Author Topic: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!  (Read 9592 times)

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Offline Mongoose

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Gordon Freeman is dumb and ruins my suspension of disbelief :goonqq:
I sort of feel like it's much more disbelief-suspending to have a main character who gabs all over the place and comes across like a massive douche than one who knows how to keep his trap shut. :p At least in the original game, though, Master Chief is fairly close to a silent protagonist himself.

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
His username isn't from Half-Life, bro.

I found this out abote 30 seconds after I posted my reply. :blah:

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Gordon Freeman is dumb and ruins my suspension of disbelief :goonqq:
I sort of feel like it's much more disbelief-suspending to have a main character who gabs all over the place and comes across like a massive douche than one who knows how to keep his trap shut. :p

Feel like you're missing the joke, aaargh the tongue emotes

Chief never speaks during gameplay, that seems to be the rule they play by. Only time you get dialogue during gameplay is in ODST, which I rather liked.

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Gordon Freeman is dumb and ruins my suspension of disbelief :goonqq:
I sort of feel like it's much more disbelief-suspending to have a main character who gabs all over the place and comes across like a massive douche than one who knows how to keep his trap shut. :p

Feel like you're missing the joke, aaargh the tongue emotes

Chief never speaks during gameplay, that seems to be the rule they play by. Only time you get dialogue during gameplay is in ODST, which I rather liked.

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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
So he's the unstoppable flatman who has it because of a bad past. So interesting. Wait, no it's not, that's fanfiction level of writing. [Oh my OC is so powerful but he/she is such because of a dark and conflicted and edgy past~] There is no joy in playing Superman, for me, and he stinks of author avatarism (I can so see Chief being whom the guys at Bungie wanted to be).

You don't understand fanfiction, Superman, or author avatars. At all.

As someone who's delved much too far into the seedy underbelly of the fanfiction world, you are failing to apprehend that the dark past is something that's incidental to the character, rather than a source of power (****, I can't even think of a story that ever used a dark past that way); you are failing to apprehend that in this particular case the past is perhaps dark, but certainly isn't used as an object to make us love the Chief (if anything, the Chief's past is used to demonstrate that we'd find him more alien than we would your average Elite); you are failing to apprehend that the past isn't actually dark insofar as the character is concerned and playing it for angst is therefore damn near impossible.

And I don't even know where to start with author avatars. Every victory is bittersweet, almost no opportunities for wisecracks are taken, he doesn't get the girl (he may not even understand the impulse), he shuns the accolades people want to give him. He's basically treated like the world's greatest mechanic or technician. Sure, he's really damn good at what he does, and it happens to be vital, but very few people would recognize him.

And I'm not going to start on the Superman crap because we'd be here all week while we try to understand the character and his evolution from the '30s to today and the odds are good my understanding of him is only slightly better than yours, which is slightly better than Kill Bill's.
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Offline Scotty

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Indeed.

An author avatar is a character in a work that is used to tell the player what the author wants the player to know about life, politics, takeyourpickofsubjects in relation to the game.  Kriea from KotOR II is probably the most blatant example of one*.  As the Chief hardly ever talks, when he does talk he's responding to something very game related, never waxes philosophical, never questions why he's fighting this war, he can't be an author avatar.  He is, as NGTM-1R said, a very efficient mechanic.

* acknowledged by her writer here about halfway down the page.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Kreia was not an author avatar.

Chief isn't really an author avatar either, though, he's just Bungie's Hero with a Thousand Faces but unlike with Marathon they were really lazy and never did interesting about them (the guy in Marathon is actually a very interesting character to explore, and written much better than the Chief.)

David Weber is an example of someone who writes true author avatars, though I'd have to dig to find the exact book and character.

Fanfiction is full of terrible characters who have dark and terrible pasts, this is one of the traits of bad fanfiction writing. Now that a bunch of ****ty fanfiction writers are entering true genre writing we have to deal with more of it (looking at you Sarah Monette).
« Last Edit: June 11, 2011, 08:14:44 pm by General Battuta »

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
An author avatar is a character in a work that is used to tell the player what the author wants the player to know about life, politics, takeyourpickofsubjects in relation to the game.

