Jordan: Thanks to everyone for coming. Two of the main roles in RPGs are the hero and the villain, and these rolls vary a lot from game to game. So I thought it might be fun to discuss them and ask the question "What do we want in a hero?"

Jordan: So, what DO we want?

Bryan: Dead, total silence.

Bryan: And spiky hair.

Steve: sexy body and voice

David: A hero must grow through character development

Nick: The exact opposite of what Aethelred said.

Scott: you have to be able to relate to them at some level

David: He must be someone we can relate to

Jordan: if you were describing him

Steve: or she

Brendan: Hmm, well at the least they should be interesting. *

Scott: ^5's Lim

Jordan: what would they look like?

Jordan: or what qualities would they have from the onset?

Bryan: I don't think the hero's look is very important, really.

Scott: :)

Steve: yeah

Bryan: I think what's most important is that the hero has a cause -- something he or she believes in and is willing to fight for. That cause may be something the hero has from the outset, or it may be something he develops over the course of his trials, but it must be there.

Jordan: indeed

Nick: Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. I mean, you've got quirky little red-heads like Mint in Threads of Fate and scary looking half-beast men like Darc in Arc the Lad:TotS.

David: I prefer it when the hero has to realize what his cause is.

Steve: and good looking gunners named Yuna

Brendan: It's a lot more interesting when a hero has good development over the course of the game. A good hero generally has some insecure qualities that s/he ends up overcoming near the end of the game.

Bryan: It should be something that causes him to confront and question what he believes in and what he believes about the world.

Steve: they have to have realistic qualities

Steve: not everyone is going to decide that saving the whole world sounds like an awesome adventure

Jordan: is it realistic that so many heroes are young kids?

Jordan: why not send the more seasoned veterans out to save the world?

David: A hero has to be able to defeat the villain both physically as well as mentally. His ideology has to overcome the villain's ideology. His ideology grows through his journey the same way his strength does until both are powerful enough to overcome the villain in the final conflict.

Scott: then you can't build up from level 1 :(

Bryan: Because a younger person is more likely to have weakly formed opinions of his beliefs and the world, the better to then question and change those things.

Steve: indeed

Brendan: I think the obvious reason for the young age is because a young hero is the ideal. It represents healthiness.

Scott: and a young character doesn't necessarily need an established identity

Steve: also, they have more of a future

Bryan: An older character has the experience and knowledge that typically come with age, and they're not as likely to have their entire personal philosophy adjusted to such an extent.

Scott: an older character would also have an established sense of self, meaning that it might be harder to relate or 'become' that character

Nick: Who wants to play as an older character anyway? I think we see most heroes as young people for the same reason most of the top actors and actresses are young people.

Jordan: That's a good point

David: I think the reason young heroes are used is because they are fresh, a clean slate. An older hero has already been through things and is harder to relate with because of that.

Jordan: but it always seemed strange to me that they send some young kid out to save the world

Scott: not *always* the case but yeah, J

Jordan: and they always send them out with a rusty sword and something that barely qualifies as almost maybe armor

David: Another reason for that is the target audience for the game. It is usually the same age demographic as the hero.

Steve: hmm

Steve: also

Brendan: And often, they do have older characters. They are typically the ones that advise the hero. I think the young age of the hero represents the inexperience and innocence.

Steve: if a young person does indeed save the world, they would appeal to the younger generation of kids who want to grow up to be like them

David: Right, I'm sure that is part of it

Jordan: Interesting

Jordan: What about different types of heroes?

Brendan: Inexperience is particularly important. An adventure wouldn't quite feel the same having a main hero who has 'seen it all'.

Jordan: In recent games, we've seen several different types of hero show up

Jordan: There's the silent type like Crono

Jordan: There's the really emotional type like Squall

Jordan: There's Laharl from Disgaea that's hard to classify

Steve: there's the "single-handedly saving the world once before" types like Yuna

David: Who other than Yuna is like that?

Scott: bah, she didn't do much ;p

Nick: Heh. I'd hardly classify Yuna as a hero.

Nick: She's more of a victim.

Scott: agreed

Steve: please, she was willing to sacrifice herself for all the people

Brendan: I think Yuna is a hero. She chose her own path herself.

Steve: yeah

Jordan: I agree

Scott: martyr turned hero

Jordan: particularly in the second game

Bryan: That's the very definition of a tragic hero.

David: It seems to me that the badass "dark" hero, like Batman, is extremely popular now.

Scott: she was not a hero in the first one, she was a martyr

Scott: who Tidus found a better path for

Bryan: And again, that's often what a tragic hero is -- a hero who sacrifices oneself for others.

Bryan: That doesn't dispel her heroism.

Steve: ahh, but she became one when she killed her own Aeons

Brendan: I agree

Bryan: She made her own choices. She chose to fight.

