Doctorpus M.D: Awful Character Names
Okay people, it's been a while. Be gentle.
Ask anyone who's ever tried their hand at writing fiction and they'll agree with the following. Naming a fictional character is hard. No matter how natural or clever a name may sound in your head it'll seem as awkward as a blind deer with flaccid cocks for legs on paper.
The biggest hurdle, of course, is that a main character's name needs to pop. It must be memorable without being obnoxious. A balance that's difficult to maintain.
Side Note: Reality sucks in this regard. Have you ever came across a name so awesome it makes you want to change yours? How often has the bearer of that named lived up, either physically or personally, to the sheer brilliance of their monicker? When I was in college there was a gentleman in my English class who went by the totally fantastic and entirely legit name of Adam Blackbeard. He played the clarinet. Point made.
Another important aspect of a character's name, at least in the type of writing we're talking about, is its ability to convey what type of person the character is quickly and effectively. This particular trope while often a sign of lazy writing in this day and age, is seemingly endemic. The sci-fi and fantasy genres are particularly lousy with it as many seasoned authors still end up giving their antagonists names like Malice McBastardpants.
Side Note: One rather worrying repercussion of this technique is that its use implies that a given work of fiction takes place in an horrific, pre-ordained, nightmare world, where free-will is a flimsy illusion and the only thing that affects your path in life is the monicker your clueless parents give you.
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/kanetwat01.gif]
All of these characters are called Kain (or some variant thereof) and all are complete fuckbags. Parents take note.
Video game writers take this to the extreme. As an entirely visual format with generally less focus on story telling and character development, a game writer has very little time to introduce you to a character. You're generally given about five seconds to learn about and therefore empathize with a character before it's time for he or she to start stabbing things in the face. Since a character's name is generally the second thing you learn about them after what they look like, it has a massive effect on how you view them. So naturally game writers try and stick a whole boat load of meaning in their characters' names in order to get the response they want immediately, and quite naturally, some of them fuck it up.
The following list details some of what I think are the worst offenders on the market today in no particular order. They range from the obnoxiously obvious to the downright stupid. While there are a multitude I've missed there are a few that are excluded from the list on purpose. Namely, names that are supposed to be obvious or stupid such as 'Max Payne' or 'Phoenix Wright'. That being said, if you know of any names you wish to add to the list. Go right ahead.
Marcus Fenix
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/marcus-fenix-gears21.jpg]
You can either take Gears of War (and, by extension, Gears of War 2) seriously, in which case you'll either love it or hate it depending on how many blows to the head you've suffered lately, or you can take it as a hilarious, if not quite intentional, deconstruction of exactly what's wrong with the gaming industry today. I decided to interpret it as the latter and found it most enjoyable. It also had guns with chainsaws on them--which helped.
However, while I'm willing to give most of Gear's braindead plot and absurdly over the top characters (The smouldering look Marcus gives Dom during his car-kicking "I've lost her AGAIN" freakout in GOW2 is honestly the most outright homosexual moment I've ever come across in a video game. When I consider the game's target audience, it strikes me as sheer genius.) a pass based simply on the fact they're too profoundly stupid to be anything but parody, the central character's last name still fills me with inconsolable writer's rage.
Why? Because it's obvious. Painfully so.
When we come across Marcus Fenix, the once great and respected soldier has fallen on harsh times. He's locked in a filthy jail cell with only the possibility of being executed and/or gang raped by evil lizard aliens to look forward to. Things are looking very grim indeed.
Then by some quirk of chance he is released by his best friend, and sometimes underling, Dom. (Whose name opens up a whole new can of worms.) Pretty soon Marcus is on the up and up, and thanks to a series of unfortunate (and quite suspicious when you think about it from a command perspective) deaths Marcus finds himself back in his former position. Leading men and kicking ass. He has risen from the ashes like... you know... one of those things... a phoenix.
So, they call him Marcus Phoenix. But, and this is the part that elevates the name from bad to terrible, a writer deep in the bowels of Epic Games HQ decided that perhaps Marcus Phoenix would be too obvious.
So they spelled it wrong.
I weep.
Dante
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/dantepic01.gif]
Okay. Let's get the obvious out of the way first. The world is populated by a host of illiterate motherfuckers. For every man, woman, and child who's ever picked up a copy of Harry Potter or, heaven forbid, some actual literature, there's seventeen drooling zombies who think that Wuthering Heights was written by Kate Bush, or that Lord of the Flies is about an evil time-travelling wizard who takes over the empire state building with his army of hyper-intelligent super flies.
