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Edited by Spawn:
2/1/2018 1:25:13 PM
34
Destiny's Flanderization
Please leave a comment below with your thoughts. I'm interested in talking to people about this.
[spoiler]This post was inspired by another user's, [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/242558909?sort=0&page=0]here[/url], where they kind of hint at what I'm saying, but their post is a bit of a ramble and doesn't really touch on what I want to touch on.[/spoiler]
Destiny is an amazing universe with the potential to explore dark, mature themes while still remaining hopeful and lighthearted at its core. But the way that characters are currently headed now has me worried for the future. So, let me start with flanderization. What is it?
Flanderization is the reduction of a character into a caricature of their original elements by pushing nuance out of their characterization and replacing it with a single, overblown element. The term is mostly in reference to Ned Flanders, a fairly well known character from the Fox animated series the Simpsons. What can you say about Ned? Well, he's a devout Christian... and... he... has a moustache? Early on in the series, Ned wasn't exactly a masterwork of a character but he wasn't just 'the Crazy Christian' personified. He was more, but he's been reduced by the inflation of a single aspect of his character.
Why do I bring this up? I sense a similar thing happening to Destiny.
Let's start with Cayde-6, the game's mascot and a personal favorite of mine. He's quick witted, quick on the trigger, and most importantly, he's very headstrong. After Ghaul attacks the City he rushes off to confront whoever is behind the attack and he gets trapped in a timeloop on Nessus. Sounds like an interesting chance to introduce a flawed, but still enjoyable character, right? Nope. Cayde's comedy is immediately flanderized after you get him out of the time loop. His brash, independent nature clashes with his actions during the final raid on the City, and he's mostly reduced to a comic relief alongside... a chicken.
This is not a good message for the state of Destiny's characters. Despite Cayde's story having the infinite capacity for an interesting, layered individual with problems and solutions just like a human, he's the funnee robot guy with le epic chicken ecksdee!!! I'm sorry you had to read that, but the point still stands. Squandering talent like Nathan Fillion on a character like Cayde in his current state is an insult to Nathan and the entire community. I know he's there to serve the character development of Zavala, which I could go on about for hours (and not really in a good way,) but that doesn't mean he has to be replaced to useless meme fodder!
For this reason, I think that whoever is writing characters needs to seriously re-evaluate what the community wants from this story. We don't want another stupid, goofy robot who only makes jokes. Let Cayde be an actual character, along with everybody else. Stop the lazy flanderization. Not just for Cayde, but for Vance (the weird, adult fangirl!) and Asher Mir (the grumpy grandpa!) and any other character who is being squished into a single trait. Quit being lazy!
EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text.
For some reason I can't edit the poll, so:
*...characters are being flanderized
[spoiler]Moderator edit: This thread has been moved to #Feedback forum so that other Destiny players can weigh in. [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/139533839/0/0] See Cozmo's thread here[/url] for more information about the #Feedback tag and its uses.
Feel free to private message the moderator who moved your post, link to topic for further clarification about why this topic was moved.[/spoiler]
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10 RepliesEdited by TheArtist: 1/30/2018 3:32:43 PMCayde is a particular personality type. Someone who is a risk-taker. Extremely creative...and has little respect for authority or convention. He's like a race car that has been set up to be "loose". In certain situations is extremely fast and extremely effective. In other situations its a good way to kill yourself and people in the stands. In The Taken King...we were shown only the "high reward" aspect of Cayde's character. He comes up with the outside-the-box idea that gets us past Oryx's defenses, onto the Dreadnaught, and ultimately helps us win the war. In Destiny 2s campaign...where' shown BOTH the high-risk and high reward aspects of it. He (once again) comes up with a vital, creative idea to win....but runs off by himself to get what he needs...and gets himself trapped. Without the help of Failsafe...and our Guardian...he likely would have been trapped there for centuries...if not forever. But we also see the high-reward. He uses a chicken as a means to quietly insert back into the City without alerting Cabal guards...and his teleporter got us back onto the Cabal flagship to take on Ghaul. Some people want heroes that are like cardboard cut-outs. They are like Superman or Captain America. More like an idea or ideal...than a real person. But some of us find those portrayals boring because we realize that no real person is actually like that. Every REAL person has quirks and flaws that HUMANIZE them. Those often tend to be the heroes that people actually most strongly identify with. Batman's dark personality and walking the line between justice and revenge. Detective and vigilante. Spider-man and Deadpool's irreverent humor. Classic X-men's Cyclops' hypocritical yes-man/golden-boy image. Wolverine's tendency to rage, struggle to keep his instinct to kill in check...while dealing with his love for someone else's woman. One of the things that Destiny 2 did right that Destiny 1 didn't...is that it HUMANIZED the Vanguard. You see Zavala's stubborn rigidity, and lack of creativity. But also his awareness of it, and that he needs Cayde's creativity to make up for what he lacks. (That's how good leaders operate in the real world...they surround themselves with talented people...and then listen to them.) You see Ikora's fearlessness and ferociousness crumble when she's forced to confront (again) the fear of death. She has to find her courage again. She has to rediscover what she stand for...what she cares for....what she is willing to sacrifice for. You see in Hawethorne an natural leader who is being frustrated by hierarchy of the City. She a warrior that is not being allowed to fight...and all that frustrated aggression and determination comes out sideways in disruptive behavior. Until that hierarchy collapses, and she's finally given room to step into a leadership role...and to fight. Part of enjoying a story, is to give it room for the characters to evolve the way THEY want to...and that the writers want them to. And not hold them slave to your expectations and wishes. Because---unless you're a writer yourself----they'll often be taken in directions that are more interesting that what you could have imagined for them.
