Chris Priestly wrote...
Off the top of my head, thinking of recent Sci-Fi films, there are basically 2 sorts of "death".
One is the "Spock". When, as in Wrath of Khan, you get an emotional death where the person knows they are about to die or are dying and say a goodbye of some sort.
The otehr is the "Wash". Where you don't see the death coming, as in Serenity, so when it happens it is a huge blow to the heart that someone you care about has been killed.
What do YOU mean when you want an emotional death?
Only just saw your question, so pardon my tardiness.
I think the two types of death that you listed are good examples. However, it's worth pointing out that each served a distinct narrative purpose. The "Spock" centred around giving characters (and fans) the chance to properly bid farewell to someone to whom they'd become immensely attached. The "Wash," on the other hand, served to totally upset narrative expectations; immediately after his shockingly random, totally unforecasted death, the vast majority of people who watched Serenity (even long-term Whedon fans like myself, already familiar with his penchant for killing beloved characters) found their view shifted from the typical complacent sense that the heroes will ultimately make it through their challenges to the sincere belief that not one of the main characters was now safe. Because Wash died in that way, anyone could die. Accordingly, it's not so much that his death was an emotional one per se (excluding the emotion of shock as well as the pain that anyone who'd really loved his character would naturally feel) but rather that it led to an immense intensification of all emotions for the rest of the film.
In both cases, however, characters who cared deeply for the dead person showed an emotional reaction. "Spock" is obvious; in the case of "Wash," Zoe didn't have time to mourn properly because of the immediacy of the danger they were in, but her anguish still showed in how she became more cavalier about danger and went into a bit of a rage when fighting the Reavers. No matter what the circumstances, then, Shepard has to show an emotional reaction to the death of someone s/he cares about. It can be in any way that's appropriate to the situation s/he's in, but it has to be there.
The trouble with this, I think, is that most of the Mass Effect characters don't have strong bonds to each other, only to Shepard. So, if a few of them die, we're just going to see lots of reactions from Shepard, and it could become difficult for the devs to maintain a feeling of freshness if we've already seen Shep mourning a character's death not too long ago. There has to be a way of making the situations different. If someone has already died in a mission, and then someone else dies, Shepard should react differently than s/he would if only the second character had died; Shepard should be shown as reeling from yet another blow, rather than having received his or her first blow. While this might seem daunting given the number of possible permutations in the squad, a situation like ME2's suicide mission actually had just a small number of distinct points where a character could die. At any of these points, a script could check how many other people had died up to this point and alter Shepard's reaction accordingly. And, of course, if
at any point Shepard's LI died, this event would have to ripple through the rest of the mission. Later cutscenes should show Shepard struggling to accomplish the task at hand in spite of the pain of losing a loved one.
I am sure Bioware developers are much better than we are at imagining clever ways to do all this in a streamlined way. For instance, the close-up on Shepard's face when the bomb detonates on Virmire conveyed to me very effectively, without even using words, that Shepard was thinking about the person s/he had left behind, was united with them in the last moments, saluted their heroic sacrifice and wished there was some way to save them. It's so clear because it's uncomplicated: all Shepard does is watch in silence, and we can tell by the fact that s/he's still in armour that s/he came straight up to the bridge to look at the planet below, without the least care for anything else. Or, at least, that's how I see it. But I could see all that because a space had been cleared for it. Sometimes, silence is the best way of conveying emotion, because it lets people put all the things they're feeling at the time into the character they're roleplaying.
One other point: Shepard must not give up on the dead/dying character without even checking to see if there's some way to save them, or if it's possible to go back for them without compromising the mission. To do such a thing would add to an impression that Shepard didn't really care, which is just what we want to avoid.
Modifié par Estelindis, 02 septembre 2011 - 05:32 .
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