00:00:03.32

Delphina

Hello and welcome to Screen Tones where we talk anything and everything webcomics. Today we're going to be talking about how to work with the protagonists of your webcomics. I'm Delphina, I use she/her pronouns and I make the webcomics Sombulus.

00:00:18.10

Claire

I am Claire, also known as Clam. I use she/her pronouns as well. I make the webcomic Phantomarine.

00:00:24.58

Varethane

I'm Varethane, I use she/they pronouns, and I make the webcomics Chirault and Wychwood.

00:00:30.23

Miranda

And I'm Miranda. I use she/her pronouns, and I make the webcomic Into the Swell.

00:00:36.63

Delphina

Cool, okay. So, protagonists. They are the main leading characters of your webcomic who drive the story forward. And this can be either through internal arcs of development, external conflicts with antagonists, or maybe a little of both.

00:00:52.47

Delphina

Whether or not a reader has invested in those main characters can make or break your audience's engagement with your story, so it's worth exploring what makes these characters compelling to follow in a long-form webcomic. My first question to throw out to the group: I just want to know about your protagonists in your works. How did you come up with them? What were your goals for them in your story? I'm going to throw it to you, Clam.

00:01:18.68

Claire

I feel like I'm a weird one to start with because my protagonist situation is kind of topsy-turvy where I've got the kind of flagship character who is the quote-unquote visible hero of the story who is Phaedra. And she's a princess. She rules over a world that is super cursed, but she ultimately falls victim to a curse herself and becomes a ghost and has to find a way to either resurrect herself or something else out there. So she's the one who receives the quest initially to go and do the thing and proceed with the plot of the story.

00:02:04.76

Claire

But she turns out to be kind of not the greatest protagonist in terms of agency at first. Part of it is because of time shenanigans with the story, but I found it very funny to have her get the quest and then immediately just be like, eh, my situation is bad. I'm going to be sad and depressed for like two months, which a lot of people are kind of like, wait, what? like I'm like, yeah, she's the protagonist, but like she's just suddenly been dealt like a terrible hand, and she is not prepared for whatever has been kind of given to her as a quest. So she gets sidelined for a little bit in favor of another protagonist who is Pavel, who's a boy who also bears a kind of a similar but adjacent curse regarding this world. And he gets thrown into his own little arc.

00:03:02.97

Claire

And eventually, like the plan is to make them both meet up. And he essentially, like not necessarily becomes a sidekick, but kind of gets her back on her path.

00:03:13.88

Claire

So it's weird having two kind of initial sources of story momentum. But I found that I wanted to kind of explore this idea of, what if the hero is so incredibly hurt by what happened to them. Like what if the inciting incident basically incited too hard and kind of messed with them for a bit? Like how do you get off the ground and how do you get moving? It's about people around you, it's about looking and seeing who has the same goals as you, looking for inspiration in other people, and hopefully having them come to you and be like, hey, like it's not all that bad. Let's go. Let's get on the journey.

00:03:58.94

Claire

But I also have—I find that — both of them are protagonists of... this story, but I find that like the true protagonist is actually the character that I introduce as my villain first, who is Cheth, who is basically the source of the world's curse.

00:04:16.89

Claire

And you see him initially and you're like, this is this is a bad guy, this is... This is the force of evil that has hurt these characters. But then you learn slowly, like, he doesn't want this world to be cursed either. He does not want this situation to happen. He does not want to necessarily hurt these people and be the source of all this misery. So you kind of...

00:04:39.58

Claire

have this split perspective of like these three characters want the same thing. They all want some sort of salvation or healing or the theme that I went with was when you're hurt, like how do you heal? And there's lots of different ways to kind of initialize that journey, that concept. And you have the one that stumbles at first. You have the one that's like, okay, I'm plucky and I'm ready to go. Then you have the one where it's like, everybody thinks I'm the bad guy, but I'm not that bad. I want the same thing. And the joy for me has been finding a way to thread all of them together into like,

00:05:22.45

Claire

this is a shared pathway. They all kind of conflict with each other in how they proceed along that pathway, but they all have that same momentum of like, we want this thing to happen, but how do we do it? And yeah, I kind of fell into the idea because I like the idea of shifting viewpoints, but shared goals.

00:05:47.99

Claire

And I can't wait for kind of future scenarios where they will butt heads in different ways and they'll cooperate and they'll party up and then they'll break apart.

00:05:58.54

Claire

Like what happens with that sort of thing? So I feel like when people say like, who's the protagonist of your story? I'm like Phaedra, but in the background, I'm like, ha ha ha I got you.

00:06:10.43

Claire

It's going to be more complicated than that.

00:06:11.61

Miranda

I think the laugh is more like, cheth, cheth, cheth, cheth.

00:06:16.76

Claire

People will discover it as they read and they'll be like, oh, okay. And I hope that it doesn't, I never want to present it in a way that's just like false protagonist.

00:06:27.35

Claire

But I think I hopefully introduce at least the concept of it early on enough where people are like, I think I see what she's doing. Like we're going to follow all of them, but we're going to follow them and see how they differ and how they interact. And that's kind of the source of that momentum.

00:06:46.90

Delphina

One of the really big inspirations for me was an episode of the Writing Excuses podcast where they talk about three different sliders for characters, proactivity, competence and sympathy. And so when I think about Phantomarine, I do think about like...

00:07:05.78

Delphina

And obviously, Pavel's like kind of the more proactive one. He's not exactly competent. He's a little kid. He doesn't know what to do a lot of the time, but he's very sympathetic and he's very proactive. And I think he's kind of like that part of it. Cheth is not very sympathetic to begin with. He's just kind of a jerk to the people that we like. but he's mischievous enough where we can like him a little bit and but he's very competent he's a god he's got these god-like powers and stuff and then you have Phaedra who like you said just got dealt this very bad hand and so now that's very sympathetic we can all relate to being this kind of helpless like okay we can all say we want to save the world and stuff but

00:07:49.88

Delphina

If you've got nothing, where are you starting from? What do you do? How do you deal with those feelings? And so that's like the balance I'm seeing with Phantomarine that I really love. And I think, yeah, it works.

00:08:01.12

Delphina

It definitely works to have multiple protagonists exemplifying different aspects of that.

00:08:07.00

Claire

I like that very much, the concept of balance. And I'm laughing at the idea of like Phaedra initially is not proactive and not competent. And I'm like, that's a hard place to start a protagonist. But I think you have to at least give some semblance of, don't worry, they will become more proactive, they will become more competent. And the goal of that character is to see them change. They have to still be initially interesting, but you have to be there for like, okay, this is level one Phaedra. What is level 100 Phaedra look like? And just have people be like, oh, ooh, I wanna see that. would be great.

00:08:48.66

Miranda

I think you do that well because you start off the story with Phaedra being the first person to defeat Cheth in his little riddle challenge game. So she proves that she has competence and she is confident in herself.

00:09:06.17

Miranda

It's just until all of it sinks in and that's when she loses all of that. But you've at least established that she has it in her, even if it's just you're taking it away for a little bit in the story.

00:09:17.81

Miranda

So she's not just like this sad, wet cat that can't do anything from the beginning.

00:09:18.26

Claire

Exactly.

00:09:23.15

Miranda

And you're like, why? Why is she here? Why? Why do we need her? That’s my two cents.

00:09:27.93

Claire

Exactly.

00:09:30.19

Miranda

I think you do a good job of it.

00:09:31.69

Claire

Thank you.

00:09:33.08

Delphina

I think it's important. They're all in the ocean. They're all wet cats, to some degree

00:09:38.94

Claire

Oh my god.

00:09:39.48

Varethane

These cats are soaked.

00:09:40.29

Miranda

But also they're ghosts. Do ghosts have, like, do they get wet? But that's a story. That's a topic for a different episode.

00:09:47.74

Delphina

Yeah, I think so too. We'll move on to Thane. Let's hear about your protagonists and how you approach them.

00:09:55.41

Varethane

I have a bunch of them because I feel like I definitely also see my story as having multiple main characters. Although usually I can kind of identify, there's one who I guess is kind of more main than the rest of them. They're usually the one who gets the most featured if I do any art or, you know, book covers and so on. But even within an ensemble cast, you sort of have to pick somebody to be the viewpoint most of the time. Otherwise, things get confusing.

