I was talking about this earlier so I thought I might expound about it here.

Some
times I think people forget that a good story requires at the very least 2 basic
elements made of a lot of other elements to make it work.
1. You have to have a good, coherent story
2. You have to have relatable, well developed characters.
I've often seen films that were decent, but they lacked something that just stoo
d out glaringly for me. And at the time I couldn't always figure out what it was
that made the movie or book just fall apart.for me. But usually it's one of the
two components not being in balance and harmony with the other after some real
thought.
To have a good movie, book or even a basic roleplay, you have to have a good plo
t and at the very least know the basics of storytelling which usually boils down
to this (and I'm borrowing from the Channel 101 wiki.
1. . A character is in a zone of comfort,
2. . But they want something.
(steps 1 and 2 establish character motive. A main character has to have a motive
or the audience will ask why the character is there.)
3. . They enter an unfamiliar situation,
(Unfamiliar situations provide conflict. No one wants to read a story where a ch
aracter gets everything easy. There's nothing to relate to otherwise. To get wha
t we want in life, we must work for it. Therefore for a main character to be som
ething the audience relates to, they must therefore work to obtain their goal.)
4. . Adapt to it,
(Adaptation is a natural thing. As a species (or any species in biology), we mus
t learn to adapt to our surroundings. Lack of adaptation eventually proves fatal
, and in the case of storytelling, this counts double. If your focus dies, then
so does your story.)
5. . Get what they wanted
6. . Pay a heavy price for it,
(This also provides conflict but it also is the point in the story where most pr
otagonists learn what it is they need to learn to obtain their goal/beat the bad
guy/get the girl/guy/save the world, etc. You can't go through a journey withou
t encountering some sort of change. It doesn't make for a realistic story. Even
when we learn the most minuscule of things, it still impacts us as people. Natur
ally such things would impact a character.)
7. . Then return to their familiar situation,
8. . Having changed.
(This ties up the loose ends and allows our characters further resolution to the
ir story, and allows the audience closure, knowing that the person they have spe
nt their time following along their journey is going to continue learning and gr
owing and developing, even if it isn't given to them at the time. Or at all.)
That's the nitty gritty of most basic stories. And there are many examples (in b
oth visual media and literature) that one can pull from that uses this when brok
en down into its most base terms.
Watership Down is a good example. The rabbits start in the Sandleford Warren ( a
place of comfort) minding their own business and being rabbits. This also frame
s two of main characters, Hazel and Fiver. Fiver receives a vision of the warren
's oncoming destruction, and wants to move to somewhere safe (they want somethin
g).
Eventually a small bunch of rabbits do come together and leave Sandleford to go
find a new home. On their way they encounter all sorts of little conflicts and e
ventually come upon a suitable place for a home on Watership Down. (all of this
can count as unfamiliar situations though the Downs are the settling spot and wo
uld count fully as entering an unfamiliar situation because to create a new warr
en fully, the males must not only have more than simple scrapes to home in, but
must also obtain some females to breed with). From there, Hazel takes Hlao-Roo (
Pipkin) to the nearby farm to explore it. There he finds two domesticated rabbit
females whom he talks into wanting to come with him. The rabbits also conduct a
raid later on a nearby warren known as Efrafa for the same reason (adapting to
their surroundings), thus grabbing them new members for their goal of creating a
new warren somewhere not dangerous (getting what they want.)These are not witho
ut their consequences, as Hazel is shot during the raid on the farm, and the ful
l raid upon Efrafa spurs the militaristic General Woundwort to lead an attack on
the budding new warren in an attempt to gain control over it. (paying the price
). Because of some clever tricks and a united front, Hazel (who at this point is
pretty much recognized as the leader of the warren) and his friends are victori
ous in defending their new home, and the story closes on the new warren being su
ccessful (return to their comfortable situation). Hazel is now comfortable with
his position and is fully trusting of his brother's sight whereas at first, he d
id not necessarily consider himself leader and found Fiver's sight dubious at be
st. Fiver is now accepted as a contributing member of the warren instead of just
being "hazel's brother". Rather than being blown off when he sees things, his s
econd sight is now accepted and noticed. It's a part of his bloodline (which he
likely would not have gotten a chance at had they stayed at Sandleford). (Having
Changed) Exeunt our story and protagonists, changed by their experiences.
