Games you love with horrible protagonists

[Dalisclock]

Spec ops: The line.

I know that was kind of the point of the game, but its still true.

And at least the way I ended up playing the game, Papers Please.

I wanted to say Spec Ops, but for me it was hard not to feel some sympathy for him. The dude was obviously suffering from a mental breakdown/PTSD due to his experiences in Afghanistan, which only aggravated all the mistakes he made in Dubai.

 

[sageoftruth]

Garret from Thief 1 and 2. He's fun to watch in action, but if I were to step back and look at him as a person, he's completely Machiavellian, and runs from the idea of altruism or non-selfish behavior like it's out to kill him.

In his defense, this could all just be a facade he puts on to convince himself that he perfectly fits his hardened thief persona. After all, he's the one doing all of the narrating. So, perhaps it's just his persona that I don't like.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

GTA III - Silent Protagonist. In a game about organized crime and revenge. At least most RPGs with mute leads, and the Zelda series, have scenes with their arms waving in the universal "explaning animation," implying that they do have a voice. Claud, that's our vocally challenged gangster here, just blankly stares at the mobster giving him a gig.

Originally Rockstar had planned on giving Claud a voice and bigger backstory, but they ran into development hell and ended up putting on the backburner and never got around to putting it in.

Ah, so that's the reason. It didn't hurt the game overall, but did make the guy we controlled, and what backstory of his we did see, kinda... meh. Tommy Vercetti makes up for it, though.

 

[renegade7]

Marche Radiuju from Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. Quite possibly the biggest douchebag in existence, in spite of being in a pretty fun game. Him and everyone he knows gets sucked into an alternate dimension where they all have the one thing that they want the most - and he sets out to undue all of it.

Him? Hold on a minute, I seriously thought Marche was a girl.

But yes, that's exactly where I was going to go also.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Well nearly all the good ones have already been said. I'll just add my thoughts on them

- Kratos definitely, he's a horrible person, and GoWIII is possibly my favorite game ever. I still think GoW III was possibly trying to do something subversive with him, but fell flat on its ass.

- Tidus is both a horrible person and a horrible character (seriously, fuck him). Great game though.

- Alex from Prototype is a completely remorseless killing machine, though this is justified somewhat by the circumistances and a late-game twist that I really did not expect but really appreciated. The game was really fun too, haven't played it in ages though since I got my laptop.

- I'm bending the rules a bit here, but since someone already mentioned the Dragonborn, I'm allowed this pick: The Chosen Undead from Dark Souls 1. You have a bit of choice in your decisions and how it affects the world, so I wouldn't call her/him a complete blank slate. Just some things: You can kill Gwyndolin, depriving the world of its last bastion of light and hope. You're forced to kill Quelaag, leaving her sister, the ill Daughter of Chaos, forever alone and suffering in agony. If you play the Artorias DLC before challenging Sif, he will try to stop you benevolently, but you have to kill him regardless. At the end you can become the Dark Lord, dooming the world to the fate that befell Oolacile: a world devoid of civilization or sanity, where there are only ruins and the savage remains of order prowling them.

Marche Radiuju from Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. Quite possibly the biggest douchebag in existence, in spite of being in a pretty fun game. Him and everyone he knows gets sucked into an alternate dimension where they all have the one thing that they want the most - and he sets out to undue all of it.

Wimpy self now full of courage? Destroy the new world.
Paraplegic little brother can now walk? Destroy the new world.
Terrorized best friend now a benevolent monarch? Destroy the new world.
Other best friend now socially loved? Destroy the new world.
Best friend's alcoholic loser dad now a respected authority figure? Fuck it, destroy the new world.

Now that's an interesting pick. I wouldn't have thought of him, but his actions truly make him deplorable. I've thought for several years of him as the actual villain of the story, which certainly twists the whole scenario around. He's not trying to hurt anyone (or at least that's what he tells himself), he's nice and cooperative, and doesn't want to live in an illusion. Is he really that bad for just wanting to face reality and not escape into fantasy worlds? But when he tears everyone else down because of his selfish conviction in his beliefs, that's when he becomes horrible.

 

[Flammablezeus]

James Heller from Prototype 2. They dumbed down the mechanics and combat for the game and it's reflected in the main character. Playing as Heller is nowhere near as fun as playing as Mercer in the first game. Mercer has agility and variety in his combat whereas Heller is just "big swearword bad man smash things, SWEARWORD!"

 

[Azure23]

Well nearly all the good ones have already been said. I'll just add my thoughts on them

- Kratos definitely, he's a horrible person, and GoWIII is possibly my favorite game ever. I still think GoW III was possibly trying to do something subversive with him, but fell flat on its ass.

- Tidus is both a horrible person and a horrible character (seriously, fuck him). Great game though.

- Alex from Prototype is a completely remorseless killing machine, though this is justified somewhat by the circumistances and a late-game twist that I really did not expect but really appreciated. The game was really fun too, haven't played it in ages though since I got my laptop.