00:10:29.37

Varethane

I also love those sliders, the proactivity and competence and so on. For Chirault, I feel like kind of the main–definitely the initial protagonist and the one whose actions directly drive the plot a lot of the time is Teeko. She's the little girl who, at the very beginning of the story, she gets shrunk to be super duper tiny; and that, as an inciting incident, it's so straightforward and it just makes her path from there very clear. She wants to get back to her big size, and she's gonna do whatever she can! And I feel like her max sliders are the proactivity and sympathy one, because you got like little tiny kid and then she wants to get big again and she's very vocal and is willing to just tell it, to boss people around or ask for what she wants just up front.

00:11:34.74

Varethane

And so I feel like she probably fits the kind of protagonist slot the clearest, but Kiran is also definitely a main character sometimes. Probably secondary I guess, which would make him a deuteragonist. But like at the end of the story, his role kind of picks up steam and they can kind of trade off. His initial inciting incident is literally just that he gets asked to help Teeko in the forest and he is too much of a pushover to say no to a crying child, even though he's a grouch.

00:12:01.27

Varethane

When I started the story in the very, very beginning, it was sort of out of almost an RP background because I'd been drawing them in paint chat and other people were interacting with them. And I was like, I love this dynamic. I want to do more. I'm going to build a story as an excuse to continue playing with these characters’ dynamic and find other things to push up against them and give them a journey. Cause some of these things, if I want to have, say, an angsty scene or just an excuse for some fun, like cute campfire moments, there's gotta be an external world in which they exist and just exploring that.

00:12:41.02

Varethane

And then as it went, you know, it kind of turns into like this path because both of them have things that they want. Like Teeko on the surface, she wants to get back to her full size, but she also wants to find a new place in the world and to get some more agency in her situation because as a little kid, she is minimized out of the competence slider. But over the course of the story, she starts wanting to learn how to do magic and see the things that other people are doing who have found a place in the world. And she wants to get into that. And Kiran, meanwhile, wants to understand more about his identity and the nature of his powers, which have always been mysterious even to him.

00:13:25.11

Varethane

So going through that kind of journey with the two of them as they kind of trade places was a lot of fun. I feel like a lot of it was like, I just want to play with these two more because they have a fun dynamic, like the very reluctant bodyguard slash defender. And then this like extremely vocal little kid that he's helping out.

00:13:47.86

Varethane

That was Chirault. Wychwood is a little bit more kind of complicated; there are four lead characters, and Tiara is kind of the one who is the viewpoint character almost all of the time. If you asked me who's the main character, I would probably be like well it's Tiara. But the nature of how she has agency in the story is a little more, I guess, murky in a way, complicated. Like the inciting incident for her is that she has these mysterious fire powers and she basically gets kidnapped by an organization that wants to research her and do experiments, which she is not a huge fan of, even though they're trying very hard to like woo her and dress it up and make it look like it's a good thing.

00:14:39.13

Varethane

But her independence is very important to her. So she's like, I’ve got to get out of here. So she and her friend who gets kidnapped at the same time as her, a guy named Julian, they're trying to get out of this facility. And that's basically the plot of the entire first book, let's escape.

00:14:55.32

Varethane

We’ve got to escape from the city. Once they get out, there's this whole other like set of disasters which happen. And this is where her role in the story starts becoming a little bit less clear, I suppose. I mean, I have a plan with her, but to describe it, it's a little more complicated. Because she is inherently like, she was so focused on this external goal of getting out. But in terms of her like larger goals in an adventure, fantasy, sci-fi setting, usually you want a set of core characters whose goal is, let's save the world. Let's, you know, fix this big problem.

00:15:38.10

Varethane

Because that's kind of the… the groundwork of a ton of fantasy stories. But Tiara inherently is a bit of a selfish character. She's very hedonistic. And to get her to take part in those kind of bigger picture things after she escapes, where is she going to go from that? What are her goals beyond that? And so I had to find ways to kind of push her and find her levers, because she does have the strongest personality of the characters and that independence that is so important to her makes her very vocal, and like the others listen to the things that she says even when they don't like the things that she's saying or deciding to do.

00:16:20.82

Varethane

And yeah so figuring out how to kind of take that and point her in a direction and get her to start making those kind of decisions. And that's kind of where I'm at in Wychwood right now with her character. And the others are definitely important as well. Technically, the term for secondary main characters is the deuteragonist.

00:16:45.27

Varethane

So while Tiara is the protagonist, the others all have important roles to play in the story and in figuring out that direction. But yeah, those are my protagonists.

00:16:56.02

Delphina

I feel like there is definitely a division between protagonist and deuteragonist that you can acknowledge and take advantage of. I mean, I come from a video game background. I love video games. I play a lot of JRPGs and you can kind of switch out who's the main character and who's in the party for the RPG and that'll switch out what the main story is.

00:17:24.18

Delphina

But having that kind of focus will actually help you keep things a little more organized, so thinking about, okay, if I have to boil this down, if you know I do have four characters and they ALL are important, then that's not going to change. But if I have to boil this down, like who's the one who's going to be driving the plot; who's got that kind of role in the story? It's good to think about. I think you did a really good job with Chirault too in terms of, they do have different sorts of skill sets I guess.

00:18:19.26

Delphina

You know, Teeko is the one who like has kind of the moral compass and the drive to like get things started, but she does kind of end up to be like kind of driving force conscience Navi fairy on Kiran's shoulder, literally, to make him kind of more curious about the world too. So I love that we have dynamics here, I think dynamics are super important.

00:18:33.49

Varethane

Oh my god, she is the fairy on his shoulder. Oh boy.

00:18:37.08

Delphina

Literally, she stands there.

00:18:37.95

Miranda

Literally.

00:18:39.64

Delphina

Yeah. So I love her. I love Teeko. Miranda, I'm going to throw it to you, tell us about the protagonists of your story and what your goals are for those.

00:18:53.05

Miranda

So I feel like when I start developing a story, I usually am picking the characters first. And I like writing at least a tinge of romance. So that typically is two characters. So I pick two characters that I like. And for Into the Swell, it was a pirate and a wizard. And for my next story I'm working on, it's a vampire and a werewolf. And then I develop them more. I figure out their personalities and how I want them to interact and make sure they're different enough from each other. So it's not just the same kind of character type. And I give them some backstory and then it's a matter of, OK, now what can they do together? What will lead them to falling in love or saving the world together? Whatever the story is. And given that I'm writing primarily two characters, with an intent to force them together and have them interact. A lot of them share the screen time, the majority of the comic.

00:20:02.26

Miranda

And so I feel like as I develop the characters and as I develop the plot, one of the characters usually ends up solidifying into the protagonist, but I am... This is having me think more deeply about Into the Swell, and I think I was surprised in how the story went and who became the protagonist in the end, because I think it initially started off as Fletcher, but Kelwyn was the one that I think he drove the plot more and made a lot more of the choices that got us to where the end was. And so in the end, I think I would say Kelwyn was the protagonist and Fletcher was more of the deuteragonist, but also they switch.

00:20:52.54

Miranda

I feel like there's a lot of back and forth, because they're both on the screen most of the time. And I do like that comparison of the three proactivity, competence and sympathy, because Fletcher definitely starts off as the sympathetic character. He has competence in piracy, which is what is needed for the plot. How convenient. And then Kelwyn is the proactive one that actually gets Fletcher up and moving, gets him onto the ship, scoots him along his way. He's the one pushing the story and getting them forward and moving.

00:21:27.70

Miranda

And so they both are very important, and I think it flip-flops throughout. And then in the current story I'm working on, I again started with two characters and I'm leaning more into the romance. So again, the goal is for them to get together and they are both going to have a lot of screen time because they are the two characters.

00:21:51.56

Miranda

And it's a vampire and a werewolf. And the vampire, he starts off as the more sympathetic character. He's newly turned, he has no idea what's happening and no memory of how he got there. And the werewolf dude is like, okay, here, I'll take you under my wing. You clearly have no idea what's going on. So...

00:22:12.09

Miranda

welcome to being a vampire, I only know all of this information because I'm a werewolf and I have all of this insight. But here, I will take pity on you and we'll get you kind of going where the story goes.

