There comes a time in your life where you’ve seen enough, and you realize you have to make a decision. Should you share what you have learned, even if you fear they, ordinary people, won’t understand? Do you run and hide under a rock with your newfound knowledge to hoard it ravenously like an unearthed jewel?
No. The only human thing to do is share what you’ve learned, and allow others to derive their own meaning from it.
Life is made up of a bunch of tiny fragments of ephemeral joy. Small tapestries that, when pieced together, form into a great scene that may or may not have some significance in your human journey. Maybe these scenes, once revealed, mean nothing; perhaps they mean everything, and you will only discover this fact after careful study (and if your rational mind allows).
If your rational mind will allow, perhaps you will glean something wonderful from what I have to share. You may even find something in it that you can take with you on your journey – something that will put the chaos of everyday life into its crystal clear perspective. I hope this beautiful moment serves as a beacon for you – that you find in it as much majesty, as much purity, as I did.
In BioWare games, companions are quite possibly the most unique, not to mention vital, components to the success of any title.
When you look back at BioWare games, at first glance they may seem like little more than your average RPG’s. Especially in games like Dragon Age, people can look at it and think – foolishly -’Oh, another fantasy game with castles, dragons, and knights.’ However, what has made BioWare such a giant in the RPG genre is not that they make a familiar fantasy world for you to explore. It is their ability to make you feel like your character is a part of the grand story that makes a BioWare RPG something different from the norm. Most RPG’s place you in the narrative, place you in the world, but few developers give you the chance to really make it your own. In a BioWare game, not only are you a focus of the story, you – Revan, the Grey Warden, Commander Shepard, etc – are the epicenter.
Everything you do has impact in a BioWare game. Not just on the environment, but also on the people closest to you in the game – your companions. Anyone who has played a BioWare game can tell you, NOBODY will let you know how your actions are affecting things more loudly than your companions. They are often your moral compass, but more importantly they are always your emotional compass. They pipe in their disgust with you when they see you do something reprehensible, or else throw in their sinister approval. They applaud your virtuous decisions, or else have no qualms pointing out your “weakness” in the face of taking the harsher action, and so on. Overall, companions really make the BioWare experience. Ask any veteran BioWare player and I’m sure they can reel off any number of companion names that made their lasting mark.
And damned if they don’t worm their way into your decision making… Sometimes whether you want them to or not.
I will admit right now that I’ve often allowed my companions to completely shift my ingame personality to a lighter or darker shade than it would otherwise have gone.
I just can’t be as big an asshole as I want to be knowing that Leliana will be standing just behind me watching my every move.
On the other side, sometimes I want to refrain from driving my lightsaber into a person’s skull – but Khem Val would think I was a little soft wuss (he already calls me a “little Sith” too much for my tastes, as it is).
When you throw romance into this mix, you get an interesting concoction you simply cannot get in any other RPG.
Romancing companions is one of the most fulfilling parts of a BioWare game. Not only because of the implications for your ingame character, but also because they often lead to the most entertaining, hilariously awkward conversations you will ever experience in an RPG.
While I am feeling the same familiar companion uncertainties (which choices to make in order to appeal to x or y companion) as I have in previous BioWare games, somehow in SWTOR the phenomenon has made a drastic and interesting shift.
Instead of allowing my companions to dictate which way my character shifts, I find myself struggling to decide which ones best suit the direction my toon is heading.
For as long as I’ve known I would play a Sith Warrior for my main when the game came out, I’ve known exactly how my path would play out.
With all the certainty of a person who knows next to nothing about (the launch version of) a game he claims to already have his path mapped through, I was deadset on seeing my carefully considered trail through to its end. I would begin dark side, then somewhere along the way I would rebel against my dark ways and start to redeem myself. I would traverse the galaxy saving kittens and little bunnies with my goody goody blue lightsaber, as well as Vette, by my side.
Fast forward to the present and where do I stand? Dark III… Murderer of innocents and guilty, alike… Solidly in the midst of my very own Betty vs. Veronica situation.
