Do Small Casts Help?
Now, I don't know how many people play this game, but I am fully addicted to the coolness that is Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I love the graphics, the dialogue and storyline, the playmode. The whole thing rocks my socks.
That being said, imagine my surprise upon really looking hard for some fandom for it.
This game has a huge horde of people playing and loving it. It's arguably the biggest gaming hit of the year. Only FFX-2 came close to its sales and the like. And PoP got better reviews.
Now, even though it's an incredible game, I was surprised at how little in the way of fan stuff there is for it. I've only seen a few pieces of fanart for it. In fact, I have yet to find a fic.
I see this as good and bad.
Bad, because I was really looking forward to some good PoP fic. The Prince and Farah are kicks. And because it's so beautiful, good fanart would just be awesome. And I have seen some nice fanart for it (though, only a little) over at DevArt.
However, I also consider this a good thing for one major reason.
Farah.
I love the Maharajah's daughter. She's smart, quick, helpful, and she doesn't allow the Prince to walk all over her, ever.
But, because she's the main female, and yes, the love interest, I was fully expecting the fangirls to come swooping down, screaming, "Kill the bitch! She betrays the Prince! She stole the Dagger from him! She's evil!"
So what if Farah is actually the real owner of the Dagger of Time, and the Prince stole it from her and her father? So what if the only reason she takes it back is because the Prince was an idiot, and didn't place it back in the Hourglass of Time when he should've, and someone had to do it?
After all, the Prince has a sexy British accent, can do cool acrobatic moves, is good looking, and randomly rips off pieces of his shirt at times, until he's bare-chested at the end. Therefore, all his mistakes are instantly forgiven.
However, aside from a few snide remarks from commentors on DevArt, I haven't seen much Farah bashing. And it got me thinking just why that is. After all, the game's been out long enough to have more than enough fans for it.
Then I realised something. The cast. It. Is. Tiny.
Really, really tiny.
Throughout the game, your main cast is the Prince himself, and Farah. That's it. The Grand Vizier is also still alive, but you only get to see him at the very beginning and end of it. So, basically all you get is the Prince and his Princess. Unless you also want to count the random Sand Creatures that you off along your way.
It made me wonder if small casts mean that fangirls don't really waste their time writing bad bashing fics for certain characters, or other things along that line. They really don't have much to play with. The Prince loves Farah. Farah loves the Prince. Pretty much cut and dry right there.
There's no second pretty boy to pair one of the two with, and villianize the other. Nor is there another woman for people to argue over who would be better suited for the Prince.
There's no mix in there to give fans something to work with, so they can really say "[Such and such pairing] is better than [such and such other pairing] because [such and such character] sucks!" Or even have anything like that in their head to say that they don't like a certain character in the game.
So, who besides me thinks that if there had been another good looking man/woman in this game, Farah would be far more targetted than she is? I mean, she hasn't gotten out unscathed, but it's not even close to what I see for other game girls, like Kairi from Kingdom Hearts, or just about all the main females from the Final Fantasy games.
It's just something to ponder.
That being said, imagine my surprise upon really looking hard for some fandom for it.
This game has a huge horde of people playing and loving it. It's arguably the biggest gaming hit of the year. Only FFX-2 came close to its sales and the like. And PoP got better reviews.
Now, even though it's an incredible game, I was surprised at how little in the way of fan stuff there is for it. I've only seen a few pieces of fanart for it. In fact, I have yet to find a fic.
I see this as good and bad.
Bad, because I was really looking forward to some good PoP fic. The Prince and Farah are kicks. And because it's so beautiful, good fanart would just be awesome. And I have seen some nice fanart for it (though, only a little) over at DevArt.
However, I also consider this a good thing for one major reason.
Farah.
I love the Maharajah's daughter. She's smart, quick, helpful, and she doesn't allow the Prince to walk all over her, ever.
But, because she's the main female, and yes, the love interest, I was fully expecting the fangirls to come swooping down, screaming, "Kill the bitch! She betrays the Prince! She stole the Dagger from him! She's evil!"
So what if Farah is actually the real owner of the Dagger of Time, and the Prince stole it from her and her father? So what if the only reason she takes it back is because the Prince was an idiot, and didn't place it back in the Hourglass of Time when he should've, and someone had to do it?
After all, the Prince has a sexy British accent, can do cool acrobatic moves, is good looking, and randomly rips off pieces of his shirt at times, until he's bare-chested at the end. Therefore, all his mistakes are instantly forgiven.
However, aside from a few snide remarks from commentors on DevArt, I haven't seen much Farah bashing. And it got me thinking just why that is. After all, the game's been out long enough to have more than enough fans for it.
Then I realised something. The cast. It. Is. Tiny.
Really, really tiny.
Throughout the game, your main cast is the Prince himself, and Farah. That's it. The Grand Vizier is also still alive, but you only get to see him at the very beginning and end of it. So, basically all you get is the Prince and his Princess. Unless you also want to count the random Sand Creatures that you off along your way.
It made me wonder if small casts mean that fangirls don't really waste their time writing bad bashing fics for certain characters, or other things along that line. They really don't have much to play with. The Prince loves Farah. Farah loves the Prince. Pretty much cut and dry right there.
There's no second pretty boy to pair one of the two with, and villianize the other. Nor is there another woman for people to argue over who would be better suited for the Prince.
There's no mix in there to give fans something to work with, so they can really say "[Such and such pairing] is better than [such and such other pairing] because [such and such character] sucks!" Or even have anything like that in their head to say that they don't like a certain character in the game.
So, who besides me thinks that if there had been another good looking man/woman in this game, Farah would be far more targetted than she is? I mean, she hasn't gotten out unscathed, but it's not even close to what I see for other game girls, like Kairi from Kingdom Hearts, or just about all the main females from the Final Fantasy games.
It's just something to ponder.