Hi. Felt like writing about a character of mine because well, not like I'm doing much right now and it's been a while [never] since I actually wrote all the details on him. And besides, given the general opinion on things like Grenragan... what do I have to lose?
All credibility, of course.
So, Eczel Strata. Explaining the character is no easy task, from past experience. So I hope you guys don't mind my going on tangents and only giving the full explanation at the end...
Eczel Strata was originally created not long after a binge playing of Devil May Cry 3 and discussing roleplaying characters with a friend of mine. The development has taken me some eight years, give or take, and it's still going on even now.
Every character is created from a concept, whether you go with the overly descriptive version or not. You may not go with terms like 'deuteragonist' or 'Goldfish Poop Gang' or such, but you definitely want something like 'I need a character for the lead to talk to this chapter' and 'I need a character to fight next', or 'I need some audience members to be impressed by my character'.
Eczel's concept was built around Power. I wanted to create a powerful character, one who would be capable of handling dangers such as the ones from Devil May Cry or the campaign said friend had taken part in. Devil May Cry also affected me given its 'cool' nature, which I wanted my character to be able to partake.
You can guess this did not go well with test audiences. Hell, you're probably even thinking about that overused word, 'Gary Stu'. So overused it is, in fact, that I lost interest in using it to refer to characters simply due to things like 'power levels'. It feels like a crutch, to be honest, and there's also the part where a powerful character can be written in an interesting manner, and an uninteresting character is much worse.
Is Eczel interesting? I 'unno. I'm interested in him and I admittedly went through a phase where I refused to bring him up again because people reacted poorly. As it is, though, I'm thinking that at least writing this can teach people to not make mistakes I've made, even if changes no minds at all.
So! As stated, Eczel's primary concept was 'Power', followed by 'cool'. The latter is, admittedly, very much viewer-centric: the whole point of Poochie's existence is that trying to manufacture 'cool' does not necessarily lead to good things. [Of course, that doesn't stop people from trying, as seen with Grenragan or The Wonderful 101.]
But what does that mean? What is Power, and how does it work?
One thing to start with: people - the audience, primarily - doesn't understand Power. As much as people think Dragon Ball Z's 'POWER LEVELS' are stupid, as well as its focus on making 'BIGGER BEAMS' and such, the fact is that these come to mind very easily when it comes to combat. Just take a look at the standard Time Loop plots by bad authors, such as PL's Chuunin Exam Day. Naruto's only considered 'strong' when he knows as many techniques as possible, when he can use as many of them as possible, even when it would be technically unnecessary. Or certain Pokémon stories that focus on the 'Gotta Catch'em All' aspect, having the characters catch a lot of Pokémon they're not even going to use.
Contrast this to Xykon from the Order of the Stick comics. He doesn't need much more than Magic Missile - the most basic spell - to crush his opposition. He knows more spells, but that's only due to his nature as a D&D character. If not for the fact that there are obstacles his magic cannot overcome, he could've taken over the world with a minimal amount of spells.
Power does not preclude having more than one ability, of course. What one has to take into account, however, is how it is balanced in a story. Devil May Cry lets Dante wield his Devil Arms and guns masterfully, capable of chaining multiple attacks and weapons within only a few seconds, but it is contrasted by the enemies' numbers and own combat powers, which can force him to sacrifice style in exchange for actually killing them. The big flaw of something like Chuunin Exam Day is that there's little effort taken to balance the actual power levels: simply put, the villains can't exercize a valid threat when they come upon the 'hero', simply because said hero has too many abilities that can easily defeat any foe.
Ironically, even from the beginning, I wanted Eczel to be powerful, but I always, always, was setting up limiters. One of the earliest was simple: Eczel could move at maximum speed [guaranteeing an evasion], so long as he was focusing on a single point throughout the whole thing, his mind so focused he could not perform any other action. [At this point, he had been created for roleplaying purposes; using him for stories only came in the last few years.]