00:22:43.56

Miranda

But as I'm developing and as I write the characters, I start with one being the protagonist, but I… Somehow I feel like I tend to end up liking the other character more. And so that might be why things kind of flip-flop as I'm working on the story. And especially with webcomic time, I feel like things change so much that like the story just kind of evolves and it picks its own protagonist in the end for me.

00:23:11.42

Miranda

But I at least try to have some concept of, this is the main character. This is who the story is working around and through. And then it just goes off wherever it decides to go. And we run with it, because webcomics.

00:23:28.41

Delphina

Because webcomic.

00:23:30.58

Delphina

I really appreciate the view from a romance writer because if that is your genre, then yeah, you are concentrating on the main couple. That dynamic is super important and they're probably going to be sharing a lot of screen time. So you don't necessarily have to like…

00:23:56.57

Delphina

I feel like, yes, it's cool to have a main character, a main protagonist, but if the focus is the dynamic, we need to see how these two characters work together. Then like maybe it's not so important to be rigid about that, because that can help you. That could definitely help you out just figuring out the dynamics there, so I think it's a really good approach. I think we all have different ones.

00:24:25.24

Delphina

For Sombulus I feel like I also have three characters that are starting out at pretty much the same level. They're all magically super glued together. They hop to different worlds and they all have different goals that sort of bump into each other. And you're not exactly sure, like, whose is more important or what you're going to be doing.

00:24:40.38

Delphina

So it's not a romance but I do kind of start it with like everybody is on a little bit of an even level. These are the three people that you want to pay attention to. And I do start it like a little more episodically, so for instance in the first arc they fall into a kingdom. Astyr is trying to steal the king's immortality and might be actually acting more as an antagonist, except he's just really stupid.

00:25:07.46

Delphina

He's just, I try to put a lot of comedy in there so that even if you do think he's an antagonist, you're like, yeah, I guess.

00:25:15.19

Delphina

But like he's having too much fun here and he's not really doing anything that I recognize as evil so whatever. But you do have Sydney who really does recognize him as evil; that's her goal, to stop Astyr. She doesn't agree with his ways and she really kind of exemplifies the hero, because I guess hero and protagonist are not synonymous terms. We were talking about that before the episode. It's true that the most moral proactive one is not necessarily your protagonist. So she's there, you get the sense that she's very moral and she's very proactive but whether or not she's correct, because she's saying this guy is really evil. And you're looking at him and he's practically got a clown nose and shoes. Is he though? So you're starting to question that. And Rana, she's just very nice. She wants to just kind of chill, drink tea, fix a clock. But like she's not super proactive in terms of, I have real goals and real stakes here.

00:26:35.91

Delphina

So she's also the kind of glue that keeps Sydney and Astyr from killing each other or whatever. So yeah, the dynamic is kind of what's important there. It's not a romance, but it's similar to that kind of I want you to focus on the dynamic. And there's a lot of different approaches. I don't know if I did this consciously, but I do feel like in Sombulus, I filled up the top row of the classic Dungeons and Dragons alignment chart. Sydney comes from a very lawful good place. She's got a strong sense of right and wrong, very big on punishing what she believes is evil and finding justice for herself and her friends and for the innocence of the worlds that she goes to. But that kind of character can be a little one note to follow.

00:27:27.29

Delphina

So we've also got Rana and Astyr who do a good job of balancing her out. Because Rana is definitely more lawful or neutral; she feels responsibility, she feels a desire to do the right thing, but it's not really attached to that rigid moral code. And Astyr is chaotic good, he's more impulsive, doesn't really follow or respect the rules, but deep down he is a good person and that gave me a lot of cool dynamics to push and pull against each other. Because even though they all want to do what's right, they don't always agree about what right is or how to go about it and finding that as like a common trio is sort of what the story is about and what it goes through.

00:28:10.96

Delphina

So it's a fun exercise. It's fun to think about because everybody has different approaches for this. And you see a lot of different things in media too. So I'm just going to throw it to the group, starting with you, Claire. What protagonists from media do you resonate with? Where does it start to lose interest for you or where do they fall flat?

00:28:33.27

Delphina

Tell me your thoughts.

00:28:34.87

Claire

I think it’s the classic sort of thing of like, if they're if they're too good and nice and if they don't change, I don't I don't ever get that invested. Like, even if they have incredible agency and they have a goal and they're competent and they're like, I am Good Guy McGood Guy, and I'm going to go out with my big sword and get what I want. Like, that is technically a protagonist, but why are you telling me this story? I know how it's going to end from the start, unless there's some clue that, like… oh, he's actually not that good, or oh, he has something to learn. You can do that.

00:29:18.30

Claire

But I find that there are some characters that I think are less interesting, but if they have a really cool visual design, I'm like, okay, I can forgive a little bit of like, you're just kind of a good guy like, whatever.

00:29:31.54

Claire

But I find that the ones that I end up rotating in my head are the protagonists where... they're not secret bad guys. They're not evil, but they go on kind of a journey of, I want this thing.

00:29:49.91

Claire

How do I get it? Can I get it? Should I want it? Why do I want it? Does me getting it hurt other people? What do I really need in the end? And I think we just, this concept of want versus need. I like when the character is not clear on that. Like, they can go through an arc of many different shapes.

00:30:15.70

Claire

They can be like, you know I want this thing in the start, but then, oh, maybe I don't want it. But then actually, yeah I do want it because I think it's actually okay. They can go through a complete switch around where they're like, I actually don't want this thing anymore. This is bad, actually, and I want something different. I think for me, it's just they need to change. I just imagine, like,

00:30:39.32

Claire

Why would you sit somebody down like at work and be like, I have a really cool story to tell you about this guy. And like, you're like, oh, what happened? Like, what's going to be interesting about it? And they're like, yeah, he started out doing this thing and he did it really well and he got the thing.

00:30:52.70

Claire

And you're like, what? That's not, that's not interesting. Like, why did you tell me this? And they might think it's, he did do the thing.

00:30:58.26

Delphina

But he did the thing. He did do the thing.

00:31:00.00

Claire

I'm really happy for him, but like, that's five minutes of my day that is gone now. And congrats.

00:31:11.38

Varethane

Sounds like a believer in the classic hero's journey monomyth structure, which is a whole thing.

00:31:14.87

Claire

Even that, like, you have you have the darkest night sort of thing where like the hero starts out like, la la la, and then goes on the journey, goes on the path, and then suddenly, oh no, something bad happens and you question everything, but then you end up just, you know you cycle back and you return as a different person by the end. There's no straight A to B hero's journey sort of thing that I ever really resonate with. And three examples that are pretty fresh on my mind, they're all from video games.

00:31:52.15

Claire

And I know Thane, you're going to like me mentioning Luke fon Fabre from Tales of the Abyss.

00:31:57.99

Varethane

Heck yeah.

00:31:58.83

Claire

Yeah.

00:32:00.47

Varethane

Go on.

00:32:00.66

Claire

I love Luke. I love Luke so much. He starts out as an absolute jerk. He is the protagonist of the game. He is on the box art.

00:32:10.94

Claire

You're like, I'm going to be playing as this guy. And then his first few lines, you're like, oh, I don't like you. You're a bad person.

00:32:17.50

Varethane

I spent so long being like, I can't stand this kid. Oh my god.

00:32:23.96

Claire

But they do give enough little instances of realizing he's bad in a childish way. He doesn't feel mature. He doesn't feel grounded in his convictions. He feels like he's just aimless and angry. And other characters come along that either stoke that anger or kind of call him out on it. And I found that fascinating to watch.

00:32:49.66

Claire

I know a lot of people are like, I hate this game, I don't want to play it because the protagonist is not good and I don't want to be a bad guy. I get it.

00:32:57.50

Varethane

Just keep playing, play more, play more.

00:32:58.78

Claire

Just please, please keep playing because he learns a lot of things and he changes and he becomes... a completely different kind of character by the end. And I look at that, I'm like, that is such a brave decision to do that.

00:33:15.13

Claire

The other two, actually, one other one is actually quite similar to Luke, a character named Kalas from a game called Baten Kaitos, which I was just playing, so it's very fresh on my mind.

