Samven's Writing Lectures

[Kain Nobel]

FF's protagonists, whether male or female, mostly consist of shy prudes and it just irritates the hell out of me, it's unreal! Zidane, King Edgar, Irvine, Snow, I can relate to those guys because they're blunt about their love and sexual interests, but Cloud and Squall are a mind-fuck and I always wished they'd break out of their shells and lay it on the table.

"Hey Cloud, it's just the two of us, let's go play at the Gold Saucer," Tifa/Aeris/Yuffie says.

"...I had a little something else in mind," is how I would approach the situation if I was Cloud lol.

That's how my protagonist is, hopefully people aren't going to mind that he's a bit of a horn dog. Then again, I'm a horn dog too, so...

But that's besides the point! Most IRL war heroes are more like "Hey, I might die tomorrow anyways, so who cares if I catch chlamydia from a foreign girl? If I'm going to die, I'm going out with a bang! Get it, a bang?! Heh..."

Alright, I'm leaving the room, nobody needs Kain to write sexually driven FF fan fics.

BTW good articles, I'll be back next round!

[millarso]

This is also true. I feel like JRPGs have the most unhealthy views on sexuality and relationships. Characters are either perverts or self-oppressively disinterested in relationship. That is so hard to relate to. It makes me wonder if that is actually how the culture is in Japan.

[Samven]

Every JRPG love story ever:

[millarso]

Spot on, chap.
A lot of JRPG heroes could use a good dose of prozac and a lesson in unrequited feelings.

[Samven]

Spot on, chap.
A lot of JRPG heroes could use a good dose of prozac and a lesson in unrequited feelings.

That's why I like Eliwood. Because he's a total bawss despite being a nice guy. Makes the first move with girls and doesn't afraid of anything.

[millarso]

Good character choice. Terrible things happen to him, but the fact is that he remains kingly and resolved at all times. The only times he loses it are upon the loss of his father and upon the misguided slaying of his love interest, Ninian (the canonical love interest?/holy balls! a JRPG where the protagonist marries at the end?), but he's still human. He doesn't mope, but pushes ahead through diversity, giving the player a sense of purpose. Case in point:

Nergal: So you're here, Eliwood. I thought losing Ninian might distract you. Have you forgotten her so quickly? How heartless.
Eliwood: I haven't forgotten. I'll never forget. It was my mistake that killed Ninian. Because of that... I will fight. I will not run away and hide in sorrow... I'm going to put an end to all of this!

Can you say b-b-b-badass?
He's a gentleman, supportive, and dedicated to his task. He is a character that the player is proud to be in control of.

[Samven]

3. Writing the Villain

Introduction - Apocalypse Why?

If you read nothing else in the section on villains, at least read this bit. You'll thank me later.

You remember Square? You remember how their games inspired you to make your own Final Fantasy-length epic? You remember Kuja, Seymour and Sephiroth?

Well, stop remembering all of that because those villains are terrible.

There's an old saying among writers that goes, "Villains act, heroes react." It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the single biggest reason why I believe that a story's baddie can make or break a narrative. Most of the time, the villain is the entire reason why the heroes are fighting and if neither side has a good enough reason for beginning and continuing the conflict then the story sinks faster than you can say the words "Narrative Titanic". Unfortunately, a lot of amateur game makers start off with their plots in punctured dinghies because they borrow too much from Square Enix; a company that repeatedly churns out the same baddie time and time again.

A villain who wants to destroy the world for reasons such as "because he's EVIL" or "because the world is full of pain and suffering" is NOT good storytelling. Even if you throw godhood into the mix, it makes no sense. No villain can possibly get anything out of the destruction of the planet for reasons that should be entirely obvious. Unless, of course, it's to build a new hyperspace bypass.

So, the first and foremost rule of the Samven School of Villain-Writing, therefore, is to scrap any idea you might have about your bad guy hatching some mad scheme to obliterate all life in the world. It's unoriginal, it doesn't make sense and you as a writer are capable of so much more. The only exception to this rule is when you're writing a cosmic horror story. Cthulhu-like entities are, by definition, so far above human understanding that they cannot be understood through normal means. As such, the destruction of all life is an adequate goal for them because their thought processes are just to alien for us to understand. Making a humanoid villain intent on killing everything because he was bullied as a child, though? Rubbish.

