rionaleonhart | That's The Best Part.

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That's The Best Part.

I've been thinking recently about silent protagonists.

It tends to put me off trying a videogame if the protagonist is silent. I often find it hard to get invested in silent protagonists, and that can really impair my enjoyment of a game. If I'm going to spend hours inhabiting a particular character, I'd like to care about that character!

However, in recent years, I've discovered a couple of silent protagonists who really clicked for me. I thought it might be interesting - for me, if no one else - to consider which silent protagonists work for me, and what makes them work.

Therefore: here's a list of silent protagonists from games I've played, in roughly descending order of fondness!

I'm defining 'silent protagonist' here as a character who hits both of the following points:

a) They are unvoiced or minimally voiced. They might have voiced action grunts or brief battle quotes, but they're never going to say an eloquent line of dialogue aloud.
b) If they speak at all, it's exclusively or almost exclusively through occasional dialogue options chosen by the player. They don't paraphrase or elaborate on the dialogue option; the text in the option is all you get.

I've omitted characters from games I never really played enough of to form a strong impression of the protagonist, e.g. Bloodborne and the various Zelda games I've unsuccessfully attempted to get into. I've also probably omitted some characters just because they slipped my mind.

Silent protagonists I love:

Protagonist (Persona 5). I've never seen another silent protagonist with quite as much personality as Joker. Plenty of voiced protagonists don't have as much personality as Joker. His animations are stylish and distinctive; his dialogue options are frequently hilarious. He's a bold, playful, sarcastic little shit and I love him.

Sunny (Omori). The game really immerses you in Sunny's head, in a very literal way. Although he never speaks, I got a strong impression of his fears and delusions and psychological struggles, and I ended up getting very attached to this kid. Omori doesn't typically give you choices more complex than 'yes/no', but I found it interesting that the game would sometimes offer yes/no choices as a way of indicating hesitation, fear or reluctance; there are times when just the fact that you're being offered the choice tells you something about Sunny's character, because it means he's torn between the two options.

Kris (Deltarune). I find Kris fascinating. There's something so strange and dark and unsettling about them, and the glimpses we get of their character paint an interestingly complicated picture. They're lonely, they're bored, they're an outcast, they're sentimental, they have a cruel streak, their friends mean a lot to them. The player, in their role as the one controlling the protagonist, is able to make Kris do things against their will, but it's unclear how Kris feels about the player's presence overall. I'm so interested to see how the rest of Deltarune goes.

Silent protagonists I like:

Chell (Portal). Chell is truly silent, never gets so much as a dialogue option, but the gameplay conveys an impression of her character as relentlessly determined. She also stands out to me for being a female silent protagonist, which I haven't seen many of! It often feels like protagonists aren't allowed to be female unless there's somehow a reason for them to be female, so I appreciate the fact that Chell is a woman despite the fact that, if she were a man, pretty much nothing about the game would change. She's not a woman for plot purposes. She's not a woman for eye candy purposes; it's a first-person game and you almost never see her on screen. She just happens to be a woman.

Protagonist (Persona 3). I'm talking about the original game here, as I haven't yet played Reload. The Persona 3 protagonist doesn't have anywhere near the amount of personality that comes through in Persona 5's protagonist, but I still got a slight impression of his character. The Persona 3 protagonist generally comes across to me as clueless and eager to please, which is mildly endearing.

Protagonist (Persona 4). Again, I only got a faint sense of personality from Persona 4's protagonist, but there's still enough there for me to pick up on something: a quiet, serious, dedicated kid who cares very strongly about his friends. He also loves cats; that's important!

Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog). Sonic gets an unfair advantage here because I used to watch The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and read Sonic the Comic! But his animations still give him some cute personality as a silent protagonist, e.g. the way he gets visibly impatient if you leave him motionless.

Amaterasu (Okami). I considered putting Amaterasu in the 'basically indifferent to, but they get points for being cute' tier below! But, in addition to being cute, she gets extra points for the touch of personality in her reactions, and in being able to bite anyone.

