194 réponses à ce sujet

[Killjoy Cutter]

Il Divo wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Specifically trying to evoke reactions leads to shortcuts and formula writing and in general the halfwit way in which things are done in Hollywood.

Then I'm sure you'd agree that the practice of killing nobodys (7 million deaths) is another weak tactic employed in Hollywood. Obviously it's formula writing, so instead the key should be not to let anyone, important or not, die in this obviously brutal war against machine-Gods?

If 7 million people die as the result of the events of the story as it must be constructed, then you don't avoid it just to avoid it  

What you don't do is kill of 1 person or 7 million people just for the "impact", to manipulate an emotional reaction, or to show "this **** is real" as one poster put it. 

[Il Divo]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

If 7 million people die as the result of the events of the story as it must be constructed, then you don't avoid it just to avoid it  

What is the plot relevance of those 7 million deaths? Hint: it doesn't move the story forward. Squad-mate death is no different and would fill in the exact same role. Yet, you seem persistent in your "seven million deaths is still a tragedy" position.

What you don't do is kill of 1 person or 7 million people just for the "impact", to manipulate an emotional reaction, or to show "this **** is real" as one poster put it. 

Huh, so a writer can't use the death of a main character to trigger the events of a story? Interesting.

Modifié par Il Divo, 25 octobre 2011 - 02:05 .

[Killjoy Cutter]

Shepard the Leper wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Bekkael wrote...

Besides which: "Two millions dead in the first day. Another seven million dead by the end of the first week." No matter if close party members die or not, you would have to have the empathy of a block of wood not to feel pain as the population of earth is murdered. I don't think we are going to have a lack of tragedy in ME3 at all.

Well said.

Not well said. Let me quote myself from a while back:

They do matter. BUT, they are not personal. Shep suffered no personal loss (and neither did the player).
The difference between the two is vast.

And no, I felt nothing watching the trailer.

Oh well. 

That whole "it has to be personal" thing?  Complete crock. 

Not really.

Example: The earthquake in Turkye remains unpersonal when the news only mentions X people have died. But when they show a father who's desperately looking for his daughter and begs the rescue workers to start digging at the place he thinks his daughter might be burried, things get personal.

Maybe for you. 

When I read about the earthquake, my first thought is of the individuals impacted, of "the father searching for his daughter".

[Estelindis]

Il Divo wrote...

if you remove the revenge complex (and its impact on Carth's personality), you're essentially left with Kaidan, whom in my opinion has the same basic attitude, just applied more consistently. Carth never really takes out his distrust/anger on others, aside from those who are "close" to him (your PC), Bastila, etc. Using the same VA didn't really help much, because many instances where Kaidan would speak, I could imagine Carth acting the exact same way.

I think you're right to a certain extent.  You point out what you mean clearly and argue for it very well.  At the same time, I'm not sure how easy it is to see what Carth would have been like without the act that shattered his life or what Kaidan would have been like if something had shattered his.  Part of the romance arc with Carth is that he overcomes what he thought was an inability to feel strong, positive emotion for someone after his wife's death.  Kaidan just doesn't have much in the way of issues to overcome.  In fact... if Kaidan does have any issue to overcome, it's being too reserved and cautious - not out of some grand passion for revenge or a massive distrust towards someone else, but because at some level he doesn't entirely trust himself.  Kaidan's focus is more inwards compared to Carth's, which is outwards.  Anyway, maybe you're right that the two of them would have turned out more similarly if they'd had more similar stimuli in their lives, but I think that argument can be made about any people to a certain extent.  Nonetheless, you argue courteously and well, and I thank you for the pleasure of discussing the topic with you.  :-)

[Killjoy Cutter]

Il Divo wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

If 7 million people die as the result of the events of the story as it must be constructed, then you don't avoid it just to avoid it  

What is the plot relevance of those 7 million deaths? Hint: it doesn't move the story forward. Squad-mate death is no different and would fill in the exact same role. Yet, you seem persistent in your "seven million deaths is still a tragedy" position.

That "position" is in direct response to the nonsense claims that 7 million dead is meaningless, but 7 million and 1 is "some deep ****" if the 1 is someone close to Shepard. 

What you don't do is kill of 1 person or 7 million people just for the "impact", to manipulate an emotional reaction, or to show "this **** is real" as one poster put it. 

Huh, so a writer can't use the death of a main character to trigger the events of a story? Interesting.

Triggering the events of the story is not the same as looking to trigger an audience response.  

