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Re: If Noble Six is a Mary Sue...
Posted By: Cody Miller	Date: 9/20/10 12:54 a.m.
: As for how the plot in Reach moves - or doesn't move, naturally - I am : offended by the rather stolid idea that every single work of fiction out : there must follow a rigid act structure in order to achieve mainstream : acceptance. The way people talk about act structures, you'd think that : combining the major events of a plot into large, well-defined chunks was : the answer to every single author or screenwriter's storytelling woes. : Believe it or not, war does not follow an act structure . There are lulls : and frenzied action followed by lulls again. I've explicitly stated before that you DON'T need to adhere to an act structure to present a good story. It's a good thing to do though since: 1. General Audiences are dumb and alternative presentations require them to think too hard. 2. It's hard for the storyteller to formulate such a presentation. If you're going to break the mold, you need to be a master storyteller, and aiming for an intelligent audience. It's obvious Bungie isn't a master storyteller anymore, while the second point can be argued either way. They're making Halo, not The Usual Suspects. Fun fact: Roger Ebert didn't understand the Usual Suspects when he first saw it, and he's a pretty smart guy. : Just look at the leaked Afghanistan War Diary. I'm pretty sure that if they : made a game that followed the course of the recent war in Afghanistan down : to every last detail, people would certainly have every right to complain : about the "plot not moving forward". : "Some farmers told us there was a weapons cache hidden in a nearby : building. Found some machine guns and explosives. Called in EOD." : "Flew over an area in an OH-58D Kiowa where Taliban activity was : reported. Nothing sighted. Nothing to report. Returned to base." : "Compound attacked by mortar fire." : "Ambushed in a valley. Retreated, and then counter-attacked." : With a few exceptions, real-life wars are full of "blah blah blah : action" and surprisingly little plot. Halo: Reach should get points : for realism in that regard. I mean, honestly. You're defending a planet : from an alien invasion. There's only so much that you can do, and you're : in the process of doing it throughout the game. They wanted to keep the : Covenant mysterious, too. That limits the amount of plot you can have : given the framework in which the game is set. That's because real life is not dramatic! Are you seriously arguing this? The whole point of making a narrative work is to DRAMATIZE THE MATERIAL!

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