Haven't ragequitted yet? Good, then we can discuss how to make a good evil plan for your villain.

Sam Rowett
Pywritechnics

[Samven]

We're back, baby! 8D

3. Writing the Villain

Part One - Villainous Virtues

One of my favourite games ever is Breath of Fire II. By today’s standards it’s simplistic, awkwardly-translated and full of cliches. I can even recognise how, from a technical standpoint, it’s not all that creative. There are no real puzzles and levels amount to little more than walking through various kinds of mazes until you reach a boss.

Yet BoFII introduced me to a concept that my twelve year-old brain didn’t think was possible. A noble antagonist: specifically the character of Barubary.

Barubary was a great and powerful demon with whom the protagonist, Ryu, had a history. Throughout the game, it’s hinted that the monster has some connection to the overarching plot and, as eldritch horrors slowly begin to infest the world, it only becomes more and more apparent that the scorpion-like fiend has something to do with it. Gasp and alarm, he does and he’s planning to help the game’s ultimate villain wipe out humanity and turn the world into a hellish paradise for his kind.

And yet, Barubary always had a certain kind of honour about him. He was evil – of that there was no doubt – but one never got the impression that his feud with the hero was anything personal. Unlike most demons in the game, Barubary didn’t try holding hostages or throw any last-minute suicidal tantrums. While he had the usual bad guy trash talk, he didn’t rub his demonic power in the party’s face and his opinion of Ryu was high enough that he wanted to fight the lad one-on-one, as warriors do.

You see, what Barubary had is something that few other villains do. A sense of identity. He had a character. A personality. He had his own wants, his own wishes, his own hopes and his own desires. Sure, all of them involved defeating the hero in single combat to crush his hopes before tearing the world he’d fought to save apart but that’s demons for you. If Barubary had just been another grumpy sod clad in black and full of hate, then he might as well be a force of nature than a sentient antagonist. In the words of Albert Einstein, such a character “has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.” This is why I’ve never really been able to take Square Enix games seriously, because every one of their villains has exactly the same goal and the same personality: “kill ‘em all” and “insanely evil”, respectively. There’s no reason that you can’t have a horrific, world-crushing villain but if he’s just another megalomaniac with a god complex then the question of what is special about him must be raised. Why should an audience care about a villain if he doesn’t bring anything new to the antagonist table?

It’s a cinematic example rather than a gaming one but one of my favourite bad guys is Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. Much of this has to do with how Whitaker just looks like the cheeriest, happiest guy around. It’s difficult to imagine that such a jovial man could ever be evil and, for much of the film’s first half, I honestly doubted that such a man could ever be a baddie. Needless to say, I was in for a shock. As the film progresses, Amin flits from the enthusiastic old soldier we’ve almost grown to love to a bone-chilling monster, willing to slaughter hundreds of his countrymen and personally punish them so atrociously that it’s impossible not to feel sick watching the scenes in question. What differentiates Whitaker’s character from so many other tyrants is that because he emphasised the human qualities of Amin, showing the audience that he’s just as capable of joy and fear and anger as any other person, the audience is reminded that – for all his abominable acts – he was one of them. Just another human being. It sends the message that everyone is capable of evil as much as they are good better than any morality lecture and, despite Whitaker’s character ultimately being driven by power and madness, this lesson stuck with me and made me rank him as one of the best villains I’d ever seen.

So, then, how can such a villain be written? How does one escape the pitfalls of creating a genocidal maniac whose only goal is destroying the world to end his suffering? On the top of my head, I can think of two ways. The first is to go down the Amin and Barubary route of having a villain whose goal is the pursuit of power and who celebrates destruction while also emphasising virtues, or at least more positive emotions in them. Maybe there’s a specific group of henchmen that your bad guy has a soft spot for, or perhaps there’s a certain art form or cultural practice that they enjoy when they’re not slaughtering villages. Once you’ve given the signs that your baddie is as human as the rest of us, then you give them some depth. You’ve made them a human being. From there, one develops them and their actions as one would any character: by thinking about what they mean to your story and how they contribute to it, as well as how they react to success and failure.

