mark_asphodel | On Dramatic Arcs

Entry tags:

On Dramatic Arcs

During my senior year of university, a whopping eleven years ago, I borrowed The Street Where I Live from my grandmother. It's an autobiographical work by Alan Lay Lerner that covers the writing and staging of My Fair Lady, Gigi, and Camelot. (I'm not really into musicals but I was interested in the look at the creative process and drama thereof.) Lerner observed that up until the musical became retroactively associated with the Kennedy presidency, the cohesive first half of Camelot was considered the strong act, and the more chaotic second half deemed dramatically weaker. After JFK, the comic first half was the "weak" arc, the tragic second half the "strong" one. Context matters.

There is a thread on Serenes Forest about what makes for a good story in a video game but it is filled with bullshit and not worth the read.

Anyway, I'm interested specifically about what makes the second half of FE4 fall flat in a dramatic sense. The falling action of FE2 is good-- and the twist of the penultimate Big Bad is fantastic. The "second act" of FE3-- Book II in general-- is very good, IMO one of the better storylines in Fire Emblem. But the Celice part of the Jugdral saga appears IMO to be the "weak half" of a game that is often lauded for its story.

Well, let's take a step back and look at FE3 (not FE1) first. It's composed of two "books"-- the War of Darkness, in which pantless shota Marth creates an alliance and leads it to victory over the Dolhr Empire, and the War of Heroes, in which Marth's former allies turn on him and he has to claw his way back from the brink of annihilation. The first half isn't light comedy by any means-- Camus and Michalis still do their archetypical things-- but it's the second half that goes for all the gut-punches. Lorenz commits suicide. Minerva's reign disintegrates into chaos. Altea is wiped off the map. Raman Temple is ruined, symbolizing the ruin of their entire age. Abel betrays Marth. The Wolfguard show up, ready to kill, and only Roshea sees the light. Boah is mortally wounded, Hardin dies in Marth's arms professing his gratitude for the act, and Michalis likewise expires after doing one last good deed. And that's in a run-through without any player mistakes, like killing Gra soldiers and having Samson and Sheema both turn on you! The world Marth thought he already saved ain't never gonna be the same.

But FE4 flips it. The first five chapters contain all the gut-punches-- Eltoshan. Dierdre. Mahnya. Byron. Cuan and Ethlin. And then your entire playable cast gets killed by falling, flaming rocks. There's not a lot you can do to top that! So even though the second half of the game trots out some archetypes doing their thing, what with Ishtar being all noble and not-recruitable, and Alvis being guilty and tortured and accepting of his death at Celice's hands, something doesn't quite work. There's not a real sense of drama in choosing between Johan and Johalva, even if one of them has to die instead of just closing off his castle in a sulk. There's no bite in Aless betraying his mentor Jabarro. Ishtar and Alvis arguably do too much bad stuff for us to fully forgive them or grieve for them, at least in the space it takes to actually play the game. Trabant doesn't get retconned into something admirable until the next game, and Arion gets a Get Out Of Death card and skips town. And then it's all love and daisies and happy sibling reunion and puppy love. The plot kind of fizzles, and I don't think it's just the fault of Celice for not being as dramatically compelling as, say, FE3!Marth. (-_-)

Thank goodness there wasn't a Gen 3, as I suspect it would've been even worse.

But I do feel that the main entry in the Jugdral Saga, unlike the Archanea saga, used up all its OMGWFBBQ moments in its first five chapters. Whereas FE3's Book II kept the below-the-belt hits coming right up to the credits rolling (Maria asking Minerva how Big Brother is faring, sob)... not to mention the character endings (Abel and Est, cry)... Gen 2 is awfully nice to Celice and Friends. Even when Julia disappears, the stakes don't feel that high. In a perfect game, where you've got heirs to all the right nations and you don't fumble stuff like Altenna's recruitment, everything is tied up with a neat pretty bow and well... Alvis had it coming, didn't he?

Gen 2 needed some dirty on par with Gen 1 or with FE3, and I don't mean sibling-love dirty. Having Levin dispense text-dumps about how devastated this city is or how bad these offscreen acts are just doesn't have the same sense of drama as having Lorenz blow himself up, you know? When even having foolish old Boah babble himself to death hits harder than some of the Big Moments in Celice's story, something's just a bit out of balance. Just a bit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think FE4 just wants to be a different kind of story. FE3 is a tragedy. FE3 is about struggle, despair, sacrifice. FE3 is a story about how people suck.

FE4 is a story about heroes. FE4 is a story about how fathers might fail but sons will see their divine mission through. FE4 is a story about adults who fucked up and kids who fix their mistakes. FE4 is just inherently really optimistic, and its dramatic structure follows accordingly. First things go wrong. They go really wrong. And then they get better. Those with divine right inherit these mistakes and fix them. There's a reason second gen chapter titles are things like "Light Inheritor."

Chapter 5 is in some sense the climax, and the second gen is its long-winded resolution. If I were to fix FE4 without changing its spirit, I would probably do so by somehow shortening the second generation, Radiant Dawn style.