[Xilizhra]

I think there might be some confusion over what the "seven million deaths" thing means. It's not necessarily tragic by itself, but it is enough to establish verisimilitude about this being a rather nasty galactic war.

As for main character death tragedy... well, I can tolerate it, but quite frankly I don't like it and I hope that it's not forced. Simple as that.

[Shepard the Leper]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Maybe for you. 

When I read about the earthquake, my first thought is of the individuals impacted, of "the father searching for his daughter".

For most people actually.

The story of one individual usually has a much bigger impact than stats and numbers. The fact that millions of people have died (a horrible death) in the WW2 concentration camps is one thing, but to hear the personal stories of people who have been in those camps has a much bigger impact and is a better (educational) method to tell people about those dark days. Try it yourself, go to a school and tell kids about this using only numbers, stats and so forth. Or bring a survivor and have him/her tell their personal story. I know what will have a bigger impact, and it aint the stats.

It's the same thing in ME. When I hadn't played ME2 and got the message (in ME3) that (the planet) Tuchanka has been destroyed, I wouldn't give a damn. But since I did play ME2, I will be worried about Wrex, Vortack, my own Varren, the Sjaman and so forth. It will be a personal loss instead of a (meaningless) message saying X million have died. That does matter.

[Estelindis]

Shepard the Leper wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Maybe for you. 

When I read about the earthquake, my first thought is of the individuals impacted, of "the father searching for his daughter".

For most people actually.

The story of one individual usually has a much bigger impact than stats and numbers. The fact that millions of people have died (a horrible death) in the WW2 concentration camps is one thing, but to hear the personal stories of people who have been in those camps has a much bigger impact and is a better (educational) method to tell people about those dark days.

I agree with both of you.  I think Bioware will be giving us a sense of personal impact as well as of the scale of destruction.  I got the impression (correctly or otherwise) that the scene of the child in the vent during the demo on Earth was intended to show part of that.

[Il Divo]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

That "position" is in direct response to the nonsense claims that 7 million dead is meaningless, but 7 million and 1 is "some deep ****" if the 1 is someone close to Shepard. 

That's exactly what it means. The more removed you are from death, the less meaning it will have to you. Try thinking of it in terms of Hume's sense impressions, which are always stronger than the imagination. If you want an example, think of the difference in emotional impact between hearing that a child died and seeing that a child died. That experience was made more personal because you had a more intimate contact with that child. Now imagine that you had a deeply personal relationship with that child. The death comes to be even more tragic.

People experience tragedy every day, and I feel empathy for them. Unfortunately, the difference between my pain and suffering will always be dependent on who dies, because that impacts my day to day life. If a hundred people on a foreign continent were to pass away tomorrow, I'll still feel less pain from that than if  a parent, or relative, or a friend were to pass away tomorrow, all because of my impression and memories of that person, which impacts me on a daily basis.   

Triggering the events of the story is not the same as looking to trigger an audience response.  

And the same events used to trigger the events of a story (through character death) may also trigger an emotional response. The two are not mutually exclusive. A character just died, after all. Writers have story arcs, character arcs, etc, which take them in any number of directions. Boromir's was used as a redemption arc, which is valid. The emotion triggered is not simply in the character's death, but in the reactions of those who are left behind.

[Il Divo]

Estelindis wrote...

I think you're right to a certain extent.  You point out what you mean clearly and argue for it very well.  At the same time, I'm not sure how easy it is to see what Carth would have been like without the act that shattered his life or what Kaidan would have been like if something had shattered his.  Part of the romance arc with Carth is that he overcomes what he thought was an inability to feel strong, positive emotion for someone after his wife's death.  Kaidan just doesn't have much in the way of issues to overcome.  In fact... if Kaidan does have any issue to overcome, it's being too reserved and cautious - not out of some grand passion for revenge or a massive distrust towards someone else, but because at some level he doesn't entirely trust himself.  Kaidan's focus is more inwards compared to Carth's, which is outwards.  Anyway, maybe you're right that the two of them would have turned out more similarly if they'd had more similar stimuli in their lives, but I think that argument can be made about any people to a certain extent.  

 I do have a more limited understanding of each character, not really having the romance perspectives as clear or available. And that is an interesting point regarding where their focuses lie, which I didn't fully consider.

I think, for myself though, it does come down to feeling like Kaidan didn't have something to contribute more than Carth. The best comparison I can think of is Alistair, who also shares some traits with the two characters, but where they differ (aside from VAs) is that Alistair also provides something different with respect to his inferiority complex at the idea of being King, which I think also serves to differentiate him, more so than Kaidan. 