00:33:29.78

Claire

But he starts out similarly as a jerk, but he goes through a very different sort of transformation over the game where… Spoiler alert if you care, or if you've never played this game and you want to, I would recommend it. But he straight up becomes like the bad guy halfway through the game. He betrays everyone in your party. He has been secretly working with the villains the entire time.

00:33:53.21

Claire

Then there's kind of this reevaluation of, why did he betray you? Why did he do it? Kind of looking back and being like, okay, you were never really that good of a person from the start, but why? And can we bring you back into the fold as a good person? It's nice to see his party members actually be like, well, we're not going to abandon him entirely. Like something's weird, something's up.

00:34:22.37

Claire

And they actually go and they basically beat the heck out of him to try and get him to come to his senses and he does! And I find that I'm just like, that's also really brave. The third one is from a much more recent game if you've never played Expedition 33 Clair Obscur…

00:34:39.73

Miranda

Play it.

00:34:40.47

Claire

Just play it. There's a character that shows up about, I'd say about a third of the way through the game, who is another great example of, are you a good guy?

00:34:52.13

Claire

You certainly seem like a good guy, but what's your deal? Why are you really doing what you're doing? And I'll just leave it like that.

00:35:02.34

Claire

That's too recent to spoil.

00:35:03.64

Miranda

Yes, yes. Please don't spoil it.

00:35:07.33

Varethane

It's one of those cases where I get the sense that this character is a good guy, but there's so much hidden that you can't really be sure.

00:35:17.04

Claire

There's a pain there that might just be too painful for him to ignore. And how much does he care about how it might hurt other people? Oh, gosh.

00:35:29.85

Claire

I love that game. It's great.

00:35:38.68

Varethane

It is an extremely, extremely solid game, and I quite enjoy it.

00:35:53.04

Delphina

No, but yeah, that is true. There's so many good examples in video games of this kind of character that you're not really sure about their motives. Maybe they're kind of a jerk and playing with that, they can have flaws and they can be flawed. But like, what's going to keep you playing with them? Like what's going to like, make you curious about what side they're on. So there's just so much good stuff here. I'm gonna throw it to you, Thane.

00:36:24.98

Delphina

What kinds of things do you think about when you think about protagonists from media that you resonate with? And what's interesting to you? What's not so interesting to you?

00:36:34.68

Varethane

I think like a strong journey, honestly– like Luke fon Fabre, so good, extremely good example. I feel like the characters that I tend to gravitate to and become the most fascinated with are the ones who definitely max out the proactive and ideally competent sliders on that thing, more so than the sympathy side. And I really like characters who have a very strong primary drive and some sort of code of morality that they follow, which really guides all their actions. Because the earlier that sort of thing is set up, and the more powerful it is, the more interesting it is to see it challenged as the story goes on.

00:37:29.24

Varethane

And if the reader, or viewer, player, whatever medium it's in, if you see some question approaching in the story and you already know that this character, their personality will not allow them to make a choice that is going to be easy for themself or the other characters in the story. When you can recognize that even before it happens, I feel like that tension is so, so fascinating. I really like that kind of drive. I've got a couple of favorites that I'll just quickly go over.

00:37:50.73

Varethane

Cause there's a third example that I want to go into deeper, but I love Miles Vorkosigan in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga books. He's the disabled son and heir of a ruling house on a backwater planet in a space opera sci-fi world.

00:38:05.20

Varethane

And he basically bluffs his way into becoming captain of a mercenary fleet when he's like trying to go off and find himself, and everything spirals and snowballs from there. But all of the books featuring him are like this dance of constantly staying ahead of the action and coming up with some new fantastic crazy lie to kind of cover his own butt.

00:38:26.43

Varethane

And this also makes as many problems for himself as it solves. But it's very fun to watch. I also love Captain Vimes in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

00:38:38.46

Varethane

He's a cop, but it's in one of those like you know fantasy worlds set in like a loose, like kind of medieval thing. And he has such a strong code of his beliefs, like that he really is there to protect the people of the city.

00:38:56.98

Varethane

And that gets tested in so many different ways. Whenever there's like, some kind of weird, like there's wars at one point in the book and the rulers of the city are like, we're going to draft the police into the war.

00:39:12.10

Varethane

And one of his very core deep beliefs is like that the police are not a military. We're civilians, fundamentally, you can't make us do this. And like that kind of argument.

00:39:22.46

Varethane

Every time I read the Discworld series, it's like… this feels even more topical than it was the last time I read it.

00:39:28.69

Delphina

It's so topical.

00:39:29.11

Varethane

They just apply to so many things. And he's just a great like character. Like, he's a crotchety guy, but it’s very fun to read. This is very fresh in my mind, and Clam's example of a Tales of game is pertinent here, because I just finished playing Tales of Berseria.

00:39:59.93

Varethane

And the main character there, Velvet, is basically by the end of the game, almost a super villain but not. It’s kind of fascinating because one of the things that I definitely believe about protagonists is that the protagonist is not the same as the hero of the story, and this game kind of both proves it and disproves it at the same time. Because I feel like the core of her character is heroic. The call to action there is basically she witnesses a horrible act of cruelty and is out for revenge. But the person who she is seeking revenge on is basically seen by society within the game as like the savior of the world, basically.

00:40:46.74

Varethane

And the way the core conflict there is that this society has solved a lot of problems. Like, there's monsters everywhere, that sort of thing. Now there's less monsters, hooray, and like this church is protecting us from the monsters. But the way in which they're doing so… it's kind of like, if you're familiar with the Ursula Le Guin short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, it's like this good thing for the many in the world, which is based on the suffering of a little child who's hidden in a dungeon.

00:41:27.21

Varethane

And this world is kind of like that, like someone has done something that is, generally broadly speaking, good for society. It lets people live in peace but, it depends on this horrible cruelty being done to someone very weak. So the main character Velvet in Tales of Berseria is trying to get revenge; she does not actually care about the good of the many, she cares about avenging an unjust act. And that tension between… you know, when you take this guy out, a lot of things are going to fall apart and a lot of people are going to suffer, and there's going to be death and destruction and all these other bad things. And so every step when she gets challenged on these things and keeps choosing to go forward with her vengeance, for what has been done to her, to her family… It's so fascinating. It's like a really interesting core to the character. And she starts off almost like feral. By the end of it though, she goes through this whole arc of learning to love again, but then also leaning into this kind of super villain, public enemy number one persona that she realizes can also make certain things easier for her.

00:42:40.95

Varethane

But basically, I guess one of the central things is, like, this system that has been set up cannot continue fundamentally. It needs to be replaced with something else, and there's going to be suffering in the way to get there. And initially, she didn't care about that. By the end, it's complicated, but it's a really great kind of character in part because of how connected she is to the core questions and themes of the story. Like all of that, like every major theme of the story is contained within this character. And that's part of what makes her so compelling. And on the flip side of it, there are some very weak characters out there. And I think that usually the thing that makes them weak is that lack of connection to the story's themes. Another video game example, but Final Fantasy XII. There's a character named Vaan, and he is ostensibly the main character of the game. He's on all the box art. He's the playable character. He's the first one you're introduced to.

00:43:44.12

Varethane

But he pretty much literally doesn't need to be there. And in fact, if you read up about the game, some of the interviews that they've done about its development, he wasn't even going to be in the story and was put there because once it was under development, there were some decisions made at Square Enix that like…We need to have a young protagonist, like a youth for the kids to relate to. And so they just added this kid, but like he's not connected to anything else. He's basically just there to be sort of the audience proxy. And it means that like when you can remove a character like that and it won't change anything else about the story, I feel like that's a major problem.

00:44:25.08

Varethane

And another character from a different story that I think was kind of on the weaker side, I recently watched the Tales of Earthsea movie and found the protagonist in that one, which is a character named Arren, to be very weak. This isn't a statement about Arren in the book Tales of Earthsea, which I’m sure is quite good. I haven't actually read it, but from what I hear the adaptation is extremely different.

00:44:55.59

Varethane

And the main issue with him as a character is that he was extremely passive and angry. He was a depiction of sort of a troubled teen in a way, except that he doesn't make any choices or voice anything related to his personality in the film. He just kind of goes along with everything else that's happening, but in a kind of vaguely angsty way. But you never really understand the internal source of the angst as he sees it; his voice is just lacking in the story, even though he's depicted as the central character.