FE4 is just inherently really optimistic, and its dramatic structure follows accordingly. First things go wrong. They go really wrong. And then they get better.

I almost made a reference to the Divine Comedy in the OP re: how everyone likes Inferno and almost no one actually wants to read Paradiso. But yes, FE4 is structured as a comedy.

ETA the second: Sigurd's part has its own "classical" tragic structure, though, with a climax in Chapter Three (Elto dies, Dierdre gets 'napped, Sigurd & Co are banished). Celice's is more of a mess because of three huge plotlines being juggled-- the Julia/Julius plotline, the Thracia stuff that takes 2.5 chapters, and then the Freege family mess which comes up in a whopping 5 chapters out of the six we spend with Celice. Honestly, Chapter 8, wherein we meet Ishtar for the first time (and kill her father) was probably supposed to serve as a climax given Ishtar is our tragic Camus-type, but Ch 8 didn't work for me.

If I were to fix FE4 without changing its spirit, I would probably do so by somehow shortening the second generation, Radiant Dawn style.

That could work... though I think the player would end up caring even less about the Second Gen characters. I mean, it wouldn't change things like "Johan vs Johalva, who gives a fuck?"

Edited 2012-10-29 10:40 (UTC)

I suppose I always saw ch 3 as a setup rather than a climax. This may have a great deal with not particularly feeling for Dierdre or Elto.

You're right in that merely shortening gen 2 wouldn't necessarily help the lack of connection with gen 2 characters. How about this: have the kids be older by the time of the Barhara Massacre, but have them conduct a playable side mission under the direction of Shannan while their parents march on Velthomer. This both sows investment earlier and makes them more deeply connected to the momentum of pt 1. It also starts their storyline earlier so it doesn't feel like merely shortening their screentime.

How about this: have the kids be older by the time of the Barhara Massacre, but have them conduct a playable side mission under the direction of Shannan while their parents march on Velthomer.

I like that idea quite a bit. Something along those lines would've increased investment in Celice 'n' Friends.

I am of the belief that it may be a format issue. Phantasy Star III has most of its dramatic heft in its first generation, as well, for example. (The Agarest games are a little odd in this regard; they tend to put the meat of their stories in their middle generations.) My thinking on this is that the developers might put so much work into the early running that they find they have to kinda speed through the later parts.

As for storytelling in video games on the whole, my mantra remains unchanged: all you need is a good cast of the characters. The plot, more often than not, will take care of itself, and, even if it doesn't, fandom is great at filling in blanks. :-)

all you need is a good cast of the characters. The plot, more often than not, will take care of itself

Eh, I disagree. I think it's hard to have characters people care about if the plot itself doesn't go anywhere. Without plot, they can't really develop or flourish. You never see what they're really made of. Character depth makes itself known through story happenings, after all.

Actually, FE4 is probably a good example. You've got all kinds of people who should be really interesting. They come from crazy circumstances and are more often than not larger-than-life on paper. But in practice, especially in the second generation, there's so little involvement that it's just like "who cares?"

Mind you, engaging plot doesn't necessarily mean good or logical plot. FFVII's storyline moves its characters in ways that makes them intensely memorable, but once you actually outline the plot on paper, it's pretty nonsensical and silly. It works nonetheless, because the people involved work well. But I think while you can have interesting plot without great characters, it's near impossible to have great characters without a plotline driving them into what they become.

:-) You state this very well, Raphi. It might come down to kind of a chicken-or-egg thing. Do the characters drive the plot, or does the plot drive the characters? I believe the former, you believe the latter, but neither of us is wrong, really.

I know there've been times – even recently! – when I've kind of just let the plot happen on its own while the characters do their thing, and it's come back to bite me right on the ass, haha.

Well, I think good plot does come from character motivations! That's definitely true, at least in stories I tend to like. But I feel like I've definitely played games and read stories where the characters were interesting in theory, but the plot just never happened, as well as things where there was an intricate plot and a cast of cardboard, archetypal characters who did very little for me. Neither is ideal, but the latter was a lot more likely to get me interested, whereas the former never allows the interesting elements of the characters to shine, putting all the good present to waste.

My screenwriting professor gave us a quotation from Henry James: "What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?" In other words, they both feed on and inform each other. Characters make decisions that alter or advance the plot, and the events of the plot change characters and inform their later decisions.

I've also heard that if you have a strong enough (sense of) character, all you need to do is drop them off in a premise and let them go, and the plot can pretty much write itself.

I can't really tie this into our context but I figured I might as well throw it out there. 'A'

Actually, FE4 is probably a good example. You've got all kinds of people who should be really interesting. They come from crazy circumstances and are more often than not larger-than-life on paper. But in practice, especially in the second generation, there's so little involvement that it's just like "who cares?"

I was going to make this same point, yeah.

But I think while you can have interesting plot without great characters, it's near impossible to have great characters without a plotline driving them into what they become.

At least in a gaming medium. I love the film "Russian Ark," which is as non-plot as they come.

In the conventional genre, anyway. Indie games like to do that literary thing with characters and stuff not happening.

http://unmanned.molleindustria.org/

http://change.textories.com/

Thank goodness there wasn't a Gen 3, as I suspect it would've been even worse.

