noticing a pattern where all my favorite rpg protagonists (the watcher of caed nua, the envoy, the kalach-cha, etc.) have some sort of mystery surrounding their past that plays a fundamental role in the story.
i mean, obviously one would hope that the main character of the game you're playing is connected to the main plot, but i love the idea of some aspect of the character that is both unbeknownst to the character and the player (as an aside: i think this is why i'm so taken with the concept of a warlock who derives their power from the unknowable). this is especially important when the player character isn't a predefined person like commander shepard or geralt.
idk it seems a little self-evident to me, yet when thinking about how i find the watcher's journey in pillars to be so much more emotionally resonant in the first game than in deadfire, there's definitely degrees to it. their backstory in the first game is crafted so intrinsically to the plot that neither works without the other. in deadfire, while their backstory is still a strongly tied to the events of the plot vis a vis their status with the gods, there are any number of ways a different character could take the watcher's place in the story.
the envoy's position in avowed is as intrinsic as the watcher's in pillars 1. but where the two deviate, and why i found pillars to have an order of magnitude more catharsis, is that the watcher's past life with iovara provides an extra layer of extremely personal drama to anchor the otherwise extremely high minded themes about divinity, religion, and science.
dunno what my thesis is here, really. go play pillars and nwn2 and avowed.