So to put it differently.

Carth - Revenge = Kaidan = Alistair - inferiority complex
Although admittedly, it's probably not the best idea to reduce these characters, or any person, to mathematical variables.

Nonetheless, you argue courteously and well, and I thank you for the pleasure of discussing the topic with you.  :-)

Likewise.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Il Divo wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

That "position" is in direct response to the nonsense claims that 7 million dead is meaningless, but 7 million and 1 is "some deep ****" if the 1 is someone close to Shepard. 

That's exactly what it means. The more removed you are from death, the less meaning it will have to you. Try thinking of it in terms of Hume's sense impressions, which are always stronger than the imagination. If you want an example, think of the difference in emotional impact between hearing that a child died and seeing that a child died. That experience was made more personal because you had a more intimate contact with that child. Now imagine that you had a deeply personal relationship with that child. The death comes to be even more tragic.

People experience tragedy every day, and I feel empathy for them. Unfortunately, the difference between my pain and suffering will always be dependent on who dies, because that impacts my day to day life. If a hundred people on a foreign continent were to pass away tomorrow, I'll still feel less pain from that than if  a parent, or relative, or a friend were to pass away tomorrow, all because of my impression and memories of that person, which impacts me on a daily basis.   

Speak for yourself, then, and don't presume to tell me what meaning and how much meaning things have for me. 
As for Hume?  Meh. 

Il Divo wrote...

Triggering the events of the story is not the same as looking to trigger an audience response.  

And the same events used to trigger the events of a story (through character death) may also trigger an emotional response. The two are not mutually exclusive. A character just died, after all. Writers have story arcs, character arcs, etc, which take them in any number of directions. Boromir's was used as a redemption arc, which is valid. The emotion triggered is not simply in the character's death, but in the reactions of those who are left behind.

If the events of a story trigger a response for a particualr reader, fine. 

Just don't go looking to trigger a particular response.  

[Il Divo]

Shepard the Leper wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Maybe for you. 

When I read about the earthquake, my first thought is of the individuals impacted, of "the father searching for his daughter".

For most people actually.

The story of one individual usually has a much bigger impact than stats and numbers. The fact that millions of people have died (a horrible death) in the WW2 concentration camps is one thing, but to hear the personal stories of people who have been in those camps has a much bigger impact and is a better (educational) method to tell people about those dark days. Try it yourself, go to a school and tell kids about this using only numbers, stats and so forth. Or bring a survivor and have him/her tell their personal story. I know what will have a bigger impact, and it aint the stats.

And there's alot of truth to this. Death on the macro-scale can never really be used to describe death on the micro-scale, nor will the details be as vivd, beyond what we imagine. As another example, it's the difference between someone telling you that homelessness is a huge problem and actually interacting with a homeless person, which makes the experience more vivid.  

[The Spamming Troll]

Il Divo wrote...
Huh, so a writer can't use the death of a main character to trigger the events of a story? Interesting.

what happend when the person that dies IS THE MAIN CHARACTER?

sheaprd dies, is rebuilt......and nobody flinched.

"hey shepard, i heard you died. anyways help me with my daddy issues!"

[Killjoy Cutter]

The Spamming Troll wrote...

Il Divo wrote...
Huh, so a writer can't use the death of a main character to trigger the events of a story? Interesting.

what happend when the person that dies IS THE MAIN CHARACTER?

sheaprd dies, is rebuilt......and nobody flinched.

"hey shepard, i heard you died. anyways help me with my daddy issues!"

I would not defend that part of ME2 as particularly well-written.

[Il Divo]

The Spamming Troll wrote...

what happend when the person that dies IS THE MAIN CHARACTER?

sheaprd dies, is rebuilt......and nobody flinched.

"hey shepard, i heard you died. anyways help me with my daddy issues!"

Depends on the story. Jade Empire however would like a word with you if you really don't think resurrection can fuel plot development. This is all besides the point. What does this have to do with a writer's ability to use death correctly (or incorrectly) as a point of development?

Mercutio's death fuels the entire second half of Romeo and Juliet. Patroclus' death fuels Achilles' rage in the Illiad. Jason Todd's death serves as a huge source of internal turmoil for Batman and makes him actually consider killing the Joker. Death can have purpose, despite ME2 completely screwing up on that end. Or rather, the error was the resurrection, more than the death itself.

Modifié par Il Divo, 25 octobre 2011 - 07:03 .

