Zoe

Keep on postin', baby

Even with it shifting from a game idea to a novel (because I know how to make a novel, but I am vastly not qualified to make a video game), I've retained the perspective that the protagonist group is an RPG party, with several of the things that should mean: namely, a variety in skillsets, personalities, and perspectives. The fun of a party-based RPG comes from the characters contrasting and bouncing off each other. But as I've said, I don't want to stretch the audience's suspension of disbelief too much, with characters that don't make sense individually or as a group meeting each other. And so we get folks like Alejandro.

Basically I tried to write Gay James Bond (who... kinda hates his job). Because... why not? They're cowards, they won't do it. I'mma do it. But, like, fantasy so rogue's tools and not guns or Aston Martins but y'know besides that

And it's an easy angle for two kinds of distinction from the others in the cast: one, someone who's not a trained soldier (even if he is a Trained Violent Man), and two, someone who knows more of what's going on and can wear the confidence and arrogance to match. He also lets me do the classic trope of "ah yes, we once were enemies, but that was due to deception, and now we can be allies!", which you have surely heard of under a far shorter name, that there was padding

Big one, though, is that he's posh. Guy's a Bond character, he's a government spook, of course he is. And that's... tricky for me. This wasn't how I initially did it, but with the rewrite I'm now writing the story as third-person limited, with the perspective character shifting from time to time. It's great for sustaining mysteries and getting in people's heads, but I'm also trying to write exposition kind of in the character's voice. Kell's parts are my standard writing style, Sheila's are more terse and concrete, and so Alejandro's would be more florid and eloquent, and did you know that's heckin' hard to do? (Aside: his outfit's prevalent purple color is a "purple prose" gag that I do not expect anyone would get)

But hey, I can do it. I play games with flowery, eloquent scripts that I can riff off of. Sure they can also be described as "comically melodramatic," but hell, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe Alejandro should be melodramatic. My habits for characterization lean towards the everyday realistic; even in a fantasy setting, there's a modern casualness to my tone that I like and would rather keep. Imagine if you're just hanging with your friends and freakin' Balthier pops in, talking and acting how he does. Or like... any Dark Souls character. It's good contrast! Even if it's a little harder to write him.

And of course, the three function as a "fighter, mage, thief" power trio. (Tropes Are Tools, baby) There are angles where each of the three is the odd one out, and so you can keep bouncing between those to develop their relationships. I honestly considered stopping the party size right there, and if this was going to just be a story about the journey then it probably would end there. But I can't do things at a reasonable scope, and so things just kept going and going and oh boy did I need a fourth character. Besides, there are some big RPG tropes that I haven't mucked about with yet!