- I'm bending the rules a bit here, but since someone already mentioned the Dragonborn, I'm allowed this pick: The Chosen Undead from Dark Souls 1. You have a bit of choice in your decisions and how it affects the world, so I wouldn't call her/him a complete blank slate. Just some things: You can kill Gwyndolin, depriving the world of its last bastion of light and hope. You're forced to kill Quelaag, leaving her sister, the ill Daughter of Chaos, forever alone and suffering in agony. If you play the Artorias DLC before challenging Sif, he will try to stop you benevolently, but you have to kill him regardless. At the end you can become the Dark Lord, dooming the world to the fate that befell Oolacile: a world devoid of civilization or sanity, where there are only ruins and the savage remains of order prowling them.

Marche Radiuju from Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. Quite possibly the biggest douchebag in existence, in spite of being in a pretty fun game. Him and everyone he knows gets sucked into an alternate dimension where they all have the one thing that they want the most - and he sets out to undue all of it.

Wimpy self now full of courage? Destroy the new world.
Paraplegic little brother can now walk? Destroy the new world.
Terrorized best friend now a benevolent monarch? Destroy the new world.
Other best friend now socially loved? Destroy the new world.
Best friend's alcoholic loser dad now a respected authority figure? Fuck it, destroy the new world.

Now that's an interesting pick. I wouldn't have thought of him, but his actions truly make him deplorable. I've thought for several years of him as the actual villain of the story, which certainly twists the whole scenario around. He's not trying to hurt anyone (or at least that's what he tells himself), he's nice and cooperative, and doesn't want to live in an illusion. Is he really that bad for just wanting to face reality and not escape into fantasy worlds? But when he tears everyone else down because of his selfish conviction in his beliefs, that's when he becomes horrible.

That's a..........really on the nose interpretation of Dark Souls, but it IS Dark Souls, so I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong or anything. I mean it didn't really seem like the Lords had much of a plan, Gwyndolin least of all, she was gonna do what? Find ridiculously strong simpletons to chuck into the first flame forever? Personally I just saw the Lords as selfish beings (much like the Greek pantheon) who were desperately trying to hold into power through subterfuge and manipulation of the entire race of man. As for Oolicile, well, the people of oolicile are only like that because Manus was accelerating the spread of the abyss and causing their humanity to run wild. But, we kill Manus, and stop the spread of the abyss. Undead with tons of humanity are just exceptionally powerful humans, not monsters like the oolicile citizens. But like I said, it's Dark Souls, cryptic by design Dark Souls with no discernible canon beyond trivial details.

As for the topic at hand? I'd say Aiden Pierce from Watch Dogs. I hate this guy because he's a psychotic self righteous vigilante who caused all of his own problems with his dumb criminal lifestyle and honestly his driving motivation seems like a flimsy excuse for him to kill a bunch of people without any self reflection. Also Watch Dogs was a shit game and the last thing I'll ever preorder.

 

[Hero of Lime]

Uhh, ummm. Fire Emblem Awakening's protag is pretty boring. Come to think of it, most of them are. Always bland goody-goodies.

B-but, I think he's awesome! ;~;

Out of all the Fire Emblem protagonists, I think Chrom is easily the exception to the rule in terms of "blandness." Especially once you unlock his support conversations and see all the weird Chrom-isms he displays.

 

[Bobic]

OT: Probably Tiz from bravely default. The other characters I enjoyed greatly but Tiz bothered me so much for some inexplicable reason.

I'll second that, and even add my reasons. For me it was because he was such a bland, non-character, who really seemed to just be tagging along for the plot.

You know that Plinkett phantom menace review, with the 'describe a character without referencing looks, job, role in the plot etc.' thing. Well, I can do that for the other 3, but not for Tiz. Agnes, extremely naive with no worldly experience. Edea, cheery action girl. Ringabel, suave lothario type guy. Tiz, uhhh, exists.

And then, when we add back their actual roles in the plot, it gets even worse. Agnes is the Wind Vestal (magical maguffin on legs) whose task is the central mission of the game. Edea is the daughter of the Antagonists' leader, turned traitor, so had some good character moments tied to that. Ringabel has the (admittedly overused) amnesia trope, with the added intrigue of a diary full of future events he had apparently written. And Tiz has a tragic event in the opening cutscene, and very little beyond that, he's just kinda there, being boring.

And, to add another character that really deserves to be in a list of horrible protagonists, Sonic the Hedgehog (and yes, I do love some of his games, Sonic Adventure 1 + 2 are great, and, yes, I say that almost entirely because of nostalgia, but no-one ever claimed love was smart, so I'm counting it). Now, I could pick on the low hanging fruit, and mock him for being every 90's stereotype of cool raditude. But instead, I'm going to declare him an awful person, and his world just lucky that he's stumbled onto their side. His theme tune in Sonic Adventure 1 has a chorus that ends with the lyrics 'There is no way to stop me from going to the very top,
It doesn't matter who is wrong and who is right'. This, I'll remind you, in a game with Robotnik as the chief villain, whose motivation begins and ends with 'I want to conquer the world because I'm a cock' i.e. about as ambiguous as Dr. Evil. Sonic doesn't give a shit about saving the world, he just wants to feel powerful. If Dr. Robotnik had a massive army of Robots searching for a cure for cancer or whatever, Sonic would still destroy them, just for kicks.