Who is Your Favorite Protagonist?

          This has always been a tough question for me. When I think of protagonist, I think of the hero of the story. While this is technically true, we always picture someone who we think is a good hero, but may have actually not been that memorable. I’ve been looking back at older games and seeing how the protagonist develops as a character. Honestly, I’m surprised I looked up to some of these characters. Very few of them I would say are good protagonists that have a clear backstory and origin of some kind, they go through adversity and overcome obstacles, and develop as a person. I’ve got a few nominees for whom I feel may be my favorite protagonist of all time.

          I have fond memories of a game called Radiata Stories. It was this RPG on the PS2 that had real time combat and a ton of recruitable party members. Some of the things you had to do to recruit people included finding and talking to them, answering all the questions correctly on a radio quiz show, and even fighting them. As for the main protagonist Jack, he was pretty relatable to me at the time. In fact, I still think he’s relatable. He’s what one would describe as the reluctant hero. He has to join the Radiata Knights and live up to his father’s legacy. However, Jack is kind of lazy and prefers to do his own thing. He’s very optimistic and enthusiastic, even in the face of danger. But the best thing I like about this guy is his sense of loyalty. Even after he gets kicked from the Radiata Knights, he still holds up to their creed: “Knights are as family.” He saves his friend’s life, he stands up to potential bullies, and he even turns his back on humanity just to do what’s right. He doesn’t become evil, but the world sees him that way. The sad part is they never know just what he did to save them.

          Many of you might be familiar with the Walking Dead TV series. Whether or not you watch the show, I highly recommend you play The Walking Dead by Telltale Games. It has one of the best protagonists I’ve ever played. You play as a history professor named Lee Everett. He’s on his way to jail for murdering a man who slept with his wife. As he sits in the police car remorseful of his actions, the driver talks to him. Now I had the option to be a complete jerk to the guy (as well as to everyone else in the game), but I always opted to choose the most polite dialogue choices as I felt Lee wasn’t just some psychotic serial killer. He killed that man for a reason, even if it was ultimately wrong. Over the course of the story, he takes care of a little girl named Clementine and several opportunities arise in which I the player could kill people who had wronged us. I avoided as much taking of life as possible because for one, Clementine was always present in these moments and two, I wanted to prove that even though Lee did wrong before, he was worthy of redemption. In the end, Lee was able to come to grips with his own personal problems including the murder of his wife’s love affair as well as keep a little girl safe in the impending zombie apocalypse.

          My third choice would be Jade from Beyond Good and Evil. I didn’t get to play this when it first launched, but I rediscovered it and found it to be interesting. It had a cool combat system, fun characters, and a badass hero. Jade is an action reporter taking care of kids at an orphanage with her pal Pey’j. When aliens attack her home, she springs into action and fights them off with her daijo staff. She’s quite protective of the orphans and is determined to find out who the aliens are and what they want. A group known as the DomZ take over her homeland and it’s up to her to infiltrate their bases and snap photography proof of their corruption. She risks life and limb to make it happen and even when she hit her lowest state, she still found the will to save the world. That ability to recover from a devastating blow is what made me love Jade as a hero and protagonist.

          As for you reading this, who would say your favorite protagonist is? It can be anybody, even an antihero. So long as this person has a story following behind them and they go through character development along the way, it qualifies. As for me, I’m going to have a hard time deciding between Jack, Lee, and Jade.