Jump to content

what's worse a plain poorly written character/story or a disappointing character/story?


Ottservia
 Share

Recommended Posts

So after reading several posts on the camilla opinions thread and everyone pretty much saying she's a character with wasted potential. I got to thinking which is worse? A character that's just poorly written with really no real way to salvage/fix them or a character that has the potential to be a great character but is poorly written due to being held back by a variety of other factors. This can also apply to stories as well. Personally I think disappointing/wasted potential characters are worse because it's frustrating for me to look at them and see what could've been where as with plain bad characters are just bad end of story.

Edited by Otts486
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I'll take a potentially great character, since I can always tinker with them in my fanfics or something.

YES. Fanfics exist for like, that reason.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd rather have a bad character.

Camilla I find super interesting as a concept. Her unstable mental health, her backstory, her looks. Those things if actually executed well could have made a character that I would have gladly put in my top 10- no maybe even top 5 favorite FE characters but sadly IS fell short and I will always be disappointed with her character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It depends. Many video-games, for example, have pitifully written stories, but are still loved because the gameplay or other elements make of for it, and the story may not be the focus. Similarly, the reason why the "so bad it's good" saying exists is because sometimes it can be enjoyable to analyze and nitpick an obviously flawed work, partially because it can be fun, but also because it allows opportunities to show what to do and what not to do when writing a story, as well as revealing that execution matters.

On the other hand, some badly written works aren't enjoyable at all, to the point where some reviewers get worked up over wasting their time going through such things. Another thing is how noticeable things like plot holes and inconstancies are. Although he goes more in detail in the full article, Shamus Young explains that a reason why, despite both both films having plot holes, Star Trek: Into Darkness is enjoyable while Transformer films are not is because the former has a fast pace and keeps the audience attention with the amount of action on screen, while the latter has several moments that are slow, giving the viewer time to reflect on the plot and notice flaws, contradictions, etc. Open world games also suffer this problem, because no matter how good the story is, the player will have enough time to realize both what's great and what's bad about it.

 

Again whether or not a disappointing story/character is bad depends on the context. Sometimes a story didn't go as far with an idea as it could of, and thus missed having as great of an impact as it could have, but this doesn't automatically make a work bad. Similarly, some works are overhyped, leading to inevitable disappointment that the story is not as good as it was advertised as, but this doesn't automatically make the story bad. Heck the story may be even good, just not great.

However, whether or not the the disappointment ranges from "oh well" to actually being frustrating can depend on a number of factors. Sometimes these moments few and far in-between, while other times there is noticeable room for improvement throughout the whole adventure. Sometimes the most disappointing aspects are overall minor in the grand scheme of things, while other times they can bring down the whole plot. Sometimes outside factors prevented the writers from reaching their full potential, while other times there is no such excuse. I could go on, but you gets the general idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh hey, I made a popular topic that influenced the topic of another topic.

Jokes aside, characters with potential are far better than poorly written/executed characters. Like @eclipse mentioned, there are fanfics. You can take the character with potential and utilize it however you think best. With poorly written/disappointing characters with no real potential, the best you can do is sit back and laugh. However, "one man's trash is another man's treasure", so it's all a matter of perspective really.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, AlmondJuice said:

Oh hey, I made a popular topic that influenced the topic of another topic.

Jokes aside, characters with potential are far better than poorly written/executed characters. Like @eclipse mentioned, there are fanfics. You can take the character with potential and utilize it however you think best. With poorly written/disappointing characters with no real potential, the best you can do is sit back and laugh. However, "one man's trash is another man's treasure", so it's all a matter of perspective really.

1 hour ago, eclipse said:

I'll take a potentially great character, since I can always tinker with them in my fanfics or something.

You know after thinking on it some more I am inclined to agree that a potentially great character is better because at least with those characters/stories you can see the author putting genuine effort into it and that's always nice to see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Captain Karnage said:

Disappointing is better, because you can always see the potential that was there

Surely knowing that there was potential for something to be better than it is, makes it worse?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So basically, which is worse, Awakening or Fates. 

