Friday, March 5, 2010

Thinking About Characterization


Characterization is one of the most important elements to a story.  What would The Wizard of Oz be if not for the nasty Wicked Witch of The West or the zanny Scarecrow?  Miley Cyrus would be just another former celebrity's daughter with a good voice if not for her alter ego Hannah Montana.  In short, the characters that we read about or even come across when playing video games are super important.  Dynamic characters drive a story line.  Dynamic characters are hated and loved. 

I want you to take a closer look at characterization.  One of the best examples of well thought out characterization can be found in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales."  Chaucer's characters are a montage of civilization of the time period.  They are selected and described with great purpose.  While you are reading the Prologue to The Tales on the online text, ask yourself why did Chaucer select the specific stereotypes or characters that he did?  What importance did they play to that particular society?  Do you believe that this is an honest depiction of the time and the people?  Finally, when developing your own games, how important is the development of your characters to your games purpose?  Is characterization only important in book or movie story lines or is there in fact an under current of plot to the gaming world?

After reading The Prologue record your thoughts and responses to the questions in a 3-5 paragrah blog post.  All blogs will be graded according to the Blog Rubric on the wiki.  Appropriate grammar rules do apply.  Please make your texts rich in format (picture and links).  I will be grading these blogs on Monday after school.  Use your time wisely today.  On Tuesday we will venture back to our team pages and design.

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