Save the cat is probably the most important book I have read on script writing, I always had a focus on character and making their backstories work in ways that develop and encourage their progress and development. However making what I found helpful was coming up with concepts that I could then wrap a character […]

In Final Fantasy X our leading protagonists Yuna and Tidus are the children of heroes who defeated Sin, the evil monster that terrorises the world, ushering a decade of prosperity until Sin’s rebirth. Tidus has followed in his father Jecht’s footsteps in an attempt to surpass him out of spite to the father who bullied […]

Each Final Fantasy title has something unique about it, the setting, the tropes even the cultures they create within the narrative. However each titles has a unique underlying theme and Final Fantasy IX’s in my opinion is the quest for purpose wonderfully packaged in a setting comparable to a steampunk European fairytale. So first of […]

Another writer and game producer, Yoko Taro is without a doubt the most cult developer after Metal Gear Solid developer Hideo Kojima. Drakengard a franchise that was designed to reverse character archetypes and satirise the mainstream principles of fantasy story. Yoko Taro began with his protagonist Caim, you’re typical violent anti-hero forced into a pact […]

I’ve always found it odd that considering Japan’s sexist culture (in which it literally refers to career women as devil women), it overshadows western storytelling in many ways. First and foremost among them, in my opinion, is Japan’s ability to write female protagonists – most notably in the Final Fantasy series of Role Playing Games. […]

Berserk highlights this era’s fascination with darkness. It’s timeless narrative began 1989 and is ongoing today, first as a comic and then later through many adaptations on screen from a tv show to movies and video games. But why? The protagonist Guts is introduced as an incredibly vile character who demonstrates an immense apathy at […]

The Witcher series is a great example of tormented characters dealing with dilemmas of remaining moral in an immoral world. Geralt himself is a mutant that normal people rely on to protect but revile, and he has to deal with that in ways he doesn’t fully understand due to his muted emotions and that in […]

Legion is one of those shows that was a slow burn but it is worth soldiering on through. First dealing with David’s potential insanity and and then focusing on the theory that he’s not insane but being parasitically possessed causing the symptoms of schizophrenia makes him sympathetic to the audience watching as he falls in […]

Ivar is by far one of my favourite characters on television. He’s cunning, intelligent and incredibly violent. His rise to power not only cements viking power over the Saxons and unification of a grand army in the wake of his father’s death. Yet, he does, against all odds having been crippled from birth. Ivar’s also […]