On the flipside of the coin, storytelling problems are part of what make Final F
antasy X a hard game to play and stay invested.
The storytellers drop the ball almost immediately by insisting that Tidus is the
protagonist when, as you go through the story, the focus is almost entirely on
Yuna, who should have been given the role and the character development. But I'l
l give reasons on why I'm not fond of their characterization later on.
So we have indecision as to who the story focuses on. The story opens for Tidus
in Zanarkand, which is his place of comfort, but we spend little time in the pla
ce before Sin attacks. And we spend even less time in Besaid Village (which appe
ars to be Yuna's place of comfort).
We are at least lucky enough to find out what they want. Or at least Tidus is pr
etty clear. He wants to go home. Yuna well supposedly she wants to destroy Sin, b
ut it's made clear that's her duty as a summoner, making the audience wonder if
that's her real motivation or only a duty she's been indoctrinated into believin
g by the teachings of Yevon.
Sin is introduced early as it attacks Zanarkand and pretty much thrusts Tidus in
to Spira which is an unfamiliar situation for him. What Yuna is doing when he re
aches Besaid is likely par for the course, but I'm sure at one point it was an u
nfamiliar situation.
This is where the story starts to fall the fuck apart. Tidus is forced to "adapt
" in some ways to this new world he's been thrust in, but he does so kicking and
screaming. Rather than follow Rikku's advice to avoid mentioning Zanarkand and
the fact that he's from there, it's the first thing he talks about and he won't
fucking shut up about it throughout the game. He also manages to continue being
a braying jackass all the way through the course of the game, making most audien
ce members dislike him.
The story then completely switches focus. It's like watching a child with ADHD o
n Pixy Sticks. Because it then focuses on Yuna's journey as a summoner to defeat
sin with Tidus kicking, screaming, and insisting that it's his story (in one wa
y or another) throughout. Yuna's big thing, much like everyone else in Spira- he
r desire - is a world without Sin. And to do that, she must pray at the various
temples and gain the power of the Aeons. This goes on for a big chunk of the sto
ry. Go to the temple. Do a long boring overbearing puzzle, fight a boss, pray at
the temple, get an aeon. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. This doesn't vary much, making
the game somewhat linear in tone. Especially if you were like me and tended to a
void the game's sorry attempt at side quests (I hated blitzball).
Somewhere before this shift, we are introduced to what most would assume as the
main villain of the game, Seymour Guado, who aside from abysmal character design
, is.. He's a recurring villain which is usually not a good plan if you're plann
ing on having him be taken seriously. After a while in game, he's basically jus
t there to sound like a pompous, pretentious dick and be your punching bag for t
he next 20 minutes or so, to which he'll fall over and play possum and show up l
ater on because no one in the game has enough sense to send him while he's down.
He suffers heavily from that whole "Movie cliche' villain" thing, including pow
er hungry, desire for world conquest, and lusting for the main female lead.
Eventually after some tangental wandering and discovery of things such as Yuna's
potential death if she summons the final aeon to destroy Sin, the discovery of
the Church of Yevon being corrupt, and so on, we eventually get to the end of th
e line.
Remember how I said that Tidus really isn't the main character of the story. He'
s not. Were it so, likely the game might have taken the turn of Tidus eventually
getting to go home, but having to sacrifice Yuna to the final Aeon as the price
. Instead, the eventual end of all things comes with Yuna getting what she wante
d (a world without Sin) by destroying both Sin and its creator Yu Yevon. The pri
ce however means that Tidus, who is revealed as a group manifestation of the Fay
th, must disappear. Had the story focused on her from the beginning and made Tid
us's character one of her guardians as a co-lead character, this could have been
the most touching scene. But it didn't do that.
And the story ends with Tidus fading out but getting the mandatory happy ending
for him, returning to the farplane and reconciling with his father. And we see Y
una later on who is much stronger for having gone on her pilgrimage, learning th
at religious dogma should not be blindly followed, giving a speech in Luca at th
e blitzball stadium about how Sin is dead, and the world is theirs at last. That
the eternal calm has begun and such.
Yes, it's a happy ending, but for at least one part of the story, it's a bit unf
ulfilling because while Yuna has drastically changed, Tidus didn't so much, maki
ng us wonder yet again, who was this story really about?
Now that I've given examples about good storytelling, we move to the other half
of this rant: And that's character development.
A good story without strong characters is not going to survive long. Sure, a goo
d story can carry weak characters for a little while, but it will seem mediocre
and average. Even popular characters can still be somewhat cardboard. Superman i
s a good example of this. He's too perfect. You know no matter what kind of "ins
urmountable" odds he comes up against, he's going to win because he's fuckin' Su
perman. Even if it's the worst thing in the whole world and there's a shit ton o
f conflict and Lex Luthor has smeared his name all over creation It's all going t
o be okay. Why? Because he's fuckin' Superman, that's why. Take away the challen
ge and the story becomes boring and predictable and so does the character that i
s the cause of it. The only time I've ever loved Supes was during the run of Sup
erman:TAS when they gave him an actual personality and flaws.
I ran into this problem with A Bug's Life, too. The story had promise, even if t
he ant and grasshopper dynamic is a bit dry, but the characters fell flat. Flik
was our protagonist, but his "warriors" proved to be more interesting than he wa
s. And the grasshoppers just came across as "Hi, we're the obligatory villains.
You're supposed to hate us." Hopper could have been an amazing villain but inste
ad he just comes across as a bully and nothing but. His brother (as obnoxious as
he was) was more interesting, and he was just the flunkie yes-man type.
I mentioned FFX as well above for the story problems. I'm going to bring them in
here for the lack of character development. The story itself has a problem with
focusing on who the actual protagonist was supposed to be. The game insisted it
was Tidus. Which would have been fine but it was Yuna who went through the most
development. Barring a few small moments in-game, Tidus was, for the most part,
for the whole game, a whiny, mincing, overbearing, entitled little shitskid, wh
o whined and pissed and moaned about the fact that he'd been yanked from his wor
ld, he wanted to go home, he hated his old man, and things should go his way or
else.
Yuna, on the other hand seems to be the natural choice to be the main character
in-game, except she has all the personality of a brick. I don't mind characters
being doormats, but other than being demure and kind of timid, there really isn'
t anything else to latch on to. It's like they were writing her personality and
got bored halfway.
And all the rest barring Auron who actually speaks sense within the game, and Ri
kku to some degree (who is the obligatory "exotic" flavor since the Al Bhed are
supposedly radically different than Spira's Yevon freaks) are varying degrees of
brainwashed religious dogmatics, Wakka being the worst. I think all that hair c
ement soaked into his brain.
Basically we have the Older Advisor Type (Auron), token whiny prick (Tidus), The
religious nut (Wakka), the token goth chick (Lulu), The perky teenager (Rikku),
The Strong Silent Type (Kimahri), and Bella Swan if she were remotely interesti
ng and less pretentious (aka, the Trying too hard to be the everyman) (Yuna).
It's hard to identify with these characters because they lack the full dimension
s of what a character is supposed to be. They have faults, but it's more like th
ey were just tacked on rather than fully thought out.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, we have characters like Bruce Wayne (a
ka Batman for those of you living under a rock), who has motive and reason for w
hat he does, and actually, with some nudging, could have easily gone in another
direction.
When Bruce lost his parents, it was a disturbing and terrible time for the child
. He could have easily let his grief and anger consume him, turning him jaded an
d cynical and allowing him to become one of Gotham's richest and likely most pow
erful men, corrupt and morally ambiguous. Instead, he chose to use that death as
the catalyst to strike fear into the heart of Gotham City's criminals as Batman
. Bruce is most definitely a good guy, but he's not without his faults. He pushe
s people away because he is afraid of someone getting too close and becoming a c
hance for both him and them to be hurt. He's got a pretty vicious temper too if
pushed too much. And he's so used to working alone (barring Robin, and even that
's questionable at times) that he tends to have trouble working with other super
heroes depending on what iteration you're watching. He is a dynamic character wh
o is decidedly human, allowing us to connect with him despite the fact that he's
rich, famous and powerful.
