What makes a great video game main character? Is create-a-character or a famous hero better? Who are our faves and why? Conversely, when do protagonists not hit the mark? Let’s discuss (and get on our soapboxes), ending with a King-of-the-Hill style showdown to decide the best video game main character. Our discussion includes hype for cool space women like FemShep and Samus, and criticism of “sad dad” protagonists like Kratos and Joel Miller.
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Note: This episode includes swearing and references to mature games and themes. This episode also contains end spoilers for The Last of Us and BioShock Infinite.
Timestamps
- 0:00 – Intros: Our Favorite Main Characters
- 4:42 – Archetypes of Main Characters in Video Game History
- 8:02 – Silence and Agency
- 30:20 – Voice Acting, Gender, and Modern Trends
- 45:37 – Violence and Genre
- 58:58 – Create-a-Character vs. Hero-Types
- 1:06:52 – Soapboxes: The Exile from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Lara Croft from the recent Tomb Raider games, Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption, Peter Parker from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- 1:14:47 – King-of-the-Hill: The Best Video Game Main Characters
- 1:38:15 – Outros: Whatcha Playing/Reading/Watching?
Credits and Notes
- Podcast Co-Hosts: David Silbert, Sam Martinelli, Amanda Tien
- Podcast Audio & Graphics Editor: Amanda Tien
- Podcast Distributor: David Silbert
- Theme Song Composer: Jason Hulse
Excerpt
Kei: Let’s talk about the first archetype you bring up, Amanda, the silent protagonist. In practice, I feel that most of the silent protagonists have had that silence folded into their personality. Like Doomguy doesn’t talk, but it’s him being a badass. Gordon Freeman [from Half-Life] doesn’t even have audio clips. I’ve never personally bought into it as a good connective tissue between the player and the video game world. Like I’m not any more connected to Link because he’s quiet. To me, it’s actually the opposite…
Sam: What I like about those silent main characters — Link, Crono [from Chrono Trigger], Samus, whoever — is how they’re not chatty and what that does for the experience. The whole point of most of these Zelda games is that Link is considered a hero not for what he says, but for what he does — and what the player does as a result. He builds a whole persona, a whole legend, out of actions — of being courageous, of doing the right thing. One of the things I love about Samus is that she’s almost always alone in these foreign environments… Her thoughts are my thoughts. Is that statue going to spawn a scary alien thing that’s going to jump out and kill me?
Vaughn: I think this is what makes Jesse Faden from Control work well. She’s talking to Polaris (which, for lack of a better word, we’ll call her psychic friend). Navi in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time functions the same way. I like that with Jesse, we’re hearing her reactions in real-time and her thoughts, whereas with Link, we just see his actions — but his actions are so loud that they direct the story. By comparison, the main character of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is silent, but they have no agency in the story. Silent characters work, in my opinion, if they are taking actions that players feel change the world that they’re affected by. And perhaps that speaks more to game design and character development.
Amanda: This makes me think of Zagreus in Hades. The game starts where Zagreus has already decided he wants to escape Hades, that he wants to get to the surface. He’s mad at his dad and he’s tired of all of this and he’s got all these cool powers. The game does not ask you, “Do you want to try to escape the Underworld?” but rather, “This character is going to try to escape the Underworld, and if you want to play this game, you’re going on that journey.” And I think that speaks to Sam what you’re saying about Geralt. When I initially tried The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt years ago, Geralt was somebody who had come pre-formed with all this baggage, which was a turn-off to me. But years later, it’s the exact thing that makes me admire it so much. I can appreciate the story that can only be told with Geralt as the protagonist because he is a character with history. His decisions are very unique to his lived experiences as a character.
Sam: There’s an expectation now that video game characters are written like TV characters and book characters, with a lot of depth. It’s a relatively recent invention.
Listen to the podcast for the rest of the conversation!
As always, thanks for reading and listening!
The Best Video Game Main Characters
We discussed many great protagonists in our conversation, and the debate was passionate! So, we are going to do a separate ranked voting list with the opinions of all our writers in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for later in October!
Further Reading
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Amanda Tien (she/her or they) loves video games where she can pet dogs, solve mysteries, punch bad guys, play as a cool female character, and/or have a good cry. She began writing with The Punished Backlog in 2020 and became an Editor in Fall 2021. Amanda also does a lot of the site's graphic designs and podcast editing. Amanda's work has been published in Mothership, Unwinnable Monthly, Poets.org, Salt Hill Journal, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. Learn more about her writing, visual art, teaching, graphic design, and marketing consulting at www.amandatien.com.
Sam has been playing video games since his earliest years and has been writing about them since 2016. He joined The Punished Backlog in 2017 and became an Editor in Fall 2021. He’s a big fan of Nintendo games and complaining about The Last of Us Part II. You either agree wholeheartedly with his opinions or despise them. There is no in between.
A lifelong New Yorker, Sam views gaming as far more than a silly little pastime, and hopes through critical analysis and in-depth reviews to better understand the medium's artistic merit.
Bluesky: @sam-martinelli.bsky.social
Vaughn Hunt is writer who has loved video games since he picked up a controller. His parents wouldn't let him buy swords as a child (he wanted the real ones) so he started writing, reading, and playing video games about them. A historian at heart, you'll often find him deep into a rabbit hole of culture, comics, or music.
Huge video game, comic book, and anime fan. Spends way too much time watching things he doesn’t like. Hates Zack Snyder. Mains Falco.
