My ten favorite characters
Nov. 21st, 2013 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigozealIt is my birthday today, and it is time to post about my favorite things. Below is a list of my ten favorite game characters. For simplicity's sake, I've restricted myself to characters who have appeared in actual games, not gaiden books and materials, though, naturally, that distinction gets muddied right off the bat with the first two entries.
1. Ghaleon, Lunar - It says a great deal about Ghaleon that the only person to get through his armor of cynicism was just someone who was, very simply, deeply good. I write about Ghaleon so much that it's difficult to encapsulate why I like him in just a few words. He's a man of contradictions: he's fiercely intelligent and subsumes his life into duty, and yet he has the idealism to turn his back on the world based on an ideological objection, to rail against a selfish, irresponsible god for the perceived abuse of a friend. From his very teen years, he is labeled "cold," yet his heart and faith can be irreparably broken by the apparent betrayal of a foster child. And yet it all makes sense, in a tragic way. I admire his conviction and depth of feeling, and, despite his extremely problematic methods, you know deep down that his bitterly-drawn conclusions are correct; how wondrous it would be if love alone could make the world go round, but, as much as we would want otherwise, it is power and sacrifice that rule our fates.
2. Dyne, Lunar - Based on his characterization from the gaiden manga, and yet it explains so much about Silver Star that I can't cleave game and gaiden apart. Dyne's the perfect personification of uncomplicated love, and he ideally embodies love, with all its pluses and shortsightedness, in Silver Star's love vs. duty ideological debate. He brings to mind the literal meaning of the title "mahatma" - a great soul.
3. Rena, Lunar: Strolling School - Rena reminds me something Roger Ebert said about Lucille Ball's style of humor, how it stemmed from her insisting in the face of life's frustrations on being treated like a human being despite her personal shortcomings. I love Rena's proactivity, her indefatigueable self-confidence and support for her friends. Her talents are limited, her love of food is not, but she keeps on trucking and is a better role model than the exalted child-gods that populate some of the more prominent games in the series. I'd be better off with a Rena in my life.
4. Lyude, Baten Kaitos - Lyude is renowned as the Bad Voice in the game, but even though the VA does muff his fair share of moments, a more conventional, "better" voice would've been out of place for Lyude. With his overearnestness and his attempts at grand gestures in the name of justice and high ideals, Lyude comes off looking like a consummate dweeb in everything he does - but he does it anyway, with a total lack of egotism, and he makes the right choices at nearly every junction down the pike. Would that we all had such bravery and heart.
5. Lutz, Phantasy Star II - I'm not sure I can completely justify this, as he gets nearly no dialogue, and that's in a game whose text can often be a bit slantwise anyhow. But I've always taken to Lutz in this game for what he represents, which is the last bastion of transcendent purpose and, for lack of a better word, holiness in a world barren of it. He gives the heroes a fairy tale, a moral legacy, and a way to victory (such as it is) and the game a bit of sentimentality in his memories of Alis.
6. Angela Orosco, Silent Hill 2 - Team Silent displayed tremendous courage with this storyline and its refusal to compromise on its ramifications. Angela spends most of the game a skittering haint lost in her own madness, yet of all the cast, it's she who goes to her fate with eyes wide open.
7. James Sunderland, Silent Hill 2 - It's not news that Silent Hill 2's one of the best game stories out there, and that all comes down to the character of James, in the end. He's goofy as fuck and kind of outright slow in parts, but he's more eminently, achingly human than nearly any other game character. I haven't played a game that understands conflicting motivations quite as well as this one.
8. Dietrich Troy, Spy Fiction - It all comes down to that scene. But what a scene. The fascination, and the big tragedy, of the character is that you're shown the best and worst at once, both the man who gave in to the worst of himself and humanity and the good man he could have been. It helps, of course, that this is all seen through the prism of the character's over-the-top, self-aware theatricality. Swery's sense of humor goes a long way in humanizing his stories.
9. Sho Minamimoto, Subarashiki Kono Sekai - I'm referencing the Japanese version here, as I don't think the U.S. voice acting quite gets the joke of the character - it depicts him as a geek who loves math rather than a unhinged punk who does, a jibe the Japanese seiyuu embraces full-bore. I've encountered few characters as consistently entertaining in such an oddball way as Sho, and I thought the game's decision to put its star attraction in its center ring was consummately smart. When the plot went back on rails, it was kind of crushing; if you have a character like this and don't know what to do with him, then I'm sorry, you should just give up.
10. Bad Girl, No More Heroes - She has all of two scenes in the game, but what character goes into her few lines. She's total id, and yet she's self-aware, a girl who's at the top of her nihilistic game and yet gets no satisfaction out of it, despite the short-term kicks. She takes pride in what she does even though she hates it and knows it's going nowhere good. And that is a hell of a death scene.
