Totally with you on the rest of it, but to be fair, I do chug depresso triple shots every day. Not as bad as it used to be now that I have a very close friend, but that part isn’t hard to believe for me
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This is the main reason I despise angst. Yay, me and MC both have clinical depression and suicidal ideation, I can surely relate to him better through that… and yet I cannot because they always fall down to a pit of constant “woe is me”. For me depression is so draining I just don’t feel anything anymore. It’s pure apathy and constant numbness with occasional flashes of emotion.
It’s genuinely insulting to see examples of constant moaning, constant emotional outbursts, complaining and “woe is me”-a-ning being paraded around as the true representation of the people with clinical depression and suicidal ideation. It’s the main issue I have with certain MCs - most obvious one is the Marshal because holy shit, dude, even I don’t complain as often as you do and we have the same mental illnesses.
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The Marshal doesn’t “complain” externally, they “complain” internally (and since we’re in their head for the entire story, well…). I think you talked about it on the WIP thread about it.
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Even internally it was quite… excessive in my opinion. Generally I started skipping through his episodes after getting triggered by one for reasons I won’t mention - and I was surprised how common they were, so common that they kind of drowned out most other stuff. I suppose it’s part of the main theme, but still, it really felt repetitive and quite annoying even if Marshal was, thankfully, not a doormat.
It’s not the fact he has certain disorders, it’s the fact they overthrow most other aspects of his personality and severely clash with certain parts of it as well. A thing that is the most common in doormats, but also can appear elsewhere. When character traits are for show alone, best not to bother with the choice at all. Yes, I won’t shut up about reactivity for religious MCs, which is often fuck-all, and especially so in Marshal’s case.
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Okay, now that I have a bit of time to sit down and hash out my thoughts a little better, let’s put some expansion and clarification on this:
When I say that doormat MCs have a nasty habit of being perpetually mopey, I mean it in much the same way that @vera implied: people spending an inordinate amount of time being miserable about themselves, in such overblown, overdramatized ways, that someone actually struggling with those issues in real life is even looking at the MC and being all, “dude, come on.”
To reference their previous discussion about super soldiers crying on the floor: @Havenstone is right, that people like that exist in real life. While it’s often a painful story to tell, it can also be pretty poignant. You don’t want your MC to be completely emotionless, because it wouldn’t be easy to relate to them, and would thus take you out of their headspace and make it harder for you to justify the decisions they make, or that you are intended to make on their behalf.
But on the other hand, to borrow a turn of phrase I heard from Assassin’s Creed, of all things, “In great enough doses, that which cures can kill.” Too much is too much, whether that’s angst, happiness, anger, or any other emotion.
When you’re over the top with your angst, such that the MC is constantly finding a way to take every single thing as a slight against them, even when it’s not even remotely related to them at all, and all the other members of the cast do nothing but rub the MC’s face in it whenever they’re given the opportunity to speak, that can get exhausting and frustrating, and insulting to read about. There’s nothing wrong with liking some drama, but when that drama comes at a direct detriment to character growth and the enjoyment of reading the story, then it’s getting to the point of ridiculousness and should really be dialed back.
And when you have an MC doing it, who already has to carry the burden of not being as capable as the rest of the cast, it can very quickly go from being a striking character arc to strikingly trite.
Even if you don’t relate to that kind of internal struggle, a perpetually mopey MC can very quickly turn the tone of the story into a mockery against the reader if it’s loaded on too heavily. There’s very little as irritating as trying to make the MC do something, them failing or just not quite succeeding at it, and then proceeding to spend the next several pages moaning about how badly they suck, potentially with the other members of cast happily standing off to the side and being all, “Yeah, you sure do, bud!”
I used my own real life experience as an example because I’m trying to send the message that there are other ways an underpowered MC can be employed, other than as a perpetual motion angst machine.
You can have an MC be a doormat, and still have a sharp tongue, without it damaging the fabrics of the narrative - how many TV dramas feature someone mouthing off and getting their teeth kicked in for it?
You can have an MC be a doormat and be happy with their lives, and still have room for drama, without them suddenly being in the business of misery (/Paramore). Just because someone isn’t sad all the time, doesn’t mean something can’t come along and make them sad, and if you ask me, a drama is at its best when the bad things happen and then people are allowed to heal from it and keep living their lives.
You can have an MC be a doormat, and still have a voice to contribute to a conversation - it will always drive me nuts when I see a scenario where the cast is discussing something important, I try and have the MC add their take, and everybody just goes, “yeah, that’s cool, shut up.” That’s the kind of shit that I have to go to therapy for in real life, constantly being talked over or shouted down wherever I have anything to say. Why the hell would I want to deal with that in fiction? And how would it hurt the narrative for the MC to actually matter enough for people to listen to what they’re trying to say? You can still have things blow up in everybody’s faces without it being yet another rehash of “nobody heeded my warnings until it was too late.”
