Fest's Character Corner: The Rising Hero

So I decided I wanted to start doing a weekly "theme" post every Friday delving into the various character archetypes we commonly see in video games. I figured a good starting point would be the concept of the Hero as this would be the "main" character(s) in a story. To clarify a bit I want to talk about the "rising" hero which I'm defining as a type of character with humble beginnings that we follow along his/her rise to hero-dom.

So, why do we like this concept of the humble hero? Honestly I think it's because we can all identify with the concept of a hero starting off as nothing more than a normal person. Sometimes this unassuming hero gains his strength through supernatural means or perhaps chance but there is always a sort of defining moment in the story when that normal, small person becomes something so much more.

One of my favorite examples of this that has been fully fleshed out over many years doesn't even come from a video game, although he appears in many! That hero would be Goku from the anime classic, Dragon Ball (Z/GT). I've always loved Goku and have joked on more than one occasion that I need to write a book about how Goku shaped my moral compass as a kid but to me he's a perfect example of a hero.

For those reading this that may not be so familiar with this character's story he's an alien that's been sent to destroy the Earth but through a nice bump on the head he completely forgets about this mission and begins to develop into a moral paragon who would grow up to save the planet on numerous occasions.

The concepts of destiny are strewn throughout Dragonball but they are accompanied by an emphasis on hard work yielding results. Nothing is achieved without work and more often than not, sacrifice. These concepts become less true as the series progressed but Goku's rise from a little kid competing in his first martial arts tournament to fighting enemies strong enough to blow up planets on a whim demonstrates exactly what I'm talking about.

To get this a bit more specific to video games I'd also like to talk about the main character from one of my favorite games, Tales of Symphonia, a Gamecube classic. In this particular installment of the "Tales" series the main character is a young man named Lloyd. He is often depicted as a compassionate yet hot headed man with a deep concern for those he cares for. Throughout the game there are numerous people that almost overshadow Lloyd's leadership and force him to develop and adapt on the fly.

Lloyd also encounters numerous defeats and set backs along the way as a plot to eradicate humanity develops in front of him. In a lot of ways Lloyd seems like an unlikely leader, at the start of the game he really has very little experience with anything. As the story develops it almost drags Lloyd along with it, a concept that made him very appealing to me. The plot of this game also has a lot of uncertainties that call Lloyd's judgment into question and there are times where he is completely wrong and pays for it dearly. There is even a time where he is flung into a world parallel to his own with seemingly no hope of return. These obstacles helped define the character into something I valued and grew fond of.

A hero in crisis is often what people really want to see, stories just aren't interesting when the hero has it all figured out. Even in games like Devil May Cry the forever arrogant Dante still develops and adapts to his obstacles, despite his extremely laid back personality. Nobody wants to play a stagnant hero.