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Creating the Protagonist: January Blogging Meme
After I answer this question, only one more remains. Any other requests?
Today's question (well, actually yesterday's, but who's counting?) comes from![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stealth_noodle, who wanted my thoughts on characterizing customizable video game protagonists in fic. I've been thinking about this question off and on ever since it was asked, because I think it's a pretty fascinating one. It's definitely an issue that comes up in Dragon Age fandom quite a bit (and I imagine Mass Effect fandom as well). How much flexibility is there for a fanfic writer when characterizing a Warden, or a Hawke, or a Shepard? Are there defined lines that we need to play within? Or is the protagonist essentially an original character, giving us total freedom to make them whoever we want?
Of course, there are some fic writers who feel free to say "Canon? Pffft, I do want I want" and take any character in the direction they like, not just customizable protagonist characters. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that approach, but that's not the kind of fic writer I am. For me, the interesting thing about fanfic is finding new and interesting things to do with characters and story within the structure that the canon provides. Even when I write a story with an AU premise, I try to keep events and characterization as close to canon as possible. Then again, can one even say that there is such a thing as "canon" for the Warden, or for Hawke?* As a general rule, I would say yes, but it's such a broad space of possible canons that there's a lot of room for flexibility. (More so for the Warden than for Hawke -- the Warden has a set backstory, different for each Origin, but personality-wise, they are essentially a tabula rasa. Hawke, on the other hand, does have an in-game personality, although the player has a hand in creating it.)
When it comes to writing the protagonist characters into my own work, I'm almost always writing about a particular Warden or Hawke -- one that I created myself, usually through the course of playing a full game. If I write about Sereda Aeducan, for example, she's not a generic female dwarf noble. She's the Warden I spent over a hundred hours with, playing through DA: Origins, Awakening, Golems, and Witch Hunt. The story is her story, set within her canon and reflecting the choices she made and the outcomes she discovered, or an AU with a purposeful divergence. When I decided to write Justify the Means, an AU about a very different kind of female Aeducan, I actually created a new character and played through her origin. This is why I don't write fic about Tabris, or Amell, or male Cousland, etc.: I've never played a Warden of that background, so I don't know who they are, or how to tell their stories properly. There've been a very few exceptions, mostly when writing to prompts or plot bunnies that don't suit any of my current Wardens, but writing a specific Warden whom I already know is much more within my comfort zone.
I can have a little more flexibility with a Hawke, as long as the Hawke isn't central to the story. For example, I wrote a few stories featuring a male Hawke before I ever played through my Garrett's canon, so I had to come up with a generic Garrett Hawke to fill that role. But as with the Wardens, I'm much happier if I have a known Hawke to work with (diplomatic rogue Marian, aggressive mage Marissa, snarky warrior Garrett) and am unlikely to put a generic Hawke into a starring role.
Although there are exceptions, from what I've seen, I think most fic writers who work with the protagonist characters in these kinds of canons do something similar. They aren't writing stories about A Warden or A Hawke or A Shepard, they're writing about their Warden/Hawke/Shepard. Some feel more bound to follow the canonical background and events of the games than others, but it's still where the seed of the character arises. In my case, as you might expect, I do use canon as my foundation -- I am very unlikely to create headcanons for my player characters that directly contradict the events of the game, although sometimes I'll fudge things a little for the sake of storytelling.
So in a way, it's not really that different for me than writing other characters. The main difference is that I had a part in creating the original canon, and that is most definitely part of the fun.
*There's also a larger question about what "canon" even means in a universe as flexible as that of Dragon Age, where outcomes and characterizations change based on player choices, and even more options open up when modding gets involved, but that's another conversation for another day.
Today's question (well, actually yesterday's, but who's counting?) comes from
stealth_noodle, who wanted my thoughts on characterizing customizable video game protagonists in fic. I've been thinking about this question off and on ever since it was asked, because I think it's a pretty fascinating one. It's definitely an issue that comes up in Dragon Age fandom quite a bit (and I imagine Mass Effect fandom as well). How much flexibility is there for a fanfic writer when characterizing a Warden, or a Hawke, or a Shepard? Are there defined lines that we need to play within? Or is the protagonist essentially an original character, giving us total freedom to make them whoever we want?Of course, there are some fic writers who feel free to say "Canon? Pffft, I do want I want" and take any character in the direction they like, not just customizable protagonist characters. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that approach, but that's not the kind of fic writer I am. For me, the interesting thing about fanfic is finding new and interesting things to do with characters and story within the structure that the canon provides. Even when I write a story with an AU premise, I try to keep events and characterization as close to canon as possible. Then again, can one even say that there is such a thing as "canon" for the Warden, or for Hawke?* As a general rule, I would say yes, but it's such a broad space of possible canons that there's a lot of room for flexibility. (More so for the Warden than for Hawke -- the Warden has a set backstory, different for each Origin, but personality-wise, they are essentially a tabula rasa. Hawke, on the other hand, does have an in-game personality, although the player has a hand in creating it.)