00:45:32.02

Varethane

And yeah, in regards to that sort of thing I feel like sometimes there are characters who are put into stories, that are like the classic hero's journey kind of structure. And there's a step in it, which is called the refusal of the call.

00:45:45.53

Varethane

And sometimes a character will just spend the entire story in the refusal of the call step, which can get very, very annoying. So I think that's probably one of the things that frustrates me the most, in a story that I otherwise would like a lot.

00:46:01.34

Varethane

The Robin Hobb series, Realm of the Elderlings, has a main character, Fitz Farseer, who also spends way too much time in the refusal of the call step. It gets very like, God, get over yourself, guy.

00:46:11.35

Miranda

Yes, that's why I haven't gone on to book two yet

00:46:15.48

Varethane

I love the series. There's so many really great other characters. The world building is incredible and her writing is so good, but agreed.

00:46:24.56

Delphina

It's difficult.

00:46:24.99

Miranda

Eventually I'll get to it

00:46:26.86

Delphina

I feel like that happens with webcomics a lot too, because they take so long. So you're feeling like, okay, well, we're gonna get to the part where he's gonna actually get into it. But it's just gonna take a while. And maybe your audience isn't gonna stick around for that. I don't know.

00:46:43.58

Varethane

Yeah, when it happens in amateur stuff like webcomics and so on, or in people's first works, sometimes I feel like it's sort of a symptom of like… either procrastination or uncertainty. Like, you know that you've got to eventually get to the good bits, but you're not totally sure of how to get there. Or you're like, I want to make sure that when I get there, I do it right. So you just find more excuses to kind of put it off and be like, well, if I build it up more, it'll be even better when I do get there. But I don't think that's actually the case. Usually it's better to just get there as directly as you can.

00:47:16.92

Delphina

Absolutely. I feel like there's just so much you can stall on or maybe shift off to other characters, more interesting characters, the side characters, because you're willing to take bigger swings with them.

00:47:36.60

Delphina

And like you said, if you can take away that like Final Fantasy XII version main character because like he was never really connected or never really there and like all of the other characters were much more interesting, then like, I don't know, if you have the power to cut that character out like what's stopping you. Or what's stopping you from making that character more interesting and integrated? These are what I wish I had a marketing department in webcomics, I don’t know.

00:47:56.41

Varethane

The marketing department.

00:48:04.54

Miranda

You do. It's just you.

00:48:06.91

Delphina

It's just me. It's just me. I'm the problem once again.

00:48:09.50

Varethane

It's my biggest and ugliest hat.

00:48:10.31

Delphina

Yeah, it's true. All right, Miranda, I'm going to throw it to you. What kinds of media protagonists do you resonate with? Maybe not so much or what kinds of themes are you looking at?

00:48:27.10

Miranda

So I was vigorously nodding my head to a lot of what Claire said and then what Thane said. I love characters that have struggles and conflict and just aren't perfect. I'm very team morally gray. I love a morally gray character because I feel like that invites so much more struggle internally and sometimes externally.

00:48:49.69

Miranda

And it's just so good. But I want the characters to drive their choices and be responsible for their actions, whatever they may be. I want them to be a protagonist and be responsible for how the story moves forward. So I feel like when a protagonist just lets the world happen to them or accepts that this is their lot in life and they just go along with the sea of plot waves that are happening to them, it irritates me and it just makes me not like them. And especially if they take the credit for that convenience, the convenience of the plot that got them to where they are. And then they act like they did it and it was them that did it. And so they become sort of haughty and I'm better than you sort of situation.

00:49:45.27

Miranda

I'm currently working my way through the Stormlight Archive series. It's my first time reading it. And I feel like this book as a whole, it’s like it's like five books like, I don't even know, I'm only on book two… So many books, I'm very behind.

00:50:01.85

Delphina

It's so many books, and each book counts for at least three because they're so thick.

00:50:06.74

Miranda

Yes, exactly. So there's kind of three main point of view characters in this book so far. I'm sure there will be more. But there's Kaladin, and he has been the one that I am invested in from the beginning. He's the sympathetic character. He has competence and you know that you're getting his backstory. You're getting so much of what happened to him. And so, you know that he could get himself out of his situation. And so you're just rooting for him and you're in his corner and you see all this terrible stuff that's happening to him. And you're like, you don't deserve this. You deserve better. You can get out of this somehow. And so you're just rooting for him from the beginning. At least I was. And then there's another point of view of Dalinar, and he is, by all accounts, the typical hero. He looks like the hero. He acts like the hero. He's the one everyone says, oh, he's the most honorable. He's leading the army. He didn't take over, his brother died and now he's avenging his brother. So he's got all this a little bit of sympathy, definitely competent, but he's just boring because he's just the hero. Until he had to prove that he was everything his reputation says he is. And that moment is what kind of turned him from, he's just a boring hero to, oh he really is what he says he is. And he is willing to put the money down and prove it.

00:51:47.70

Miranda

And I don't resonate with a lot of, like, I can't think of any other, like, honorable hero character that I've ever felt so strongly about. That just turned a key so much because, and I feel like, especially in a lot of media these days, the heroes are not always the hero. Like, they may be a hero.

00:52:10.58

Miranda

They may save the world, but... personality-wise, they're kind of assholes and you don't want anything to do with them. And so to have a hero be everything a hero is claiming to be was like a weird change. And I'm very, it hit it hit me well. And I'm very invested in it now.

00:52:30.36

Miranda

And then, what?

00:52:30.79

Delphina

I mean, better because the Writing Excuses podcast is Brandon Sanderson's podcast. So…

00:52:37.40

Miranda

Yeah, yeah.

00:52:38.62

Miranda

So this all tracks that he came up with this, and I'm dwelling very heavily on those three things because, like I'm thinking them through and I'm thinking, oh, this makes so much sense and like tying it into a lot of things.

00:52:52.82

Miranda

So very much tracks because then we have his third point of view character, Shallan. And I spent the whole book hating her. I was like, why do I have to read about this character? Because she doesn't take any responsibility for her actions. She's sent on her journey. She has to do it for her family. She can't choose to change what her lot in life is. And she just goes on the entire book.

00:53:22.78

Miranda

Like, this is all book one. The whole book, I'm just like, why do I have to read about you? You're not doing anything. You're just boring. And then she does actually have to start making choices for herself. And that's when she becomes a lot more interesting. And so the fact of how I've changed my opinions of these characters over the span of a book and a half kind of put this a lot in perspective, of what I do actually want in and resonate with in characters.

00:53:58.62

Miranda

I want them to make choices and have to make hard choices. They don't have to be like a choice between, like… it doesn't have to be a trolley problem choice. It can be something that just makes you actually see them for what they are and bring it to light.

00:54:21.14

Miranda

If someone who's a hero decided that he wasn't going to do the honorable thing finally, it would have been so disappointing and it would have set that character on a very different trajectory.

00:54:37.11

Miranda

But having them have to prove that this is important to them and this is what they care about, having those important conflicts and decisions are so important. and that's what makes a character someone I root for and someone I want to see where it goes and where it happens and what happens to them or what they make happen as it were.

00:55:00.92

Delphina

I think it's really cool too, that even when you start a character off in a certain place, that might not be something that the reader will expect or the reader will appreciate. As long as you can keep them stuck around with some of the other elements of your story, you can still slide that up. And you might want to do that intentionally.

00:55:25.37

Delphina

You might want to start with a character that...I don't really like this guy. I don't really know why I'm doing this or why I'm following him. But there's other things to keep me hooked in the meantime. So I guess I'll keep reading. And what do you know?

00:55:36.33

Delphina

This guy's kind of growing on me. This is like, something happened here.

00:55:46.36

Delphina

And like, wow, that transformation can be very powerful, because now you see that like, oh, okay. Okay. I'm on board now, and your interests can shift. And I think absolutely with webcomics, that's something that we can take advantage of too

00:55:56.47

Miranda

Especially with how much time you have to spend with these characters. As long as there's enough to keep you going and like side characters are great or whatever if you have an unlikable main character. But if you work towards that change, or that moment where just something clicks in them and either changes or the truth comes out, like whatever that big moment is, it can be so good.

00:56:25.62

Delphina

It can be. I'm in the middle of an anime, I was reincarnated as a slime or something like that. And the protagonist just drives me crazy.