"Come on, let's go hit the cantinas on Nar Shaddaa! It'll be fun!"
"Come on, let's go murder Jawas on Tatooine! It'll be fun!"
A month ago I would’ve said Vette all the way, end of discussion. Now, with this character… I don’t know.
"Romance is tiresome. Things are so much better when you can just murder people and be done with them."
Truth be told, my Sith Warrior is nothing like I thought he would be when I started – and I’m not entirely unhappy with the way he has turned out.
The Empire is a far different place than I had ever considered. A blue boy would have been chewed up like wad in that world. The Sith are conquerors, and their world is an ever-changing one. The option may be there for someone to be the lone holdout, vehemently opposed to this world from which he was spawned – but somehow that didn’t seem terribly real to me.
The further I got into the SW story, the more I started to feel like the most logical, believable path for a pureblood Sith wanting out of the current ladder system would not be to become a hero type, always making choices for the sake of justice. That almost seems too cheesy. Instead, it seemed more believable to me that a pureblood Sith wanting out of the current system would just rewrite the current system – and pin under his thumb all who would stand in opposition. After all, Qin Shi Huangdi didn’t rebel against the warring states system by becoming an independent, pacifistic patriot – he subjugated (brutally) the states and unified them under one banner (China, fyi).
As a byproduct of this change in philosophy, my romance options have also changed. Throughout the course of the game, I’ve miraculously managed to keep Vette’s affection for me up, despite all the innocent people I’ve slaughtered along the way (and with the help of a few companion gifts *ahem*). That said, after obtaining my second romance option, the former padawan turned evil apprentice, Jaesa Willsaam, I am not so sure I want to end up with Vette as I had first decided.
To say that Vette and Jaesa are coming from vastly different places in SWTOR’s version of romance would be an understatement.
Without giving away too many spoilers, I’ll just say Vette is no angel (she has been involved in her share of heists and petty crime), but she is also far from a devil. She prefers non-violence overall, but is happiest when whatever I am doing brings in the cash. She hates seeing innocent people murdered, and hates ME with a vengeance whenever I succumb to bloodlust. Vette also seems to enjoy seeing me act like a dick to people in charge. Whenever I mouth off to people in authority, I have gotten used to seeing that familiar numbered “like” tab pop up on the bottom left of my screen with Vette’s portrait. I sometimes get the vibe that, while she is somewhat appalled by the world from which my Sith Warrior was forged, she can at least appreciate the fact that I am making a place for myself instead of blindly serving my (current) masters. For my character, who wants nothing less than the galaxy itself, she is a pretty ideal companion for my Sith Warrior. She is probably the only person in my crew that would never turn against me, could never turn against me, and doesn’t want to turn against me – in a world where betrayal is as common as breathing, that has to count for something.
Jaesa, on the other hand, can be a devil – but you have to read between the lines to get the full story. She is happiest when I tell everyone to fuck all and just do my own thing. As a dark side companion, she loves indulging in the vices that she had no access to as a Jedi or even growing up before she was found by her former master. That said, she has a somewhat naive approach to being Sith that I actually find refreshing. Don’t get me wrong, she can be as wicked as a scorpion, but she also picks and chooses which precepts of the Sith to follow and which to challenge (such as the practice of an apprentice eventually killing their master). She also seems loyal to my character above all else, which appeals heavily to my Sith Warrior. That kind of loyalty is uncommon in the world of the Sith – especially by a fellow Sith.
My character, Lord Oktavian, holds true to the Machiavellian principle of ruling through fear – but also giving enough (gifts, compliments) to his subordinates to keep that fear from turning into hate. The decisions I make with the character tend to border on a sort of Sith version of the Conan/Norse methodology (strength above all). I don’t murder for the thrill of murder, so much as I take delight in battling strong foes (and killing those who really deserve it, in my toon’s opinion). I also don’t spare people out of a desire to be righteous, just whenever I feel like killing or cruelty would serve no purpose. Oktavian the Sith Lord has no redemption policies. If you betray him once, you won’t have the chance to do it again. No excuses. No mercy. Having said that, I should point out that “Ok” is not devoid of humor. Whenever I have been given the chance to act like a smart ass, I do it.