Steve: right, and even with all the emotions tied to them

Jordan: What about some of the heroes given to us by NIS games?

David: Laharl is a comedic anti-hero. You could even consider him a villain in the beginning.

Steve: of course, this brings us to another hero who didn't really do anything

Brendan: I think that particular trait in Yuna is admirable in a hero. Sometimes something like that can come off quite cheesy, but Yuna pulls it off quite nicely.

Steve: people, I give you Shion Uzuki

Jordan: What about Shion?

Steve: she doesn't quite get in on the fight, but she makes a lot of emotional decisions

David: I like Shion because she has a hidden mental durability that is not apparent on her at first

Brendan: Shion? She doesn't really seem like much of a hero for some reason.

Jordan: Would you consider her the type of hero that knows what she's doing, or is she the type that just discovers that that she's about to save the world?

Bryan: Shion's main contributions are of the intellectual sort, and because of her intellectual contributions, she serves as a leader for a fairly disparate group.

Steve: ah! my point exactly

David: It's hard to say because Shion's story isn't finished

Bryan: In many ways, also, she's intended to represent us -- she's a fairly regular, if exceptional, person who is thrust into a bad situation. It's easier for us to relate to Shion than it is androids, cyborgs, and mystical beings.

Steve: she's not the one with the huge sword, but she provides something that no one else in the party can

Steve: teh smarts

Bryan: Shion is the Everyman Hero.

Jordan: And is it better that the hero goes out on a quest? Or should the hero just be out and realize that the world needs saving, and they are conveniently one dungeon away...

David: Often the main protagonists are less exotic so they can be everyman heroes.

Brendan: In some ways, I felt KOS-MOS was more heroic (at least in Episode 1).

David: I prefer the second option because it implies there is a growth in them

Steve: I feel that if certain circumstances thrust the protagonist into a fight, that is better then just deciding to be the people's champs

David: If a hero starts out on a quest then there is no character growth, just a lot of fighting.

Bryan: Not necessarily.

Jordan: What about La Pucelle?

Bryan: A hero can start on a quest because of his beliefs. Those beliefs can then be confronted, and perhaps changed, or perhaps reinforced.

Bryan: Let's not underestimate the importance of choice in heroism.

Steve: but of course

David: That's true Aethelred, but that would still imply the hero wasn't ready for the quest in the beginning

Brendan: It seems to be popular to have the hero thrust into an adventure early into the game by tragedy. I can't even count how many games burn down the hero's hometown at the start.

David: That's what they call, "The call" in the hero's journey

Bryan: Any great hero isn't going to be fully ready for what he faces, because if he was, then his trials and experiences are predictable and average.

David: I think so too

Steve: and therefore it plays out like a happy story

David: That's why we don't often see adult, fully developed hero characters starting out in RPGs

Jordan: would it be a good story if the hero lost the last battle?

Bryan: Yes.

Steve: maybe

David: It depends on so many things

Bryan: Case in point, Phantasy Star II.

Steve: depends on how good the story is

Brendan: Exactly my point I was making earlier about inexperience.

Steve: or, if the hero died

Scott: Aethelred did Rolf lose though?

Jordan: Not an RPG, but I REALLY liked that in Oni, the hero DOES defeat the last boss, but the world isn't saved

Jordan: the villain's plan was started and couldn't be stopped

David: If there was a reason for it that was essential to the theme of the story

Bryan: Sometimes a battle cannot really be won -- sometimes a hero fails. And I think that does add a great deal to a story. We don't always need happy endings in mature storytelling.

Steve: exactly. Real life certainly isn't fair

Brendan: I don't think losing the last battle is a good idea. It's rather anti-climatic.

David: But stories are an exploration of life, you can't have the hero lose just to be different

Steve: people we care about die, we lose our hardest fights, we make bad decisions...

Nick: It's not always the outcome of the last battle that determines if a hero wins or loses. You can beat the big boss, but if you lose the girl (or guy) in the process, no battle was worth winning.

Bryan: If you look at heroic legends and literature, it's quite frequently the case that in winning his final victory, the hero gives up his life -- or even loses.

Bryan: The most important of all heroic legends, the Arthurian cycle, has the king dying at the end, with his kingdom crumbling to ruins.

Steve: good ole' King Arthur

Bryan: If we expect mature, really deep storytelling from our video games, we can certainly hold the same expectations there.

Scott: depends on what the hero's goal is :D

Steve: of course, this can also apply to modern times

Jordan: So in interest of time, does anyone have any final thoughts on heroes?

Brendan: If the hero loses, there should at least be a gratifying ending. A game over screen at the end of a game is not gratifying for an RPG you've spent hours on.

Jordan: You'll get to come back to them in a bit. I'm adding a third topic. The relation of heroes and villains

Steve: I am the greatest hero of them all.

Scott: the great Shroudie :P

David: Interesting heroes show growth, they become heroes