Dungeons & Dragons, Marketing, and Everything
conversationmarketing.com
conversationmarketing.com
Now I say this not to just engage in trivial nitpicking, but because I think his thesis needs to be refined. The author attributes his idea to a moral compulsion for people to support the 'good' company, or the one thats trying to slay a monster. What he's actually identified is the natural tendency for people to define themselves in opposition to the other. You can't be insanely loyal to a product unless there is a challenge to it. Its less good versus evil, its group loyalty vs. the outsider.
We may start out subconsciously rooting for the bad guy because of our desire to see the plot advanced, but when we catch ourselves doing it we come up with some other reason why it's acceptable to root for the bad guy in that particular situation. We want to identify with the central character--if the central character is not a good person, we need to find traits worthy of our sympathy and/or empathy.
Unless they did, in which case, my point is moot.
Edit: Of course, drawing from another source, you do have a point when it comes to Zuko from the Avatar series. He was a "villain" (that later became a protagonist) who was given even more of a backstory than the main character, and it was very clear that the audience was supposed to be sympathetic towards him, despite the fact that his single goal in life was to kill the Avatar.
I bought Crysis 2 the other day and started playing through the story. For those that don't know, it's your standard FPS with the addition of two superpowers, invisibility and invulnerability. In a nutshell, my classmates and I end up spending quite a bit of time talking about how awesome our last session was, and essentially sharing war stories. And the fact is, we keep going back and playing, as much to finish the game as to have more stories tomorrow and the day after.
- Slay monsters
- Take their treasure
- Tell the tale