The other way you can make a villain deeper than the usual videogame standard is to create what we tropers like to call a “Well-Intentioned Extremist”. A bad guy whose end is noble but whose means are morally questionable, perhaps completely unacceptable. It’s these villains that are my absolute favourites and it’s these villains that we’ll be covering in the next lecture.

Sam Rowett
Pywritechnics

[Taylor]

An interesting read. I too noticed Barubary's attitude was quite... noble and proud warrior-like. I never really thought about it in contrast with major Final Fantasy villains though, which is interesting. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any FF villains that avoid the "Evil! Evil! Oh how I am evil!". Kefka is lovable because he's basically crazy. Unhinged and unpredictable, self centred and unsympathetic, meaning that esper juice he got pumped with must've really screwed him up. Kuja has a plan and he's not going to let anyone stop him, his ability to show a good side was also crippled for plot-specified reasons.

Does establishing why a villain cannot do good things make them better? A villain, who is established as, if their brain chemistry wasn't messed with, would be more human? Contrasted to an event that makes them snap, wanting revenge on the entire world, or having a lack of empathy from the very beginning of their existence?

It has me thinking of my own antagonist - or one of them - and where I could have the opportunity to talk about them or develop them. A lot of the gameplay is focused on characters other than the main hero. Complete character quests to see how other characters deal with their personal rivals, know their history, and too see how there must be a way to reach out to their human side. However the main hero is more like a shofer for the rest of the party - their personal struggles are limited so as to give more time to work with the other characters, because gameplay "days" are also limited. Their own rival has a short history with them, butting in on the party and wanting to stop them because they're being "heroes" and that hurt his precious pride.

The reasoning is shallow, potentially making the character shallow, and without much room to explore the antagonist's story because they have no bigger bond than the player does a few hours into the game, I wonder if the character is terribly necessary at all. There is a bigger threat in store, and this guy is getting in the way just because he wants to feel higher up the societal ladder.

[Samven]

I find that Kuja is actually better in the beginning when he is ambitious rather than crazy. In my humble opinion, FFIX shot itself in the foot by making him the ultimate villain. I would written him so that he meets his end at Garland's hands. He would have chased his ambitious dreams for so long, only to have them stolen from him: thus giving him a more sympathetic end. He fell victim to something all humans fear at some point - the fact that we may not be good enough. The fear of failure. This way, Kuja would have been just another pawn of Garland's and it would have been possible to see more of Zidane in him. But no.

Kefka I can sort of get behind because he's just a pantomime villain, really. Not great but at least the writers seem to know he's kind of crappy and just have fun with it. Which makes sense to me. If your villain is unoriginal and full of cliches, the least you can do is have some degree of amusement with them. Plus, they treat Kefka in Act Two more like a huge mass of chaos. The "force of nature", if you will. Kefka might be the final boss but Gestahl was the antagonist. Gestahl set the whole plot into motion and Gestahl can be linked back to everything wrong in the world. Gestahl I like because his goal is very clearly control. He even says that he doesn't want the world destroyed because then he can't rule it. This is a point I wish a lot more JRPG baddies would understand.

Honestly, I don't think a villain necessarily needs to have necessarily "good" traits. They just need to have some degree of personality. A human emotion that drives them. I can't get behind "insane" villains myself because they're just not interesting. You might as well just stick a raging monster in the top villain slot. It'd do the same job. I want my villain to feel like an active, thinking human being: not some violent force of nature. This is why Chrono Trigger works, despite being a Square game. Lavos is treated as a non-sentient being that just destroys because that's its primal nature. There's more to it than that but I honestly prefer this impression of the character.

What I would say, though, is that a villain who is driven by ambition should feel like they're pursuing that ambition. See Jirall from The Last Story for a great example of this. He becomes increasing desperate and frenzied and his motives shift at first from putting himself ahead of life to simply making sure the heroes can't get any further by putting them down at every turn. Jirall is a good villain because, even in his most panicked moments, he's still a person. He never just slaughters for no reason. Everything he does has a motivation behind it: even if that motivation is completely selfish. It's characters like that that I think you could look at for this villain of yours in question.