Sometimes. Ravenholme was appealing to the more base use of one as portraying the author as the ultimate badass. However there is some truth to this; such types usually express similar opinions or tastes as the author. I doubt anyone at Bungie does so with the Master Chief, particularly since they can't lock themselves inside a Mjolnir suit every waking and sleeping moment.
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Offline Scotty

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Kreia was not an author avatar.

Kriea is the subject of the quote at the top of the Author Avatar page on TvTropes, with the quote explaining pretty clearly that she is.

So, unless you're using another definition, which would be wonderful to know, it sure looks like she is.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Kreia was not an author avatar.

Kriea is the subject of the quote at the top of the Author Avatar page on TvTropes, with the quote explaining pretty clearly that she is.

So, unless you're using another definition, which would be wonderful to know, it sure looks like she is.

Yes I am using a definition which does not involve idiots on a bad website long dead of circlejerking. Kreia is not an author avatar, she doesn't even remotely resemble one, the idea that anyone would classify her as one should be reason for you to cross them off your list of people worth attending to.

Given extratextual information you might argue that she's an authorial mouthpiece (which is not an author avatar at all) but honestly I don't think she qualifies as that either. There's nothing in the text that qualifies her as anything but a character.

ed: hahahah what the **** TVTropes, you didn't used to be this terrible. You can't even keep your quote straight with your definition (presumably all your editors were too busy on the fetish wiki). It is a rare sight indeed to see a quote that not only does a ****ty job of establishing something, but does a ****ty job of establishing something which has nothing to do with anything that follows

Good work, TVTropes, you are ****(tier)
« Last Edit: June 11, 2011, 11:04:16 pm by General Battuta »

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Authorial tract is not authorial avatar.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Authorial tract is not authorial avatar.

Yeah pretty much. If you defined every character who says something the author wants to say as an author avatar, I can't think of many pieces of good writing which wouldn't have one. Or twenty. All characters by definition speak things the author intends them to speak, presumably things the author is interested in.

Look, Scotty, the key is that (as NGTM1R would be happy to explain) the author really doesn't come into a piece of fiction once they're done writing it. Unless the author writes his or herself into the fiction in an intrusive manner, one that doesn't seem to emerge from the story - then that's an authorial mouthpiece.

Kreia doesn't qualify because her beliefs and motivations are completely natural to the story. Without extratextual information there's nothing to suggest any particular motivation to Kreia beyond what's presented in the text. Authorial mouthpieces happen when there's a clear extratextual motivation for the character's beliefs which enter the text - for example, a character in a story raging against taxes on behalf of a political party that doesn't exist in the text, or a John Ringo character who was once a liberal but was converted by the harsh realities of alien invasion and now understands the weakness of liberalism.

This isn't even getting anywhere near the idea of an author avatar, which is a character who specifically represents the author in the story. David Weber writes these occasionally. Ironically that TVTropes page does a decent job of explaining what they are, which makes the stupid Kreia quote there all the more mystifying for its total unrelatedness.

Kreia was a complex character in an interesting story but only a drooling TVTropes bottomfeeder could argue she was an authorial avatar. Mouthpiece, you could make a case for (you would lose), but avatar is just silly.

 

Offline mxlm

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Kriea is the subject of the quote at the top of the Author Avatar page on TvTropes, with the quote explaining pretty clearly that she is.

So, unless you're using another definition, which would be wonderful to know, it sure looks like she is.

Are you actually reading the things you're linking? Did you actually play KotOR2?

Quote
A fictionalized version of an author who appears as a character in the events of the story is often called upon to comment upon the situation, deliver the author's verdict, and possibly break the Fourth Wall  in a self-deprecating fashion. The author character will usually not influence the plot and may be only loosely tied to the goings-on, their appearances being quite random. The high-falutin' literary term for a character designed to express the author's preferred opinions is the raisonneur — here at TV Tropes the preferred term is Author Avatar.

That is not Kreia. At all. It sure as hell isn't what Chris was talking about in the interview you linked, either.
I will ask that you explain yourself. Please do so with the clear understanding that I may decide I am angry enough to destroy all of you and raze this sickening mausoleum of fraud down to the naked rock it stands on.

 

Offline Ravenholme

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Fanfiction is full of terrible characters who have dark and terrible pasts, this is one of the traits of bad fanfiction writing. Now that a bunch of ****ty fanfiction writers are entering true genre writing we have to deal with more of it (looking at you Sarah Monette).

