Originally this was intended to be only one post, but wall of text critted for 25k hp, so I broke it up for your – and my – sanity: part 1 • part 2 • part 3 (this part)
The huntress - art by me
To be honest, my first negative reaction to Metroid Other M hasn’t been fair. I do worry that they’ll fuck up “humanizing” Samus, but of course that’s no the whole story. First reactions are neither rational nor complete, which makes them so dangerous – it’s always worth digging deeper to see what exactly caused them.
See, Super’s been my first Metroid game. The second I powered up my family’s SNES with that cartridge and saw the loading screen, the game and its heroine had captured my imagination. And the endboss? That nailed it and turned me into a fan of life. I began thinking about what kind of person Samus was and what kind of life she lead, how she felt – normal fandom stuff, really.
Samus Aran wasn’t the first character who interested me enough to write or draw her. She wasn’t the last either, although by now I’ve learned not to get too attached to other people’s characters. But currently she’s the only one I’m a fan of.
See you next mission - art by me
It’s partly because I’ve always been fascinated by the strong, silent warrior ladies, partly because I grew out of my other fandoms either due shock1 or simply because my interests or world view changed.
But the main reason I stayed a Metroid fan was Samus-the-Cypher – I got enough glimpses of her character to get a basic grasp of her, but still so little that I was free to imagine her how I liked. I soon knew what kind of person Samus must’ve been and how she acted, just like I know exactly who Siendes and Chally are. There’s a whole inticriate world build around my fan-version of Samus Aran – and to be honest, if I’d switch around some of the names, you propably wouldn’t recognize it as Metroid, just that this is a world were the government employs bounty hunters – one of whom happens to wear an alien-made powersuit. It’s my vision of Samus and it’s unique.
And now Other M is going to take this away by replacing it with the official-approved-emotional-life of Samus Aran.
That‘s the sticking point.
The Samus in the Other M game, she will be different than how I imaginated my Samus to be. She’ll behave differently and will have different motivation. She’s totally different character after all, written by other people. She’ll be fitted to the taste of time and the audience she’s intended for – the game has to sell afterall2. And humanizing Samus has the potential to be a great marketing move. It might be the key to expand the fan-base, to rejuvinate the series and to pave the way for more Metroid Goodness – which is a very good thing.
Bureaucracy - art by me
But… For me Official Samus will not be able to life up to my private version of her. She cannot. For more than ten years I’ve thought and written about my Personal Samus (even if I’ve rarely shown it) and she got tailored exactly to my preferences. In contrast the official version will have exactly one game for character developement and she will be designed for the broad public. She has no chance. The best I can hope for is that she’s close enough to my personal version that I can incooperate the new information without any major clashes.
Well, this is my problem and in no form or shape Nintendo’s fault. Conflicts between fanon and canon are common the second anybody grows too attached to characters they do not own. It’s what fuels fix-fics, fan-rages and lots of fantastic and/or craptastic fan art and fanfictions. It’s both good and bad – if something catches somebody’s imagination, they’ll want to play with it. Sometimes it goes to far and people forget those toys and characters aren’t theirs. Human nature.
But that’s what makes concentrating on my original work so worthwile – it’s my universe, my dollhouse, and I’m the only one who shapes it.
Hm. How does “Traces of Chaos, 200 years later” sound? My private Samus would fit great into that setting. She might even keep her first name, although I definitivly would have to design the powersuit…
Footnotes:
- Sonic Heroes for example has single-handly killed all respect I had of the Sonic franchise, all of it. And I was one of those strange people who thought Sonic Adventures 2 was great. Yes, I was that dissappointed. Saved me from the atrocities that were Shadow’s game and the X-Box Sonic, though. ↩
- Getting sold is the very purpose of a video-game, the gaming experience is just the bait to make the customer fork over the cash. Some games, just like some films, are a work of art, but in the end the purpose of each gaming company is “make money” ↩
Comments (8)
I understand your reservations about Nintendo fleshing out Samus’ personality, past, and all.
I would feel the same way if Valve suddenly decided to give Gordon Freeman a voice and personality that didn’t mesh with the one in my head. (Or Ross Scott of “Freeman’s Mind.” Look it up on Youtube. It’s hilarious.) It would probably kill the Half Life universe for me because up to that point, Freeman was you or whoever you wanted the silient protagonist to be.
Kao?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroicMime
The illustration of that is oddly appropriate :)
Have only played through Metroid Prime 1, and briefly a little with Super Metroid, and I highly doubt I’ll even play Other M (Don’t have a Wii, refuse to buy it), but I do kind of like the idea of a plot heavy Metroid game. MP1 was a pure blast to play, and if they can give that style of gameplay a plot worthy of a decent Sci-fi story, I’d be nearly willing to consider beating up some kid and stealing his Wii (I will never BUY one – screw you Nintendo, but stealing one is okay with my moral compass!)
This is the Japanese we’re talking about here though. I don’t hold much confidence in their ability to humanise a chick in a powersuit from ANY medium, let alone an established force of nature that is Samus Aran.
@Kao
That’s one of the dangers of making a heroic mime talk, yes. Annoying. But apperantly Nintendo thinks this is a good direction for Metroid. *sigh*
@Puppy
Exactly!
@John
The story for Metroid Prime 1 has been written by Retro and just approved by Nintendo. But Other M is “in close communication with ” It’s one of the reason I worry so much about Other M – it was Nintendo Japan who was HAPPY about the atrocity that’s the Metroid Manga and apperantly it’s supposed to be Canon there. That’s kinda like Sega saying the Archi-comics are now canon.
Samus Aran herself has hugely different characterizations (interpretations?) in the Western World and Japan – the fact that she’s a bounty hunter for example seems to be a Western Invention. In Japan she’s more treated like a normal superhero.
Yeah, not helping me to not worry.
But hey, I can always tell you if the game’s any good, I’ll buy it afterall. And then we’ll see. ;)
On the force of nature thingy: THAT’s what I’m missing in my character rooster. Siendes is a tactican/brawler, Chally a classic lady of war. Mirrough uses nature, but she’s a trickster. Yeah, mysterious force of nature is soly missing. The closest would be Abanest, but I’m not working with her right now. :(
Abanest should most definitely be the force-of-nature character.
Aww… I miss thinking about Ruth and her ship crew.
Can we start working on it again, then? The only reason I’ve stopped poking you is because I didn’t know how busy you are and I didn’t want to appear pushy. :)
Can I email you?
I ams pretty occupied with the Service Police training at the moment. It finishes in four weeks so I’m hoping life returns to it’s normal time slot (I miss having the weekends off!).
But, yes. Email away. :)
Yay! So I’ll willl – and good luck with your training thingy. :3