Acts 0, 1 and 2. 
(I missed a bunch of collectibles and the village nighttime section on my first playthrough)

The Soundtrack & Manga DLC also includes several costumes to use in game, as well as the ability to switch costumes right away (otherwise requiring you to have finished the game already).

All of Linda's costumes (including DLC costumes)

Conclusion

As I made clear multiple times, I'm not so much attempting to show that Linda Meilinda is a mute rather than simply a silent protagonist, but I hope I've shown that she could have been very easily pushed in that direction had the developers decided to go that route. Perhaps for DreadOut it would have even made more sense to have her be an actual mute. Even if you dismiss this as mere pointless fan theorizing, at least I hoped I provided you with some insights.

Links & References

- DreadOut on Steam Store

- DreadOut Official Page

- TvTropes: Heroic Mime
- Zelda Dungeon: Miyamoto talks about the future of Zelda

Images from:

- DreadOut (2014)

Ghosts are stupid, throw rocks at them

Lili: Child of Geos

It's a game about a girl picking flowers on an island.

No, I'm serious, someone made a pretty decent game about picking flowers.

Lili: Child of Geos

She's definitely not being a hipster. She needs those to see.
The game told me so.

Okay, so basically Lili: Child of Geos is what happens when you take the towns from The Legend of Zelda (I got a Majora's Mask combined with Wind Waker feel), quests and all, and put them in a game of their own. Then you put in enemies that you defeat by running after them, jumping on their backs and picking their flowers while avoiding thorns. Add in a few RPG elements and a little player choice whether they would rather do the quests or deflower (hue hue hue) their enemies and you are set. Meanwhile you also get to collect a bunch of new costumes and masks to dress up Lili.

No really, picking bloody flowers!

The game references other video games and pop culture regularly and is very humorous about it. As I said, it is clearly inspired by and a love letter to The Legend of Zelda. They aren't even at all subtle about this fact. You often collect items straight from those games (including the Master Sword and a piece of the Triforce), one of your pets is Navi (excuse me, "Nobbi") and as costumes you can unlock Link's tunic and his hat. So yes, if you so choose you can essentially play entirely as a female Link, although you'll probably have finished the story by the time you are able to do so.
In this regard, Lili: Child of Geos is rather like a foil to Ittle Dew, another funny game which also takes heavy inspiration from the Legend of Zelda. Except Ittle Dew goes with 2D Zelda and focuses on dungeons, puzzles and outdoor adventuring, while Lili goes with 3D Zelda, quests and town interactions. So if you see someone complaining that Link should be a girl for once, you can point them in the direction of these two games. They go great together.

Not subtle at all.

Our protagonist is the titular Lili, a school girl who arrives on Geos to do a report on flowers. Pretty soon however she gets sidetracked into becoming a freedom fighter saving wooden Constructs from their oppressive masters, the Spirits, particularly from the regime of their leader, the Mayor. You do this by, again, picking flowers. Lili's character development lies in that over the course of the game she goes from being overly concerned with pleasing the professor (who is also her father) with her report to being courageous enough to forge her own path, wherever it might lead. 

Lili is basically the straight girl to all the weird inhabitants of Geos (although occasionally they get to point out some of her weird behavior too). She has the habit of being a kleptomaniac like Link is, with the joke being that Lili really has no use for half the stuff she picks up as they are just mostly humorous references to other games and pop culture. She also picked up Link's tendency to be the scourge of all surrounding pottery.

Girl has priorities.

So the characters, even the villains, are likable and funny (humor is subjective though so no guarantees whether you like them there). It does mean the story is essentially just a lengthy chain of jokes rather than having any sort of consistent narrative. Your end goal is to dethrone the Mayor and his presence is felt throughout the adventure, but that's really just the framework for the humorous situations Lili keeps getting into.

The graphic design is absolutely gorgeous and imaginative. Every corner of every area is stunningly crafted. Geos might not make a lot of logical sense, but it's definitely a place you'd want to visit just for the sights alone. Heck, because of Lili's optimistic nature regarding her adventure, you'd almost be tempted to step outside your door in search of adventure yourself (yes, I tend to enjoy protagonists who are also enjoying the game themselves).

There's a pot in the background. It must be destroyed!

There are really only two major flaws with the game. First is the length. I nearly completed it 100% in less than 5 hours (all what's left is "Break 1000 Vases" and "Scare 500 Birds, which I'm not overly concerned in getting). Just completing the game won't get you over 3 hours. Once you figure out how everything works, finishing all the challenges probably won't give you much of an issue either.

The second is that the game still shows some signs of being made for mobile tablets, specifically the menus and the controls which take some getting used to. It's not a deal breaker, I figured everything out just fine in the end, but the first half hour of the game was really a confused wrestling with the controls.

The entire, kinda small, map.

The game is definitely fun, funny, beautiful and worth at least checking out. However because of the short time you get to spend with Lili you may want to wait for it to be on sale. I definitely hope this isn't the last we've seen of Lili. I would love to go on an adventure with her again.

What a very nice stalker shrine you have there.

Links & References

STEAM - Lili: Child of Geos - Complete Edition
Images from Lili: Child of Geos - Complete Edition

Lili is on the Female Protagonist List