An off-shoot of this is that the name 'Dante' has become synonymous with roguish debonair hero-types, with beautiful hair, and quite often, a penchant for kicking the shit out of things. Presumably this is because most people's understanding of the Divine Comedy comes from reading its Wikipedia page, seeing the word 'Hell' and thinking, "Fuck yeah." Possibly while listening to Meatloaf.
While in Inferno, Dante does literally explore Hell, and he does so at quite a leisurely pace while discussing art, faith and science with his guide and confidant, Virgil. The story essentially consists of Dante being told not to do this, this, this or this because if he does demons will set him on fire. Not once does he kick a demon in the bollocks then jump out of a window in slow motion, his twin pistols blazing as he falls through a shower of glass.
That being said, I haven't read Purgatorio or Paradiso so maybe he kept all the good stuff for the sequel.
Sonic the Hedgehog
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/sega1_narrowweb_300x4710_display.jpg]
While I have no quarrel with the blue hedgehog, providing he shuts up and stays far away from the third dimension, I do have a problem with the horrendous naming convention he's partially responsible for. While Sonic wasn't the first (Adverb) the (Animal) he was the most successful, and thanks to his success we're stuck with a slew of terribly named talking animals.
There is a reason Sonic fandom far outstrips that of his one time rival Mario, despite the fact the last truly good Sonic game was made when I was seven. It's simple. Making your own sonic themed character requires no effort on your part. You simply take an adverb. Add a 'the' and then name your favourite animal. It's a marketer's wet dream. A machine that literally shits out a product with a microscopic amounts of creative input. You could produce Sonic characters by using a spreadsheet. In fact, I'm fairly sure that's what Sega actually does.
While there's plenty of bad characters I could name off-hand (and probably a few I could name just by guessing) the ultimate transgression of this stickleback naming convention is Sonic Adventure's 'Big the Cat'.
Guess what his defining feature is.
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/big.gif]
On an auxiliary note, why oh why have we reverted to the Japanese name for Dr. Robotnik? Dr. Robotnik is an awesome name that not only explains his main character trait, (he makes robots) but the 'nik' at the end has just a touch of Russian to it giving him a little bit of 'Red Menace' trimming (Note: The word actually is Russian. It means 'Worker'). Instead, we're stuck with Dr. Eggman because... ho ho and get this... because he's shaped like an egg.
Har.
Edge Maverick
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/star-ocean-4-screens-20080610071307284_640w.jpg]
You know, I don't even have a clever intro or anything to go with this one. It honestly just flabbergasts me that anyone over the age of thirteen actually sat down and thought 'Edge Maverick' was a good name for a character.
Separated, the two components of the name aren't so offensive. The 'Maverick' part is a holdover from the first game, made back when Top Gun, and by extension Tom Cruise, was still somewhat popular. And, Edge is apparently still a popular enough word to keep the immortal patent troll, Tim Langdell, in business.
But together? Edge Maverick? That isn't a name. That's something you would write on a census form if you were taking the piss.
As terrible as Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Christ) was on its own terms, I can't help but wonder if everything I hated about the game, from the terrible story to the atrocious voice acting, was somehow made worse by the main character's name. In fact, now I think about it, I can't remember a damn thing about that game aside from that bloody name. Maybe I didn't even play it. Perhaps I just saw that name in a magazine or on IGN one day and invented an absolutely awful game to go with it so I'd never have to actually sit down and listen to a grown man say Edge Maverick on my television.
One can but hope.
Okay people, it's been a while. Be gentle.
Ask anyone who's ever tried their hand at writing fiction and they'll agree with the following. Naming a fictional character is hard. No matter how natural or clever a name may sound in your head it'll seem as awkward as a blind deer with flaccid cocks for legs on paper.
The biggest hurdle, of course, is that a main character's name needs to pop. It must be memorable without being obnoxious. A balance that's difficult to maintain.
Side Note: Reality sucks in this regard. Have you ever came across a name so awesome it makes you want to change yours? How often has the bearer of that named lived up, either physically or personally, to the sheer brilliance of their monicker? When I was in college there was a gentleman in my English class who went by the totally fantastic and entirely legit name of Adam Blackbeard. He played the clarinet. Point made.