When you put those three in the same room, I’m not exactly sure what will happen.lol Vette appeals to my character’s lighter nature (which is there, just buried beneath the inherent darkness of a pureblood Sith forged in the belly of the Sith power structure). Meanwhile, Jaesa is a newborn Sith, still unsure of which way is up, still learning restraint, but also with enough self-awareness to follow her own instincts when they conflict with centuries old Sith teachings. That sort of pick-and-choose philosophy really fits well with a Sith who isn’t interested in becoming just another step in the current ladder.
I had thought that this particular choice would be clear by the time my character took shape – but it couldn’t be murkier.
I’m going to go ahead and start this topic – but I will refrain from posting anything concrete until I have solid confirmation that this is not a misunderstanding.
Sorry for the ass level quality of the video, but it does its job.
For those who are out of the loop, the devs at BioWare pulled off a rather impressive ninja update earlier this morning. The result: SWTOR‘s Pre-Launch Guild Program officially hit Phase 2, which the devs are calling “Phase 2: Alignment.”
Those who have followed the game for awhile will remember the day, way back, when BioWare initiated their Pre-Launch Guild Program.
Phase 1 began with thousands of people registering their guilds on the official site, after which GM registrants were given an area on the official site to register other guild members, as well as built-in forums to use on the official site. Further, all players, whether in a guild or not, were given access to a fairly comprehensive search engine, which they could use to find a guild that suited their interests (PvP, PvE, RPPvE, RPPvP, etc.). The program was met with a very large amount of fanfare and positive reception, as I recall – though that positive reception quickly gave way to impatience for the next step of the program.
Fast forward, and we have finally arrived at that next step.
Phase 2 was described in better detail by BioWare dev Courtney Woods:
Back in March we initiated our Pre-Launch Guild Program, where members of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ community could search for already established guilds or register one of their very own through the Guild Headquarterspage. We are thrilled to announce that we have begun the second phase of our Pre-Launch Guild Program!
With Phase 2: Alignment, we are introducing new features which allow guilds to set their allegiance with other guilds in The Old Republic. Now a guild leader, along with members who have the proper permissions, can select up to three guilds as either Allies or Adversaries, depending on their faction affiliation. Qualifying guilds that are marked as Allies and Adversaries of other guilds will have the highest chance of being placed in the game together, allowing these guilds to coexist on the same server.
Another feature being implemented with Phase 2 is the ability for guild leaders and members with the proper permissions to invite friends to join their guild via email. You can start recruiting new members today!
To learn more about guilds in The Old Republic, check out the Guilds Game System page for details, and to search for or join a guild, visit the Guild HQ now! Also be sure to visit the Guilds FAQ for answers to commonly asked questions.
To me, an announcement like this goes a long way toward easing my concerns that SWTOR could possibly be pushed back into the new year.
In many ways, I am a business-minded person I understand caution, and not revealing your cards too soon.
That said, I am also a gamer who has waited 3+ years for this game to release.
Don’t take that as me indicting EA for their handling of the matter. EA are playing this very smart. As a business-minded person, I have to admire their fortitude in sticking with their guns in the face of such rabid demand. They definitely have some brass balls.
Still, updates like the start of Phase 2 of the Pre-Launch Guild Program, gives me real hope that this game won’t fall back into 2012. Add in Damion Schubert’s comments in his interview with TORWars (where he revealed that BioWare are now at the point where they are implementing features directly from their famous “Wall of Crazy”, which, to me, sounds like they are nearing the end of the development cycle), and it sounds even less likely that SWTOR will fail to meet their window.
This is probably the best news I’ve heard about SWTOR in recent months.
By my reasoning, if the devs are already preparing for server placement, they must be fairly confident that they are well on their way to hitting their Holiday 2011 window dead center.
Granted, testing is still very much underway – which is why EA/BioWare cannot give an exact launch date -, but everything in my bones tells me that, barring any major unforeseen issues in testing, SWTOR will be in our hands in a few months time.