To quickly sum this up, since my break is over: I don’t mind so much if an MC is weaker in some aspect or another than the rest of the cast. But goddamn, I would love for them to have any other feelings on the situation than constantly being sad about it. It would be refreshing to have an MC who might not be as powerful as the rest of the cast, but the rest of the cast can’t even come close to the level of sass they have, for example.
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I wonder if that’s something people learnt from bad romance novels, especially if these characters exist mainly in romance stories.
Quick question of terminology though. If MC acting like a doormat is an option the player can take (or alternatively, not to take), is that a doormat character or not (given that there’s agency involved)?
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Like the “doormat” character type, I feel the angsty-forever-mopey PTSD character type is a reaction to the writings of the older works that came before.
I also feel that for whatever reason, this type of character is becoming overdone and because it is being overdone, that this character type drowns out other alternatives.
Some ideas for characters that do not follow this now overused path:
- characters that are triggered differently than the norm –
- characters that are actually handling the problem
- characters that sometimes handle it and sometimes do not.
For me, personally, unless it is executed very well and presented in a more original way, the angsty-forever-mopey PTSD character becomes a slog and starts to detract from the story or game.
It depends on the execution of that agency by the author in the story that follows that choice and the agency given (or failed to be given).
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I would also like to add a type of traumatized MC I don’t see often in IF: the steadfast tin soldier one, the one I’m personally closest to myself. The one where you keep pushing on despise all the things that drag you down, including your own trauma and other nasty business, the stiff upper lip and the thing best represented by Japanese gaman.
It can be played for both good and ill, and I especially like the portrayals where MC doesn’t even know there’s something wrong with them because they don’t know it can be different from the way it goes. Especially if they’re not in mentally ill-friendly spaces, like yours truly - I haven’t even known I’ve had depression until I was an adult. I thought I just got into a five-year long funk.
If it’s a choice with agency to behave this way, it should correlate to the story and established character of MC. If it breaks said story, fits poorly and clashes with MC’s established past and personality, I’d still cry foul and call it a doormat, especially if the game favours such choices. It might not be the proper term, but I don’t truly know if “ludonarrative dissonance” fits better.
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I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone sum up why I like Fallen Hero but can’t stand I, the Forgotten One better. In the former, your mental state is in the dumps but like, you can handle it and try to get better, reforge connections, make friends, etc. In the latter, its a hard coded impossible *if statement to be anything but spiraling into your depression. Towards the end things look up, maybe, but you never have the choice to be anything but miserable.
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I agree that forgotten one doesn’t give you many opportunities to start healing, but bacon did say that part of the story was built around pulling yourself back together and healing from trauma, it’s just taking a longer amount of time for you to get to that point, And the ending is supposed to end on a positive note compared to how the rest of the story went
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Hey guys!! I love this forum, and had a lot of encounters with ‘doormat’ MC. Also, another thing i despite when something happens, like a new bad group coming or just a potential LI, and all just accept it. No pushback, not a choice to show displeasure. And in the end game asks you how you like your new friend. I dont. And i dont wanna choose ‘i dont really know them’. Sometimes i just wanna be an arsshole and tell me dont interact with them.
Honestly, best done work was in Fallen Hero, the character was done from the start and they were themselves. We just lived thru their past having some choice in it. And after it was up to us to shape the future.
In my opinion, i always felt like hard ass. An emotionaly and physically unstable, with a lot of trauma and depressed but still an bad ass. And we get to decide to seek help. So its very good handcrafted game that in the end you were not completely yourself but you had great control and it emerged me so quickly that i run thru all books in a day.
Edit: of course, like others said, overusing the ‘bad feelings and i am bad and did a lot of wrong things’ is tiresome. I am sure a lot of people can sympathise with the MC, and i do too because some things hit home, but after a while i just ignore it. Also some scenes, like romantic ones, should be given a little more choice, like to not feel ashamed or be happy to accept that other person likes us. Sometimes i felt like i was talking to a brick wall telling everytime that we deserve that ‘happy and wanted’ feeling.
There’s a lot of games that give you complete control from age 1 and i still felt like i controlled an emotionless dummy. I had armies, superpowers, and still felt useless.
I dont remember where i was going, but my point is, the writing. I strongly believe if the author of Fallen hero would write a game giving you complete control without superpowers, hero buddies, armies and else, it still would make me feel like an bad ass.
Of course, no one writes same, everyone has their unique way of creating worlds and MCs. And theres a LOT of amazing games. But i believe we should always have an option to stand up for ourselves. The path shouldnt be like another story, but at least give that option.
You can also make the MC grow as potential, example Sweet Home (manga, tv series.) I absolutely despised the MC and in the end he growed so much, even without his abilities, i felt he could kick some ass.
So i am sorry for ranting, i forgot completely what i wanted to say and lost track.
1 Like