On the other hand, I wonder if making Gen 2 longer might have helped... or if the addition of a third generation would have let them shift/rework/space out some of the big picture plot elements to give them more impact. For me the problem with Gen 2 has always been that it felt too rushed despite all the complicated stuff going on. When I found out that a third part had been planned, that made me suspect the original structure hadn't been intended as mirrored halves, and that young!Celice & co. were actually meant to be a transitional arc. I basically had the impression that the dev team was overambitious and that they'd wanted to do a true overblown generational epic in which it feels like the heroes are fighting a losing battle across the ages (until it finally gets better), but ran into time/budget/data constraints so had to compress everything.

(and then they tried to compensate for FE4's overly neat resolution with FE5, LOL. Though I sometimes seriously wonder if the way FE5 is more or less structured as a coming-of-age story for Leaf is what they'd actually originally intended for Celice in the final two arcs. Julia just seems like one of those things they meant to be a Big Twist on par with Barhara, but the way that revelation is structured totally falls short.)

(If it were up to me, at least one of those handy 2nd gen heirs would have switched sides again in the 3rd arc in an Abel redux, hahaha! TearRing Saga is actually the other thing that makes me wonder about Kaga's original intentions for a third arc... There were definite echoes in the political context that were hard to ignore, but I haven't touched TRS since I finished the first stretch of chapters, so it's hard to say for sure. But part of what I really did like were the uneasy alliances and the overall sense of fluidity and actual political dealmaking/favor-swapping.)

I basically had the impression that the dev team was overambitious and that they'd wanted to do a true overblown generational epic in which it feels like the heroes are fighting a losing battle across the ages (until it finally gets better), but ran into time/budget/data constraints so had to compress everything.

That sounds intriguing. This is the statement that turned me off about Gen3: "The third part was going to be a story about the parents and children reuniting. Those who weren't Sigurd's regular subordinates would not make a triumphant return (but are subjugated)." A super-extended happy ending with all the mommies getting resurrected and whatnot just seemed... dull.

Julia just seems like one of those things they meant to be a Big Twist on par with Barhara, but the way that revelation is structured totally falls short.

Word. It is botched beyond credibility.

If it were up to me, at least one of those handy 2nd gen heirs would have switched sides again in the 3rd arc in an Abel redux, hahaha!

If that had happened, my money's on Leaf or Arthur! Both of them seem a bit borderline in FE4 itself. Plus Leaf has the inferiority complex going and Arthur, especially Azel!Arthur, has a whole mess of baggage re: his heritage.

OTOH, I can see whatever poor kid got stuck with Verdane getting over his head, too. Faval strikes me as a singularly unprepared ruler for... anything.

but I haven't touched TRS since I finished the first stretch of chapters, so it's hard to say for sure.

I need to try that some time, I really do.

A super-extended happy ending with all the mommies getting resurrected and whatnot just seemed... dull.

Hm, true. I would hope though that those reunions would have deeper repercussions... but hard to say how they would've actually handled it!

If that had happened, my money's on Leaf

I'd pick Leaf, because yeah inferiority complex for one, and also because Thracian politics just seem so independent/complicated in their own right. Plus it would make for a nice twist on the way things played out with the Cuan/Elto/Sigurd trio and maybe help make Aless's choices more interesting in contrast.

But yeah, I can definitely see Arthur or a Verdane heir running into trouble too.

I need to try that some time, I really do.

I should probably finish my playthrough of TRS myself! It was really kind of interesting how the overall game built on/echoed story & gameplay elements from FE2-5. Some of it was stuff the later FE games also continued to play with, but TRS ran with them in slightly different directions... at the very least it's neat to see where they overlap and where they diverge.

(Frex, Runan may be a Leaf clone in terms of design, but otherwise he strikes me as a toned down/more human version of Celice. I would not be surprised if he was intended as a descendant of Celice, and therefore perhaps the "missing link" between Celice and Marth.)

I'd pick Leaf, because yeah inferiority complex for one, and also because Thracian politics just seem so independent/complicated in their own right. Plus it would make for a nice twist on the way things played out with the Cuan/Elto/Sigurd trio and maybe help make Aless's choices more interesting in contrast.

Right. Aless turning wouldn't have the same impact because ~~he's so underwritten~~ it's just like Elto All Over Again. Whereas Leaf turning on Celice, even if just in the context of "You don't understand the decisions I have to make to deal with this place," would really hurt.

But yeah, I can definitely see Arthur or a Verdane heir running into trouble too.

I hadn't given Arthur much thought at all until very recently, but in between "Kill all maternal relatives" and "Get back to Silesia," he's a bit off. More than a bit.

Frex, Runan may be a Leaf clone in terms of design, but otherwise he strikes me as a toned down/more human version of Celice. I would not be surprised if he was intended as a descendant of Celice, and therefore perhaps the "missing link" between Celice and Marth.

Wow. That's not what I'd have expected at all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

On Dramatic Arcs

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

discussion time? discussion time!!

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject