Hey there everyone, sorry for not posting these last couple of weeks. I recently got a new job, and have also been focusing on getting my collection of short stories published through Amazon's CreateSpace. Right now I'm editing my manuscript and collaborating with a friend on a cover, so everything is coming along nicely. Expect that bad boy to drop in a few weeks!
Anywho, one of the most talked about topics in fiction is originality. You see it not only in conversations about books, but conversations about movies, television, and every other story telling medium, as well. Many people lament the loss of "originality" in film in particular. One of the most common criticisms of James Cameron's Avatar, for instance, is that it was just like Pocahontas or Dances with Wolves, but with blue-skinned aliens instead of Native Americans.
All the metaphors for Native Americans, without the need to hire any Native American actors!
On the other hand, one of the most popular quotes about creativity is "good artists copy; great artists steal", a line that is made even better by the fact that no one is sure who to attribute it to (most people say either Pablo Picasso or TS Elliot, but no one is sure). In fact, many people say originality doesn't exist. So what's the deal? How can we mourn the loss of originality, but also embrace this loss and make clever little witticisms about it? What is "originality" in creative works, and fiction in particular, anyway?
Before we tackle the tricky subject of borrowing from other works, let's talk about the base concept of originality first. There is a lot to unpack here.
It's important to realize that even if you aren't drawing explicitly from fiction or any other type of creative work in your writing, there are certain tropes- that is, story telling devices- that show up in stories you create, and these tropes have all shown up before. It's not a bad thing, as there are only so many different types of characters, stories, and themes you can create. I've seen so many starting writers try too hard to be innovative and in the process they either (1)never end up writing anything because that perfect, mind-blowing, game-changing story never comes or (2)create a jumbled mess that is so focused on being different it forgets to add quality story telling.
Humans have been telling stories for a long, long time. Stories about love, hatred, war, peace, oppression, liberation, courage, cowardice, acceptance- every theme you could ever want. Stoic characters, loud characters, funny characters, sad characters, brave characters, honest characters, deceitful characters, optimistic characters, cynical characters and more, as well as every permutation of these traits you can think of. There are too many situations to even name that can happen in these stories- that's why there is an entire online encyclopedia dedicated to these tropes.
Don't click that link if you were hoping to be productive any time in the next couple hours.
This is what people mean when they say you can't be completely original. Even if everything you write is drawn from a combination of your noggin, your life experiences, and the life experiences of other people in your life, there is almost certainly a number of tropes that fit us and our experiences. Not in the minute details, but in what they boil down to.
Speaking of "not in the minute details, but in what they boil down to", let's move on to the topic of drawing inspiration from other creative works. Because there are a lot of examples of great works that are influenced by other works, and those influential works themselves having been influenced by other works.
Let's start with my favorite filmmaker, whom I've written about before: Akira Kurosawa. Aside from being one of the best filmmakers of all time, he is also one of the most influential. The Hidden Fortress inspired the original Star Wars trilogy; Yojimbo inspired A Fistful of Dollars; Seven Samurai has influenced so many films, from The Maginificent Seven to A Bug's Life, that it's hard to keep track.
Just some little movie trilogy, you may have heard of it.
And yet, even being one of the most talented, innovative, and influential directors ever, Kurosawa had his own influences as well. The linked article talks about the influences on his work as a filmmaker; in addition to his own life experiences, one of the biggest influences on Kurosawa was Russian literature, especially Dostoyevsky and [Maxim] Gorky. My favorite movie of all time, Kurosawa's Red Beard, is based on a short story collection by Shūgorō Yamamoto, and also draws from a Dostoyevsky novel for one of the movie's subplots. So to say he came up with the ideas for his brilliant films by himself would be, at best, disingenuous. Think of stories as a chain reaction of different influences coming together. Every story is a mixture of the author's life experiences, the life experiences of people they know or know of, ideas they've studied, fictional works they've seen and enjoyed, other creative works they've experienced and enjoyed (I once wrote a short story inspired by a painting I saw), and other such sources that come together into whatever work that person creates. Originality, if such a thing exists, comes in the way you synthesize those pieces together, not in pretending that whatever you make has never been influenced by anything else and is completely unlike everything before it. And that's where the "not in the minute details, but in what they boil down to" idea comes back into play. Every story, boiled down to its bare elements, is very basic. Fight Club, a book and movie I was just talking about with my good friend Morgan, is one of my favorite stories out there. Many people, myself included, find it very creative and original. Yet, at it's very core, Fight Club is about a person overcoming a certain part of himself. In that sense, Fight Club isn't much different than most other fiction.
Can Tyler Durden overcome himself... by working up the courage to ask Marla to the prom?!
Defining what is or isn't plagiarism is a little bit tricky, particularly because the line can be ambiguous. But this is where the "minute details" come in. Two stories might share similar characters, themes, and overall stories, but how similar are their character's arcs, the way they explore their themes, and the specific plot points they go through? Earlier I mentioned Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars. Well, I have have been a bit nice in saying A Fistful of Dollars was "influenced" by Yojimbo, because the movie actually seems to be plagiarized from Kurosawa's film. Scene by scene, the movies are incredibly similar. So similar, in fact, that Kurosawa brought a lawsuit against Director Sergio Leone and won. Interestingly, Leone's defense was that Yojimbo wasn't a completely original work, either. And he certainly had a point. Kurosawa himself stated that the 1942 movie The Glass Key was a major influence for the film. The difference here is that Kurosawa took a lot of tropes/story elements from The Glass Key and made them his own, while Leone took entire scenes from Yojimbo without giving proper credit. Originality in fiction, to me, comes from the ability to synthesize an original story from existing parts. Creating fiction is sorta like the act of creating life: you're not doing anything new, but you're creating something unique (also, you're naked, sweaty, and possibly drunk... that's how most other authors also write, right?). So if you're a writer of any sort, don't feel the need to focus on creating fiction that is unlike any other. Focus, instead, on creating something worth reading or watching.
As I've mentioned in previous posts, I write short stories. Ever since I was in elementary school I've enjoyed writing fiction, and over the last couple of years I've been trying to create stories for the world to read. Currently, I am in the process of researching independent publishers while I finish up a few more stories so that I may publish a collection. I am also writing a novel that, if current trends continue, may be published by the time I have grandchildren.
"I've never been more proud in my entire life."
"But honey, what about our children?"
"Yeah, they're cool I guess."
Now, I'm certainly no writing expert- the only thing I'm an expert on is useless pop culture trivia and the art of terrible puns. But if we had to be experts to give advice on something, how would society function? Climate change deniers would have to actually listen to scientists, people would understand statistical principles like when to use the mean vs the medium, and Piers Morgan would have never been allowed near Americas Got Talent. Nobody wants that. Ahem.
Regardless, there have been quite a few things I've picked up while writing that have been of great benefit to me. Good resources, helpful exercises, and productive ways to think about your writing that are helpful whatever amount of experience you have. Here are a few of them.
And no, basic advice like "read and write consistently" or "edit, edit, edit" aren't here. I know you know that by now.
4. Thesaurus.com is Your Friend
William Faulkner once said Ernest Hemingway "has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." Hemingway, being the Notorious B.I.G. of American literature, responded with "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions
come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know
them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and
those are the ones I use." Oh snap!
"Fuck fist fights and lane scuffles/pillow case to ya face make the shell muffled"
I tend to write in a style similar to Hemingway's in that regard, in that I try not to be too verbose. If a simpler word suffices, then I don't feel a need to be flashy and send readers to the dictionary. Personally, I love finding new words to play with in my own writing, but as a reader I also enjoy feeling captivated by a story. If I have to take a break because there are words I don't understand, then that spell can be momentarily broken. I want to avoid breaking the spell for my own readers as much as possible. Even with my relatively simple writing outlook, however, there are still a lot of uses in consulting a thesaurus. One is that you simply don't want to repeat words too much. Some stories involve repeating certain actions, for instance, but you don't want to describe everything exactly the way you had before. It'll feel mechanical when you're writing it, and repetitive when someone reads it. Instead, hit up your friendly neighborhood internet thesaurus and find different ways to articulate what you wish to say. Another important reason to use an online thesaurus is that different words have different connotations. Two paragraphs above this one, I used the word "captivated" when describing what a well written story does to me. I had originally wanted to use the word "engrossed", but felt it wasn't exactly what I wanted to say. A quick trip to thesaurus.com gave me a list of similar words, and "captivated" seemed the most appropriate for what I wanted to say. The two terms are of course basically the same, but sometimes one just feels more right than the other. The final point I will mention here is dialogue. Different characters use different words for various reasons- their culture, their education level, the place(s) they have grown up, the popular culture they interact with, their peers, and so many more reasons I couldn't even begin to list them all. If the dialogue between characters sounds interchangeable, your dialogue needs work. Sometimes it can be as simple as having some characters respond with "yeah" or "yep" instead of "yes" because it is truer to who they are (or the situation at hand). Other times, using a thesaurus can be a huge help in giving different characters their own distinct vocabularies. 3. Write a Profile for Each of Your Characters There is a common saying in writing fiction that you'll know more about your character than your readers ever will. You have to have a definitive, clear-cut understanding of everything about your character if you want to convey who they are when writing. No matter how integral your character is to the story at hand, even if their pasts and their families and their beliefs explicitly play a role, you still can't communicate everything about them without straight up word vomiting information at your reader.
You don't want to do this to your readers.
One thing that has really helped me keep track of my characters is creating detailed profiles about them. In a separate Word document, I'll whip up detailed descriptions of everything I can think of about each character, even minor ones. The basics minimum for these profiles include your character's life story, their personality, their motivations, and whether they prefer east coast or west coast hip hop. Any other detail you can think of that might be relevant- their height, their ethnicity, their favorite movie, their sexuality- belong in this profile if they are relevant to the story. Writing a profile for your characters helps give you a clearer understanding of who they are. Sometimes, in fact, when you create a separate document and start writing about your characters, you get even more ideas while writing out the profile. Just like you can get inspiration for what to add to your stories while in the middle of writing them (more on that in a moment), the same can happen when you're writing about your character.
This profile also means you can more efficiently describe parts about your character that are important. So many English teachers and beginning writing classes teach you to write in as much detail as possible, and for good reason: being able to visualize a person or scene or object is important. But if you mechanically describe everything about every character, it'll feel like a chore both to write and read those descriptions.
When you understand a character well, you are more easily able to describe what is important about them. For instance, their height probably isn't important- unless their height doesn't match up with the rest of their family's, or it is a barrier to them getting on the basketball team, or they are so tall it is harder for them to find cover in a shoot out.
One of these men would have a much easier time hiding behind a three foot wall than the other.
Finally, understanding your characters better can give you a better idea of the types of actions they will carry out and the types of decisions they will make when confronted with certain scenarios. Speaking of which... 2. Don't be Afraid of Not Knowing the Plot Ahead of Time A lot of newer writers- and I definitely had this problem in the past- are afraid of beginning to write because they don't know how their story will end ahead of time. It is a reasonable fear, as going into a story without knowing how it will end is scary because you don't want to mess it all up. Its like going into college without knowing what you want to do afterward or fighting a pterodactyl without an electric guitar- its terrifying because you're not sure where everything is headed. Still, as with any almost any other reason not to write, it should be disregarded. When you have characters you understand who make their own decisions, you will create a chain of events that will often answer your questions about what happens next for you.
Other times, when you're trying to think of other problems to throw at a character, writing can help give you that inspiration. This is especially true for when you're establishing your character(s) and everything else in the beginning. Setting up what is "normal" in that world can help you think about what types of situations would be out of the ordinary.
Like if you had to watch a play that hilariously parodies you and your group of friends, for instance.
Right now I have four different short stories I am writing, and I have varying levels of certainty for how each of them will end. For one of them, about a woman signed up as a soldier in a sword and shield warfare type setting, I know exactly how it will end because the story is supposed to be an allegory. With the second story, about a group of high school friends who have to start thinking about what they want to do after graduation, I know that the climax will be one of them attempting suicide for reasons I have already decided; the general story draws from my group of friends and the suicide attempt is based on something that happened with a friend of mine. Where the rest of the overarching plot goes, though? That is anyone's guess.
In regard to the third, about a boy who gets a job working at a thrift shop, I have a vague idea of how it will end. I know the direction I want to go with it, but I don't yet know exactly how we will get there and how much that chain of events will affect what I have in mind. Finally, with the fourth story, I have no idea how things will end. The premise is the protagonist finds out reality isn't real thanks to his quantum physicist dad, and he and his girlfriend try to cope with living in an existence that is apparently "fake." I have no idea where this story will go, but we'll see as I continue to write out how they cope with and react to the situation. What is important to understand here is that I am actually in the process of writing each of these stories right now. Each of these stories are at least a few pages in. I'm not waiting until the perfect bolt of inspiration hits me. Sometimes I'll know exactly where I want to go, sometimes I'll simply conjure up a few characters and a scenario and let it play out. Just as with anything else, its far too easy to come up reasons for why it is not the right time to start.
Fuck that, the time is now. Believe in yourself, because you are capable. You'll be able to find what you need in your story, even if you don't have all the answers right now. The most important part is that you start and show yourself what you can do.
I'm going to repost this article from my last post, because I can't reiterate this enough: GSP almost quit MMA when he felt discouraged, but stuck with it and went on to become one of the best MMA fighters of all time. This could be you as a writer or anything else, but only if you actually start what you've been meaning to start and stick with it.
1. Surround Yourself with Productive, Passionate People As a writer, anyone will tell you that you should spend time with people interested in writing. People who can critique your works, who can share resources for editing and publishing, who can connect you to their own networks of people, who can fill you in on all the things you never thought about (formatting, finding someone to design the cover for your book, etc), and of course those people good looking enough to write Blogspot posts giving other writers advice. Surrounding yourself with other writers, whether online or in person, is one of the most important and helpful things you can do if you're serious about this whole 'stringing together words and whatnot' thing. Through my own personal experiences, I've also found that being around people who are passionate about pursuits other than writing are still extremely helpful to be around. A lot of my closest friends enjoy short fiction, but are more focused on other pursuits. One of them, for instance, has quite a few story ideas, but spends more time drawing and playing his keyboard. Another close friend of mine is passionate about too many things to name, but right now is focusing on playing his guitar and writing song lyrics. People who pursue what they want to do are important to surround yourself with, even if you don't share the same exact passions. Even if you like writing and your friend likes soccer, the process of getting good is the same: study the greats, get advice from people who know what they're talking about, and practice, practice, practice. Surrounding yourself with as many people who have that mindset as possible is healthy, because you're learning those positive habits and outlooks even if you are applying them in different avenues. Because you share similarly productive mindsets, you can also help encourage and push each other.
What happens when you team up with other supportive, dedicated people.
Yes, when you tell someone who wants to become a sculptor that you're having trouble writing dialogue, they probably won't have much to give you in the way of advice. But if you tell them you feel like you're not getting anywhere, no matter how much you try, that is advice anyone who tries to build their own talents can relate to. There is a chance they might have some words of wisdom to offer you that can help phenomenally. I've had some of my best encouragement come from close friends like the ones I mentioned above, who don't do the exact same things as me.
When you finally do complete a story, your sculptor friend (or violinist friend, or judo friend, etc) can feel genuinely happy for you because they can draw from their own experiences of how they feel when they finish their own creation or finally get down something they've been practicing. There is something special about letting a friend know you finished something you've been working on and they respond with an authentic smile, one that lets you know they legitimately understand the sense of accomplishment and pride you're feeling at the moment.
So surround yourself with committed people. You deserve to be around people who can push you to do better and lift your spirits if you're feeling discouraged. Your stories deserve to be read. There will never, ever be someone in the history of existence who has the same combination of personality, life experiences, aspirations, fears, and world outlook as you. Not a single one. In other words, you have the ability to create stories that no other person will ever be able to create in quite the same way. You bring something to the table no one else can, so don't let anyone ever tell you that you can't do something.
In my previous blog post about poignant moments in video games, I talked about how one of my writing classes at UC Irvine taught us to read stories from the perspective of a writer. We were told to go through and think about narrative choices the authors made, and how those choices added to their stories. The underlying idea was that we would develop the ability to analyze fiction to understand what made it work, and then be able to take different writing decisions we liked to apply to our own stories in ways that worked for us.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the best written television shows I have ever watched. Like with the television show The Walking Dead, I was reluctant to watch it until a combination of my friends and my sister eventually persuaded me to, insisting I would really like it. I enjoy The Walking Dead and follow the series, but I was absolutely blown away by how fantastic The Last Airbender was (this will be the only pun here, I promise). Or not.
The deceptively simple world everything takes place in.
Since then, two full seasons of Legend of Korra have come out to positive, but not glowing, reviews. The consensus seems to be that they are still good, but don't live up to the quality of The Last Airbender. So far for season three, however, the reviews have been better, and people are calling this season a "return to form" for the writers. Why is this the case? Some people have said the lighter tone and returning to an open world
adventure are what have made the difference, but here I will make the
argument that it goes a lot deeper than that. In this post I am going to analyze the writing of The Last Airbender, then analyze what Korra did differently, and finally discuss what this new series does that harkens back to the first series.
I'd also like to take a quick moment to thank all my friends whom I've discussed this show with. You've all helped me see things I wouldn't have otherwise noticed and given me some fantastic insights.
Avatar: The Last Bender
In the first series, Avatar Aang awakens after a hundred years to find that the Fire Nation has wiped out his people, the Air Nomads, and colonized the Earth Kingdom. Through the course of sixty one episodes, Aang has to learn how to bend the other three elements, build a resistance against the Fire Nation, and ultimately defeat the Father Lord... err, Fire Lord.
In a narrative sense, that sounds simple, right? Well, yes, it is. It is a simple template for a story, and it never truly deviates from this path. A lot happens in between Aang becoming unfrozen and defeating the Fire Lord, and certainly the stakes are raised as the plot progresses, but the show never actually deviates from this overarching goal. The plot, at the end of the day, is simply another grandoise good versus evil plot.
This actually ends up helping the show, however, rather than hindering it. Because the overarching narrative never changes, the writers are able to focus more on creating compelling characters and exploring some complex ideas in seemingly simple concepts.
I could talk a lot about any of the characters on the show. Aang, who has to cope with the genocide of his people while still trying to find the strength to both fulfill his role as the Avatar and remain optimistic in the face of everything standing in front of him. Katara, who will always be there for a loved one and would never hesitate to help a stranger, but will go scorched earth if you betray her. Sokka, who is sarcastic and wacky on the outside, but on the inside is a very intelligent person who sometimes struggles with the fact he is the only non-bender on the team. None of these characters are done justice by a single sentence summary, and thats a testament to how much depth they gain from all the time we spend with them.
There are two characters I do quickly want to focus on, however, as they are my two favorite. The first is Toph Beifong.
Melon Lord ain't nothin' ta fuck with
What is great about Toph is that she is a well written badass. Making a character a badass isn't too hard, all you have to do is give them some "tough" characteristics- in Toph's case, an IDGAF attitude and a lone wolf personality, not to mention top notch bending skills. But the writers manager to do two things with her: explain these "tough" traits she is given, and give her human vulnerabilities.
The personality traits I mentioned before are there because her parents tried to shelter her, so she had to sneak away to the earth bending tournaments to really find a place to spread her wings. There, she fought as the Blind Bandit, where acting tough and winning fights was what mattered. She still had to keep her distance, though, lest people find out who she really is.
A lot of writers who write "badass" characters don't give them real vulnerabilities out of fear that people will no longer think of them as badass anymore. Toph, however, is given real vulnerabilities. One of them is her struggle with her femininity. In Tales of Ba Sing Se, she talks about not being able to see how she looks or having no clue about make up does make her feel insecure sometimes, even if she keeps a tough front. The only way she knows how to be feminine is the "proper" way her parents tried to force on her, but that just isn't who she is. She therefore has to struggle to find it on her own terms.
Speaking of struggle, my other favorite character from the show is Zuko.
Hello, Zuko here!
Zuko is a classic villain to antihero to good guy character. Like with Toph as a badass, he is a well written version of a timeless character archetype. His transformation feels so believable because they had a lot of time to work with it and let it happen without feeling forced. When he is introduced, he is ruthless, but not in a cartoonishly villainous sort of way. He makes good on his word when he invades the Southern Water Tribe in the beginning to spare the village if the Avatar is handed over. He isn't the type of villain who kicks puppies for fun, he just wants to get Aang and get back home.
As the story unfolds, his transformation is gradual, which helps make it more believable. Characters don't just suddenly realize they've been wrong the whole time, unless something drastic happens. Zuko's adventures throughout the Earth Kingdom begin to open his eyes to how much his nation has hurt the world. He begins to question things, then at the end of book two seems ready to switch sides. Except, when the critical time comes, he chooses to side with the Fire Nation and attempts to capture Aang.
This is a milestone moment. It would have been easy to have him side with Aang after all the build up, but instead he chooses to go with the Fire Lord, because at the end of the day he is still a fourteen year old who desperately wants the approval of his dad that has been denied to him all of his life. When he gets that and realizes it is not enough, his decision to rebel after that means he can join the Avatar team without any regret or uncertainty. He knows what his father has to offer, and he doesn't want it.
He is also plagued with guilt when he joins, particularly about betraying his uncle. Considering we see how Iroh was the father figure to Zuko that his own father never was, we agree. But having seen everything Zuko went through, both in his back story and everything that transpires throughout the series, we also see where Zuko is coming from. Ultimately, it all pays off in an incredibly rewarding reunion towards the very end of the show.
I'm sure I'm with other Avatar fans when I wonder aloud, "why are my allergies suddenly acting up?"
They also are able to explore complex wrinkles in seemingly straightforward situations. They do this by taking these simple situations and asking questions about how the characters react to them. Defeating the Fire Lord sounds simple enough, in the sense that it is a clear goal without much moral ambiguity... but what do they do afterward? He's the most powerful bender in the entire world, after all. Aang has to struggle with this for a while before arriving at an answer, and it involves his overwhelming desire to never murder anyone conflicting with that of his group and even past versions of himself.
The show asks plenty of these questions. Should the team stop to help different groups of people or villages when they are in a hurry? How does one balance their anger at injustices done by the Fire Nation without becoming consumed by hatred and revenge? How about these henchmen, who are working for the empire but are revealed to be actual human beings who crack jokes and make small talk and have their own lives? These questions about how the characters will interact with the world and others in it add depth to a simple premise.
What I do want to point out, though, is that these questions are personal. They're not asking any big questions about society or the world, other than taking safe stands like women in the Northern Water Tribe should be considered equals or Fire Nations should be governed by peace. Even the heaviest issue in the series, the genocide of the Air Nomads, is personalized through Aang. It is him who has to struggle with having lost his home, cope with having no one else who comes from his same culture, and try to figure out how he can be preserve it as the last remaining Air Nomad. This personalization of struggle, of course, also adds to the characterization of each person on the show.
The Legend of Korra
When Legend of Korra was announced, I was excited. As details leaked, I became even more excited. Set in an early 1920s-esque steam punk setting? A city free of any particular nation that is about peaceful coexistence between different benders? A bending-stealing villain who actually has a good point, that their society benefits benders far more than it does non-benders? Holy shit!
I watched beginning of Book 1 and adored it. The plot moved at such a fast pace, and they did a fantastic job of showing some of the ways in which non-benders were marginalized. Amon was legitimately scary, which is hard to do when the protagonist is the Avatar and the villain is a guy who allegedly can't even bend. In the appropriately titled "When Extremes Meet", where Tarrlok ascends to power and acts fascist about catching Amon, we see even further manifestations of benders keeping non-benders down. Shit was about to go down!
But then, after that episode, the theme is basically dropped. After Tarrlok is revealed to be Amon's brother, and Amon is revealed to be a blood bender, we don't hear much about how non-benders are treated anymore. At the end of the series, when they get their bending back and everyone is all happy, there isn't a single mention about what to do about all the ways non-benders are marginalized. It switches back to the simple "bad guy defeated, happy ending!" storyline that the writers are more comfortable with.
In the end, the only commentary they left was the very safe and very lazy "both extremes are bad!" message. That would be fine if the theme were a side detail, but when it is part of the thematic foundation of the entire season, it is less forgivable.
Now, even though I didn't love that part, I still liked a lot about the show. We didn't have a lot of time with the new characters, but we still saw them go through a lot and saw them grow by the end of the series. Sometimes the story was a bit too plot driven, focusing on twists and turns that didn't always do much other than take away time from the characters. Still, they were solid characters. We also got callbacks to the first series, which was a treat for us fans of the first show.
There was also this moment, where Ikki taught us to hate (something the internet definitely doesn't do enough).
When the next season was announced, I was hopeful still. I liked the first season overall, and this new season promised some more interesting ideas to tackle. The first book offered only 12 episodes. This one offered 14, but then an additional 26. That meant that now things would be less rushed and we'd have more time to flesh everything out. Not only that, but the main antagonist from this season was Korra's uncle, who wants to preserve a lot of the old ways and retain his spirituality in an increasingly modern world. How is the show going to explore a balance of old vs new and spirituality vs secularism in this increasingly "modern" world?
The answer was, not very well. This was another case of "villain begins the show with a good point, ends up as another unambiguously evil character by the end." In the season finale, she is literally fighting the manifestation of chaos itself, which threatens to destroy the entire world. That would be fine if that was what they had promised us, but what they had been building towards earlier was about conflict between the old and the new.
Now, this one at least is answered somewhat, by erasing the gap between the spirit world and the human world. A solution that makes sense in that world, but doesn't translate very well to social commentary about a similar struggle in our world, where opening spirit portals is not a possibility (as far as we know).
But at least we got to bond with the characters, right? Unfortunately, it seemed that the characters from the previous season didn't seem to grow much. Korra's hot-headedness got in the way in the same ways it did last time, right down to her siding with a villain over Tenzin and later realizing the error of her ways. Tenzin himself didn't seem to learn from the first season that he is often overbearing. A lot of other characters are simply written with less depth, like Bolin transforming from lovable scamp to complete idiot and Lin Beifong becoming the same stubborn police chief you see in every cop movie ever: the one who can't see the truth until its too late.
Personally, when I watched this season, the characters I liked the most were Tenzin's siblings and Jinora, because they all both felt like real people and avoided rehashing personal struggles from a previous season. The absolute highlight for me came when we saw Iroh, a character we had grown to care about from the previous series. The two part episode covering the origins of the Avatar was also a highlight, partially because there were no false promises or rehashes in those episodes.
Having covered the first two seasons, lets look at the new one. I mentioned before some might think that the lighter tone and around the world adventure are what is drawing people back, and maybe that is the case for some people. But it also calls back to the original show in a few other ways, and I think that deserves recognition.
First and foremost, there are no more false promises being made about answering complex questions about large, difficult issues. The villains haven't given away their motives, so we aren't being fed anything about large social problems that need addressing only to be swept under the rug later The villains are powerful and trying to get to Korra, and that is all we need to know for now.
With these villains in the background and no big social issue to tackle, we have been given more time with the characters, and its been nice. We've gotten to learn more about each one, as well as see that they have actually grown. Korra, for instance, is a lot calmer than she used to be. She has remained bold, but is no longer always short tempered and quick to jump the gun the way she was last season. Tenzin seems to have learned, too, being more lenient with Jinora. I could go on, but it seems like the characters are now growing, and being handled better in general.
We're all happy this new season is better, Jinora.
In terms of the plot, like the original series, we see a complex issue that is personalized, instead of a wide societal issue. Tenzin is trying to figure out how he can get people to join the Air Nomad order, and I'm sure later a central struggle will be him trying to figure out how to mix Air Nomad tradition with a world that is much different than the last time they were around, and with people who weren't raised as Air Nomads. What will stay? What will go? Who else will he consult in these decisions? These are questions he will have to face, and I look forward to seeing them answered.
As for everything else happening, like going around the world to help recruit for Tenzin and freeing air benders from the Earth Queen, the plot has been the decision of the characters. Until they learned about the escaped group of villains, they had no antagonists immediately pushing the action, and that gave us a chance to see what good they would do in their down time. Even when they learn about the villains, they make ready, but don't make it their number one priority. This also shows character growth: old Korra would have immediately left everyone and walked around with a neon sign saying "I'M THE AVATAR, FIGHT ME YOU FUCKERS!" Instead, she is preparing to defend herself if she needs to, but wants to remain focused on what is more important.
There is so much more I could talk about in every section of this blog: what The Last Airbender did right (hell, I could probably write an entire essay about Toph or Zuko Alone), where Korra's first two seasons went wrong (though to be fair, they were still quite good), and where this season promises to go back to focusing on characterization and finding tough personal questions in seemingly straight forward situations. Hopefully this can, at the very least, serve as a launching point for people to think about why certain parts of a show can be considered hit or miss.
As someone who enjoys writing short fiction, I took a couple classes in college to help improve my writing. Now, as any professional writer will tell you, there is no universal set of rules that can teach you how to "properly" write. Some of the people we regard as the greatest writers of all time have defied traditional grammar and sentence structure in their writing. A significant portion of Shakespeare's works had words he made up on the fly.
Writing classes can still be a lot of value to a developing writer, though. They offer consistent practice in reading and writing, which is obviously the most crucial part in becoming a writer. They can also give you techniques to assist you in your reading and writing. One class I took was about short stories specifically, and our teacher had us read a couple short stories each night. We were then supposed to analyze the stories from a writer's perspective- to think about choices the writer made, both narrative and structure wise, and think about how those choices helped form the stories. That is what I plan to do today.
When it comes to video games, I tend to value an engaging narrative more than anything else. There are exceptions, of course. I enjoy the shit out of the Halo series and arcade style racing games, and if the government could track what I do to innocent bystanders in Grand Theft Auto I would be placed on every government watch list imaginable. Still, overall, I usually prefer games that take me to an interesting world where I care about the characters in them or am challenged to think and feel by the way they explore certain themes.
When it comes to games that were able to elicit genuine emotion from me, three stand out in particular.
3. The Walking Dead
I was one of those people who felt over saturated with zombies in popular culture by the time the TV series The Walking Dead came out. I eventually watched it reluctantly thanks to my sister insisting I'd enjoy it, and I do like it. While there are quite a few moments of bad writing- characters doing something mindbogglingly stupid to push along the plot, characters doing something out of character to push along the plot, characters doing literally nothing to contribute to the plot, plots being stretched thin without meaningful character development to fill those spaces- I grew to like enough of the characters (especially Daryl and Tyreese) and find enough interest in the plot to stick with it.
Recently, I decided to check out the video game. The one that everyone said was good, that is, as there is one based on the TV series that is a terribly made cash grab (which is a shame, because it apparently follows Daryl and his brother Merle immediately after the outbreak hits, which sounds like an awesome concept). The game that I played instead follows a band of survivors different than that of the TV series, though a couple characters from the show do make an appearance.
The protagonist is Lee Everett, a former professor of history at the University of Georgia, who is on the way to prison for the murder of a state senator who he caught having sex with his wife. On his way to jail, the outbreak happens and the police car he is in crashes. Soon after, he meets a young girl named Clementine who is stuck in her home by herself, her baby sitter having turned into a "walker" after everything went down. Knowing she'd be in danger if left alone, he lets her come with him to protect her from any harm. Along the way they meet many people, some of which join their group, and try to find ways to survive and keep pushing forward.
All the characters who join your group
This story does two things well: create distinct characters (a recurring theme in this piece) and avoid the lazy writing pitfalls I mentioned above that tends to plague horror fiction. Lee Everett is a pragmatic, soft spoken man who has come to regret what he did and wants to focus on keeping Clementine safe. Clementine is a very sweet little girl who is pretty sharp for her age and surprisingly helpful. Kenny is fisherman who is fiercely loyal and always tries to keep hope alive. His son Duck is a hyperactive but good-natured kid who helps relieve tension in a lot of the darker times. Lilly is someone who values survival above all else and isn't afraid to make tough decisions. Carley is a down to earth person who wants to keep everyone from fighting. I could go on, but the point is each character has a clearly established personality and set of motives.
The writing also avoids taking lazy shortcuts, too. In the TV series, as mentioned above, otherwise intelligent characters will make a mindbogglingly stupid decision and either wind up being killed or putting the rest of the group in danger. Conflicts also arise that could have been avoided if the characters had the basic interpersonal communication skills that everyone in the real world possess. Here, conflicts arise from truly dangerous circumstance, and if a character does take a risk, it is because they have a clear reason to take a risk and have no safer way to do it. You'll never find yourself thinking "they deserved it for being so stupid" when someone dies in the game.
Unlike people from the show whom you wished would die.
Feeling like you're watching actual human beings with a sense of self-preservation goes a long way in making you care about characters in any sort of horror fiction. Of course, even then, you still have to be given a reason to care about them. With Lee, it's simple. He is easy to relate to because we see him struggle from the very beginning with both survival and holding onto his principles. He also has done something bad in the past that he deeply regrets, something we all can relate to even if it wasn't as drastic as what he did (most of us have barely killed any state senators at all!). Finally, his desire to keep Clementine safe gives you reason to root for him so that he can continue to keep her safe.
Your decisions affecting the game also make you feel closer to Lee, not
to mention other characters you interact with. The decisions themselves
are also often heart-breaking, too- often it's a lose-lose situation.
For instance, at one point you are raiding a store with Kenny and see a
girl getting attacked in the distance. She has already been bitten, so
you can't save her. You can choose between letting her get eaten to buy
you some time or shoot her so that she doesn't have to suffer such a
gruesome death- but then your gunshot would attract the walkers over to
you. I chose to let her get eaten, and I genuinely felt terrible about
it for a little while afterward. Lee also feels bad about it in the story, and it
causes you to bond with the character. When something rough happens,
especially as a result of your decisions, it makes it feel like the two
of you are in it together.
When it comes to Clementine, she is the perfect example of a child character done right. So many children characters in fiction are presented as insufferable, until eventually you grow to peel away the layers of their character and find out the real good that's been in there the whole time! Handled well, these types of characters can be interesting, but more often than not are just obnoxious. Clementine, on the other hand, is a kind girl who is immediately likable. She is also as helpful and intelligent as an eight year old can realistically be expected to be. She uses her small size to get in hard to reach places to help the group out and is usually good at avoiding danger when sticky situations arise.
[[SPOILERS]]
There are so many other examples of characters who you grow to care about, so when something bad happens it really punches you in the gut. Kenny will always look out for his family and, if you stick up for his family, will always stick up for you no matter what. When his son Duck is bitten, you not only lose one of the most upbeat members of the group in Duck, but you also watch Kenny and his wife Katjaa try to cope with the situation. When it finally becomes clear that Duck isn't going to make it, Katjaa commits suicide. This obviously devastates Kenny, who up to that point had always made a point to keep pushing forward and hold onto hope. When the time comes, you can elect to have Kenny finish the Duck off or do it yourself so he doesn't have to go through it.
Later on, when searching a house to use as temporary shelter, you and Kenny come across the walker of a young boy who is all skin and bones. The child was so emaciated by the time he turned into a walker he can barely move when you encounter him. The two of you surmise that this kid hid up in the attic and eventually starved to death. Aside from being tragic on its own, the kid is also around Duck's age, and a lot of the emotions Kenny had been bottling up begin to show themselves. Once again, you have the option of ending the kid so that Kenny doesn't have to.
Towards the end of the game, Clementine goes missing and Lee gets bit. After a lot of searching and a lot of people dying, Lee eventually gets separated from the scant few remaining survivors, but powers through to the hotel where Clementine was kidnapped. This sequence is literally the only one in the game where you charge through a horde of zombies and fight your way through, a narrative choice to show that Lee isn't fucking around and at this point would truly do anything to rescue Clementine (had you been charging through hordes of zombies comic book style throughout the game, this scene wouldn't have nearly the same impact, if any at all). Eventually, you rescue her from the crazed (yet sympathetic) kidnapper and leave. However, your bite catches up with Lee and he faints mid-escape.
You wake up in a garage Clementine somehow managed to drag you into. You find yourself unable to stand up, so you have to instruct her on how to break into an office, take the keys and gun from a walker, and inevitably kill the walker when it tries to attack her. Afterward she is distraught, especially when you have her handcuff you to the radiator in case you turn soon. You have the option of having her leave you there or shoot you, and either option is tragic. What really adds to this scene is that decisions you've made throughout the game catch up. There are many ways you can treat Clementine throughout the game- shielding her from the bad, being honest in a gentle way, being brutally honest- and it affects how your final interactions with her go.
What makes the emotional moments in this game work, then, are surprisingly basic- distinct characters, consistent writing, and a choice system that is more about how you cope with everything going on around you instead of the morality system in most video games, which often comes down to you being a saint or a sadist. This game is an example of what good fundamental writing and a well thought out, morally ambiguous choice system can do for a game.
2. Lost Odyssey
Lost Odyssey was produced by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the original creator of the Final Fantasy series that I am a huge fan of. The story takes place during the "Magic Industrial Revolution", which is exactly what it sounds like: a world going through an industrial revolution, but with magic involved. The protagonist is Kaim Argonar, an immortal man who has no memory of his past. The main plot follows Kaim and his crew (which includes both fellow immortals and mortals) as they try to both get to the bottom of their immortality and stop various nations from going to war.
Anyone who has ever played the game probably knows what I mean when I say the main plot is not at all the what makes this game so special. While the overarching story is a solid one, what really makes this game stand out are the "A Thousand Years of Dreams" short story sequences the player unlocks throughout the game. These are flashbacks to different points in Kaim's long, often lonely years wandering through existence as a man who cannot die. The sequences are unrelated to the main plot, and in fact you don't even have to be into video games at all to appreciate them. They were penned by an award winning Japanese short story writer, Kiyoshi Shigematsu, and it shows.
Every single flashback is worth watching and analyzing. Not only are they all fantastically written, but they deal with a variety of themes and ideas, as well as create compelling characters in a surprisingly short amount of time. For time's sake, I will analyze only the first one you unlock: Hanna's Departure.
Tip: when looking them up on the internet, try to watch the longest version you can find.
Some people scroll through the stories too quickly, making it hard to read them at a comfortable pace.
This sequence follows Kaim as he goes to meet a little girl on her death bed. She was born extremely sick and was unable to travel in her short life, but as the daughter of two inn keepers she was at least able to hear stories about travels from their guests. At one point during his travels, Kaim stayed at the inn and told her stories about his life on the road. After that the two formed a bond and he would make a point to periodically return to the inn to tell her all about his travels.
This story does so many things right. One is the incredible balance between making the tragedy about both Hanna and Kaim. When Kaim visits her for this final time, he spends one last evening telling her about all of his travels. As the story says, he "never told her anything sad. He kept his mouth shut about the human
ugliness and stupidity he witnessed endlessly on the battlefield." As she dies, it becomes clear that he told her these stories for his sake as much as hers. As a way to hold on to the beautiful parts of life and to find meaning in helping give a young child grand stories about adventures she could never have herself. With her death, a part of Kaim dies as well.
However, if the story only focused on Kaim in this situation, Hanna would be reduced to nothing more than a plot device and the emotional weight of her death would be lessened (not to mention contributing to an overarching problem of using female characters as plot devices in entertainment). Here, they are able to establish her as a distinct character in a very short amount of time. She is a curious girl with a sense of adventure, cruelly bound by fate to be unable to travel much further than the inn. She is extremely outgoing and asks every guest about their travels, and often asks prying questions that might be crossing the line. By the end of the story you have a clear idea of what type of child she is.
Another good choice is the lack of melodrama in her departure. I am a huge fan of role playing games (RPGs), but a lot of otherwise emotionally impactful moments can often be ruined by exaggerated reactions from characters that try too hard to illicit emotion. Here, after he finishes telling her about his travels for the last time, he comforts her while she draws her last breaths by telling her she will be departing on her own journey. One that no one in the living world has ever experienced. The story ends as she dies, leaving us without any dramatic outbursts, only Hanna departing with a traquil smile on her face "as if she had just said 'see you soon.'."
While the writing can be a little explicit instead of implicit, and be a little weird in a couple of places (for instance, the above story calling her fragility "beautiful", which is kinda creepy), the stories are written incredibly, and backed up with understated background visuals and easily one of the best scores Nobuo Uematsu has ever put together- which is saying a lot, as Uematsu has been around for a while and has created some of the best video game music numbers out there.
One of my favorite tracks.
My absolute favorite track is here, but for some reason it doesn't come up in the Youtube search
for it (there are other versions with vocals that are easier to find, but I personally prefer it without).
The game also does a great job of explaining why Kaim is the typical silent, brooding Japanese RPG protagonist. When you're an immortal man who has watched countless people die over the course of a thousand years, including people you have spent a full human lifetime growing to care about, you're probably not going to be the most affectionate or outgoing person.
Despite this pain, the stories make it clear that on the inside, Kaim still tries to retain his humanity. These flashbacks show him trying not only to protect the lives of people he encounters, but also respecting what they value in their lives. As someone who lives forever, he understands that he can never know the feeling of truly being willing to sacrifice his life for something or finding a purpose to dedicate a finite lifespan to. Instead of thinking himself above people for being mortal, he believes that their mortality gives them certain types of strength he can never completely understand. This makes him a character that is easy to like.
The stories also give you an outsider's perspective on mortal life that can be endlessly thought provoking. In some cases, this device can also be very gripping on the emotions as well. After all, he sees what generations of hatred and love, what centuries of competition and cooperation, what lifetimes of open mindedness and close mindedness are capable of. In some stories, he will visit one place, only to come back decades or even centuries later.
For instance, there is one story where he is hired as a guard for a prison in a very authoritarian, "tough on crime" society. A fire happens during a rebellion, and the guard won't let the prisoners free. Kaim knocks out the guard and sets the prisoners free, but tells them to save people instead of flee. Fast forward decades years later, and Kaim finds out they did exactly that- this added to people's already intense questioning of the social order (a bunch of criminals saved us? maybe they're not as bad as we thought...) and it led to a revolution. Now one of the prisoners Kaim helped that night is the new leader.
Throughout these stories, we see Kaim interact with all sorts of people, including some very admirable characters. Some are admirable because they are selfless- there are a couple instances of bitter irony where a stranger will sacrifice themselves for Kaim, or put themselves in danger to help someone before Kaim has a chance to help that person, such as the owner of a tea shop jumping into raging waters to save a drowning young man. Others have an intense dedication to their purpose in life, which makes the world better in its only small way, like an old shoe maker who spends his life crafting high quality shoes for people at low prices. A few of them are admirable because they are willing to give up things that conflict with their principles, like when a former war hero gives up his life as a soldier to tend to sheep (much to the scorn of his fellow villagers who idolized him when he was a soldier).
What makes Lost Odyssey special is a very unique concept that gives us an outsider's perspective on human nature and mortality, while making sure this outsider is one we empathize with because he empathizes with us. Kaim truly feels like a human being made immortal, struggling with the weight of immortality the way we would expect someone to. The people he encounters are all noteworthy in their own ways, and like with the example of Hanna's Departure, the tragic moments are both Kaim's and the character's tragedy. This game has affected my own writing in a lot of ways. I would recommend anyone who is a fan of compelling fiction to check these A Thousand Years of Dreams segments out, whether you're a gamer or not (and no, you don't have to have played the game to appreciate these short stories).
1. Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core
This game is the first video game I ever played that was able to elicit a strong emotional response from me. It is a prequel to my favorite game of all time, Final Fantasy 7. It was the third Final Fantasy title I had ever played, after 10 and 8 (yes, hardcore Final Fantasy fans, I have since played older titles and enjoyed them as well). What I loved about these games was that everything was on point. We were given interesting worlds, distinct characters, grand plots, quality visuals and music, and creative art work. In short, there was both style and substance.
This particular game follows the fate of Zack Fair, a 1st class SOLDIER (the very creative name given to elite super-soldiers) who ends up befriending a lowly infantryman Cloud Strife, the protagonist of Final Fantasy 7. In the original game, Zack was more of a plot device, significant only for being Aerith's first boyfriend and not giving up on Cloud when he was comatose from a certain type of poisoning. Here, we follow him in all the events leading up to the original game.
When you have a prequel, there is a certain restriction involved. You can't be very plot driven, because the audience knows what will happen to a certain extent. They might not know the specifics, but they know how things will end up. Because of that, you have to focus on characterization, theme exploration, and/or something else not related to the overarching plot to make people dig it. In this case, the game focuses on making Zack a likable character. For me, they absolutely hit it out of the park. He is not only my favorite Final Fantasy character, but probably my favorite fictional character of all time.
What the writers do so well here is character development. In the beginning, Zack is an energetic and optimistic 2nd class SOLDIER who wants nothing more than to be a hero, and believes working toward becoming a 1st class SOLDIER is the ideal way to achieve that. By the end of the game, he has made his goal and has changed into a calmer, more mature warrior, but without losing that good natured spark that kept him going in the first place. This is despite him becoming disillusion about the system he serves as a 1st class SOLDIER, and not always able to discern right from wrong.
A big strength of the writing team here is how gradually they make this change happen. Often, a video game writer's idea of character development means a big pivotal moment or two for the main character who had remained the same in the moments between these big pivotal moments. Here, we instead see a steady accumulation of moments that gradually change Zack. While there are indeed a few big pivotal moments, in between them Zack's experiences make him gradually become more grounded, not to mention doubtful of the system he works for.
Luckily, questioning your role in a militaristic war machine totally isn't something anyone today could related to!
All of this is helped by a quality cast of characters. Most of them appear in the main game, and pretty much all of them appear at some point in the FF7 universe. Each have personalities that are somewhat different from the main game, but in a way that makes sense to both the events of the plot and them as characters. Cloud is shy and pretty weak, a serious contrast from his personality in the original game, but that's because of the events in the plot that push him towards who he is in the original. Tseng, the leader of the Turks, is far more idealistic here than he is in the main game, because his conscience hasn't been worn down by leading what is essentially Midgar's version of the CIA.
New character are also (mostly) interesting and well written. Angeal is Zack's moral compass and mentor who has a traumatic past that causes him to question who he is. Cissnei is a Turk and she is one of the sharpest characters in the game. She also helps you out in a couple very critical situations. The only new character I didn't care for was Genesis. His motivations were consistent enough, but he was basically a red knockoff of Sephiroth and spent all of his time quoting passages from a book called Loveless, which is about as shitty as it sounds.
The moment here I will analyze in depth is the end of the game. If you've played the original game, then you know what happens. Hell, if you have been around gaming culture, you probably know what happens. If you don't, however, and you don't want to know what happens, you shouldn't read on.
[[SPOILERS]]
There is quite a lot that goes into making Zack's death scene tragic. Unlike the previously mentioned games, which do so almost entirely on the strength of their writing, this scene uses more elements unique to a video game to help out. A good fighting metaphor would be that the above video games are MMA fighters who continue to win because their boxing is so exceptional it's as good as a professional boxer's. This game, on the other hand, is an MMA fighter where all of its areas are strong.
First, the writing. One of the reasons you've come to root for Zack throughout the game is that he tries to do good, even when he doesn't know what good is. At this point of the game, Shinra has turned on him and he is on the run. Despite this, he doesn't lose sight of who he is, and he drags Cloud along who is a comatose state. He takes care of Cloud, even though he could easily ditch him and make his survival much easier.
When the soldiers finally catch up to and corner them, Zack goes to put Cloud in a safe spot. This shows not only a dedication on Zack's part to keeping Cloud safe, but also a consistency on the part of the writers- had Zack not been slowed down by carrying Cloud, there is no way the Shinra army would have been able to take him out, and even if he were trapped he could've conceivably found a way to escape. Here, his principles make it a sound choice for him to stay and fight to the bitter end.
There are also plenty of elements that add to the tragedy. Aerith was never informed of what happened to Zack, and assumed he had simply left her; at the end of the game Zack is on his way back so he can see her, and hopefully start a new life. A lot of other characters have also grown close to Zack, and their concern for him is heartbreaking.
For instance, a series of messages arrive from his friend Kunsel, who earlier in the game had shown you the ropes of being a SOLDIER and often gave the player valuable information. In these messages he desperately tries to find where Zack is so he can come help, even if it means becoming a fugitive of Shinra. Zack's friends in the Turks, meanwhile, are combing the area for him- he'd still be captured, but at least he'd be alive. All this makes it so that the tragedy isn't just Zack's, but also a tragedy for all the characters he has come to know and build bonds with, characters you have presumably come to like throughout the game.
But of course, you don't get found by the Turks, you get found by the army. Zack makes his last stand and fights until he is eventually overcome by the endless horde of infantry that he just can't beat single-handedly. He is left to die, covered in bullet and stab wounds. Just before he goes, Cloud crawls up, having been snapped out of his comatose state, and is lucky enough to talk to Zack before he passes. Zack reminds him to hold onto his dreams and lets Cloud know he is his living legacy. He then dies in a way that is simultaneously sad and uplifting.
The full ending, including the part where you fight to the death.
Now, that's where the narrative does a good job of making the death sad. However, this is a video game, and here they use every element of that to add to the experience. Any game developers looking to make truly emotionally impactful moments should study this as an example of using every tool available.
The final fight has you actually controlling Zack while fighting your last fight. This further strengthens the bond between player and character, as it adds to feelings that you are truly in this together. You fight the endless stream of soldiers and helicopters, who keep coming at you no matter how many you take out. Eventually, after a brief cut, you are left facing only a few soldiers, but you are so badly injured that you can barely lift your sword. The game still has you play, and you sluggishly slash at the remaining soldiers while you can barely stand. Soon they take you out, and it is all over.
What was especially well done about this sequence is the fact they used the combat system specific to this game. Throughout the entirety of the game, there is a roulette in the corner that continually spins. If all three reels line up with the same face of a character Zack has encountered, Zack recalls a memory with that character and does a special move.
Here, during your last battle, the same thing happens, but each time you line up a character's face on the roulette, you recall a couple fragmented memories of them before their faces fade away from the roulette. Everyone that you've encountered throughout the game begins to fade as your own life does. When the three remaining soldiers mentioned above finally take you out, you have one last memory before it switches to Cloud's perspective- a scratchy montage of your time with Aerith, ending with the screen fading to white and hearing the final words Aerith had spoken to you: "I'll be here."
Therefore, Crisis Core not only makes poignant narrative choices, but unlike the above two games, it makes superb use of the technical mechanics specific to that game to add to the narrative. The previous two choices could be made into a book, and not much would be lost other than the immediate audiovisual aspect. Crisis Core, on the other hand, would lose the game mechanics that help add to the experience.
Video games still have a long way to go when it comes to telling stories. Many are written with big set pieces in mind, and the narrative is mostly focused on trying to get someone from set piece A to B to C to D. There are also plenty of other issues when it comes to narratives in video games, too- lack of diversity and not hiring decent writers, for instance. However, there are exceptions, as this article demonstrates. When done right, games have the power to be truly immersive works of art that can make you both think and feel. Hopefully gaming narratives will keep getting better and game designers will keep pushing these boundaries.