Stanley (The Stanley Parable). As with Chell, Stanley is truly and completely silent, but the nature of the gameplay gives you an impression of his character: rebellious, contrary, curious. He's really only made interesting by the narrator's obsession with him, though.

Silent protagonists I'm basically indifferent to, but they get points for being cute:

Ori (Ori and the Blind Forest). Ori is, to be fair, very cute, and a little personality comes across in the story cutscenes. It's possible I'm ranking Ori down slightly because I hated the ending of Ori and the Will of the Wisps so much that it impacted my feelings about the entire series.

Dixie/Donkey/Diddy Kong (Donkey Kong Country). There's some personality in their animations, but I never became invested in them as characters.

Silent protagonists I'm indifferent to:

Frisk (Undertale). There's some cute personality in some of the ACT options, but overall I didn't get especially attached to Frisk.

Jak (Jak & Daxter). In the first game, I had no real interest in Jak; the most interesting thing about him is probably the fact that this quiet kid is friends with the non-stop chatterbox Daxter. (Which works out pretty well; as a quiet kid, I found it comfortable to be friends with other kids who were happy to talk without much input from me!) In Jak II he gained the ability to talk (and a lot of trauma) and immediately became a lot more interesting to me!

Reycho (World's End Club). This kid has basically no personality, but he escapes last place because he joined in the stupid 'A human, a human, a human!' dance that made me crack up.

Mario (Super Mario series). Mario is, of course, a classic videogame protagonist who has starred in a lot of well-crafted games! But I do not care about him as a character.

Separately, there's a 'this isn't a character; this is just me' section that doesn't really fit into the fondness ranking:

Protagonist (Pokémon). The protagonist of Pokémon games is just me. It's a kid, and it's often a boy; in Pokémon games where you choose the protagonist's gender, I'll just go with whichever protagonist I prefer the design of. But it's still me.

When I'm playing as a boy in Pokémon games, I usually name the protagonist Rakuni. (If I'm playing as a girl, of course, I'll go with Riona.) But 'Bulby is the protagonist's Bulbasaur' or 'Bulby is Rakuni's Bulbasaur' would be an absolutely insane thing to say. Bulby is my Bulbasaur.

There are Pokémon protagonist designs I like more than others; my favourite is the male protagonist (Hilbert) in Pokémon Black and White. But I can't rank the characters by fondness; they're all just me.

I'm not sure what conclusions I can draw from this exercise!

I suppose, looking back over this list, I find it interesting that my three favourite silent protagonists each caught my attention in different ways. Joker's personality shines through in his charming animations and fun dialogue options. Sunny's trauma and inner thoughts are conveyed to the player through the game's environments and mechanics. Kris is a mystery who you learn about primarily through the way other characters react to or talk about them.

So I suppose there are multiple ways to create an interesting silent protagonist! It's still rare for games to present me with a silent protagonist who really catches my attention, but it's good to know that it can be done.

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Interesting topic! I particularly like your closing thoughts, because even though the protagonist may be silent, I'd say if the game design is good, they can "speak" through other means than dialogue, be it animation and gameplay decisions, be it reactions from others, or be it atmosphere and environment. (For that last one, I had to think of Gris for example.)

It's possible I'm ranking Ori down slightly because I hated the ending of Ori and the Will of the Wisps so much that it impacted my feelings about the entire series.

One might argue that this is the sign of a failed Silent Protagonist? I disliked it as well, and one reason was that I didn't see it coming, nor did it feel right for Ori at that point in the story. Which suggests to me that they failed in getting their protagonist across as someone for whom the ending made sense in the context of the game. YMMV of course.

Oh, I forgot about Gris! What a gorgeous game. I didn't necessarily find the protagonist especially interesting as a character, but I do think the mechanics did a great job of conveying her state of mind.