The answer here is Fates, a million times Fates. 

As boring and cookie cutter as Awakening's story is, I don't have to sit here and waste brain space trying to comprehend what the fuck the writers were thinking and wonder "what could have been?" like I do nearly every time I think about Fates. 

I'd rather eat a bland-ass meal than a potentially delicious one that gives me food poisoning. 

I give no shits about reading/writing fanfiction, so seeing the potential for somebody to fix something like Fates does absolutely nothing for me.

Edited by Slumber
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Slumber's meal analogy reminded me of the debate some youtubers have over which is worse Megaman X3 or X6. X3 is considered boring and bland by a lot while X6 is frustratingly designed and obnoxious despite having way more interesting ideas for the gameplay. the obvious answer is that I want something good, but if I have to make a choice I'd choose the bland thing that I can just forget about and move on to something else as opposed to the terrible thing with potential that has me sit there and waste time complaining about just how bad it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I prefer a disappointing character over a character without any merit. If a character had promise but ultimately disappointing then there are still things that can be enjoyed about him but a bad character is just all bad from start to finish.  Xander might be heavily flawed but there's still good traits to be found in him while Peri's just a waste of space. Similarly the Black Knight may have failed as a character in RD but he gets credit for his incredibly solid portrayal in POR while a villain like Validar just has nothing going for him.

I'd rather enjoy the good bits of a flawed character than be stuck with a character that's all terrible the entire time. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A character with squandered potential has something.  Something fanwork can put to use, as already mentioned.  

Meanwhile there's basically nothing you can do to make Peri work while keeping her Peri.  

So basically: Would take potential over unsalvageability, since at least I can like them in some regard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I prefer to be disappointed rather than bored because at least I feel something with a disappointing character. It's like Camilla (disappointing) vs. Peri (poorly written), I'd prefer Camilla because at least with disappointing characters, I know there is SOMETHING good about their character, it's just not completely realized. I can hope that whatever DLC/manga adaption comes out will hopefully realize the downfalls of the character improve upon them. IIRC, Camilla (and Fates in general) was way more satisfying in the manga than in the game.

I'd rather take a Camilla than a poorly written character like Peri, who's nothing more than filler for me. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A character can be poorly written, but can also be interesting on the exterior via some cliche backstory, personality, and of course visual design.

I'm not sure what the big difference is, since characters can always be improved to some extent even if they're written badly to begin with. It's the same as adjusting the interactions of a well written character and/or tinkering their motives and what-not so that they're already good background story accompanies that, and makes them a well written character.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is: what should always qualify as an identity for a character, is it just the name , backstory, interactions with other characters, or how they fit into the plot, what is it? I'm pretty sure it's all of those things combined so no matter what, when you change a character in anyway, then you've changed the whole identity of that character because everything is always relative to the story.

Regardless of whether it's a poorly written character/story or a disappointing character/story, both are intolerable in my book. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good question. Depends on how bad it is, depends on where the missed opportunities were, depends on how often did this offense in question happened in the franchise (or even pop culture as a whole), and depends on what kind of story I can reimagine.

My soon-to-be done LP for FE Fates Conquest was a lot of fun (if also really laborious to write), because of just how much lampooning I can do for the vanilla game, (Especially peaceful Hoshido my ass; it's Ultranationalist 1940s Hoshido!!!) and how easy it was to make a WW2 theme LP and fanfic story, with Nohrians as the radiant Allied democracy.

On the other hand, Awakening wasn't much fun after the first runthrough, due to the generic good-vs-evil countries and plot; though it probably didn't help how the right kind of gameplay variety/balance was quite messed up.

On the other hand, Binding Blade may could have done better with the story, but the worldbuilding was certainly one of the better ones in the series, and that gave me something to think about when playing the game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...