This is what I was alluding to when I was referring to Chief as a fanfiction-esque character. Made more poignant if you've ever had Halo fanfiction OR Halo forum RP inflicted upon you - every second person's character is a knock off of the chief with a similar dark and edgy past. I prefer a few guys I know who did forum RP who's characters were usually UNSC naval captains with proper well written characters and normal pasts. It's why I think ODST in terms of writing is the best Halo since 1, since it was a bunch of normal Marines (Well, so much as ODSTs can be called normal) doing their job.

And on the Kreia note: No, Kreia is not an Author Avatar, YOU are misunderstanding what an Author Avatar is. She was used to convey the writers views on what was wrong with the Force, and that's something that nearly every author does (Write a character or even a story that conveys the message that she wants), she was just a very specific mouthpiece for it. Chief is not an Author Avatar in terms of true Authorial insertion, but rather in what I think the Bungie guys WANT to be, a calm ass-kicking wise-cracking badass.

Maybe Author Avatarism is not the correct term for that, but that's how I've always viewed it as such (possibly due to my long association with gaming), because I view Avatars (RPGs, MMOs etc) as the character you would want to be if you were in that universe, and in my opinion, that's what Chief is to the Bungie writers, at least.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2011, 07:35:20 am by Ravenholme »
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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
This is what I was alluding to when I was referring to Chief as a fanfiction-esque character.

You're still not getting that dark pasts are used a certain way in bad fanfiction, and that's not the case here.
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Offline Ravenholme

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
This is what I was alluding to when I was referring to Chief as a fanfiction-esque character.

You're still not getting that dark pasts are used a certain way in bad fanfiction, and that's not the case here.

Usually to justify the badassery of the character in the present. Chief's past does just that.
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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Usually to justify the badassery of the character in the present. Chief's past does just that.

lolno, as noted already.

It's usually to make us feel sorry for them, or simply to make them sound cool to the person who did it. It rarely has any sort of justification in their current abilities.

Or you've decided experienced means dark, which is actually a somewhat sustainable proposition for modern combat, but then you're simply complaining about something that actually makes sense...

In fact if we take the commentary on what the Covenant war was like at face value, to be standing at the end of it would mean you would have great difficulty not having a dark past, which is once again complaining about something that makes sense.

You cannot simply disallow a form of past simply because it's often misused. This is straight bull****. The measure is in to what use it is put. In this case, it is to demonstrate that the savior of humanity could only become such by being utterly inhuman themselves.

...or are you now going to start crapping on Ender's Game?
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Offline Ravenholme

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Re: Epic 343 Industries Announcements - Master Chief is Back!
Usually to justify the badassery of the character in the present. Chief's past does just that.

lolno, as noted already.

It's usually to make us feel sorry for them, or simply to make them sound cool to the person who did it. It rarely has any sort of justification in their current abilities.

Or you've decided experienced means dark, which is actually a somewhat sustainable proposition for modern combat, but then you're simply complaining about something that actually makes sense...

In fact if we take the commentary on what the Covenant war was like at face value, to be standing at the end of it would mean you would have great difficulty not having a dark past, which is once again complaining about something that makes sense.

You cannot simply disallow a form of past simply because it's often misused. This is straight bull****. The measure is in to what use it is put. In this case, it is to demonstrate that the savior of humanity could only become such by being utterly inhuman themselves.

...or are you now going to start crapping on Ender's Game?

I don't know what fanfiction you've been reading, but in both fanfiction and RP, a dark past is generally used to justify the superhuman capabilities of the OC in question. Chief's past in the Spartan project does that (Albeit with slightly more sense.) My problem with Chief is that he is, essentially, an ultimate Marty Stu (or a Lobotomised Power Ranger as Battuta put it).

And your references to the Covenant War make me want to start whaling on the nonsensical reasons given in Reach for the Covenant's attack being a surprise one - Which ties back to my "Bungie can't keep their Canon straight" as that is not how it happened in TFoR.

No, I won't start crapping on Ender's Game (Although the following novels...), but maybe that's also part of my problem with Chief, his past is utterly derivative (Again, a feature of bad fanfiction writing) of Ender. Worth noting is that Halo killed off the better game (Advent Rising), which was actually co-written by Orson S Card
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