I’m still hoping that I’ll have to be shooed off to Thanksgiving Dinner in the middle of slaughtering sand people on Tatooine.
In celebration of what I consider to be the first sign that SWTOR‘s release is coming sooner, rather than later, here are some screens that I have not seen posted anywhere else, and also some nostalgiac Star Wars-themed videos to brighten your day.
(Just a disclaimer: I don’t support the “gold key” movement, but I still found the video funny and entertaining.)
Get that #@!$ out of my face...
Hi, buddy!
"Satele, I have bad news: you won't look anything like you do now in ten years time."
"Where do you think YOU'RE going!"
"You cut my face?! I already had a skin condition, asshole!"
This is going to be one of those posts that’s a little more off-the-cuff than I usually do – but I’ll let hindsight point out the things I regret saying (if there are any).
Despite the fact that I’ve had this blog for months now, there are still times when I struggle to decide what it is I want to say, if I want to say something, and how to present it. I guess that’s not terribly strange, considering the fact that I am probably the most secretive person I know – in real life, or online.
How the hell does someone who values privacy function online? I’ve often asked myself that question. In fact, I’ve often wondered if I should just delete this blog from the face of the internet, entirely. Its not as if I would be leaving hundreds of readers disappointed. Most of my page views come from a picture of a bottle of Louis XIII cognac. Granted, it is a sexy, sexy looking bottle, but what does that say about the rest of this blog?
Ok, now I should point out, I smiled all through that last paragraph.
Why? Probably because I take pains NOT to advertise this site.
Facebook? No (aside from some friends who have posted something I wrote – props to the coolest Aussie I know).
Twitter? I haven’t used my twitter account in close to a year.
Take your pick of every other form of social online gathering places – you won’t find any ads for TheLabyrinthineJar, nor any posts urging anyone to visit. I don’t think that is because I dislike talking to people – I’ve met some of my favorite people online. Sometimes, I think it is just my own personal need to keep things private that fuels my desire to stay hidden.
Trust me, I’m not like that in real life. I’ve often been called a “bastard” (though lovingly – props to you Daleous, my great Viking friend), and I think more than one person might even describe me as a bit arrogant (only a bit – assholes). But I am also a wise-cracking guy, and I try hard to be sincere, and I think that allows people to tolerate me.
But I am far from that online.
So why do I have a blog?
I’ve asked myself that more times than I can count.
Sitting here now, listening to Tula from Cusco, I think maybe I keep this blog just to satisfy my need to write. Whether the topic is about SWTOR, films, music in video games, D&D, or what have you, I enjoy writing just to write.
No kidding.
When I think back on this blog’s fairly recent history, I believe my greatest accomplishment has been making “tl;dr” a viable title for this site (I’ve been thinking of changing this blog’s mission statement to something that highlights that fact).
I think in the future I may post excerpts of some writing projects I’ve been working on here. I may even expand on the little summary I wrote for one of my D&D articles I wrote a while ago, just for fun.
Just one warning: leave all preconceptions at the door.
I am not a horror fiction writer, a fantasy writer, or even a political writer — I am a writer… I don’t limit myself to one genre, nor could I for fear of insanity.
I will be careful to add an appropriate rating if the story contains extreme use of expletives (this is almost a certainty), if the themes are a bit much (this tends to happen sometimes – blame it on Lovecraft), or if the violence contained within is a bit graphic (this, not so much).
Just like anything else on here, don’t expect a theme. I may post horror, and next post a somewhat sappy romanticized piece of work. It all depends on how the cookie crumbles.
For now, since I brought up Cusco, I guess the only fitting thing to do is post it up.
Damn, it feels like eternity since I was here last.
The last few weeks have been… tiring. I won’t go into any intimate details. I’ll just say, perspective really changes when you are faced with something that can affect every facet of your life. Luckily, I didn’t have to find that out the hard way.
That was this past week, however — today, I want to get back into my little groove.
Modern Love always seems to do the trick. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the bright yellow suit. Either way, I’m in the mood for a little lift.
