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

Out of the Sea - The Little Mermaid

Ariel is one of those Disney Princesses who simply can't catch a break. She's too modern for all of the "problematic" stuff to be written off as a sign of the times like Snow White, Cinderella or Aurora from their respective movies (all from before the 1960's), but on a cursory glance she is not seen as in control  or as positive compared to later princesses (when people aren't complaining about those anyway). If you have followed me for a while you hopefully know by now that I don't consider minimizing the awesomeness of our already existing female characters to be a positive attitude. 

I believe that the culture of negativity surrounding these characters is at least in part responsible for the lack of massive expansion of female protagonists in current media. After all, nobody wants to be seen as a horrible sexist, so artists might hesitate to create female characters at all out of fear of being labeled a misogynist (within the context of our current topic, imagine trying to create this beautiful movie with an inspiring female protagonist, only to have people on the Internet dismiss your movie because they insist one of the songs is about promoting rape*), furthermore, if you tell people enough times that women are always damsels in distress, even when you are actually doing it to criticize the concept, you run the risk of actually perpetuating in people's minds the notion that women are damsels in distress by further normalizing it. So instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater by exclusively focusing on the bad, I'd rather we look at awesome existing ladies, and build from there. So today I will be looking at the Disney classic "The Little Mermaid" and provide a largely positive voice for it. Obviously there will be some spoilers for The Little Mermaid.

Out of the Sea
Disney's The Little Mermaid

Ariel as a Heroic Character

When we first meet Ariel, she forgot about- and accidentally skipped an important concert in order to explore a scary shipwreck (if you are a fan of tying together Disney movies, you can pretend it's the sunken ship which carried the king and queen of Frozen's Arendelle, even though it looks somewhat different) in search of human trinkets. Her friend Flounder is clearly scared, providing a huge contrast with Ariel's look of confidence and excitement. Before she opens her mouth, she already establishes herself as an adventurer who is not overly concerned with her father's rules.

Ariel is a dreamer and a rebel. She takes full charge of her destiny, even if she doesn't always think the entire thing through before jumping at the call. She wants to explore new horizons and learn new things (even though her mentor of all things human is hilariously incompetent). She sets goals, empowers herself to pursue them through her dreams and she boldly sets out to achieve them, even if she isn't entirely sure how to do it. Her setbacks are temporary and only embolden her drive. Yet, her impulsive drive is also a cautionary tale as in her anger against her father she made a foolish deal with the sea witch. Still, through her own skills and the help of her friends she manages to overcome all challenges set before her.

Here's a typical scene which exemplifies Ariel's thought process. Ariel learns Eric has been deceived by Ursula into marrying 'Vanessa'. Before anyone else suggests any possible plan of action, Ariel has already jumped into the ocean intending to swim after them. Only after she made her own plans clear (although solely by action as she is mute in this particular scene), her friends jump into action too to help her. Sebastian drops barrels into the ocean to give Ariel something to hang onto and Flounder helps carry her to the ship. She gets help, but Ariel is the one driving the action.  

Ariel is the embodiment of "follow your dreams", not in the sense that she just sits around all day losing herself in daydreams (there's some of that too), but in a proactive way. She acts as if the background noise of her life are tapes from motivational speakers. She doesn't talk herself out of chasing her dreams. She doesn't sit around waiting for other people to give her permission. She's not scared of the negative consequences of her actions, she'll deal with those if and when they come up, because she knows she can deal with them.

Ariel's Character Flaws and Criticism

Overly criticizing Ariel for sending the wrong message with her impulsive behavior is also not entirely productive. It does clearly cause Ariel hardship through her deal with the sea witch, and this is clear to everyone watching the movie. So why is this aspect of her character only talked about from a strict "monkey see, monkey do" perspective? Role models aren't there just so we can emulate their behavior regardless of outcome, we can also learn from their mistakes. In this case: don't make binding contracts with fast-talking, obviously evil sea hags (insert charlatan of choice) who present you a poisoned gift while you are angry.

Also, isn't the opposite scenario exactly what The Legend of Zelda franchise gets criticized for? Often major criticism is leveled against the stories of video games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) because princess Zelda, being the physical manifestation of wisdom, is a schemer who works against the villain from the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike rather than being a female knight (her weapon of choice in the franchise being the bow and arrow plays into that personality by having her at a distance even when in active combat). For not actively handling a sword however, critics reduce her to being a "damsel in distress" and what they actually claim to want is a role model for little girls like a female Link (the playable protagonist of The Legend of Zelda, in case you are unaware) who embodies courage and who jumps at the call of adventure, even though he also acts without thinking (except here the negative consequences of his impulsive behavior are rarely enforced, he's even less of a cautionary tale). So why would a female Link be ideal when similar characteristics are vilified in Ariel? Ariel may not handle a sword, but she certainly has Link's spirit and courage.

By the by, when talking about literally being a hero fighting bad guys, I would prefer my daughter (or son) to take lessons from princess Zelda rather than Link. When, say, in a hostage situation I'd rather she calculate the risk and decide not to act for her own safety and make it out alive rather than her jumping in to be the hero. 

Still, Ariel's impulsive drive as well as her "getting saved" by the prince she loves (more on that later) gets her unfairly labeled as weak. She's hated (or at best extremely cautiously loved) because she's seen as a negative influence on young girls. Instead of looking at a girl who will shift Heaven and Earth if it means accomplishing her goals and dreams, they only see a weak princess archetype who only finds value in getting married to a man.
I personally do think that in these movies they could have stood to show a little passage of time between the final conflict and the marriage to better establish that these people did get to know each other better, but are we otherwise honestly going to vilify a girl for falling in love? Especially for a character who since had a prequel movie and a television show running for 3 seasons (31 episodes) clearly establishing that no, finding a husband was not the most important goal in this girl's mind. It was just one of the events in her life. Are all her actions and motives perfectly rational and positive? Of course not, but characters in fiction are not supposed to be perfect. Their flaws help make them distinctive and help drive the plot, that's what makes them characters rather than perfect little Mary Sues.

"When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character."

- G.K. Chesterton

Recently Frozen (2013) tried to poke fut at how absurd it would be for two characters to instantly decide to get married the day they first met, as one of the partners could possibly not be who they claim they are. However The Little Mermaid also made fun of that situation with Ursula expecting a foolish concept as love at first sight to fail while setting the rules for her contract with Ariel. She just underestimated Ariel's drive in getting Eric's attention and it happened to work out for them in the end. Not entirely by chance, mind you, Ariel had observed Eric being heroic when he put himself in danger to save his dog Max. She had clearly seen him as a good person  (and rescuing him afterwards might be an example of the Florence Nightingale Effect in action). If anything Eric was the unreasonable one by being instantly smitten with a girl who in his current state of consciousness could have been an illusion. He probably also should have had a bigger freak-out when he learned the two women fighting over him were actually mythical creatures.

Some people (such as Katha Pollitt, who coined The Smurfette Principle) make the claim that the film also endorses that, in order to get a man, a woman has to shut up. Ariel gives up her voice as payment for legs because, according to Ursula, body language is much more important. Is it? It being "advice" given by the clearly evil sea witch who already revealed her diabolical plan to the viewer and who still keeps on mumbling to her pets how she's going to screw Ariel over should give you a hint on how helpful her advice is. Ariel being unable to talk is the entire reason why Eric is uninterested in her and why it takes a ridiculously romantic setting to have him even consider kissing her. Yes, it's rather allegorical as Eric is specifically searching for the singing girl who saved his life, and Ariel being mute rules her out as a candidate, but the idea is there. Eric doesn't want just any girl using her "body language", Ariel is clearly pretty enough, but he values the girl having a voice.

Saving the Princess and the Buddy Dynamic

A lot is made of Eric saving Ariel in the final battle against Ursula and how this (again) makes Ariel out to be a weak character. Not only does this ignore the fact that Ariel saves Eric earlier three times (1: saving Eric from the sinking ship, 2: showing up with her animal friends to stop Vanessa/Ursula from marrying Eric and 3: making Ursula shoot Flotsam and Jetsam instead of Eric). Even during the final conflict, Ariel is primarily concerned with Eric's safety rather than her own. Furthermore it wasn't like Ursula had locked Ariel up in a tower and now Eric had to storm the castle to save her, no, Ariel had angered Ursula by killing Flotsam and Jetsam. Ariel has Ursula's attention as she was actively aiming to kill her, which allowed Eric an opening to put an end to Ursula. Eric did not win Ariel by triumphing over the monster, she was an active participant. Not to mention this was basically the first time in the entire movie Eric had any idea what was going on in the first place. Classifying the ordeal as a "prince saving the girl" is overly simplistic and an unjust rejection of Ariel as a heroic character in her own right.

H.P. Lovecraft presents:
Call of Cthursula!

Instead of this being a case of "the hero rescues the girl", I consider this one of the earliest examples of a sort of buddy dynamic (still trying to find a proper name for it, as "buddy" usually refers to two characters of the same sex) which in recent years has become very prevalent in Disney Princess films, where it's actually the male and female protagonist working together towards their goals. It's simply not about who rescues who anymore or which character is more powerful in the relation. Thinking of it that way presents the characters in the relationship as opposing parties rather than as the team they so obviously are.
What is important is that we have two people who have each other's back coming together through adversity. Ariel and Eric are both unique people who bring their respective abilities and knowledge to the table. They aren't just a couple, they are partners (and a true missed opportunity is that DisneyToon sequel movies and series based on Disney classics rarely play up this aspect).

Aladdin (1992)

Consider the following: in Aladdin (which came out in 1992, a mere 3 years after The Little Mermaid) a lot of the conflict is driven by Aladdin rejecting the help of princess Jasmine by not being honest with her out of fear she would reject him. He grows as a character once he learns to accept his own value, rather than the facade he constructed to impress others. When Aladdin and Jasmine work together (Jasmine is incredibly good at picking up on Aladdin's schemes and playing along with them), they managed to outsmart the violent shopkeeper and even Jafar. (For another non-princess movie with a similar setup released around the same time, consider Bernard and Bianca in The Rescuers Down Under (1990))

Ariel losing her voice when she gets on land is an important factor in all of this as it plays with the concept. Had she been able to speak, the conflict would have been instantly resolved as Eric would have recognized her as the girl who saved her and became infatuated with. Instead however, because of Eric's doubts about her being that girl, the two of them actually have the opportunity to get to know each other as people. Ursula makes the relationship between Ariel and Eric more powerful as she prevents them from instantly having their happily ever after. It was just rather foolish of Ariel to jump into it with a contract that had no chance of being cancelled and would mean her becoming enslaved by Ursula if it failed.
In this aspect, Aladdin's lies are essentially his movie's counterpart to Ariel losing her voice. They are both story elements that prevent both the male and female hero from working together and solving the conflict more efficiently, but they grow from the hardship that resulted because of it.

For Tangled (2010) Disney finally decided to actually market a princess movie in which this dynamic is made very clear from the start. A part of this was done by removing Rapunzel's name, the actual title of the fairy tale, from the movie in certain areas (my DVD & Blu-Ray boxes still call it "Rapunzel") to put the male and female hero on even more equal footing. Although because we live in an environment where female characters are instinctively valued less than their male counterparts, the writers also almost reduced Flynn Rider's role to comic relief to make Rapunzel an even more resourceful character. It actually works out for this movie so that's not a negative point against it, mind you, just an observation on how hard it is to create a positive female character in the eyes of critics, and Rapunzel still doesn't get the credit she deserves.  

Conclusion

If there's anything I want you to take away from all of this, it's the following: in a lot of situations it is very good to be critical of what's going on around you, of what people tell you, even your own thought processes, etc, etc. However there is absolutely nothing wrong with in your downtime just parking yourself in front of a movie or video game without constantly worrying about how what you see affects you (especially negatively). Having fun or having your heart warmed may not seem like the most intellectual of pursuits, but it might just make you a better, more caring person. Too much negativity poisons you too.

And to all my artist friends out there, even if I don't know you and will never meet you: don't let fear of negative criticism or the negative voices who find fault in everything prevent you from creating the art you want to create.

Screw your negativity, Ariel is awesome!

Links & References

Images from:
Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989)
Disney's Aladdin (1992)
Disney's Tangled (2010) Film Poster


* No, I'm not going to debunk that stupid "Kiss the Girl is about rape"-thing. It's bullshit alarmist quote mining on the level of playing music backwards for bad messages. 

Lara Croft

As you might have guessed from previous posts, I'm not a big fan of reducing characters to the single characteristic you take umbrage with.