On Dramatic Arcs

[mark_asphodel]

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.

Comments

[samuraiter]

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. :-)

discussion time? discussion time!!

[raphiael]

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.

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

[samuraiter]

:-) 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.

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

[raphiael]

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.

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

[kyusil]

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'

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

[mark_asphodel]

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.

Re: discussion time? discussion time!!

[amielleon]

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/