back in part one she was really cute, clueless genius to perfection.
Well, her "genius" is a totally informed attribute; She had basically nothing to do with building KOS-MOS or designing her personality, and seems to exist solely to play as a shrink giving emotional guidance to an emotionless robot. (Or more accurately, just be a damsel to be rescued by said emotionless robot whose actions ACTUALLY drive the story.)
Under attack by gnosis? Shion nearly gets herself killed, while KOS-MOS rescues her and slaughters everything.
They need a ship? KOS-MOS takes charge and commandeers one. Shion then bows and scrapes and stays in the kitchen and cooks the commandeered ship's crew dinner.
I'd recount more, but... God, I can't remember anything but how Shion was the most useless "main" character ever. She's goddamn space opera Barbie. She has no personality besides being a girl and wanting to please the boys in her life.
Well, her "genius" is a totally informed attribute; She had basically nothing to do with building KOS-MOS or designing her personality, and seems to exist solely to play as a shrink giving emotional guidance to an emotionless robot. (Or more accurately, just be a damsel to be rescued by said emotionless robot whose actions ACTUALLY drive the story.)
Under attack by gnosis? Shion nearly gets herself killed, while KOS-MOS rescues her and slaughters everything.
They need a ship? KOS-MOS takes charge and commandeers one. Shion then bows and scrapes and stays in the kitchen and cooks the commandeered ship's crew dinner.
I'd recount more, but... God, I can't remember anything but how Shion was the most useless "main" character ever. She's goddamn space opera Barbie. She has no personality besides being a girl and wanting to please the boys in her life.
Ah, you're one of those people who think if a female lead isn't a TOTAL BITCH she's a weak doll.
Ah, you're one of those people who think if a female lead isn't a TOTAL BITCH she's a weak doll.
That's a blatant false dichotomy. (Or are you one of those people that say that Samus's character had to be completely derailed in Other M because "it was the only way to make her have character"? Or for that matter, are you one of those people that say any behavior from a female character besides blatant subservient boot-licking makes her a "total bitch"?)
If you think Shion's a strong female lead, though, then name something that drove the plot that she chose to do of her own volition, instead of being lead on by the supposed supporting characters. (Hell, Rex winds up being the actual hero by the end of the first game, and KOS-MOS was the actual main character for most of it...)
That's a blatant false dichotomy. (Or are you one of those people that say that Samus's character had to be completely derailed in Other M because "it was the only way to make her have character"? Or for that matter, are you one of those people that say any behavior from a female character besides blatant subservient boot-licking makes her a "total bitch"?)
If you think Shion's a strong female lead, though, then name something that drove the plot that she chose to do of her own volition, instead of being lead on by the supposed supporting characters. (Hell, Rex winds up being the actual hero by the end of the first game, and KOS-MOS was the actual main character for most of it...)
"Rex"?
KOS-MOS is literally receiving secret orders from the series pen-ultimate antagonist in the first game and is following her programming. She isn't actually freed of this programming until she's destroyed by T-elos and rebuilt by Shion. Not that KOS-MOS is incapable of acting of her own volition, but there's a fine line between what she wants and what the bad guy wants as they are often one in the same.
The overarching plot of the series is that there's a big conspiracy going on that hardly anyone is aware of even in part. Shion's a 20 year old engineer who's spent most of her adult life helping to develop KOS-MOS so her ability to grasp the big picture would naturally be very limited. Most of the "big" players in the setting have a hundred+ years invested in the "plot".
In general, she is a very kind person who will take great personal risks for the sake of others, bordering on recklessness.
I'd say as a female lead, she is very well developed as a person as well as the different relationships she has with the other characters in the series. I'd say that makes her "strong".
What does she do that matters to the plot? Rebuilds KOS-MOS after personally destroying the proto-type after it went on a rampage. You'd think such a traumatic event would have soured her on continuing the project.
Next she threatens to space herself (and Allen) when KOS-MOS starts acting seemingly of her own volition again. Obviously she's worried about a second incident that may endanger more people.
I'm a little fuzzy on remembering what happened with Commander Cherenkov, but Shion was the only character to have any real compassion for him. The planet sized Gnosis and what they were doing there, I can't remember. I know they recovered a Zohar emulator from the incident, but I can't remember how or why that happened.
When they need to clear the Kukai Foundation after being framed for the Wonglinde's destruction, Shion suggests using KOS-MOS's mission recorder as it was sufficiently protected from tampering and takes part in the Encephalon dive.
Generally she takes part in the parties activities as an equal member, as ridiculous as that is considering she's a 20 year old woman standing shoulder to shoulder with androids, mutants, and cyborgs. Disregarding that, she saves KOS-MOS from the destruction of the Merkabah, prognosticating her exit and catching her as she leaped to safety.
