Metacognition: Role Models

We’re back with our “thinking about thinking” series! If you’re interested in our previous deep thoughts, check out the Metacognition series.  Join us for some deep thoughts (and maybe the occasional not-so-deep thought) about gaming. If you find one you’d like to answer, you can either comment below or write a post and share the link so we can all read your fantastic thoughts.

Have you ever tried to be more like a video game character/drawn inspiration from them?

I think I mentioned before how I role-played as myself the first time I played Dragon Age: Origins, and how important that playthrough was. But I think in regards to looking up to a character, it was, embarrassingly enough, another Warden I created. Her name was Renya Mahariel, and I made her into the person I wanted to be. I think I played Origins perhaps three times over the course of about 10 days (not something I’m proud of), and she was my third playthrough.

It seems somewhat self-indulgent to say that I look up to a character that I created, but there was a lot of “stuff” I poured into her story and at the end of the day wound up gaining a lot of comfort from her existence. It was, I see now, a way to hold up a concrete example of the person I wanted to be and a person I could be, instead of relying on an abstract, “Gee, I could probably do/think/be like this.”

If I were to pick a character that I really wanted to be like that I hadn’t created, I would at one point have said Solid Snake. Nothing hurt that guy, and he held onto any and all pain stoically. He “angst”ed alone, and it was something that teenage me definitely related to and wanted to emulate. I looked up to Snake and wanted to be strong like him (especially during a time when I felt very helpless), and so looking up to the gruff soldier who, underneath it all, had a beating heart was very appealing.

Nowadays, if I had to choose, I’d probably say someone like Samantha Traynor for Mass Effect 3 would be a role-model of sorts. I definitely identify with her nerdiness and social awkwardness, but I loved that she was just so likeable anyway. She was unapologetically who she was, and when she loved people, she loved them without judgment and without asking for anything in return except their own affections (I’d just like to mention here that she is the only romance option who doesn’t have some sort of sidequest).

And she also has great dance moves.

That might seem like an unreachable ideal, but I do think it’s one worth striving for.

What about you? Do you have a game character (either one you created or not) that you have tried to be more like? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you soon!
~Athena

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