Another important aspect of a character's name, at least in the type of writing we're talking about, is its ability to convey what type of person the character is quickly and effectively. This particular trope while often a sign of lazy writing in this day and age, is seemingly endemic. The sci-fi and fantasy genres are particularly lousy with it as many seasoned authors still end up giving their antagonists names like Malice McBastardpants.
Side Note: One rather worrying repercussion of this technique is that its use implies that a given work of fiction takes place in an horrific, pre-ordained, nightmare world, where free-will is a flimsy illusion and the only thing that affects your path in life is the monicker your clueless parents give you.
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/kanetwat01.gif]
All of these characters are called Kain (or some variant thereof) and all are complete fuckbags. Parents take note.
Video game writers take this to the extreme. As an entirely visual format with generally less focus on story telling and character development, a game writer has very little time to introduce you to a character. You're generally given about five seconds to learn about and therefore empathize with a character before it's time for he or she to start stabbing things in the face. Since a character's name is generally the second thing you learn about them after what they look like, it has a massive effect on how you view them. So naturally game writers try and stick a whole boat load of meaning in their characters' names in order to get the response they want immediately, and quite naturally, some of them fuck it up.
The following list details some of what I think are the worst offenders on the market today in no particular order. They range from the obnoxiously obvious to the downright stupid. While there are a multitude I've missed there are a few that are excluded from the list on purpose. Namely, names that are supposed to be obvious or stupid such as 'Max Payne' or 'Phoenix Wright'. That being said, if you know of any names you wish to add to the list. Go right ahead.
Marcus Fenix
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/marcus-fenix-gears21.jpg]
You can either take Gears of War (and, by extension, Gears of War 2) seriously, in which case you'll either love it or hate it depending on how many blows to the head you've suffered lately, or you can take it as a hilarious, if not quite intentional, deconstruction of exactly what's wrong with the gaming industry today. I decided to interpret it as the latter and found it most enjoyable. It also had guns with chainsaws on them--which helped.
However, while I'm willing to give most of Gear's braindead plot and absurdly over the top characters (The smouldering look Marcus gives Dom during his car-kicking "I've lost her AGAIN" freakout in GOW2 is honestly the most outright homosexual moment I've ever come across in a video game. When I consider the game's target audience, it strikes me as sheer genius.) a pass based simply on the fact they're too profoundly stupid to be anything but parody, the central character's last name still fills me with inconsolable writer's rage.
Why? Because it's obvious. Painfully so.
When we come across Marcus Fenix, the once great and respected soldier has fallen on harsh times. He's locked in a filthy jail cell with only the possibility of being executed and/or gang raped by evil lizard aliens to look forward to. Things are looking very grim indeed.
Then by some quirk of chance he is released by his best friend, and sometimes underling, Dom. (Whose name opens up a whole new can of worms.) Pretty soon Marcus is on the up and up, and thanks to a series of unfortunate (and quite suspicious when you think about it from a command perspective) deaths Marcus finds himself back in his former position. Leading men and kicking ass. He has risen from the ashes like... you know... one of those things... a phoenix.
So, they call him Marcus Phoenix. But, and this is the part that elevates the name from bad to terrible, a writer deep in the bowels of Epic Games HQ decided that perhaps Marcus Phoenix would be too obvious.
So they spelled it wrong.
I weep.
Dante
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/dantepic01.gif]
Okay. Let's get the obvious out of the way first. The world is populated by a host of illiterate motherfuckers. For every man, woman, and child who's ever picked up a copy of Harry Potter or, heaven forbid, some actual literature, there's seventeen drooling zombies who think that Wuthering Heights was written by Kate Bush, or that Lord of the Flies is about an evil time-travelling wizard who takes over the empire state building with his army of hyper-intelligent super flies.
An off-shoot of this is that the name 'Dante' has become synonymous with roguish debonair hero-types, with beautiful hair, and quite often, a penchant for kicking the shit out of things. Presumably this is because most people's understanding of the Divine Comedy comes from reading its Wikipedia page, seeing the word 'Hell' and thinking, "Fuck yeah." Possibly while listening to Meatloaf.
While in Inferno, Dante does literally explore Hell, and he does so at quite a leisurely pace while discussing art, faith and science with his guide and confidant, Virgil. The story essentially consists of Dante being told not to do this, this, this or this because if he does demons will set him on fire. Not once does he kick a demon in the bollocks then jump out of a window in slow motion, his twin pistols blazing as he falls through a shower of glass.