I’m starting to wonder if I should post these early on Wednesday — that way, anyone who should happen to care wouldn’t have precisely one hour to listen to it on the actual “Hump Day”.lol
Anyway, I feel like something less serious. I’m in sort of a… I wouldn’t say “playful” mood… But I am pretty good today.
With that spirit driving me, Talking Heads seems terribly appropriate — and of their many, many playful songs, I don’t think anything tops the sight of David Byrne in a huge ass suit.
Is it weird that I just now noticed my Akismet has blocked spam and I’m thrilled?
To anyone who posts spam: I’m flattered, but you might want to find a more bustling thoroughfare than TheLabyrinthineJar—whose readership, I’m pretty sure, lies somewhere in the teens (I have friends that lurk [shout out!]).
However, in honor of my blog’s first spam posts, well…
Let’s party with the immortal genius of Monty Python:
As I recover from searing back pain, I feel compelled to revisit a little debate I had with someone awhile back.
The debate: which narrative form tells the best story: “insular narratives”, driven by colorful characters in relatively small settings, or “grand narratives”, which focus on large-scale events, sometimes at the expense of intimate character descriptions?
As with anything, narrative preference is a matter of personal taste. Also, there are seemingly as many narrative forms as there are bones in my body. For that reason, we—a fellow writer & I—tried to simplify the subject to the two separate categories in the title.
For the record, I come down on the side of insular narratives.
In my opinion, insular narratives, be they in video games, films, books, what have you, offer the best chance for complex character development. Because the story doesn’t focus on some grand, cosmic (or even non-cosmic) event, the story has to focus on bright, colorful, layered characters in order to be satisfying. More than that, a book with an insular narrative can’t survive unless the characters within are engaging and endearing. (If the terminology in this article gets too pretentious, I’ll provide a cliff notes response at the end of the program.)
In a good book/film/video game with an insular narrative, you won’t find many Bella Swan’s or Kantorek’s (or if you do, they exist merely as punching bags for the textured insular characters to rip on for their one-dimensional personalities). In a good piece of work with an insular narrative, you tend to explore your characters more deeply than you do the setting—and that means your characters have to live with some damn color.
I’m talking interesting, intriguing personalities, not characters that have no dreams or ambitions outside of one person/place/thing. If you have a character like that in an insular narrative, at some point you have to see what brought them there, and at some point either a change must come, or you get what you asked for and people finally leave you alone to brood and bitch in a quiet, dank room (not celebrate it, like some books).
Either that, or they’ll just tell you off.
Edward: “What’s your favorite food?” Bella: “Whatever kind of food you like.”
“You guys suck!”
I prefer stories that focus on character development, because, I’ll be honest, I’m a little bit of a man slut when it comes to complex characters in stories: I can’t get enough of them.
My “opponent”, on the other hand, believes the adage “people are shaped by their environment”—and as an extension to this, the more grand the environment, the more complex the characters will become. I can sort of agree on this point. After all, doesn’t it often take some kind of catastrophe to show us who we really are? The same thing happens in any form of creative fiction/non-fiction. Just toss a little bloody war into the mix and you’ll find out very quickly what your characters are made of, and of what they are capable.
A “grand” narrative is — the true definition of which is simplified for this article — a style of narrative in which some greater event drives the story forward, not simply the characters. The characters grow with the event, transform with it, and ultimately find themselves through it. Think Lord of the Rings; yes, there were aspects of an insular narrative in it (Frodo & Sam spend most of the trilogy away from the others, as do Merry & Pip), but they are always driven by a grand goal (stopping Sauron from jacking up the world by destroying the One Ring before he can recapture it).
You could call this a debate over character driven plots & event driven plots, but that sort of minimizes the discussion a bit. Stories driven by a great event don’t always do so at the expense of meaningful character development (All Quiet on the Western Front), and conversely, not all stories with an intimate setting automatically have superior characters.
Funny enough, this debate eventually spilled over the literature line, right into video games and, especially, films.
“Was always kinda partial to Roy Rogers actually. I really like those sequined shirts.”
