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Thoughts on the Cipher protagonist in VNs

Clephas

Entry posted by Clephas

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First, let me state what I mean by a 'cipher' protagonist.  A protagonist of this type is basically a painted-on personality who serves solely to interpret the events for you, serving as your 'eyes' and 'ears'.  A protagonist like this is most likely passive and/or reactive in relation to heroines outside of sex/romance and tends to 'go with the flow' most of the time.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  If the protagonist isn't really part of the story, making them into a cipher isn't a bad idea (Hotel. by Akatsuki Works Black's protagonist is of this type).  However, a protagonist who is a central character really can't afford to be a cipher.  It would not be an exaggeration to say that a cipher protagonist can ruin any VN story where he/she is a central character simply by being a passive/reactive 'passenger' rather than an active player in the events of the story. 

In my experience, the more passive the protagonist is, the more likely the VN in question is going to be boring.  No matter how good the heroines in such a story are, it becomes impossible to engross yourself emotionally or intellectually because of the sense that the protagonist is out of place.  This is the big problem with old-style moege and many charage... cuteness will only take you so far.

Now, in some games I've played - non-VNs - a passive or 'silent' protagonist has worked... the Suikoden series and Growlanser 3 are examples of this type.  In both cases, you were given a great deal of freedom to shape the protagonist's interactions with the world, whether they were simple dialog choices or the order in which you recruited characters.  Unfortunately, visual novels, as a medium, are ultimately a reader's medium, and the reader is ultimately a passive participant.  You might make choices to put you on a path, but that doesn't change that you can't really alter the flow of events in most cases.

So, would you find being a passive participant behind a passive participant's eyes enjoyable?

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Darklord Rooke

No. Most VNs (when translated) are first person stories, and because most things you're 'viewing' in a first person story is filtered through the protagonist's personality, prejudices, and thoughts, a boring and passive protagonist usually makes for a boring a reading experience. It's one of the reasons why in the translated scene, I find most stories which feature (what the community calls) a 'self-insert protagonist' dull. Writing rule of thumb - the main narrator/protagonist of first person novels should be an engaging character. 

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Clephas
51 minutes ago, Rooke said:

No. Most VNs (when translated) are first person stories, and because most things you're 'viewing' in a first person story is filtered through the protagonist's personality, prejudices, and thoughts, a boring and passive protagonist usually makes for a boring a reading experience. It's one of the reasons why in the translated scene, I find most stories which feature (what the community calls) a 'self-insert protagonist' dull. Writing rule of thumb - the main narrator/protagonist of first person novels should be an engaging character. 

The Japanese can be pretty stupid about that...

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