4 ms·
> Nowadays if you want to have your protagonists shooting at their enemies or hitting them with sharp bits of metal you basically have to choose between a good-
by Mithaldu 9y ago
> Nowadays if you want to have your protagonists shooting at their enemies or hitting them with sharp bits of metal you basically have to choose between a good-vs-evil narrative or having only anti-heroes rather than plain heroes (and both choices are now common).
Or you need story-telling that capitalizes on information deficit differences.
A good kind of story arc i've seen recently is having the protagonist do things in what looks like a basic good/evil conflict, then learn that the situation was different than it looked like (ranging from "the 'evil guys' were misguided but good-at-heart" to "protagonist was wrong and unwittingly fucking everything up"), then focus on how that aftermath is handled as the actual primary story.
And depending on how much "screen time" you have available, you can also keep expanding this and go through various twists and turns and kinds of information deficits without ever having to delve into actual thought-less "they're good/evil" stuff as you zoom out in scope.
- krylon 9y ago> A good kind of story arc i've seen recently That sounds intruiging, indeed. May I ask for some example(s)?
- Mithaldu 9y agoI don't have very good memory, so sadly i can give only two examples. A shorter one is Little Witch Academia. A longer one (it'll take a month at least to get to the impactful parts) is the main story quest line of Final Fantasy 14. I think Steins;Gate also went in that direction, and out of these three would be the most HN-mainstream-compatible i expect.
- krylon 9y agoThank you! Blueberry, the movie, was very good in that department. At the end, the "good" guy does vanquish the "bad" guy (at least I think that is what happened), but it turns out that the "good" guy is far less pure good than the audience has been led to think, and likewise the "bad" guy might be ruthless, but he had an understandable reason to do what he did.
- Mithaldu 9y agoThanks for the recommendation. You mean the movie from 2004? Also, i remembered another one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22733729-the-long-way-to-a-small-angry-planet https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22733729-the-long-way-to... Can't describe too much without spoilers, but it's lovely and unique.
- krylon 9y agoThat's the one!
- lou1306 9y agoIf I may add, I think that Mr. Robot definitely matches the narrative you describe.
- krylon 9y agoYes, thank you!!!