3 Reasons Why You Should Make Your Hero(es) Cry

If you've spent any time around humans, you'll know they cry a lot. Babies, adults—whether it's physical or emotional pain—hurting hurts. Our eyes swell and those salty, stigmatized droplets of water slip from our tear ducts down our cheeks.

Despite it being a natural response to pain and trauma, crying is often perceived as a social taboo. But don't let that stop you from putting it front-and-center in your video game narrative.

If people cry, so should your characters and for 3 reasons:

1. To Hurt Your Players

Writers *usually* want to impact an audience: change their perspective, draw out an emotional response, or impart them with one of life's great takeaways.

Rather than telling your player/reader/viewer how to feel, use your characters to model that emotional response.

Do: Write for your characters to feel something.

Don't: Write for your audience to feel something.

Reason being: If we see characters that we love in emotional distress, we mirror their response within ourselves. Especially in video games—an active medium—where the player inhabits or role-plays as the character.

Writing scenes specifically targeting an audience reaction runs the risk of pandering, being contrived, and manufacturing superficial moments.

Let's take a look at Metal Gear Solid 3, and something it does beautifully: hurting Snake.

Snake gets bloody, beaten and emotionally wrecked over the course of the game, making it understandable when he sheds a tear after the grueling journey, which took his eye and mentor's life.

By this point, the player is 100% invested in Snake, and his single tear at The Boss's grave reassures them that they aren't alone in their anger, sadness and fatigue.

Writing a character death should be a painful process. If you don't feel any guilt, remorse or morning for your cast, then most likely the player won't either. It's important to incorporate your animators and actors (if applicable) to ensure they understand the weight of the moment as well.

As writers, we shouldn't be active and interfering Gods in the worlds we create. We set things in motion, but then let actions take their course: wherever they may lead, whatever the pain caused.

When our characters are hurting, we—the writer/actor/animator/player—hurt too.

2. Non-Sexualized Intimacy

One of the wonderful aspects of art is its ability to enlighten us to diverse feelings and perspectives. With a controller in our hands, we can develop a closeness rarely felt in the majority of life's connections.

Crying gives space for a character's total vulnerability—be it their lowest low or highest high—their soul is brought to the surface, exposing their rawest emotions.

Much like a Shakespearean monologue, write scenes that reveal the private sides of your characters' thoughts and feelings.

Don't refrain from showing long-shunned topics, such as depression or suicidal thoughts. Speak to the real human experience; the intimate moments.

Final Fantasy VI on SNES deals in heavy subject matter. The world ends. Hopelessness takes hold. And bad, sad things happen.

It's through these narrative repercussions that the player learns more about the party and themselves. A mental discussion occurs between the player and the character on screen. What are my motivations to continue? What are yours?

3. Emotional Variety

It's difficult for an audience to connect with single-note characters. Think about Duke Nukem or Kratos (original trilogy), these protagonists' emotional responses fall flat. They're comically unrelatable; boring.

Tip: Write your heroes to emote.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon's protagonist, Kasuga Ichiban (pictured right), expresses emotions from every page in the catalogue.

He weeps, screams, smiles ear-to-ear, and raises his eyebrows higher than Bugs Bunny's. Ichiban is a man of extremes, and his chaotic-neutral persona is precisely the quality that endears him to the audience.

Writing your Yakuza "tough guy" to fully emote—sob, laugh, and reflect—breaks enduring storytelling tropes of toxic masculinity and chauvinism. This muscle-bound mobster with a seedy past and ugly suit openly expresses himself, revealing the human beneath.

Instantly, a character with an unrelatable background, becomes a relatable person, which reduces our barrier into the game space.

In Conclusion:

Hurting your heroes, making them cry; creating intimacy between player and character: it all comes down to humanization.

Similar to adding toilets to your game world, or durability to your weapon system, crying is a reminder to the player that these polygons and pixels are real.

Their bodies produce blood, sweat and tears. They can feel joy, rage and sorrow.

And as one final piece of advice, please DON'T make crying a gendered trait. Crying speaks to the human experience: he, they, and she cries.

Questions for the Reader:

• What is the first video game that made you cry?
• How can crying be misused in a story?
• When did a character's emotional response surprise you? And how did your view of them (or the story) change afterwards?

Jacob Conner Harris is a narrative designer and writer currently doing business as MSLA Creative. Please reach out on LinkedIn or at mslacreative.com to discover how Jacob can help your game's narrative succeed.