.
1. Ghaleon, Lunar - It says a great deal about Ghaleon that the only person to get through his armor of cynicism was just someone who was, very simply, deeply good. I write about Ghaleon so much that it's difficult to encapsulate why I like him in just a few words. He's a man of contradictions: he's fiercely intelligent and subsumes his life into duty, and yet he has the idealism to turn his back on the world based on an ideological objection, to rail against a selfish, irresponsible god for the perceived abuse of a friend. From his very teen years, he is labeled "cold," yet his heart and faith can be irreparably broken by the apparent betrayal of a foster child. And yet it all makes sense, in a tragic way. I admire his conviction and depth of feeling, and, despite his extremely problematic methods, you know deep down that his bitterly-drawn conclusions are correct; how wondrous it would be if love alone could make the world go round, but, as much as we would want otherwise, it is power and sacrifice that rule our fates.
2. Dyne, Lunar - Based on his characterization from the gaiden manga, and yet it explains so much about Silver Star that I can't cleave game and gaiden apart. Dyne's the perfect personification of uncomplicated love, and he ideally embodies love, with all its pluses and shortsightedness, in Silver Star's love vs. duty ideological debate. He brings to mind the literal meaning of the title "mahatma" - a great soul.
3. Rena, Lunar: Strolling School - Rena reminds me something Roger Ebert said about Lucille Ball's style of humor, how it stemmed from her insisting in the face of life's frustrations on being treated like a human being despite her personal shortcomings. I love Rena's proactivity, her indefatigueable self-confidence and support for her friends. Her talents are limited, her love of food is not, but she keeps on trucking and is a better role model than the exalted child-gods that populate some of the more prominent games in the series. I'd be better off with a Rena in my life.
4. Lyude, Baten Kaitos - Lyude is renowned as the Bad Voice in the game, but even though the VA does muff his fair share of moments, a more conventional, "better" voice would've been out of place for Lyude. With his overearnestness and his attempts at grand gestures in the name of justice and high ideals, Lyude comes off looking like a consummate dweeb in everything he does - but he does it anyway, with a total lack of egotism, and he makes the right choices at nearly every junction down the pike. Would that we all had such bravery and heart.
5. Lutz, Phantasy Star II - I'm not sure I can completely justify this, as he gets nearly no dialogue, and that's in a game whose text can often be a bit slantwise anyhow. But I've always taken to Lutz in this game for what he represents, which is the last bastion of transcendent purpose and, for lack of a better word, holiness in a world barren of it. He gives the heroes a fairy tale, a moral legacy, and a way to victory (such as it is) and the game a bit of sentimentality in his memories of Alis.
6. Angela Orosco, Silent Hill 2 - Team Silent displayed tremendous courage with this storyline and its refusal to compromise on its ramifications. Angela spends most of the game a skittering haint lost in her own madness, yet of all the cast, it's she who goes to her fate with eyes wide open.
7. James Sunderland, Silent Hill 2 - It's not news that Silent Hill 2's one of the best game stories out there, and that all comes down to the character of James, in the end. He's goofy as fuck and kind of outright slow in parts, but he's more eminently, achingly human than nearly any other game character. I haven't played a game that understands conflicting motivations quite as well as this one.
8. Dietrich Troy, Spy Fiction - It all comes down to that scene. But what a scene. The fascination, and the big tragedy, of the character is that you're shown the best and worst at once, both the man who gave in to the worst of himself and humanity and the good man he could have been. It helps, of course, that this is all seen through the prism of the character's over-the-top, self-aware theatricality. Swery's sense of humor goes a long way in humanizing his stories.
9. Sho Minamimoto, Subarashiki Kono Sekai - I'm referencing the Japanese version here, as I don't think the U.S. voice acting quite gets the joke of the character - it depicts him as a geek who loves math rather than a unhinged punk who does, a jibe the Japanese seiyuu embraces full-bore. I've encountered few characters as consistently entertaining in such an oddball way as Sho, and I thought the game's decision to put its star attraction in its center ring was consummately smart. When the plot went back on rails, it was kind of crushing; if you have a character like this and don't know what to do with him, then I'm sorry, you should just give up.
10. Bad Girl, No More Heroes - She has all of two scenes in the game, but what character goes into her few lines. She's total id, and yet she's self-aware, a girl who's at the top of her nihilistic game and yet gets no satisfaction out of it, despite the short-term kicks. She takes pride in what she does even though she hates it and knows it's going nowhere good. And that is a hell of a death scene.
.
