What’s
Character Development?
For those who are unfamiliar with the term,
character development “can refer to either the task of sitting down and
creating a character (working out their appearance, history, mannerisms, and so
on), or it can refer to the change a character undergoes during the course of a
story.”[1]
And to help show how it plays an important function
for a game’s story, here’s a video that I believe shows a great deal of
well-established character development in the Assassin’s Creed series.
(Warning: Spoilers! Watch at Your Own Risk!)
I realize that the video contained a lot of
information and was a bit fast-paced (I was having difficulty remembering the
different names of people and places, and I’ve played the games before), but it
did contain the key components that were used (earlier in this post) to define
character development. When it came to appearances, each assassin (Desmond,
Altair, and Ezio) had a different clothing style based on the culture and time
they derived from. Altair’s assassin attire looks to be somewhat similar to the
description of the
robes men wear in Syria (this is my opinion, and I could
be wrong), Ezio’s assassin attire is almost similar to what
men wore during the Renaissance, and Desmond’s attire
is consists of our everyday attire.
| Altair (left), Ezio (middle), Desmond (right) |
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| Altair (left), Desmond (middle), Ezio (right); Courtesy of DeviantArt user: RubinFreddy |
The history they all reside from relates to the
cultural setting and era that their stories take place, which seemed to have
had a huge affect on their personalities, and can really help portray who they
are to the player. For example, Altair is more cold-hearted and serious, while
Ezio is more charming and social. In Altair’s case, he grew up in an order of
Assassins, where he learned to show no compassion and devoted most of his time
toward the perfecting his skills as an assassin, and became the highest rank in
the Brotherhood, which he achieved somewhere in his mid-twenties.[2] In
Ezio’s case, he grew up during the Renaissance era (the most romantic
and artistic period of history) with his family and was quite the ladies’ man and
very social because of being a nobleman.[3]
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| Assassin's Creed Time-line: Atlair (upper left corner), Ezio (upper right), Connor (lower left; wasn't mentioned in this post), Desmond (lower right); Courtesy of Mr. Whaler (Ali) |
And last but not least, each assassin undergoes
dramatic and life-altering changes that act as the beginning or central part of
the game’s story. I won’t go into too much explanation about this because the
video above summarizes it a lot better and clearer, but all three protagonists (Desmond,
Altair, and Ezio) experience a sudden change that causes them to grow and
develop into a completely different person than they were in the beginning. For
example, Altair was at first stripped of his highest rank to a novice (because of
his arrogance and rebellion behavior) and had to work his way back to the top,
where he learns and uncovers dark secrets about the order; Ezio was ripped away
from his life as a nobleman to an assassin seeking justice and revenge for the
death of his family, which were killed by the Templars; and Desmond was just an
ordinary guy that worked as a bartender, but was suddenly engulfed into the a
100 year war between Assassins and Templars.
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| Courtesy of DeviantArt user: TheBruceZero |
Why
Is It Important?
Personally, I feel that it’s important for a
character to undergo these changes because it plays a vital part toward
capturing the audience’s attention, which then pulls leads them to focus more
on the story that’s unfolding around the main character. Once players are
reeled in, they follow the protagonist throughout his/her travels and witness
his/her times of hardship and prosperity, and each moment allows the audience
to see how the character evolves from being naive and ignorant to wiser and
understanding. It’s through this process that players begin to feel more of a
connection with the fictional character after following them on a long and
personal journey, and allows them to fully understand the reasons for his/her
thoughts and actions in certain situations. If we weren’t able to see a character develop
or experience any type of hardship, it would seem as though the fictional
character were standing on a high pedestal that no one could reach or ever
achieve. We need to see character make mistake because we only grow and learn
after making mistakes, and by having a video game character not be perfect can
make them appear to be more relatable and favored by players.
Well, that’s it for this post! Keep Calm and Game
On!
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| Courtesy of DeviantArt user: PeaceRaccoon |
[1] "What Does Character Development Actually
Mean?" - Writers Stack Exchange. 2 June 2011. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
Definition given by Craig Sefton
[2] "Altair Ibn-La'Ahad." Giant Bomb. 26
Feb. 2014. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.giantbomb.com/altair-ibn-laahad/3005-48/>.
[3] "Ezio Auditore Da Firenze." Giant Bomb.
21 Feb. 2015. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.giantbomb.com/ezio-auditore-da-firenze/3005-10269/>.