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The Top 7... Lazy Character Clichés

Copy, paste, unoriginality! The most overused archetypes of all time

Words: Charlie Barratt, GamesRadar US

Description: Every noble hero requires a beautiful damsel in distress, but God forbid she be given anything resembling a real personality. No, no, the Pure-Hearted Love Interest must maintain her saintly composure and untouched dignity at all times, waiting for her prince to pluck her like the delicate flower she has always been and shall always... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Common characteristics:

  • One dainty hand held to the chest or shoulder in a gesture of reserved humility. "Oh! Me? You think I'm pretty? Tee hee."
  • Hair pulled back in a demure braid, held in place by a jeweled crown or blown ever so gently by the warm spring breeze.
  • Innocent face turned up - towards heaven, of course.
  • Eyes (preferably blue) gazing wistfully into the distance, waiting for a  flash of shining armor.
  • Shoulders either bare (but that's all you're gonna get, buster!) or covered in billowy blouse sleeves.
  • Occasionally followed by inexplicable showers of falling flower petals.


Possible Inspiration:


The Antidote:

If you don't recognize the woman above, you haven't been playing games long enough. Grace Nakimura, the female foil in the Gabriel Knight adventure series, is the antithesis of your usual Barbie doll princess. She's plain, bookish, unstylish, unsocial, highly opinionated and definitely smarter than your male protagonist. We dare you not to fall in love with her anyway.


 
53 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
CuddlyBomber  - 1 year 2 months ago 
Ah Man i just listened to talkradar11 and the top 7 was hilarious.
MSCR  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Pretty good article, a bit preachy sometimes and I fail to see how that raziel thing is a prettyboy. Moody and shit sure, but the guy runs about naked, has no visible genitals and isn't half his face missing?

Other than that, pretty insightful stuff.
Coolbeans69  - 1 year 1 month ago 
That was pretty funny
Psyrate  - 1 year 1 month ago 
The truth has never been so hilarious.
melloe  - 1 year 19 days ago 
well done. but you forgot Samus in the collage of masked characters?
Major_Wuss  - 1 year 3 days ago 
LOL at including Viva Pinata in the Animal with Attitude page.
NeotericDope  - 11 months 14 days ago 
All of these fall into the antidote category:

Black stereotype antidote:Eli Vance (Half Life)

Half naked woman antidote: Alyx Vance (Half Life), Faith (Mirrors Edge), Zoey (Left 4 Dead)

Masked men antidote: (Mega Man) not completely masked, but he's covered in a helmet and owns.

Love interest antidote: Once again Alyx Vance (Half Life)
crustdbeat  - 11 months 14 days ago 
forgot about jax from MK,

they emphasize his arms a tad dont they?
crustdbeat  - 11 months 14 days ago 
Thanks for the wallpaper!!
Cwf2008  - 10 months 26 days ago 
Uh technically Samus isn't always masked. I mean they've shown her face a few times in some of the games
zeldagirl64  - 10 months 3 days ago 
I dunno, Zelda has managed some good emotion from Ocarina of Time and on. Tetra? Yea, the cocky one. Sheik was a cliched character. It was kind of the Brooding Pretty Boy only... Sheik is Zelda so she's a girl. But Zelda has managed more emotion in Twilight Princess, that wasn't SO frail as usual.
93bleach  - 9 months 29 days ago 
Every character in sonic ever has had an atttitude.
synthetictwist  - 8 months 15 days ago 
I'm glad Chell was on this list. "She's not an effing model? What was Valve thinking?"

Oh that's right. They WERE thinking.
td823934  - 8 months 6 days ago 
You forgot "Mute Adventurer". Like Crono. Or Link. Or Mario.
ryno  - 8 months 5 days ago 
i couldent agree more with ammy from Okami she is awsome
Mr.Epic64  - 8 months 1 day ago 
Actually, Mario says "Yahoo!", "Here We Go!", "Wa, Wa , Wa, WAHOO!", Oh no!" any many other things. Eat that td823934.
Danomeon  - 7 months 20 days ago 
I'm surprised the antidote for stereotypical black people wasn't Luis from left 4 dead. He is skinny, never uses slang or excessively swears, speaks perfect english, appears as a hardworking citizen, is scrawny and not all that muscular, has a positive attitude without saying, "I am awesome.", cracks a few clever jokes, and is completely dressed in fancy office clothes.

Another character would be the black man from the Half-life series (I can't remember his name, one of his legs is missing and he *SPOILER* dies at the end of episode 2.)
td823934  - 7 months 1 day ago 
Ok, Mr.Epic64, he makes sound. I apoligize. But does he ever say anything beyond the occasional onamatopeia? By the way, while I'm here, I just realized something. You missed another category, the "Arrogant Bad-guy". Let's see, there's M. Bison, Seth, Vega, wow, all Street Fighter characters. Maybe I've been playing too much.
td823934  - 7 months 1 day ago 
On a side note, Knuckles actually belongs in the "Brooding Pretty Boy" category as well, I noticed.
kittens  - 5 months 15 days ago 
I've got to admit, I love the masked mystery man. The sort of half robot cyborg ninja thing will always be cool. In mgs, I didn't really like Raiden until he became a cyborg ninja. Mostly because his jaw was metal, which is awesome.
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