Room for improvement is an understatement. Arueshalae is a demonic temptress who used to dine on souls human flesh (edit: got the cannibal romances confused. Now that is something I'd not expect to be writing about cRPGs...), but now is all shy and blushing and a trembling voice. But hey, she is nice to the main character, whom she is very dependent on, so that's good writing. .
Arue was called "incel bait" by a poster on reddit, in his post where he explained what his problem was with the WotR companions. I'm gonna admit I agreed with most what he said, about other companions too. To me Arue feels like that overly shy overly apologetic waifu specifically created for the weebos. Not to incite any negative feeling on here but if I'm to describe the way the game makes me feel, then that's what I'd say. She paints you a picture in which she used to be this "ultra evil" demoness who's lived for centuries and done countless atrocities, dining on souls and drinking blood for breakfast and stomping on people's lives for fun, for centuries.... and then suddenly she's all shy and apologetic always blushing always "acting cute and vulnerable" always the "trembling voice" . I just don't get it. Like, wtf happened??? She's just trying to reform, not suffering from some sort of amnesia or bipolar disorder or something. That's why I maintain the stance that "the companions don't feel convincing". They don't feel real or relatable at all.
It's not just Arueshalae. And at this point folk would try to give me all these "logical" or "rational" explanations that could possibly be behind why these characters act as they do. But that's never the problem. To me the big problem here is, the game (as in, the writers), seems to try too hard to preach to the player grandiose life stories, profound life lessons, dramatic turns of events, deep philosophical ideas, while neglecting to make the characters real, believable, and relatable. I try to avoid using the word "edgy", but tbh a lot of the moments and the things that the characters say feel really edgy and cringeworthy to me.
Originally Posted by SereneNight
Characters speak paragraphs of dialog in bad need of editing.
Yeah, this. Those paragraphs always make me wince.
I've never been a writer but it seems to me that when you're creating your own characters there's this urge to make your characters super edgy and outstanding and preeminent and all that, which is like one of the mortal enemies of "good writing", from where I see it.
"We make our choices and take what comes and the rest is void."
.