00:56:37.78

Delphina

I'm just going to say it like I'm 60 episodes in. He's perfect. Everything he says is a good idea. None of his plans go wrong.

00:56:45.83

Varethane

Oh no. no

00:56:47.74

Delphina

He's always out-thinking all of the villains, and like, it's just so boring to watch him do his thing because he's the most powerful and when he meets somebody really strong he just gets more powerful and we don't know where that power comes from. He didn't earn it, he's not doing anything. But everybody loves him and everybody does what he says.

00:57:10.29

Delphina

And like, there are really powerful demons and stuff that are like worshipping him now because he's so cool. And he doesn't earn any of it. That drives me crazy.

00:57:22.05

Delphina

I hate that kind of unearned sort of thing.

00:57:25.92

Miranda

Yes.

00:57:27.26

Delphina

So that's one of the things for me. And I keep waiting for this to change, or turn around, or be a twist, there isn't. I'm just like, why? So that's one of the flaws for me, like if a protagonist is so flawless or passive that they don't go anywhere, they haven't earned anything, they don't have much personality, you can't really describe their personality or where their arc might go, you just watch them like do the thing and just… there's no interest there for me.

00:58:03.95

Varethane

If they're like, all their choices have no friction at all in the world around them, and it's just like a smooth, slippery journey forward, through the easiest decision and everything is straightforward, that's so dull.

00:58:16.92

Delphina

It really is. And like, they do set up antagonists, but like they are so nothing and they're so easily defeated and there's no challenge there. So I don't really understand it. One of my other peeves is like, I don't like the jerk characters. I feel like I'm maybe a minority here, but if I can't follow them or root for them on any level, that will throw me out and I will need to find something else to focus on if I'm going to continue following the story. And we talked about it a little bit, often because they have a flaw and it's they’re listless and they don't know what to do with their life.

00:59:03.96

Delphina

And that makes for a very stagnant character who maybe isn't very competent, maybe isn't really moving the story in any way and everything is just happening around them, like the Tales of Earthsea that we mentioned earlier.

00:59:19.80

Delphina

It can also be you give them so many flaws that they're a jerk. And especially if they're a jerk to other characters that the audience sympathizes with more, I guess, because I can like jerks. I can like people who are a little sassy or have a big flaw or something like that. But I get very frustrated when I like another character more and this character is being an absolute jerk to them and I'm just like why are you still interacting with this person what do you see in this person why is this plot even happening just leave this person and go do your own thing I want to look at you not that guy

01:00:00.50

Varethane

Man, I've been watching the newest season of Critical Role and Matt Mercer's character Julian Davinos is like such a jerk.

01:00:05.98

Claire

Yes, yes!

01:00:09.24

Varethane

And I was like, at first I was like, yeah no, this guy is such a douche.

01:00:09.24

Claire

I love him!

01:00:15.18

Varethane

But he has grown on me considerably.

01:00:19.67

Delphina

I gotta get back into that.

01:00:21.95

Delphina

I started it. But yeah, he was such a jerk.

01:00:26.22

Varethane

There's a lot going on in that character. And there's enough.... He's still a jerk. He does not stop being fundamentally a character who is a jerk, arguably. But you see where it's coming from, you understand. And you see the parts of him that are not a jerk. And that helps a lot as well.

01:00:51.58

Miranda

I feel like with characters like that, if you have a side character like that, knows that knows that they're a good person or have good traits and like that, that one side character that is likable or has something going for them that attracts the readers. So you have someone vouching for the character within the story and you're like, okay, fine. I will give him more time. I will give him a chance. You just have that extra voice in the story that tells you, they get the little hints that let you hold on to, okay, maybe this isn't all this character is.

01:01:35.83

Varethane

It also really helps to have them get called out on it by other characters who also have like equal amounts of agency within the story. And just to make it clear, I know in the case of Critical Role, it's a roleplay.

01:01:49.53

Varethane

So there's not like, a writer whose vision mean like DM maybe but it you know especially in a novel or something by one person just to be like the authorial intent understands that this character is being a jerk and they're not going to try to sugarcoat it or be like actually they're in the right or like be weird about it like that, that part helps too.

01:02:01.91

Miranda

Mm-hmm.

01:02:10.10

Claire

I think it's really interesting in the case of Julian where like, how rare is it to have a meta where you're okay with the person playing the character this way because you know that this is a good person.

01:02:23.99

Claire

It's not something that you can really do in media in general, but like, you know that Matt Mercer has proven over and over again, like as a DM, he's played monstrous characters. Dang. terrible, terrible people, but always in the service of telling the story and wanting his players to eventually overcome them or prove them wrong or defeat them, whatever it is. Like there is a trust there where like, I respect so much that like, in all of his other, I guess, little mini campaigns that he's participated in, he's played, you know, pretty, pretty nice characters, pretty honorable characters. And then he brings out just an absolute asshole for this campaign. And I'm like, I see the vision.

01:03:22.71

Claire

We're going to go into some places that are, in terms of long form narrative, like I trust that this, this character is not just like, nobody's going to accuse him of being mean to other people for the sake of being mean, at the table. I think they're just like, no, no, like let him cook. Let's see what's happening here.

01:03:34.97

Delphina

Absolutely. I just, gosh, I got to get back into it now because I dropped off, but I'm going to get back into it. I promise.

01:03:42.90

Varethane

I'm really enjoying it.

01:03:43.45

Miranda

This is making me want to get into it.

01:03:47.73

Delphina

It's so long. It's going to be a very big time investment. But it's good to put on if you're drawing, I think.

01:03:54.53

Delphina

But for me, I always think of, too, we grew up with a lot of more simple templates, right?

01:04:01.45

Delphina

Like if you look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you have Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo. Donatello is the workaholic nerd. Raphael is the grumpy guy that we all agree like, okay, he's a jerk.

01:04:13.29

Delphina

He's kind of fun to watch. And Michelangelo is the chill, fun bro. And he's kind of goofy. But what is Leonardo? He's just the leader. He has no personality. Nobody knows.

01:04:26.10

Delphina

Or do you think about Powerpuff Girls, like, you know, you bubbles is the cute, optimistic one. Buttercup's the grumpy one. What is Blossom? Nobody knows. And we keep that simple for kids. And maybe sometimes we don't move beyond that when we want to tell more mature stories.

01:04:43.06

Varethane

It's funny bringing up Ninja Turtles in specific and Leonardo because he's the character that I often have the hardest time with. Because you're right, you know, each of them has some kind of quirk to them. I feel like the most successful depictions of him—I've seen two characterizations of Leonardo that I think worked pretty well. And one of them is the rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I think is my favorite iteration so far, where he actually is the douchey theater kid and is not initially the leader. And you can see that he's going to go on like that kind of journey, learning to start understanding responsibility and taking responsibility for stuff.

01:05:23.82

Varethane

And I think that journey is going to be– well, WAS going to be really interesting, because unfortunately it got cancelled. And I'm very sad about that because I was loving it. I have also seen depictions of him where his thing, like his quirk was being the leader.

01:05:43.16

Varethane

There is a fair amount that you can kind of unpack within that, being the one who always feels like they need to be responsible for everybody else. Even if he's not the biggest, the oldest brother, like feeling like he needs to be wrangling all these other people, there are difficulties, challenges and decisions in there and ways that personality can express itself for sure.

01:06:08.82

Miranda

It has me thinking about Feyre from the A Court of Thorns and Roses stories, because you don't really know anything about her. She just kind of takes the lead and takes the direction. Everything is just happening to her, but she's at the heart of it. She gets in trouble, so she has to be taken to go do this thing. But then

01:06:51.54

Miranda

she gets the character growth without like mentally getting the character growth. And so then she comes back in future books acting like she knew what she was doing the whole time or that she has all of this sudden knowledge because she did a thing that she didn't even do by herself. And she says, oh no, I know what I'm doing. Everyone should listen to me. All of these people that have been there forever and ever ago. Anyway.

01:07:24.60

Miranda

The character that is the character, but doesn't have a type, like doesn't have anything to kind of set them apart, that they complete the ensemble. And so you need them there, but they don't really do anything. And you don't know why they're there except for they need to be there, I guess, for the story.

