Rethinking the JRPG protagonist

This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer.

It's been more than a decade now, but I'm pretty sure my favorite JRPG protagonist is Lenneth Valkyrie of Valkyrie Profile.

Lenneth stands out to me not just as a strong leading lady, but as a professional. She spends much of the game recruiting the world's most fearsome warriors, and she's not afraid to condemn those she doesn't like to the Nordic version of hell. Not even a love interest -- the comparatively wimpy Lucian -- is enough to dull her edge.

In the succeeding years since the original Valkyrie Profile, I've mostly been disappointed by the leading men and women of JRPGs. From Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning to Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria's Alicia, relatively empty archetypes have become the order of the day. It's no wonder critics are so consistently down on the genre.

I wonder though if we can't build a better JRPG protagonist ourselves, using Lenneth as a baseline. Given the opportunity, here are some other characteristics I might borrow from other JRPG heroes through the ages.

-- Cecil's Maturity: Cecil is a rarity among leads in that he's a mature, established warrior with a wife, which would seem to give lie to the assertion that Japanese audiences will only accept glamorous teens as their leads. Maybe they simply couldn't tell because Final Fantasy IV was a 16-bit RPG with comparatively simple sprites? Or maybe because Cecil was such a good character that it didn't matter?

What I like most about Cecil, apart from his heroic journey from Dark Knight to Light Warrior, is that he fights alongside his wife. I doubt that would have mattered to me a decade ago, but stuff like that stands out when you're thinking of starting a family of your own. I really liked this approach in Dragon Quest V as well, so I'm kind of sad that this practice fallen by the wayside. Time to revive it, I think.

-- Welkin's Brain: I think I could be friends with Welkin Gunther, the leader of Squad 7 in Valkyria Chronicles. He's young, he's got friends and a career, and he likes science. I ask you, how many JRPG protagonists have hobbies outside of being a warrior, or maybe cooking?

Welkin ultimately ends up being forced into the leadership role of Squad 7, but it's obvious that he'd much rather be tromping through the woods, collecting bugs and enjoying the fresh air. When it comes time to fight, though, he doesn't let that brain of his go to waste. Early on, he proves that he was a knack for strategy by masterminding a daring amphibious assault that catches his foes completely offguard.

I don't see JRPG heroes using their brains too much. Most of the time, they seem to solve their problems with their weapons. As a reluctant warrior, Welkin seems more disposed to reasoning his way out of a bind. Personally, I like smart people, and I doubt that I'm alone. Shame we don't have more of them in video games.

-- Shulk's Friends: As long as we're talking about JRPG protagonists that I like, I happen to be a fan of Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles. It's not that his voice actor is better than average, or the fact that he's on a roaring rampage of revenge. It's that he has real friends.

From what I've seen, the average JRPG hero tends to be a weird loner. They might have one person they really care about, like Lightning and her sister, but otherwise they prefer to be alone. Even more outgoing characters like Grandia's Ryudo tend to come in without any pre-established connections. That's why I like Shulk's friend Reyn, who serves as a sort of Samwise to Shulk's Frodo over the course of the quest. I don't know how their relationship will ultimately play out, but at least it exists. And as we saw with Sam and Frodo, good stories are built on strong relationships.

I actually like to create my own characters in-game, but a strong hero can have a huge impact on the character of the adventure. Look at the effect that Lenneth had on Valkyrie Profile versus Alicia in Silmeria -- a true leading lady versus a girl who is basically helpless. One story was about a woman uncovering her true identity against the backdrop of the end of the world, and the other was about a girl with little to no say over her life or what was happening to her. I can tell you which story I preferred. Here's a hint: it was the one with the empowered protagonist.

The template for such a hero can be found in all of the characters that I just mentioned, should developers be willing to stray a bit from the beaten path. True, saying that I want a character with Cecil's maturity, Lenneth's toughness, Welkin's intelligence isn't much more than a broad sketch, but it's a sketch of a hero that I might actually care about. And right now, there aren't nearly enough such characters to go around.

Kat Bailey is a freelance writer based out of San Francisco, California. Her work has been featured on multiple outlets, including GamesRadar, Official Xbox Magazine, gamesTM, and GameSpot. You can follow her on Twitter at @the_katbot.