[DiebytheSword]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

That "position" is in direct response to the nonsense claims that 7 million dead is meaningless, but 7 million and 1 is "some deep ****" if the 1 is someone close to Shepard. 

That's exactly what it means. The more removed you are from death, the less meaning it will have to you. Try thinking of it in terms of Hume's sense impressions, which are always stronger than the imagination. If you want an example, think of the difference in emotional impact between hearing that a child died and seeing that a child died. That experience was made more personal because you had a more intimate contact with that child. Now imagine that you had a deeply personal relationship with that child. The death comes to be even more tragic.

People experience tragedy every day, and I feel empathy for them. Unfortunately, the difference between my pain and suffering will always be dependent on who dies, because that impacts my day to day life. If a hundred people on a foreign continent were to pass away tomorrow, I'll still feel less pain from that than if  a parent, or relative, or a friend were to pass away tomorrow, all because of my impression and memories of that person, which impacts me on a daily basis.   

Speak for yourself, then, and don't presume to tell me what meaning and how much meaning things have for me. 
As for Hume?  Meh. 

Il Divo wrote...

Triggering the events of the story is not the same as looking to trigger an audience response.  

And the same events used to trigger the events of a story (through character death) may also trigger an emotional response. The two are not mutually exclusive. A character just died, after all. Writers have story arcs, character arcs, etc, which take them in any number of directions. Boromir's was used as a redemption arc, which is valid. The emotion triggered is not simply in the character's death, but in the reactions of those who are left behind.

If the events of a story trigger a response for a particualr reader, fine. 

Just don't go looking to trigger a particular response.  

I have to agree here, if 7 million deaths do not move you, you are a jaded individual.  Of course close deaths will mean more, but that does not mean 7 million deaths mean nothing.

What are you people fighting for as Shepard?  His pals?

[Il Divo]

DiebytheSword wrote...

I have to agree here, if 7 million deaths do not move you, you are a jaded individual.  Of course close deaths will mean more, but that does not mean 7 million deaths mean nothing.

What are you people fighting for as Shepard?  His pals?

7 million deaths won't move me deeply in a form of entertainment, merely by virtue of being seven million deaths. There is a barrier which separates fiction from reality and it is necessary for a writer to overcome that. Someone earlier used the example of War of the Worlds as an illustration of how death can be made to feel unemotional. And I agree there. It's the same with rebel soldiers in Star Wars or mook soldiers in Lord of the Rings, or even in Michael Bay's Transformers. 

It's the same reason why instead of merely telling you that seven million people die in ME3, Bioware attempts to show it to some degree, utilizing the child in the vent. The experience is made more personal, through that physical encounter, which makes the player wonder, "How many other people is this happening to, right now?". Seven million deaths isn't meaningless, but it is very much possible for one death to impact an individual far more than even a number that large.

Modifié par Il Divo, 25 octobre 2011 - 07:33 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

You tell the story to tell the damn story. 

The story is presented to an audience. If you don't trigger any kind of reaction from them, then the story is crap or the writer is bad at writing.

A well-crafted story with interesting characters and overall imagination illicits interest from anyone worth crafting it for.  Anyone else looking to have their emotions cheaply and obviously plucked at can go watch a soap opera. 

Mass Effect is a space opera, in your own words. What wouldthat mean then?

Honetly Killjoy, you should stop debating this.
You're onnly making yourself look bad, by failing ot prove any logical/good reason why squadmate death should not be used.
Really, all your have been doing this whole thread is basicly going "but I dont' like it".
you can throw around overloaded words like "cliche", "holywood formulas" or "cheap", but at the end of the day I can use hte same words to describe anything you like.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Il Divo wrote...

The Spamming Troll wrote...

what happend when the person that dies IS THE MAIN CHARACTER?

sheaprd dies, is rebuilt......and nobody flinched.

"hey shepard, i heard you died. anyways help me with my daddy issues!"

Depends on the story. Jade Empire however would like a word with you if you really don't think resurrection can fuel plot development. This is all besides the point. What does this have to do with a writer's ability to use death correctly (or incorrectly) as a point of development?

Mercutio's death fuels the entire second half of Romeo and Juliet. Patroclus' death fuels Achilles' rage in the Illiad. Jason Todd's death serves as a huge source of internal turmoil for Batman and makes him actually consider killing the Joker. Death can have purpose, despite ME2 completely screwing up on that end. Or rather, the error was the resurrection, more than the death itself.

Your examples are deaths necessitated by plot and character development, not deaths used for impact on the audience. 

[Killjoy Cutter]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

You tell the story to tell the damn story. 