01:07:52.66

Delphina

Yeah, I contrast it with how they handled the She-Ra reboot because Adora is clearly the main character. She's very lawful good. Her power is sword and goodness.

01:08:04.06

Delphina

So we're starting from a place that can be very flat and boring like the other things that we're mentioning. But she's very proactive. She comes from a very difficult place and has made the difficult decision to be good despite what she's struggling with, going through reconciling what she was being influenced by evil forces for a long time.

01:08:21.59

Delphina

And she's trying to rescue her closest relationship who is still on the wrong side of the fence and refusing to be rescued.

01:08:35.26

Delphina

So that's a way to have this sort of character who maybe is kind of squeaky clean, but still has a lot of interest. And I feel like it was just such an interesting thing to watch in such an interesting example because we can all have the Batman, we can have like the tragic backstory and and stuff and make it gritty and make him kind of a jerk or something like that, but I feel like it's a harder road to walk when you do want sort of a morally good character who is nonetheless interesting and compelling.

01:09:08.40

Miranda

Mm-hmm.

01:09:12.38

Delphina

It’s very tricky. I don't envy anyone. We're all going through it, trying to come up with interesting ways. So I'm just going to move on to what is your advice to somebody who is having trouble creating a compelling protagonist that people want to follow? I'll throw that to Clam.

01:10:20.38

Claire

I think my main advice is kind of tying everything together. You have to do something brave with your protagonist. I think you have to either create someone that's going to be difficult to root for, that then you end up rooting for over time. You have to maybe make someone who is kind of initially a goody two shoes, but then they get so tested that, oh no, like what are their limits? Why are those limits there? Do they get through them or do they falter somehow? I want to see characters that, they always need that shred of goodness for me to root for them.

01:11:04.67

Claire

But I want to see that goodness be tested, be challenged, be explored. I think there's a, it's a Brennan Lee Mulligan thing that was circulated around on Tumblr and a couple other places where like… at the heart of it all, evil is kind of boring. You can just choose to be evil, you can hurt people, that's an easy choice to just go out and be like, I want things for me and I want to do whatever I can do to get it. And I'm just going to do that.

01:11:37.37

Claire

But being good and actually like, trying your best and trying to do something that you want without hurting people is really hard. And I think that's something that a lot of people, they might be too afraid to explore that quote unquote dark side. It's not really a dark side of people. It's more just like, this is the part that is constantly growing and questioning.

01:12:00.66

Claire

What does it mean to be a good person? And what does it mean to have agency and want what you want and want to get it, but then also step back and be like, how does this affect other people? How does this affect the world?

01:12:13.82

Claire

Where does the selfishness end? And where can it, I guess, change into, yeah, being proactive versus being selfish? All these different things. I just want there to be a story about someone who is a good person who had to try at it and had to discover something new about themselves in the process of trying something.

01:12:36.50

Claire

I have some random pet peeves where like, I don't think putting characters through pain just in and of itself is character development that makes me care about somebody. Like anybody can inflict pain on their characters. It has to be meaningful. It has to, again, like Thane was talking about, like tie all of these things into the story. What is the main core of the thing that you're trying to say, both with this character and what they go through?

01:13:07.80

Claire

You can reward them and you can test them and you can do all sorts of things. You can just... take them in your hand and go boom, boom, boom, just over and over, like in the middle of any story and just say, what happens to this character?

01:13:21.78

Claire

And I think a good protagonist, they will have little slip ups. They will have moments where they're like, should I be this good?

01:13:35.31

Claire

I want to see an internal environment where both they're 100% good, 100% evil. They're not one hundred percent good or one hundred percent evil, there's no person who is. So I want to see, like why do you choose good? What is your motivation for not being bad?

01:13:52.85

Delphina

I think that's super important to give that nuance and give that interest because otherwise, yeah. They're just kind of there, they're doing their thing and that can seem not very proactive.

01:14:07.16

Delphina

You're just kind of reacting to whatever's happening to you. And I feel like when you get into that situation, it's like, well, this happened, therefore this guy's going to do X Y Z. And they're doing X, Y, Z because that's what anybody would do.

01:14:26.68

Delphina

Trying to think about, okay, but how would they do X, Y Z? Why would they do X, Y, Z? What is going through their head? And maybe it's not X, Y, Z. Maybe it's just X and Y. Maybe they skip Z and that bothers somebody else for a different reason. Like there's so many things you can do with that. So I think these are interesting things to think about. I'm going to throw it to Thane. What's your advice for somebody who's having trouble creating a compelling protagonist?

01:14:54.88

Varethane

It's funny. I have some thoughts on that, but I also have thoughts on what Clam was just talking about the Brennan Lee Mulligan quote. Cause I don't think I've seen that, but I do believe that it's true. There's a lot of people who are like, the obviously good hero who can do no wrong. It's like so easy, such an easy choice.

01:15:18.52

Varethane

But in reality, in actual life, someone who would go out there and put themselves in the line of danger to help other people, that is unusual. Like, that is not like a person that I really know. Like, most people will kind of put their head down and go home. There are definitely people who will step in in times of danger and stuff like that. But I feel like it's unusual enough that that can make for an interesting and compelling story. And that's the core of the whole superhero genre. is someone who's willing to go and help other people, even if it puts their own life in danger or puts them at risk of all kinds of things like being followed home afterwards. To put it in the context of like a fight has broken out on like the public transit bus that you are on.

01:16:06.04

Varethane

Will you step in or will you just kind of back away and be like, oh boy, let's let this sort itself out.

01:16:13.40

Delphina

I mean, in the context of fiction, though, you're saying that, I feel like we're talking about the formula, right? Like, of course, the good hero will step in and break up the fight on the bus because that's what they would do. And it doesn't necessarily matter that a real person wouldn't do that. But it's like the ideal, right?

01:16:34.07

Delphina

Maybe you go home and you think about, I could have done that. I could have stopped them or blah, blah, blah, blah. And so that's where this kind of heroism genre is coming from, I think.

01:16:45.56

Varethane

Yeah, taking that like a fantasy daydream and being like, this is going to be a story.

01:16:51.16

Miranda

But I think that's a valid thing. Like you are writing fake people, you're writing fantastical characters. But if you're struggling to make them compelling, think about how they would face choices like, oh, if they were in a fight on the bus and they weren't in their superhero costume, would they break it up? Like, would they interfere if they aren't on the clock, like give them these real situations where

01:17:25.27

Miranda

It is just a matter of like you're not making an evil decision by not breaking up the fight, but you're not making the heroic decision. Like give your character these choices and these real life situations to see how they would react and how they would pull their characteristics out and show them and like prove them.

01:17:49.34

Varethane

Yeah, I think that's, I mean, there's a reason why one of the very early stages in that, this is going to be like the fifth time I've mentioned this, but that hero's journey, there's a step that is literally just called like tests or the ordeals, which happens like fairly early in it.

01:18:06.07

Varethane

And the goal of that section is basically to show how does this character respond to challenges? Like what sort of challenges are they being faced with and how do they choose to overcome them?

01:18:17.94

Varethane

In the case of like the superhero who's on the bus, but they're not in their costume. Like, how are they going to deal with this? Are they going to slide away to like change? Are they going to like do it anyway, even though it might blow their secret identity? Like there's all these little questions that you can put in front of a character and seeing how they think, like what those thought processes are.

01:18:36.32

Varethane

That can be one of the big ways of getting the audience to kind of connect with them. and be like, oh, okay, I'm starting to understand how this person kind of ticks. The other kind of big thing for making a compelling character, I think, is making sure that they're fully connected to the story's themes and questions that it's asking. This is something that I talked about earlier during the during my rant about Tales of Berseria, but,

01:19:04.92

Varethane

where I think that story really shone was in connecting its characters directly to the biggest questions in the story. And it's funny because Velvet, that protagonist, is not actually my favorite character. My favorite character in the story is Eleanor, who starts off on the opposite side believing that she's doing what's right for the world. Like she belongs to the kind of church of the big story villain because from the outside perspective, they are doing something right. They're protecting people. They're making sure that civilization can live peacefully and not be attacked by monsters in their homes constantly. And so her core beliefs are that she wants to protect people. She wants people to be able to live peacefully and happily. And she's going to put herself out there to make sure that that happens, which puts her directly at odds with the protagonist of the story.