I'm just not really sure what you want. Shion is sweet and pleasant and nice to look at. She's experienced traumatic events throughout her life that dictate her actions, just like any other person. She's not all powerful, but what she does still matters. She's not interested in galactic politics or religions, and apparently this makes her a terrible character?
@Steak OK, sorry for forgetting to follow up on this until now, but...
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I think I should start with what a "strong character" is in a story first.
Strong characters make choices that both define their character and drive the plot forwards. Weak characters largely exist to inhabit the world that the strong characters change, setting up and providing context or being a foil to the choices that strong characters make. Weak characters may have insight or advice or long backstories, but those don't make them important to the plot, because only what the audience sees for themselves is important to the story.
The Joker, for example, is a strong character - he nearly always instigates the plots of stories he's a part of, his idiosyncrasies that shape his choices are therefore core to the plots that he is a part of. A story with the Joker in it will therefore be heavily defined by the flavor of insanity that the Joker suffers from, while all the weak characters can merely react to his presence and strong influence on the story. Batman is (usually) a strong character - his choices (usually) matter, as he (usually) isn't just reacting to the actions of the strong characters, instead (usually) actively advancing plans to counter his opponents. Alfred is a weak character. He may offer exposition or advice or insight, but that only matters as a means of setting up what the actual strong character, Batman, is going to do. Commissioner Gordon is the same - he merely acts to provide exposition or context for Batman, so that Batman isn't getting information that only the police should know about from nowhere.
Not all choices are equally weighty. Sure, Alfred 'chooses' what anecdote to regale Batman with, but it's only to inform the audience about what Batman's next decision will be, and how he got to that point. A security guard 'chooses' to pull his gun when the Joker shows up, but that's just reaction to the plot put in motion by the Joker's actions.
Likewise, a "choice" only matters for determining the actual personality of a character when it's not a completely obvious right or wrong choice. Forcing a character to choose between two things they hold dear, whether it is between two principles they hold dear to themselves, or Spiderman literally being forced to choose between saving Mary Jane and saving a bunch of kids, those choices are dramatic and inform what sort of character they are (or how much the author is too chicken to actually make a choice) because they actually demonstrate which values or relationships they hold most precious to them.
Similarly, having a strong personality doesn't mean that someone is a strong character in a literary sense. Plenty of colorful characters are side characters.
Strong characters shape the plot, while weak characters just nod and agree.
We are shown what strong characters do, while we are simply told what weak characters are.
Steak said:
KOS-MOS is literally receiving secret orders from the series pen-ultimate antagonist in the first game and is following her programming. She isn't actually freed of this programming until she's destroyed by T-elos and rebuilt by Shion. Not that KOS-MOS is incapable of acting of her own volition, but there's a fine line between what she wants and what the bad guy wants as they are often one in the same.
The overarching plot of the series is that there's a big conspiracy going on that hardly anyone is aware of even in part. Shion's a 20 year old engineer who's spent most of her adult life helping to develop KOS-MOS so her ability to grasp the big picture would naturally be very limited. Most of the "big" players in the setting have a hundred+ years invested in the "plot".
Being led about by the nose in a conspiracy without any capacity to make meaningful decisions for herself is the definition of a weak character. Likewise, being told that she's supposedly spent a long time doing "smart stuff" while never letting the audience see such things and generally behaving like a ditz where the audience can see her is the definition of an informed attribute... and that's kind of my point.
Working on KOS-MOS is not a defining character trait of Shion, nor was it some major momentous choice in the story. It's the excuse for her to be in KOS-MOS's story, just like "being a butler" is the excuse Alfred has for being around in Batman s story.
Also, considering as her entire job seems to be watching the emotional state of KOS-MOS so she doesn't go on a killer robot rampage, and she doesn't notice that someone else hacked into her and started controlling her, then that sort of undermines how much of a supposed highly professional genius she is demonstrated to be in the story, doesn't it?
Steak said:
In general, she is a very kind person who will take great personal risks for the sake of others, bordering on recklessness.
I'd say as a female lead, she is very well developed as a person as well as the different relationships she has with the other characters in the series. I'd say that makes her "strong".
That's great, but that has nothing to do with being a strong character.
Momo is nice and and has relationships and helps people, but she's not a strong character, she's basically just a walking, talking mcguffin that exists to be a damsel in distress a few times.
Ziggy, likewise, is only arguably slightly strong during the minor interlude where he's the main, and he thereafter is just someone who nods and goes along with the people who actually matter. Ziggy is in the party because he has a relationship with Momo, who's in the party because she is a mcguffin with some relevance to the plot and has further relationships with other characters in the party.