I didn't see it coming, nor did it feel right for Ori at that point in the story. Which suggests to me that they failed in getting their protagonist across as someone for whom the ending made sense in the context of the game.

This sounds exactly right to me! It felt like the ending of a different story. Ori's priority throughout the game had been their sister; why was the ending suddenly more concerned with the fate of the forest? I found the resolution incredibly unsatisfying because it felt like it was resolving the wrong questions.

Interesting topic. I think I'm pretty accepting of different ways game protagonists can be handled, and if the protagonist's personality is downplayed or absent I can generally roll with that. I do think I sometimes project imagined details onto silent protagonists and I'm not always sure what they're based on. Return of the Obra Dinn has a silent protagonist who you never learn anything about except that they're an insurance investigator, but for some reason I imagined them as a woman even though that is unlikely in the historical setting.

I'd also add a category for games where there is no in-world protagonist and you participate in the game in a more abstract way. Case of the Golden Idol has you investigating crimes, but you're not a detective or really present in any way, you're just an observer, and there is no representation of you in the game world. This is more common in strictly puzzle games (who is the "protagonist" in Tetris?) but apparently it can be done in games with a narrative too.

Fun fact: In Return of the Obra Dinn, the protagonist is actually very briefly voiced at the beginning of the game! It's only for a two or three lines. This might be why you imagined them as a woman: when the game starts, it will randomly decide whether your protagonist is a man or woman. I think I read that this was partially due to his daughter asking why it couldn't be a woman, but I can't find my sources for that one while trying to google it - thought I'd seen it before though!

Huh, I completely forgot that!

I'm delighted by 'who is the "protagonist" in Tetris?' as a question! The existence of games with no protagonist is a great point.

I've definitely enjoyed games without protagonists, or with protagonists who don't have much character, but it's rare for me to get fannishly into them. When I write fanfiction, it's usually from the perspective of the protagonist, to a startlingly large extent. (Just took a quick look; of the last thirty videogame fics I posted, 80% were written from the perspective of the main playable character.) I suppose maybe that's because the game itself gives me the experience of being in their perspective. If the protagonist doesn't grab me, I'm going to have to put in the work to get into the perspective of a character I haven't already seen through the eyes of!

That makes sense! I don't write a lot of video game fics, but if I wrote one for Golden Idol I would be tempted to have the characters feel a sense of being constantly observed by an abstract outside force. :P

Also in "mostly a silent protagonist", I've mentioned before that I like what the Digital Devil Saga games do with Serph, who is at first glance our typical Atlus silent protagonist without much of a personality and who is generally a good guy.

(PLOT SPOILERS FOR BOTH GAMES FOLLOW)

The first game is set in a place called The Junkyard, where everybody really has very little personality and through the presence of a girl named Sera who awakens in the Junkyard, they themselves start to awaken to their emotions (Serph seemingly aside).

There's a part in the first game where as part of a puzzle the game tells a story, two parts of which are here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn7m4hwSm24&list=PLECF5CF0A66BCF20B&index=34 - 1 min 15 seconds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV45ZAxg108&list=PLECF5CF0A66BCF20B&index=35 - 27 seconds

This initially seems to be pretty disconnected from anything other than the fact the narrator is Sera's voice. There is a bit of an allegory going on that the "good prince" is Serph (grey-haired silent protag) and the "evil prince" is Heat (the red head).

Later on, it becomes apparent that the Junkyard was constructed from Sera's memories and views from her time in a lab, where she was effectively an experiment. In the second game (which takes place in the real world, not the Junkyard), there's a Big Plot cutscene about her time in that lab. The most surprising thing about this cutscene is that, in it, Serph talks, and you realise quite how manipulated and wrong that interpretation in those earlier two clips are. It's just a really cool moment and a great way to really throw a wrench at that silent protagonist concept and really make you question your views up until then. Link below:

https://youtu.be/Jx_938IdvJQ?si=oHzE784zWD3RGkT_&t=132 - a bit short of 3 minutes from where I've started the time

-timydamonkey

I remember you telling me about this! It's such an interesting concept. Going 'surprise: your silent protagonist has a distinctive personality, and it's really not the one you'd expect' is a great way to upend the player's preconceptions.