01:19:58.33

Varethane

And then later, through a series of challenges, ends up joining the main party. And then it's this whole question of like she has grown up with this core belief and she's realizing that it's founded on something that is so insidious and evil at its core. But in reconciling that with like I've done so many things in support of this system that I'm now learning is evil, learning to atone. being like, how do I take responsibility for these choices when also the side that I'm slowly starting to slip towards is also going to make things hard and challenging for people and reconciling and living with that. It's so great just seeing these, making them have conversations about these topics that are very difficult for them.

01:20:42.52

Varethane

And coming together over these challenges, seeing the friendships that they make and the friendships that they break. It's a whole journey. So I feel like that's one of the things that is the most fun with storytelling is like really picking apart these characters. And kind of the last thing that I guess I'll mention is that if any of the stuff about like story structure and frameworks is of interest looking up that hero's journey monomyth. There's a book by Joseph Campbell called The Hero with a Thousand Faces that kind of goes into it and writes it all down like in all of its different steps.

01:21:20.70

Varethane

And it can be helpful to understand those steps and what that journey is, people consider it stereotypical. And I mean, it is like there's so many books and movies and video games and whatever that use the hero's journey explicitly, like they use it like a beat sheet. And part of why they do it is because it does work. It does tend to make for compelling characters. It literally bakes into the formula that they're going to be tested. They're going to go through this. They're going to go through the darkest night, all that stuff. And the variations will come up, you know, from the writer, which can make it really fun, but it gives you a place to start. And if you're struggling with that kind of blank sheet thing, it can be useful to look into that kind of thing, even if you end up completely discarding it and not following it because it's absolutely not necessary. There's also a book called Save the Cat, which also goes into a lot of these like story structure type things. So you can look into both of those for general.

01:22:23.86

Varethane

writing structure, story structure, character arc structure, discussions, basically.

01:22:32.02

Delphina

Those are great books and great starting points that even if you don't follow them like to the T, you can certainly get inspiration and figure out, okay, these are kind of tried and true paths and patterns that we can go through to make sure that the reader will kind of recognize where we're going and will empathize with who I want them to empathize with. yeah. Those are great recommendations. I'm going to go on to Miranda. What are your, what is your advice for someone who is struggling to write a compelling protagonist?

01:23:04.76

Miranda

Conflict, conflict, conflict. Give them something that makes them struggle. So much of a character is defined in how they handle struggles and conflict and the choices they make. And if you're struggling with figuring out, maybe you're flip flopping or you're struggling with how they would decide something or what they could, would commit to. Just give them one thing that is their guiding light. That is their waypoint.

01:23:40.95

Miranda

This is the one thing that they will protect no matter what, whether good guy or bad. Give them one thing that no matter what, this is how they will base their decision on. And that can lead to some very influential and critical moments of deciding between are they going to save this person? Or are they going to like let that person die for the sake of the world or whatever the case may be like? Give yourself something concrete that your character can hold on to to help you make those decisions for your character as you're writing them.

01:24:29.56

Miranda

And I think showing that they have a protagonist in them, like whether they're a jerk, whether they're just kind of lazy and inconsequential at the start, like show your audience and readers that they have it in them. Phaedra, she battled Cheth and yeah, she might be crying in her boat in the middle of the ice and not actually doing anything, but eating scones for a while. But we saw that, we saw that she has it in her to be the protagonist and to take the lead.

01:25:05.11

Miranda

Give your audience those hints so that they can root for your character. They can root for them to make the change and make the choice that will make the plot move forward and take on that role of protagonist.

01:25:21.02

Miranda

And I feel like a lot of what makes a character compelling in some situations is just having them be relatable. So If anything else, give your character a problem that you've had to deal with. And, how does a superhero deal with their car ran out of gas and they're stuck on the side of the road. Give them menial problems that people have every day in real life and show how they handle it and how they adapt and change. And that will start giving you ideas and kind of making them relatable for your reader. And then it will maybe make more sense or maybe based on how they handle this small thing,

01:26:23.51

Miranda

it leads to how they handle this massive event or question or whatever that comes to them as the story goes on. Putting your characters in situations and deciding how they handle these, playing with them and seeing their reactions to things will help you learn your characters more. And if you're like, oh, this isn't interesting how they handle this, you can change that.

01:26:57.56

Varethane

Love to put my guys in situations.

01:26:59.70

Miranda

Yes. One thing I did when I was coming up with my characters and I got this from somewhere, but it was a person shows up at their door and it's pouring rain and that person is holding a crying infant. What does your character do? And I was putting all of my characters through this and it very much solidified and helped visualize just how bad someone was versus how good someone was. So. picking some obscure situation or picking something that happens every day and just running all your characters through that will help you learn your characters and figure out what makes them who they are.

01:27:43.39

Varethane

Oh my God, that reminded me of something from many years ago that I had totally forgotten about. But on DeviantArt, approximately 1 million years ago on the internet, there was this fad that went around for a few years where people would make what they called character memes.

01:27:59.16

Varethane

And it was like this long image with a bunch of little boxes in it. And each of the boxes would be like the top one would be like, put in portraits of your characters and you'd have like three or four...

01:28:11.13

Varethane

I think up to like eight characters and they would each have a number. And then below that would be a bunch of boxes and it would be like one and three are trapped in a room together. What do they do? And like the second one would be like, you know, two and four and it would be a bunch of little scenarios and you just do like a little one, little, a single image showing, you know, what, just what they would do. And it was a fun little starting point for figuring out dynamics and stuff like that. I had totally forgotten about it until this moment.

01:28:40.06

Miranda

That sounds really fun.

01:28:42.01

Varethane

Bring back character memes.

01:28:44.66

Delphina

We should. I think so.

01:28:55.74

Delphina

Just putting people into situations, just being able to kind of visualize how one character is different from another in terms of like what their initial response is and what they think their response should be and maybe the conflict between that. I will say that sometimes the problem that I see is that people do come up with these situations and the character responds the same way every time. So that creates the sense of stagnancy, that creates the sense of like, okay, well, there's no arc here. Nothing's really changing for this character either because they're good and they do the right thing every single time. No conflicts enter their mind or,

01:29:49.74

Delphina

they're stuck, they're frozen, they can't get over this thing, so one interesting thing I think is like okay, here they are. They had this situation and this was like a test that they failed. They have this flaw and they failed this. How is this going to change the next time? What would cause this to change for them the next time? What can I do to push them forward and make sure that they have some way of facing their challenges so that they're a little stronger next time? And I feel like that's the key to really making sure that you don't have a character

01:30:31.06

Delphina

that just stays in one place, does the same thing, and eventually kind of loses reader interest. I also feel like in webcomics, we tend to lean on tragic backstories sometimes to get that reader sympathy right away. And without the context of caring about the character first, you might not really connect that sympathy,

01:30:55.86

Delphina

until like maybe a little later in the plot so seeing what you can shift around in terms of establishing the character, making sure people care about them in the here and now or maybe making sure that like they kind of look like a jerk right now, and having that backstory if you have that, inform that, can be a very powerful tool for you. So just some other things in addition to all of the other wonderful points that people brought up. I really need to listen to Critical Role again because this is this is making me so—

01:31:33.57

Miranda

That's the moral of this episode. Listen to Critical Role, play Tales of Bersaria, and don't watch Tales of Earthsea, the movie adaptation.

01:31:43.90

Varethane

The good tales and the bad tales.

01:31:43.94

Delphina

But also work on your webcomic.

01:31:45.53

Miranda

Yeah, that too.

01:31:46.71

Delphina

Because at the end of the day, we have to make these protagonists happen in our own stories too. So with that, I think we will wrap it up. I have been Delphina and you can find my webcomic, Sombulus, at sombulus.com.

01:32:06.90

Claire

I have been Claire Clam. You can find my work at phantomarine.com.

01:32:11.86

Varethane

I am Varethane, and you can find my work at chirault.sevensmith.net or at wychwoodcomic.com.

01:32:19.48

Miranda

And I'm Miranda. You can find my work at mirandacakes.art.

01:32:24.63

Delphina

Okay, so somebody shows up at your doorstep and is carrying a baby. What do you do?

01:32:32.31

Varethane

Slam the door.

01:32:32.92

Miranda

I offer snacks.