Chaos, for that matter, basically doesn't do shit besides act cryptic the entire first game.
To use another bad SquareEnix game as an example, Hope's mother is not a strong character; she exists to give context to the decisions that Hope will make later in the story. The game actually cares what Hope thinks about the other characters, and developing those relationships with those other characters becomes his whole character arc, and a large part of the interpersonal drama, in as much as that game had any.
Vanille, meanwhile, does have some moments of being a strong character when she repeatedly chooses to try to run away from her problems - these are actual plot-affecting choices when she makes them, and that's why her choices are controversial.
See, that's the problem with making characters strong characters - when they have an actual choice, and they don't just do something because they were forced into a position of reacting in the only valid way they had the means to react (even if extreme), then making a choice someone disagrees with makes that character potentially seen as, the way you put it, "a TOTAL BITCH". This is exactly why there are constant complaints about a lack of strong female characters, because if you want to have a perfect waifu, then making them actually make controversial decisions that impact the plot can potentially turn part of the audience against them. Better to make them cardboard cutouts with a nice smile but no impact on anything, right?
Steak said:
What does she do that matters to the plot? Rebuilds KOS-MOS after personally destroying the proto-type after it went on a rampage. You'd think such a traumatic event would have soured her on continuing the project.
Yeah, you would think that, wouldn't you? If Shion's thoughts and personality mattered to the plot, that probably would have been treated as important enough to be shown and have how she reacted to the event, and her reasoning for choosing to stay on the project explored.
In much the same way that Alfred's decision to be Bruce Wayne's butler isn't really explored because it's not important to the overall story, Shion simply is someone who worked on KOS-MOS because it's KOS-MOS's story, and Shion is the one who needs an excuse to be around KOS-MOS, not the other way around. If Shion weren't tied to KOS-MOS, she simply would not be in the story, so her choice to be with KOS-MOS does not tell of some facet of her personality, it's simply assumed as a requirement to being in the story.
Worse, Shion's only the shrink for an emotionless robot because she was dating the guy who made her, so it really wasn't even her choice to start with, she just got the job because of nepotism and stuck with it seemingly because the man in her life thought it was important.
Steak said:
Next she threatens to space herself (and Allen) when KOS-MOS starts acting seemingly of her own volition again. Obviously she's worried about a second incident that may endanger more people.
Again, strong characters act, and weak characters react. Just like one of the Joker's henchmen trying to throw a punch at Batman doesn't prove them to be in any real way relevant or even distinct from any other random thug, being forced to react to outside forces is a (literary) weak action.
In that scene, KOS-MOS is the strong character - KOS-MOS initiates that scene by deciding to act of her own volition, pushing Shion to have to react. Shion reacts with the one choice she has, and while that might speak to her character in a sorts, making the only valid choice as a reaction to what is going on is about as laudable as the henchman making the choice to throw a punch instead of just crumpling in a ball and begging for mercy the instant Batman shows up.
Shion doesn't make choices that drive the plot or choose where they go, she just acts as a restraining bolt on KOS-MOS's ability to act independently. She has basically the same plot relevance as a cranium bomb or an exploding collar that stops an actual main character from doing some simple thing that would make getting out of their predicament easy.
A character's personality in a story is defined by the choices they make that they weren't forced to make by virtue of being objectively the only good option. Shion doesn't constantly fight alien ghosts by her own choice because if she did, that would paint her as either a soldier or an adrenaline junky purposefully putting her life on the line for the giggles. In fact, that scene where she decides to take KOS-MOS's hostages and go feed them dinner, only to have the captain throw a plate at her and demand she get back in the kitchen to make him more sammiches (in spite of being a hostage) and she meekly complies is one of the few unforced choices she ever makes, which is part of what makes it all the more infuriating that we're supposedly role-playing this character in a supposed role-playing game.
Steak said:
I'm a little fuzzy on remembering what happened with Commander Cherenkov, but Shion was the only character to have any real compassion for him. The planet sized Gnosis and what they were doing there, I can't remember. I know they recovered a Zohar emulator from the incident, but I can't remember how or why that happened.
When they need to clear the Kukai Foundation after being framed for the Wonglinde's destruction, Shion suggests using KOS-MOS's mission recorder as it was sufficiently protected from tampering and takes part in the Encephalon dive.
Generally she takes part in the parties activities as an equal member, as ridiculous as that is considering she's a 20 year old woman standing shoulder to shoulder with androids, mutants, and cyborgs. Disregarding that, she saves KOS-MOS from the destruction of the Merkabah, prognosticating her exit and catching her as she leaped to safety.