I'll use the Joker as another form of this. He's a fantastic villain, combining
a strangely amusing irreverence tempered with a frighteningly psychotic view of
the world. He's so obsessed with Batman and learning how he ticks that he never
ceases to use that against him, be it trying to convince him that they are not s
o different, to attacking those he loves. He's stunningly manipulative, throwing
out a sob story to hook in Harleen Quinzell, who fell for it hook, line, and si
nker, and soon became one of his most loyal minions. There's nothing simple abou
t him. Yes he's evil, but that's not the extent of his character. He's an evil,
manipulative, egotistical, psychotic bastard that you love to hate, and it makes
things even better when Bats foils his plans, and all the more heartbreaking wh
en the Joker rips out Batman's proverbial heart and stomps it into the concrete.
Marvel's exceedingly good at this with their characters. They almost always have
a clear motive and strong personalities.
Professor Xavier's goal is a world where mutants and humans can live together wi
thout fear of each other. He genuinely cares for his students and for people and
it shows in his works and how he treats people. At the same time, he's not abov
e manipulating others to fund his agendas (something that broke my heart when I
read it later on, but I understand why they did it.) and has something of a temp
er (Don't think I didn't see that, cartoon guys from the 90s!).
Loki's goal in Thor was to obtain the notoriety and respect that so long eluded
him. He longed to be out of Thor's shadow and have his chance to be the golden c
hild. He has the potential to be a hero (even without betraying his playful and
mischievous nature), but ends up as the villain because he lets that bitterness,
jealousy, and his pride to get the better of him. He's a lovable rascal at his
best who cares for his brother, and at worst can be the most treacherous and dan
gerous enemy you could have.
You see my point though. A good story and good characters go hand in hand.
This kind of dynamism needs to carry over into the way the world and the charact
ers are physically built. Something I run into a lot is a lack of base in chara
cter design. Worlds can suffer from this too, and when it happens, it makes thin
gs really hard. The reason why Fantasy works is because it has some small basis
in reality.
A world must have rules to maintain the balance. Otherwise everything flies apar
t and the world destroys itself. There must be some basic laws. And the characte
rs and world itself must adhere to these laws. If this doesn't happen, then the
audience has trouble immersing themselves in the world you've created and their
suspension of disbelief doesn't kick in. Instead they will spend copious amounts
of time nitpicking the details and paying no attention to the story you're tryi
ng to tell. If you want to rewrite the laws of physics for your world, that's f
ine. Just be prepared to do a shit-ton of research and don't make any plans to i
ntroduce it until you're absolutely sure things are ready.
Character designs have to adhere to those rules too unless the character is some
one from somewhere else being thrust into this world not of their own volition.
In which they must learn to adapt or perish. That's how nature works.
Logically, You can't put a creature that classifies as megafauna in a world with
small prey animals. No kill rate is 100 percent and your critter would eventual
ly starve to death due to a lack of food either from overhunting or not getting
enough.
If you give a critter wings, it must have a span wide enough to accommodate for
their size to fly. You might be able to fob off weight and a lack of hollow bon
es to flight spells or some inherent magical trait, but having tiny wings on a l
arge creature looks ridiculous and would be impractical if you planned on having
it soar majestically in the sky. Now mind you there are always exceptions to th
e rules and you can always employ loopholes. It just helps to do so responsibly
:3
Now I have been known to poke fun at the sparkledog concept a lot. And I think i
t's funny and sometimes even fun. And while I think some parts of it are silly,
they're fun to poke around with. So It's meant to be lighthearted, surely, but f
rom a design standpoint, I do have some questions for the more embellished ones.
Where did all that stuff they're wearing come from? How do they buy it? Do they
magic it on, or do they have some sort of companion animal or a human that puts
it on for them? Yeah, it's nitpicking, but it's stuff you have to think about i
f you want people to take your character seriously, especially if you're using t
hem to tell a story.
And I'll be the first to admit I'd have never given this much thought when I was
younger. It's something you learn as you go along, I suppose. And it's stuff li
ke that that bothers me a lot now. Not to the point of obsession but at least en
ough to talk about it like this. And it's given me insight into why I like/disli
ke the stories I do.
Hopefully I've given you some insight too.
Thanks for reading!