Finished reading the WTNC revamp a few days ago, and, though I liked it well enough, I have to admit I’m a bit salty about how they handled Alkar’s character.
He’s my favourite character in the game, so of course I have pretty personal feelings about him, but there were parts were it honestly felt like he was a side character in his own game? He is one of the protagonists, and everyone gets to be treated as characters outside of their romantic relationships (the closest exception, though not really, would be Omen). I realised that he, out of everyone, is treated a lot more like a love interest than as a fully formed character, which bothers me. Not only because everyone else gets at least a bit of development outside their roles as LIs, but because he’s, in my very honest opinion, the most interesting character, and the one with most wasted potential. Again, that’s probably just my personal opinion, instead of an objective evaluation.
What bothered me the most, I think, is that every character, including Harry and Hunter Lane, gets a backstory piece on the codex. At least one. And all we got for Alkar was the piece on his romantic involvement with another character, which happens post-game (so, obviously, not backstory). I didn’t have any problem with the short story in a vacuum, but in the context of him never being given the space other characters have to talk about their own past experiences, and the ways they’ve hurt them, it’s just a bit angering. I guess you could say that he talks plenty in the game about the plot-relevant piece of backstory, but even that is just like two conversations, instead of an entire development, in my opinion. And even that doesn’t seem to tie into his character arc, you know? It’s just his function within the plot. I think exploring the reason why he has such a hard time letting others in, is so skeptical of everyone, and is scared to show vulnerability, would have been much more fascinating. I’ve always had a theory that it ties into his rocky relationship with his family (which, given the sheer number of times that fact is mentioned, I think it warranted an exploration of its own, but I digress), but that is and apparently will always remain as just a theory. And, again, I think it’s pretty vital information! It’s the key to his character arc, and what better way to show a character learning to open himself up and be vulnerable than by finally being able to express conflicted emotions over something pretty bad that happened to them in the past? Maybe I missed something in the game? Idk.
Also, maybe I just wanted to learn more about my favourite character, instead of having to constantly come up with theories based on the meager scraps we’re offered.
also his route is pretty lazily edited, like there were inconsistencies in the facial expressions, the spoken and written dialogues, and constant mentions of the brand, even though they took it out of the art and bottleneck dialogues.
It’s a bit frustrating, to say the least, And I know it’s just a game, but I guess it became personal as it was one of my all-time favourite characters.