The story is presented to an audience. If you don't trigger any kind of reaction from them, then the story is crap or the writer is bad at writing.

A well-crafted story with interesting characters and overall imagination illicits interest from anyone worth crafting it for.  Anyone else looking to have their emotions cheaply and obviously plucked at can go watch a soap opera. 

Mass Effect is a space opera, in your own words. What wouldthat mean then?

Honetly Killjoy, you should stop debating this.
You're onnly making yourself look bad, by failing ot prove any logical/good reason why squadmate death should not be used.
Really, all your have been doing this whole thread is basicly going "but I dont' like it".
you can throw around overloaded words like "cliche", "holywood formulas" or "cheap", but at the end of the day I can use hte same words to describe anything you like.

I'm arguing that you don't use character death to jerk people around, and that character death isn't necessary to have a "grown up" story.  And yes, Vermire is a cheap, cliched, Hollywood formula moment. 

PS:  "soap opera"  !=  "space opera"

Modifié par Killjoy Cutter, 25 octobre 2011 - 07:55 .

[Il Divo]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Your examples are deaths necessitated by plot and character development, not deaths used for impact on the audience. 

The first doesn't prevent the second by necessity. A death can be either plot significant or character significant, and also provide emotional impact. If done correctly, all death, assuming it isn't half-assed (Ex:bad dialogue) and you enjoy the character, should mean something.

Batman: Under the Red Hood was a great illustration of Robin's death being very emotional and providing the basic plot for the entire film. Admittedly, in the cases of Mercutio and Achilles, there is a barrier which prevents alot of emotion, but I think that's more due to the stories utilizing a writing style which feels very foreign to what you'd find today and the fact that (with the Illiad), we get a very limited viewing of Achilles. And that he's also a giant ******, which doesn't help his case.

Modifié par Il Divo, 25 octobre 2011 - 08:00 .

[DiebytheSword]

Il Divo wrote...

DiebytheSword wrote...

I have to agree here, if 7 million deaths do not move you, you are a jaded individual.  Of course close deaths will mean more, but that does not mean 7 million deaths mean nothing.

What are you people fighting for as Shepard?  His pals?

7 million deaths won't move me deeply in a form of entertainment, merely by virtue of being seven million deaths. There is a barrier which separates fiction from reality and it is necessary for a writer to overcome that. Someone earlier used the example of War of the Worlds as an illustration of how death can be made to feel unemotional. And I agree there. It's the same with rebel soldiers in Star Wars or mook soldiers in Lord of the Rings, or even in Michael Bay's Transformers. 

It's the same reason why instead of merely telling you that seven million people die in ME3, Bioware attempts to show it to some degree, utilizing the child in the vent. The experience is made more personal, through that physical encounter, which makes the player wonder, "How many other people is this happening to, right now?". Seven million deaths isn't meaningless, but it is very much possible for one death to impact an individual far more than even a number that large.

Interesting then, that you should include one character who is impactful without being close to Shepard.

[Il Divo]

DiebytheSword wrote...

Interesting then, that you should include one character who is impactful without being close to Shepard.

Ah, glad you caught that! But to fully understand what I mean, we need to break things down just a tad more. Impactful isn't really a yes or no affair, but closer to a scale. The point is that how impactful death may become is (in many ways) how close it is tied to your sense experiences.

If I tell you seven million people died, that might have an effect on you. If I told you that seven million people died where you live, that's probably going to have a substantially greater effect on you, because you can feel the impact more closely. That's why I distinguish between seeing a child die on screen vs. hearing about it second-hand (Ex: a soldier telling you a child died over the radio). The child's existence was made personal, since Shepard had an actual interaction with him. You saw the child, spoke to the child, heard his voice, etc. The child's death would be even more personal (that is particular to Shepard), if he had a substantial connection to the child, akin to your squad-mates, which comes with spending alot of time getting to know someone. 
 
In many ways, that's why a single death, depending on the person, can mean much more to someone than death on a large scale; you experience the consequences of one far more closely than the consequences of the other, if you're far removed from it. 

Modifié par Il Divo, 25 octobre 2011 - 09:25 .

[nitefyre410]

hmmm must be a glitch in the system there is a strange sense of Deja 'vu happenings reading this past page of the thread....

[Il Divo]

nitefyre410 wrote...

hmmm must be a glitch in the system there is a strange sense of Deja 'vu happenings reading this past page of the thread....

We could probably all save a buttload of time if we just copied/pasted all our responses from the other thread, especially since we just make the same points repeatedly.