Just think about it for a minute; does Die Hard ever take place anywhere other than inside the Nakatomi building? Yes, there are scenes that show people outside of the building, but everything is centralized on that location, and the situation within.
The entire movie takes place in one near-constant setting, with the story driven by the complexity of the characters. You learn all about John McClane, his struggling marriage, his job as a New York cop, his wife’s ambitions, his kids, Hans’ goals (and later his REAL goals), Al Powell’s internal struggle with the aftermath of having accidentally shot a kid, that long-haired blonde guy’s thirst for revenge after John killed his little brother in the stairwell, that one douchebag reporter’s attempts to get the story before anyone else, etc.
Die Hard is about the characters, while the situation in the Nakatomi building is really just a backdrop (and not even a terribly important one—it’s not as if the writers mentioned every 10 seconds that this was a Japanese corporate building. This story could have, realistically, taken place in any powerful corporation’s highrise and not skipped a beat).
I also mentioned other titles like Seven Samurai, which nearly led into an entirely new debate. That was until I mentioned that, while the story does take place in the Warring States Period of Japanese history, the story itself isn’t at all focused on a grand picture. It’s just a film about 7 ronin who are hired to defend a farming village from bandits.
(On the other side, I eventually had to grudgingly concede The Godfather, because even though the film focused quite a bit of attention on the people within the Corleone crime family, it was driven by a grand event: Virgil Sollozzo’s attempts to set up a Heroin trade business in New York, as well as a simmering feud between the other 4 crime families who are all vying for power with the Corleones).
This debate really does come down to a personal taste issue, in the end. It’s like asking two people who love pizza to name their favorite topping—just because one prefers pepperoni & the other prefers sausage doesn’t mean that neither will ever eat a pizza that contains one or the other topping. Sometimes variety in your pizza topping is good; the same principle holds true for creative media.
I enjoy books with grand plots; I enjoy films with grand plots; I enjoy video games with grand plots; It’s just that if I have to choose one or the other, I’ll always go with stories that have complex characters, even if a grand setting has to be omitted to make it all work.
In fact, some of my favorite stories are ones that feature dialogue between two or more characters, with little or no action. It might sound a bit dull, but if it is done right—and the dialogue is crisp enough—the results are beautiful.
Case in point (the way I eventually “won” the ”insular-only-is-a-relevant-form-of-storytelling” part of our debate):
Now granted, you could put Samuel L. Jackson in a room with a tape recorder and tell him to give his opinion on newspaper articles—it’d be the most entertaining shit you ever heard. But seriously, what you have here is one of several instances in Pulp Fiction of no action, but plenty of character interaction, and it works like clockwork.
This isn’t a deep conversation here. Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) & Vincent (John Travolta) are talking about a foot massage, ffs. Still, it works because of the little instances of humor, intentional or otherwise, and because at some point both characters get serious about what they’re talking about, and what they think about it (a dude getting tossed out a window for giving a foot massage to the boss’s wife).
Could you see a conversation like this taking place in 300?
“Have you given a lot of foot massages, Xerxes?” “Shit yeah, got my technique down and everything.”
Yeah, no.
I love grand narratives, but sometimes I feel like your characters have to be a certain way in order to function within them.
It would just get ludicrous if Leonidas got together with Artemis to get drunk and talk about how fucked up Xerxes looks with all his weird piercings—or to ask how their armorer ever got paid for designing loincloths that wouldn’t stop a throwing dart, much less a Persian sword.
Grand events dictate your characters act in different ways, I understand this to a degree. But when you think about it, is that really true, or are writers just not trying hard enough to make it work?
In a lot of ways, it looks like writers are hiding behind grand events to evade the work of actually having to create complex characters.
To illustrate this point, we’re going into the next topic we stumbled into in this debate: role playing games.
Some of the best stories in video games are from role playing games.
When our discussion moved into the video game territory, I was met with an immediate “all role playing games have ‘grand narratives’; it’s always about saving the world, not just a town.” I conceded on this point (it’s so true). However, I fired back that ”The setting may be ‘grand’, but the interaction of the characters is ‘insular’—which makes it at least 50% an insular narrative, if not more.”
