The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I have recently been listening to On The Stick’s Spoilercast of Saints Row The Third. I love those guys, and for the most part, they’re nailing it on the cast so far. However, they said something that made me go “Oh hell no. That’s wrong.” And so I have to now write a little essay here telling them why they are wrong. Or something.

They claim that The Boss (the character you play as in Saints Row The Third, to be clear) is not a real character. They all seemed to rally behind the idea that The Boss is simply some sort of avatar pinnacle of every video game protagonist ever. There’s no depth to The Boss. She’s just this huge perfect power fantasy. (I’m going to use she, because The Boss is a fucking she. Much like my Shepard is My Shepard and I don’t want to see anyone else, my Boss is My Boss, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else as that character. So for the record, I had female voice 1. The one without an accent or whatever. So if I say something that makes no sense with YOUR Boss, maybe that’s why?)

Now, there’s no doubt that Saints Row The Third is a game about power fantasy, clearly. However, I just incredibly disagree with the idea that the Boss is not a Full Character, and is just this one-dimensional avatar. One of the reasons Saints Row is such a fucking fantastic game is that it is incredibly smart in a lot of ways, and how your avatar isn’t just an avatar, but is a character with depth is one of them. How do I know she’s a character? Well, she fits my definition of a fully realized character. Maybe your definition differs, but allow me to tell you what mine is, and how the Boss fits that.

First off, the Boss is someone you relate to and care about. If a character is a real character, that means they have depth, and that means they are someone you can get invested in. Good characters are multifaceted, and just kind of exist to advance the plot or do one specific thing. If the Boss was just an avatar of you, then she wouldn’t have facets. She’d just be me. But I really care about the Boss as a character. When I played the Genkibowl DLC, and the Boss was not talking, in other words just being an avatar of me, I really hated it. I missed her, her commentary, and her view of the world. That was the one, sole reason that DLC was a disappointment in my eyes. When I played Gangstas in Space and she started talking again, I was obscenely relieved that I had her back. I don’t think I’d have felt that way if I wasn’t invested in her as a character.

Secondly, I can guess what the Boss would do. If I put together a random scenario in life or in a video game, and asked myself “What would the Boss do in this situation?” I would be write, pretty distinctly, what the Boss would do. This wouldn’t just be something like “Well, she’d clearly kill the motherfuckers” because while the Boss kills plenty of people, all the time, that’s not her style. She almost always has to do it in about the most batshit insane way, which is one of the reasons the game is so entertaining to play, but these “insane” ways have a method to them. Often, they’re personal. They’re designed to not just stop someone, but to stop them in a way that would be most insulting to them. Why just kill all the Deckers when you could log in to their fucking Cyberbase and kill them on their cyberturf just to be a dick? Similarly, it always has to be big. There is nothing subtle about the Boss. She’s always going to add an extra layer to things if things are not crazy enough. These are just some examples, of course. But she has a whole internal logic that you, as a player, learn and can follow along with. She’s consistent. Compare this to, say, Master Chief. I mean, I could probably guess what he’d do in a situation (shoot some dudes) but I really don’t know why he’d do it. I don’t know what makes Master Chief tick. He’s flat and boring. He’s not a person with motivations I can grasp. I couldn’t guess how Master Chief would, say, deal with a dinner party with his parents. I can with the Boss.

Thirdly and finally, the Boss surprises me. A sign of a good character, to me, is that while I can understand how they tick, they’re capable of doing things that I wouldn’t have anticipated, but still fit in with that internal logic. Action-wise, this is not always the case with the Boss. I can pretty well guess what her actions are going to be. But her dialog, especially, is so very often surprising. In the helicopter chase after the Power Jump Sequence, for example, when she’s talking to Shaundi about how she’d look in a maid outfit and how Pierce would appreciate it? It totally fits with her character, but it was surprising to me after she’s all “Honey, sorry about this,” when she’s catching her in the air after the plane sequence in the beginning. The Boss gave off an almost motherly vibe then, and this fits that, but it’s a mother with really strange priorities. It’s a mother with the Boss’s priorities. But when you see a motherly relationship like that, you don’t put that in your head. Then bam. Surprise. Similarly, the Boss becomes really enamored with Kinsie because of her really fucked up quirks that I would have assumed, at first glance, would have repelled her because it made Kinsie harder to deal with. However, once you see that happen, you realize how much of the Boss is in Kinsie, and how they click in that regard. They show their own personal neuroses with dealing with people in different ways, (some of which Eric talked about on the podcast about how mostly asexual and uncomfortable with just relaxing with people the Boss is) but there’s still a kinship there. It’s a surprise, but it happens. That’s how I know the Boss is fully realized.

Anyway, this is why I love the Boss as a character. I agree with On The Stick: I would love to play the Boss in every single video game from now on. But I’d like to do it because I’d like her as a character. She makes me smile, and I love seeing what she’s going to do, which often isn’t what I would do. Because she’s her own person, who makes decisions, it lets me make decisions like her, which leaves me feeling more free to do things like randomly drop-kick pedestrians and really enjoy all the horrible, awesome stuff in the game. The game works so much better, for me anyway, because the Boss is a character. It’s what made me love The Third when I didn’t like Saints Row 2 all that much. When Giant Bomb was talking about the Boss as best character of the year, it was deserved. Don’t discount her just because you can make her look and sound however you want.