[...] She's experienced traumatic events throughout her life that dictate her actions, just like any other person. She's not all powerful, but what she does still matters. She's not interested in galactic politics or religions, and apparently this makes her a terrible character?
Again, that's nice and all, but that's all stuff that side characters do. Side characters can feel sympathy for another character without actually doing anything meaningful about it. Main characters take a strong role in the plot and drive it forward while also showing off their personality by actually choosing one thing over another and making sacrifices.
Steak said:
I'm just not really sure what you want. Shion is sweet and pleasant and nice to look at.
That kind of says it all, doesn't it? That is the sum total of her personality.
This is exactly what makes her Space Opera Barbie - she's a pretty face that happens to stand nearby when other people are having a sci-fi plot.
She's nice and pleasant to look at, but don't let her actually make any real decisions, because that might make someone have an opinion about what she's chosen to do. Instead, just make her sympathetic towards people who have bad things happen to them without actually choosing to do anything about it, because that makes her seem 'nice'.
She's nice and pleasant, vanilla, and BORING. She is the epitome of the lowest-common-denominator 'main girl', meant to be pretty and personality-free of the exact same sort as the lowest-common-denominator loser harem male protagonist. (And she has exactly the same doormat non-personality as their typical main girls up until the anime cliche was changed to always making the main girl the tsundere.) She is such a non-entity that she is almost entirely emotionally dominated by an emotionless robot she's given near-absolute control over. What little character arc she has is the one time she manages to set her foot down and give an order to what's supposed to be her loyal servant-bot. Shion is, simply put, KOS-MOS's bitch. The girl in 50 Shades of Grey stands up to Grey more often than Shion stands up to the robot she's supposedly controlling.
Shion's "story" is the story of a "nice girl" who's led by the nose by other, stronger characters until someone else says that the plot is over now, after someone else got to have the actual climactic moment.
And no, it's not like you can't make a "nice girl" who makes decisions for herself, either.
To go back to the era where Square made some decent games (even if there was so little plot stretched between so many characters that each character gets like 3 scenes, tops), Terra/Tina from Final Fantasy 3/VI is a "nice girl" who initially fights in self-defense, but then, when asked to actively participate in open rebellion against the empire, either in revenge or to save the world, she is extremely reluctant (and you're even rewarded for role-playing her refusing until she's actually forced to act, anyway). She doesn't want to be a magical badass avenger, she wants to be a normal girl. When she finds out she has a monstrous form and is only half-human, she instantly chooses to run away for fear that her friends will reject her for her inhumanity, and only rejoins after they assure her they won't. It's only a reaction on her part, but she does react to the Empire's offer of a truce nearly immediately and overwhelmingly positively, seeking the most peaceful resolution to the problem facing the world. Post-turning point in the story, Terra actually finds herself a pseudo-family in a village with only orphans in it, and refuses to go save the world because those kids are more important to her than saving the world. She again only chooses to go back to adventuring when she's forced to face the fact that the world isn't going to leave the kids alone until she stops the root of the problem, and when her fear of rejection of her monster side is again assuaged by the children this time.
Those aren't necessarily the best choices by any stretch, but they are her choices. They consistently paint a picture of someone who is the most reluctant hero possible, and always chooses violence as the absolute last resort.
This is also what make Terra, Celes, and Leo all (literary) foils to Kefka, as well. They all have magical powers given to them and are at a similar starting point in the empire, so their different decisions of what to do with their magical power inform their differing personalities. Kefka is power-mad to the point of utter sociopathy, and does anything to attain more. After finally attaining godlike power, he finds it boring to have no further purpose, so he decides there's no point in the world even existing if he's bored with it. Terra, by sharp contrast, demonstrates with every real choice she makes that she finds her power a burden that forces responsibilities she doesn't want, but reluctantly accepts, upon her.
Terra's choices also put her at the core of the themes of the game's story. She is all but literally the bridge between the technological mundane world and the magical people that are shunned by humanity (even being the best user of magitech and starting out in it), and her every choice is to try to find her place among both of them. I won't pretend that the themes of the game are really fucking deep, but insofar as they are there, Terra embodies what the game is trying to push as the "moral" route to the balance between nature and technology or the pursuit of power.
What is Shion's theme? She doesn't really seem to be anything but a "sympathetic character" who happens to be near KOS-MOS because backstory while KOS-MOS makes actual decisions that the audience may not fully sympathize with.
Steak said:
"Rex"?
If that's not his name, then Rubido. Trying to look these things up just reminded me about how much I aggressively don't care about this story.