By this, I mean that role playing games almost always revolve around a half-a-dozen-to-a-dozen characters, their motivations, their goals, with only token mentions that anyone of note exists in the rest of the world other than the villains & heroes. Hell, if you weren’t paying much attention, you probably could be convinced that you’re playing the ONLY interesting characters in the entire world, and the rest of the world’s population are just amorphous blobs. (Kind of makes you wonder why they’re really worth saving, doesn’t it…?)
Because the focus on the characters you play in an rpg is so insular, often you get better character development than you would if you just let the setting drive the story. When you put an insular focus on rpg characters, often you find out that your heroes are flawed. Not in a tragic, melodramatic emo way, but in more of a complex, “human” way. Having said that, you also get to see other sides of a character’s personality besides the dark and mysterious exterior. You get to see the humor, as well.
Because you choose to focus on the heroes on their journey, as opposed to focusing on the world as the heroes are on their journey, the environment feels more intimate, and you care more about these people you’re following. You get to see more sides to them than you would normally get to in a story with an overarching “grand narrative”.
R.I.P. You awesome, awesome old bastard.
Throughout the course of our debate, I started to realize that strong focus on the characters is more important to me than a narrative with grand ambitions. In fact, my favorite movies tend not to be your 300‘s, with its special effects & over-the-top fight scenes, or your Star Trek‘s with its massive interstellar ship battles. I prefer films like The Fifth Element, which does have its own action sequences and grand “I-must-save-the-universe” narrative. But beneath that “grand narrative”, the writers found a way to also include humor and diversity to its cast of characters.
Seriously, tell me what business that has in a movie where the plot has an entire universe on the line? It doesn’t…Unless you find a way to make it fit (which the writers of the movie did brilliantly).
The rest of the movie was just as random. It had its serious moments, but it also had some flavor to it.
-This movie didn’t just have flying cars, it also had McDonald’s drive-thru windows to service them;
-It didn’t just have apartments that were high up in the sky, it also had flying Chinese restaurants to bring people their dimsum;
-It didn’t just have a decorated war hero who goes off to save the universe, he was an out-of-work cab driver with an overbearing mother, who falls in love with a character who literally falls into his lap…er, into the back of his cab.
But I digress.
The point is, stories should always put ample focus on characters, in my opinion, even if it means sacrificing a grand narrative. This is the area in which we ended up in a stalemate.
She conceded that character development is important, but, in her opinion, grand events make for the best settings & story drivers. It was a little hard to argue with her because some of my favorite movies/films/books feature grand narrative events to which the characters must adapt.
That said, many of my favorite stories are ones where the characters are doing the driving, and what matters is the characters, and what their concerns are, while the event that brings them together is just kind of ancillary. Like Before Sunrise, a movie that takes place over the course of one night, in one setting (Vienna), where the narrative—if you could even say it really has one—is minimalist, at best, and driven entirely by the characters.
Like I said at the beginning, so much of this has to do with a person’s own tastes. I love stories with grand narratives, and I love stories with insular narratives—I just choose insular if I’m asked point blank.
I feel like the best stories are the ones where the characters are looked at closely, where you are given a window into how they got to be who they are, where they are going, what they are going to do if things don’t go their way, and so on. I love when two characters just shoot the breeze long enough to talk about what’s about to happen. Hell, you could stretch that out and make a two hour movie about soldiers talking the night before a huge world-changing battle and I would enjoy it if the dialogue is engaging.
To me, the players are more important than the game.
What about you? If you managed to get all the way through this tl;dr article, which side of the divide do you come down on?
Is it more important for you that there is some great objective the characters must face to make a good story, or some event that changes the world based on the participation of the main characters?
Do you find that stories that put more focus on characters tend to be superior to stories that have great objectives, but don’t really let you see the different aspects of its characters?
Does a story have to have both in order for you to be interested, or to stay interested?
Michael Bay or Martin Scorcese? (Ok seriously, don’t answer that.)