(Imagine if the Legend of Zelda series ever got a cutscene where Link spoke. Riots in the streets.)

I like the concept of characters starting out without much personality and then awakening to it, too!

I guess you could argue that the Serph we play as is in fact entirely a fictionally constructed personality and he is a good dude (because Sera thought the real Serph was the best person ever as she thought he was nice even though his opinions seemed to be "ethics, pssh, what I want is results and I'll manipulate her to get results but who cares about her -feelings-"), entirely separate from asshole real Serph. (At the time of Digital Devil Saga 1, all the "original people" Sera remembers from the lab are dead, having mostly murdered each other basically. The Embryon are quite an ironic tribe when you consider they're tiny and mostly consist of people who killed eachother. These constructs based upon her skewed views later exit that Junkyard and enter the real world.) Poor old Heat gets re-imagined as angry asshole man when actually she only remembers him being aggressive for him calling out Serph for being The Biggest Asshole to her.

There are some really good ideas in the Digital Devil Saga games, but they're also really weird. (At one point you basically do a fusion dance and also there's a cat who's kind of you. And did I mention that in the Junkyard they're all technically cannibals (though mostly as they turn into demonic cannibals)? Like seriously, it's a plot point. Argilla refuses to be a cannibal for a while and therefore can't learn new skills, because only eating people gives you knowledge! DIGITAL DEVIL SAGA.)

I can't say I gave much thought to silent protagonists in video games; this exercise was enlightening! I like how, even if the protagonist has minimal lines (if any) or makes effort noises, you can still get a feel for them sometimes.

It's really interesting to see the different ways games convey a character's personality when they can't just do it through dialogue!

Omori doesn't typically give you choices more complex than 'yes/no', but I found it interesting that the game would sometimes offer yes/no choices as a way of indicating hesitation, fear or reluctance; there are times when just the fact that you're being offered the choice tells you something about Sunny's character, because it means he's torn between the two options.

Interesting! Good subtlety and nuance to the writing there!

It often feels like protagonists aren't allowed to be female unless there's somehow a reason for them to be female, so I appreciate the fact that Chell is a woman despite the fact that, if she were a man, pretty much nothing about the game would change.

Yeah, a lot of media is very stuck on the idea of default people being cishet white men, and having a character be a woman without needing any more justification than "some people are women" is good.

Mario is, of course, a classic videogame protagonist who has starred in a lot of well-crafted games! But I do not care about him as a character.

My nephew, who has passionate opinions about Luigi, would disagree.

Interesting! Good subtlety and nuance to the writing there!

It's a really interesting touch! The game doesn't usually ask 'do you want to leave?' when you attempt to depart an area, so, when I tried to walk away from a warm scene and the game asked 'do you want to leave?', it really conveyed that the protagonist was reluctant to leave.

Yeah, a lot of media is very stuck on the idea of default people being cishet white men, and having a character be a woman without needing any more justification than "some people are women" is good.

Exactly! I've seen it said that Chell is meaningless from a representation standpoint, because she might as well be a man, or be white, and nothing would change. But I think it's still meaningful that she isn't the same sort of protagonist we see everywhere else. A lot of games would go 'this character could be anyone, default to white male', and it's refreshing that Portal went 'actually, if this character could be anyone, they don't have to be male or white'.

To be honest, I do find Luigi more interesting than Mario! Just the fact that he lives in Mario's shadow is enough to make him feel more distinctive. Which seems contradictory, but it's true!