When it comes to writing the protagonist characters into my own work, I'm almost always writing about a particular Warden or Hawke -- one that I created myself, usually through the course of playing a full game. If I write about Sereda Aeducan, for example, she's not a generic female dwarf noble. She's the Warden I spent over a hundred hours with, playing through DA: Origins, Awakening, Golems, and Witch Hunt. The story is her story, set within her canon and reflecting the choices she made and the outcomes she discovered, or an AU with a purposeful divergence. When I decided to write Justify the Means, an AU about a very different kind of female Aeducan, I actually created a new character and played through her origin. This is why I don't write fic about Tabris, or Amell, or male Cousland, etc.: I've never played a Warden of that background, so I don't know who they are, or how to tell their stories properly. There've been a very few exceptions, mostly when writing to prompts or plot bunnies that don't suit any of my current Wardens, but writing a specific Warden whom I already know is much more within my comfort zone.
I can have a little more flexibility with a Hawke, as long as the Hawke isn't central to the story. For example, I wrote a few stories featuring a male Hawke before I ever played through my Garrett's canon, so I had to come up with a generic Garrett Hawke to fill that role. But as with the Wardens, I'm much happier if I have a known Hawke to work with (diplomatic rogue Marian, aggressive mage Marissa, snarky warrior Garrett) and am unlikely to put a generic Hawke into a starring role.
Although there are exceptions, from what I've seen, I think most fic writers who work with the protagonist characters in these kinds of canons do something similar. They aren't writing stories about A Warden or A Hawke or A Shepard, they're writing about their Warden/Hawke/Shepard. Some feel more bound to follow the canonical background and events of the games than others, but it's still where the seed of the character arises. In my case, as you might expect, I do use canon as my foundation -- I am very unlikely to create headcanons for my player characters that directly contradict the events of the game, although sometimes I'll fudge things a little for the sake of storytelling.
So in a way, it's not really that different for me than writing other characters. The main difference is that I had a part in creating the original canon, and that is most definitely part of the fun.
*There's also a larger question about what "canon" even means in a universe as flexible as that of Dragon Age, where outcomes and characterizations change based on player choices, and even more options open up when modding gets involved, but that's another conversation for another day.
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And yeah, my first Hawke isn't the one I write most often either, even though I consider hers my primary canon for gameplay (hers will be the story I first import to DA:I, for example).
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The Hawke I will write will be very close to my first Hawke (diplomatic, mage) but with a couple of shifts (healer instead of BLOW ALL THE SHIT UP, romancing Fenris instead of fucking up all possible romances.)
That problem of canon.
On the other hand, DA2's Hawke is far from a blank slate but not quite as narrow as ME's Shepard, and DA2's canonical story is a complete deconstruction of the heroic fantasy so, at least to me as someone who is REALLY INTERESTED in how canon is interpreted, I've read a lot of Hawke stories where the writer isn't making commitments to *why* that Hawke makes certain choices. I think some of this has to do with all of the fandom bullshit surrounding so-called "correct" ways vs "wrong" ways to play Hawke (because god forbid Hawke ever does anything supportive for the templars and/or does something nice to a templar). While I have read many really good short character studies, very few DA2 writers commit to writing long fic that explores the canon in a manner that I find satisfying (which makes me pine for my days in Final Fantasy XII fandom where this was more common). So much of the long DA2 fic I find is kink fic, totally tangential "what if" fic (which can be really good but it doesn't have anything to do with canon), or AU.
Sadly, I also have a hard time finding solid in-character, canon-believable, canon-grounded portrayals of DA2's cast members in long fic. It sometimes feels like DA2's canon scares people off so they just run wild writing interesting stories that have little to do with canon, unless they are sticking with short characters studies. YMMV.
Re: That problem of canon.
The other problem is that I-the-player cannot abide making choices that aren't, well, paragon princess; I must not hurt the pixel people's feelings. In a lot of ways I find that limiting and I assume no one else is interested in my need to help digital people.
tl;dr DA and ME fandom have a field day with my assorted writing neuroses, whee!