Thread:Mesektet/@comment-27729149-20160128170019/@comment-3581997-20160410054506

The main issue with those sort of "Heroes" is the writers spend so much time making them angsty that they forget to incorporate more to them. They become flat and one- dimensional, this is the sort of reason why by game 3 Kratos is firmly out of protagonist territory, and why comic-book Punisher can frankly suck an egg. Inject a small bit of humor, or tenderness somewhere, even if it is a small character scene. Let me give you an example.

In City of Heroes tie in comic-book, there is a very well done scene with Manticore and Sister Psyche'. Manticore is an ultra grim archer with basically the same back story as Batman, parents murdered by a criminal, uses considerable wealth to start getting top of the line training and putting together gadgets, unlike Batman though he goes archer, he is focused on one day finding the jerk who killed his parents, and he is looking forward to killing him; other than that though, all the same tropes, the ones it sounds like Micheal is getting; He broods, he has a dark outlook, he takes the piss out of everyone, he is all for getting pleasure out of catharsis, he "doesn't need friends", he is a "bad ass loner who plays by his own rules" and he sneers at all the goodie goodie paragons who are traditional non anti- heroes.

Now in the middle of one of his laments about the sad state of humanity and the filth the city breeds he is talking to Sister Psyche' as they jump from roof top to roof top. He puts down how patrolling the city isn't a game and serious business, when Psyche', stops mid jump, floats back to him and looks him dead in the face and says the following

Psyche': "You are a grown-ass adult, in spandex, jumping from roof-top to roof-top, 100% confident he will make the next jump. If you can not unironically go "wee" at least once, there is something psychologically wrong with you. So how about you cut back on the angst for one god damned second in-between thinking about your dead parents and enjoy yourself."

Manticore pauses, wide-eyed, jumps to the next roof and says the following.

Manticore: "Wee! Okay, that did feel good. Now let's get that son of a bitch."

Psyche's doesn't say he is wrong, in fact she is one of the few people on the team who is all for using lethal force and getting closure, but Manticore was so busy in his own world he never even stopped to enjoy life or think about how whiny his gripes, however legitimate, are coming off. And in one small scene, he gets that.

That is character development, that is taking the time to take the piss out of your own main character, acknowledge their baggage, and more importantly getting the character to acknowledge their own baggage. Part of what makes good writing great is breaking from a central world view and even having the character's views challenged if not necessarily discredited. If not, you wind up likes Kratos, so focused on their own baggage that they just swerve in-word til they are one-dimensional cretins.