Funnily enough, I think the P4 protagonist feels like he has a pretty clear personality, more so than Joker did on my first P5 playthrough. The dialogue options and the body language and some of the possible activity choices--they make him seem like a fairly rounded teenage boy with a sense of humour and a lack of self-preservation. Things like testing his courage by eating possibly expired food, his ability to charm random people, and his ability to remain comically deadpan in the face of extreme provocation. And he evidently has a sweet relationship with Nanako regardless of the player's actual choices.

(the personality I thought he had from the game was pretty close to how the later P4 anime portrayed him, actually--they effectively had him as the weirdest possible version you could come up with based on canonical options, and that felt right.)

This is really interesting and makes a lot of sense! To be honest, when I was describing him as quiet and serious and dedicated, I did find myself thinking 'how much of this is actually what I gleaned from the game, and how much is just how I think of the character because that's how he's portrayed in my favourite Persona 4 fic?'

Yeah, I gave to admit that even though I love the quirkiness, I also gave downplayed those in my fics because it is hard to write the weirdo strangeness-magnet version, even though that's probably more canonical!

I don't have much good to say about Persona 5 Royal, but I love how they continued to write Akira. The moment where he tossed Maruki's letter onto the table was everything I ever wanted in life.

I recently finished Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. I bring this up because it has the notable distinction of being the first (Nintendo sanctioned and/or non-Musou) game in the franchise where you play as Zelda, not Link. This allowed them to give Link, who is normally the most silent of silent protagonists, a clear backstory and motivation and even lean into some of the silent protag tendencies and explain why this version of the character had those tendencies. It was very clever and loving and I really appreciated it.

(No spoilers, but your comment of, "Imagine if the Legend of Zelda series ever got a cutscene where Link spoke. Riots in the streets," made me laugh for tangentially related reasons.)

I haven't played most of the games you've listed. I've nothing else to add. 😀

Edited 2024-10-15 18:21 (UTC)

I was curious about how Echoes of Wisdom would incorporate Link, if at all, so this is really interesting to hear! A friend of mine is playing at the moment, so I'll have to ask her for her thoughts on how he's handled.

The silent protag is such an interesting trope because, generally, I find it tiresome, but like you listed, there are a number of interesting instances of the character where I find myself attached to them regardless.

Joker and Yu are great examples. I also became more attached to Yuki with Reload, when in the original P3 I had a harder time since it felt like he was really Chameleoning through every interaction he had.

Link is a weird case because as the games go on he gets more and more of a personality. The Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom duology, especially taking Age of Calamity into consideration, give us one of the most defined incarnations we've ever had and hint as a lot of depth and trauma and just-- really solid things that I really appreciate as a long time fan.

The protagonist from Digital Devil Saga is silent, but the second game in the duology does some really interesting things with it that I don't wanna spoil. It's a lot of fun though.

Overall, I feel about protagonists in games as I do about romance options. I'd prefer the plot to develop these things over having a more barebones "it's what you want" scenario, but when done well, I'm here for it. But I think a silent protag has a much steeper hill to climb to make me care about them, opposed to if they had literally anything else going on.

Link is a weird case because as the games go on he gets more and more of a personality. The Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom duology, especially taking Age of Calamity into consideration, give us one of the most defined incarnations we've ever had and hint as a lot of depth and trauma and just-- really solid things that I really appreciate as a long time fan.

I found myself thinking a lot about Link while writing my silent protagonist list; he's such a famous and influential silent protagonist that his absence felt like a real hole in this post. The Legend of Zelda series is one I've never quite managed to get into, sadly, despite several short-lived attempts, so I couldn't speak about Link with any authority. I've been curious about how he feels as a silent protagonist to fans of the series, so it's interesting to hear these thoughts on him!

But I think a silent protag has a much steeper hill to climb to make me care about them, opposed to if they had literally anything else going on.

It's a real challenge! I can understand having a silent protagonist in 'the protagonist is basically just you' games like Pokémon or Animal Crossing, but I'm a little surprised they're still such an enduring tradition even in heavily story-focused games; it seems like having a silent protagonist would make writing the game's story and interactions so much harder.

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That's The Best Part.

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