That being said, I haven't read Purgatorio or Paradiso so maybe he kept all the good stuff for the sequel.
Sonic the Hedgehog
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/sega1_narrowweb_300x4710_display.jpg]
While I have no quarrel with the blue hedgehog, providing he shuts up and stays far away from the third dimension, I do have a problem with the horrendous naming convention he's partially responsible for. While Sonic wasn't the first (Adverb) the (Animal) he was the most successful, and thanks to his success we're stuck with a slew of terribly named talking animals.
There is a reason Sonic fandom far outstrips that of his one time rival Mario, despite the fact the last truly good Sonic game was made when I was seven. It's simple. Making your own sonic themed character requires no effort on your part. You simply take an adverb. Add a 'the' and then name your favourite animal. It's a marketer's wet dream. A machine that literally shits out a product with a microscopic amounts of creative input. You could produce Sonic characters by using a spreadsheet. In fact, I'm fairly sure that's what Sega actually does.
While there's plenty of bad characters I could name off-hand (and probably a few I could name just by guessing) the ultimate transgression of this stickleback naming convention is Sonic Adventure's 'Big the Cat'.
Guess what his defining feature is.
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/big.gif]
On an auxiliary note, why oh why have we reverted to the Japanese name for Dr. Robotnik? Dr. Robotnik is an awesome name that not only explains his main character trait, (he makes robots) but the 'nik' at the end has just a touch of Russian to it giving him a little bit of 'Red Menace' trimming (Note: The word actually is Russian. It means 'Worker'). Instead, we're stuck with Dr. Eggman because... ho ho and get this... because he's shaped like an egg.
Har.
Edge Maverick
[http://doctorpus.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/star-ocean-4-screens-20080610071307284_640w.jpg]
You know, I don't even have a clever intro or anything to go with this one. It honestly just flabbergasts me that anyone over the age of thirteen actually sat down and thought 'Edge Maverick' was a good name for a character.
Separated, the two components of the name aren't so offensive. The 'Maverick' part is a holdover from the first game, made back when Top Gun, and by extension Tom Cruise, was still somewhat popular. And, Edge is apparently still a popular enough word to keep the immortal patent troll, Tim Langdell, in business.
But together? Edge Maverick? That isn't a name. That's something you would write on a census form if you were taking the piss.
As terrible as Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Christ) was on its own terms, I can't help but wonder if everything I hated about the game, from the terrible story to the atrocious voice acting, was somehow made worse by the main character's name. In fact, now I think about it, I can't remember a damn thing about that game aside from that bloody name. Maybe I didn't even play it. Perhaps I just saw that name in a magazine or on IGN one day and invented an absolutely awful game to go with it so I'd never have to actually sit down and listen to a grown man say Edge Maverick on my television.
One can but hope.
Doctorpus M.D: On Escapism [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.67834#610710]
Doctorpus M.D: Three gaming jobs that suck in real life [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.67918#613692]
Doctorpus M.D: Procedurally generated offense [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.68035#617630]
Doctorpus M.D: "All the world's stage 1, and all the men and women merely goombas" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.69300#655209]
Doctorpus M.D: Three gaming outrages that never happened [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.69531#662909]
Doctorpus M.D: Tits (welcome to Preachyville) [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.70059#679298]
Doctorpus M.D: Hottie catfight (Return to Preachyville [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.70116#681255]
Doctorpus M.D: Know what else uses a sandbox? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.71490#725840]
Doctorpus: M.D: Diagnosing Sequelitis [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.72381#758223]
Doctorpus M.D: Three gaming jobs that suck in real life [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.67918#613692]
Doctorpus M.D: Procedurally generated offense [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.68035#617630]
Doctorpus M.D: "All the world's stage 1, and all the men and women merely goombas" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.69300#655209]
Doctorpus M.D: Three gaming outrages that never happened [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.69531#662909]
Doctorpus M.D: Tits (welcome to Preachyville) [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.70059#679298]
Doctorpus M.D: Hottie catfight (Return to Preachyville [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.70116#681255]
Doctorpus M.D: Know what else uses a sandbox? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.71490#725840]
Doctorpus: M.D: Diagnosing Sequelitis [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.72381#758223]
