Sunday, July 20, 2025
Putty Or Rock?
A
game is often defined by its protagonist and how they act is a key
indicator for how the player will engage with experience. The degree
of space the player has to slot themselves into the protagonist and
the distinctiveness of the protagonist’s own personality change the
kind of narratives the developer can utilise. Focusing on a
Self-Insert protagonist reduces the friction between them and the
player in exchange for not being able to give them meaningful arcs or
characterisation. On the flip-side are the Predefined protagonists
where a memorable and distinctive character is exchanged for the risk
of the player not empathising with them. Sitting between them is the
Co-Authored protagonist with its mixture of defined and nebulous
elements and its nature as an attempt to balance the two extremes. No
matter which one a developer chooses it decides fundamental elements
from the other character around the protagonist to how story and
gameplay should flow. Let’s put ourselves into another’s shoes
and find out how the style of protagonist influences the choices
visual novels make in their design.
Stepping Into Their Shoes
The
Self-Insert is an interesting type of character since they are not a
completely empty vessel in the way a silent protagonist would be and
instead have a personality independent of the player. Such
protagonists generally follow a common outline with a few unique
splashes of colour in order to communicate quickly what kind of
character they are within the narrative. These characteristics are
all broadly heroic in nature with some other ‘Nice Guy’ positive and
desirable traits and little in the way of negative elements to their
identity. Beyond this core they lack features which would put up a
barrier between them and the player with the exception of the any
required pre-established relationships. This lack of friction gives
the player the room to project onto the protagonist and place
themselves into their shoes without leaving their own. There is an
inherent degree of wish fulfillment here, even if the rest of the title is
not, since the Self-Insert is often unrealistically virtuous so by
stepping into their role the player can pretend to have the same
qualities and put aside their own weaknesses to partake in the
fiction. What visual novels gain through this blurring of lines is a
direct personal connection to the player. Rather than using the
characters’ struggles as a medium to communicate emotions to the
player, the game can make those struggles the player’s own through
their Self-Insert role within the narrative. This helps solidify the
player’s investment in the cast as they get to experience the
conflicts from an emotionally close distance. How a game plays off
this emotional connection can vary wildly from a straight
presentation of the protagonist journey to a subversive one where the
game uses its closeness to the player to break the fourth wall and
bring them into the story. Regardless of what approach is taken they
all share a common desire to pull the player into the visual novel
with as few boundaries as possible.
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| Not having eyes in CGs is a common convention for a Self-Insert |
One genre which loves the
Self-Insert protagonist is Romance. Take for example Princess
Evangile, which has its protagonist enter a previously all-girls
school in order to change its view on gender integration. He is a
wall of good traits such hard working, kind and optimistic and even
his negative traits like naive and oblivious to romantic advances are
not particularly damning. What should immediately stand out here is
how none of his traits results in a distinctive personality and what
traits he does have are typical of a Self-Insert. As such the player
will realise what is going on and quickly slip into the protagonist’s
shoes. In this way the heroines are not only falling in love with the
protagonist, they are indirectly engaging the player who gets to
experience this romance vicariously. Obviosuly the player is aware of
the fictional nature of this connection, but it speaks to its power
that many continue to feel a deep emotional attachment to a specific
heroine well after the game has ended. Of course this is not limited
to male centred romances as Otome is more than happy to use the
Self-Insert. Amnesia’s nameable protagonist has many of the same
traits as the one from Princess Evangile, such as kind and honest
with the same weakness of being a bit naive, but they are adopted
through a distinctly feminine angle. Their overall purpose remains
the same, it has just been adjusted for a different audience with
suitors instead of heroines. It
is possibly even more deliberate and stronger here since the player
gets to choose the protagonist’s name so can input their own name
in order to further the connection between the two and this makes it
very clear what role the game expects the player to have within
it.
Carving Their Own Journey
For
many visual novels, the vague nature of a Self-Insert is not a
feasible option and instead they rely on the Predefined protagonist
to provide the necessary shape and identity for the work. These are
main characters with strong and immediately recognisable
personalities, motives and direction independent of the player. Each
one is a mix of positive and negative traits which make up the
strengths and weaknesses the game will play on in order to crate its
narrative. Such a character is not guaranteed to be liked by the
player and in many ways that is often the point, this style of
protagonist is an exploration of another person’s mind and how they
deal with the trails before them. It gives the visual novel the
freedom to explore a variety of themes and ideas which might make the
player uncomfortable if they were brought too close to home, but from
the safe distance of another person’s life they can be explored
without leaving a bad taste in the player’s mouth. However, it
becomes harder to invest the player in the character since they have
no direct connection with them so a lot more work is put into making
the cast sympathetic before their darker traits come to the
forefront. Of course the title could lean into this natural
dissonance to make an unlikeable protagonist who is compelling due to
their shocking actions being so alien to the player who stop watching on in horror. Overall, there is a good reason that this
style of main character is so widespread throughout different mediums
and times, if the creator wants to express something specific then
they need the protagonist to match the job.