I do want to write more, but... well, I have some things to do now. I'll have more thoughts and analysis tomorrow.
All credibility, of course.
Part 01
So, Eczel Strata. Explaining the character is no easy task, from past experience. So I hope you guys don't mind my going on tangents and only giving the full explanation at the end...
Eczel Strata was originally created not long after a binge playing of Devil May Cry 3 and discussing roleplaying characters with a friend of mine. The development has taken me some eight years, give or take, and it's still going on even now.
Every character is created from a concept, whether you go with the overly descriptive version or not. You may not go with terms like 'deuteragonist' or 'Goldfish Poop Gang' or such, but you definitely want something like 'I need a character for the lead to talk to this chapter' and 'I need a character to fight next', or 'I need some audience members to be impressed by my character'.
Eczel's concept was built around Power. I wanted to create a powerful character, one who would be capable of handling dangers such as the ones from Devil May Cry or the campaign said friend had taken part in. Devil May Cry also affected me given its 'cool' nature, which I wanted my character to be able to partake.
You can guess this did not go well with test audiences. Hell, you're probably even thinking about that overused word, 'Gary Stu'. So overused it is, in fact, that I lost interest in using it to refer to characters simply due to things like 'power levels'. It feels like a crutch, to be honest, and there's also the part where a powerful character can be written in an interesting manner, and an uninteresting character is much worse.
Is Eczel interesting? I 'unno. I'm interested in him and I admittedly went through a phase where I refused to bring him up again because people reacted poorly. As it is, though, I'm thinking that at least writing this can teach people to not make mistakes I've made, even if changes no minds at all.
So! As stated, Eczel's primary concept was 'Power', followed by 'cool'. The latter is, admittedly, very much viewer-centric: the whole point of Poochie's existence is that trying to manufacture 'cool' does not necessarily lead to good things. [Of course, that doesn't stop people from trying, as seen with Grenragan or The Wonderful 101.]
But what does that mean? What is Power, and how does it work?
One thing to start with: people - the audience, primarily - doesn't understand Power. As much as people think Dragon Ball Z's 'POWER LEVELS' are stupid, as well as its focus on making 'BIGGER BEAMS' and such, the fact is that these come to mind very easily when it comes to combat. Just take a look at the standard Time Loop plots by bad authors, such as PL's Chuunin Exam Day. Naruto's only considered 'strong' when he knows as many techniques as possible, when he can use as many of them as possible, even when it would be technically unnecessary. Or certain Pokémon stories that focus on the 'Gotta Catch'em All' aspect, having the characters catch a lot of Pokémon they're not even going to use.
Contrast this to Xykon from the Order of the Stick comics. He doesn't need much more than Magic Missile - the most basic spell - to crush his opposition. He knows more spells, but that's only due to his nature as a D&D character. If not for the fact that there are obstacles his magic cannot overcome, he could've taken over the world with a minimal amount of spells.
Power does not preclude having more than one ability, of course. What one has to take into account, however, is how it is balanced in a story. Devil May Cry lets Dante wield his Devil Arms and guns masterfully, capable of chaining multiple attacks and weapons within only a few seconds, but it is contrasted by the enemies' numbers and own combat powers, which can force him to sacrifice style in exchange for actually killing them. The big flaw of something like Chuunin Exam Day is that there's little effort taken to balance the actual power levels: simply put, the villains can't exercize a valid threat when they come upon the 'hero', simply because said hero has too many abilities that can easily defeat any foe.
Ironically, even from the beginning, I wanted Eczel to be powerful, but I always, always, was setting up limiters. One of the earliest was simple: Eczel could move at maximum speed [guaranteeing an evasion], so long as he was focusing on a single point throughout the whole thing, his mind so focused he could not perform any other action. [At this point, he had been created for roleplaying purposes; using him for stories only came in the last few years.]
I do want to write more, but... well, I have some things to do now. I'll have more thoughts and analysis tomorrow.