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| Being allowed to make good and bad choices is the luxury of the Predefined protagonist |
Since there are so many
games and genres which utilise this style of protagonist and there
are no specific ones which highlight its features, in contrast to the
Self-Insert, let’s pick one out of a hat. Shikkoku no Sharnoth
~What a beautiful tomorrow~ puts an extremely heavy emphasis on its
protagonist being their own entity to the point of having extensive
internal monologues at regular intervals. Mary Clarissa Christie is
never presented to be in any way a stand in for the player and
pursues her own goals in ways the player may not approve of while
making her own mistakes. There is an awareness of the possible gap
between Mary and the player which manifests through the way the
monologues paint her sympathetic qualities above all else and her
relative vulnerability compared to the powerful forces she confronts.
However, Sharnoth is careful to never thread to far into appealing to
the player since it values the mistakes she is allowed to make as a
Predefined character and the way they can be used to drive the story
into interesting places where she can be pushed to her limits. Being
likeable is not a requirement for an interesting protagonist in this
style as can be seen with Nishijou Takumi in Chaos Head. In general
he is not a good person as his paranoid and perpetually pessimistic
personality lead him to be distrustful and unkind of people who are
just being nice to him and trusting of those who are clearly
suspicious. What keeps a player progressing is the curiosity about
how exactly all his negative traits will come back to bite him and
the possibility he can overcome them before they overcome him. Chaos
Head is aware of this aspect of its appeal and plays into it by
leaning on Takumi’s unreliable narrator status to give the player
new shocking moments which play into his negative traits and keep
them guessing.
Co-Authoring Destiny
Finding
a middle ground between Self-Insert and Predefined protagonists is
not something many visual novels attempt to do and it instead
originates from western RPG’s with characters like Mass Effect’s Commander
Shepard and The Witcher’s Geralt of Rivia. They offer these titles
the means to honour the player authored characters from WPRG’s
Dungeons And Dragons legacy while also gaining the narrative benefits of a
Predefined protagonist. Their principally western origin means the
few visual novels which try their hand at this style often come from
outside of Japan. A Co-Authored protagonist is one primarily defined
by the developer but the character has empty space in their
personalities where the player uses the choices they are given to paint these
areas however they desire. This gives the developer the means to create recognisable
character arcs and consistent characterisation for their protagonist
rather than having to constantly worry about the risk of separating
player and protagonist. On the player’s side they get to immerse
themselves in the role of the protagonist by taking ownership of
protagonist’s action through their choices and so develop an
attachment to them. At this point the question arises that if this is
such a great middle ground why is it not used in every game? Put
simply, it is because it inherits the problems of both extremes.
There is a good chance the player does not resonate with the
protagonist due to their stronger core identity even with the degree
of participation they have in forming it. Even with the freedom the
developer gets they are still constrained within the boundaries of
conventional good, even if they can push into anti-hero territory, if
they want the protagonist to be desirable to Co-Author in the first
place.
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| As a captain and as a person Shields is co-owned by player and developer |
As this is such an uncommon style of protagonist for visual
novels, there are not many examples of it in practice, but an
interesting one can be found in the Sunrider series. Kayto Shields
falls into the Commander Shepard mould, being a member of the
miliary given the ability to act independently due to circumstances
around them. In general Shields adheres to what is expected of a
Co-Authored protagonist, a clear aim and personal connection to the
broader plot in a way which makes its overall progression believably
out of the player’s hands. At the same time offering the player a
series of choices about how he should act both as a space captain and
as an individual to those around him and makes them feel like they
have weight even if in reality they are mostly set dressing. What is
interesting about Shields is how he morphs from a Co-Authored
character into a Predefined one in the later games. This begins
towards the end of Liberation Day and by the start of Sunrider 4 he
has completely shed any real player influence and his transformation
shows how difficult it is to maintain the delicate balance needed for
a Co-Authored protagonist. It is clear that at some point the
developers wanted to tell a more directed and personal story where
they have control over exact what the player will experience.
Achieving this within a Co-Authoring relationship with the player is
difficult and struggles to deal with this contradiction can be seen
all over Liberation Day’s later parts as its forced romance flies
in the face of player choice while being necessary for the
narrative’s drama. In Sunrider 4 the developers just concede to the
reality that they have failed to find a way to maintain the balance and commit
to making Shields a Predefined character in order to maintain their
vision for the series.
Conclusion
More
than any other medium visual novels rely on their protagonists to
carry their narratives and so the choice of what style to use has a
major impact on them. The Self-Insert is used when the game wants to
bring the player into the head space of the protagonist and invest
them in the characters around them generally with the aim of
providing emotional moments which directly effect the player. Trying
to find balance in the middle of extremes, the Co-Authored protagonist offers a way of having a certain amount of preset characteristics
while also giving the player some ability to shape them at the cost
of having to constantly maintain this delicate balance. Not every
game wants to be subject to the player’s whims since they have
specific ideas and themes they want to present through their
characters and as they choose the Predefined protagonist in order to
maintain control over the narrative. Overall, there is a wide field
of what a protagonist can be even within these groups and a developer
should always select the option which best fits the game they are
creating.
