Having your character talk during cutscenes

[Shougun]

just because your character doesn't have lines of dialogue, that doesn't mean they're mute.

the silent protagonist in games generally isn't actually silent. their responses are implied, and you fill in the blanks yourself with whatever you're thinking or feeling as you watch/play along. they're interacting in the story, but as a blank slate.

i never thought it was that complicated, but it seems even outside of preference a lot of people have difficulty grasping this concept.

Its interesting it seems you quoted what I want to reply to this with.. so you misunderstood what you quoted.

Silence is a characteristic - its an action and response a personality. When someone says holy shit the town is burning down and I shrug off the wall and silently walk into the town to save everyone - I have developed my character and yet I didnt speak.

I understand this, obviously you do too - but you dont understand my post at all.

[fusional]

Its interesting it seems you quoted what I want to reply to this with.. so you misunderstood what you quoted.

Silence is a characteristic - its an action and response a personality. When someone says holy shit the town is burning down and I shrug off the wall and silently walk into the town to save everyone - I have developed my character and yet I didnt speak.

I understand this, obviously you do too - but you dont understand my post at all.

the direct quote was "Silence is a characteristic and If I wouldn't do it at that time then it isn't "my" character." you also go on to use "silence" as an example for a dialogue choice.

based on that, everything i've said stands- and it seems like you actually don't understand. to put it into context- just because the silent protagonist doesn't say anything at that time doesn't mean they're not actually saying anything at that time. whatever you think or feel is the response, which you project onto them. if you're projecting silence onto them as a result of not seeing or hearing lines of dialogue, well... that's on you.

the point is, silent protagonists aren't your preference and that's fine. but your perception of them being silent and associating it with being a characteristic and therefore 'not you' doesn't, in fact, mean they possess a silent characteristic.

the default response of the silent protagonist isn't "silence"- it's whatever you imagine them to say. so it's only a characteristic if you yourself perceive it that way (which i suppose is understandable, but not at all intended)

[Shougun]

the direct quote was "Silence is a characteristic and If I wouldn't do it at that time then it isn't "my" character." you also go on to use "silence" as an example for a dialogue choice.

based on that, everything I've said stands- and it seems like you actually don't understand. to put it into context- just because the silent protagonist doesn't say anything at that time doesn't mean they're not actually saying anything at that time. whatever you think or feel is the response, which you project onto them. if you're projecting silence onto them as a result of not seeing or hearing lines of dialogue, well... that's on you.

the point is, silent protagonists aren't your preference and that's fine. but your perception of them being silent and associating it with being a characteristic and therefore 'not you' doesn't, in fact, mean they possess a silent characteristic.

the default response of the silent protagonist isn't "silence"- it's whatever you imagine them to say. so it's only a characteristic if you yourself perceive it that way.

If they don't say anything at that time they don't say anything. I'm not going to mentally -force- extra scenes into the scene. Sometimes they do things like "explain the situation "yes/no"" and then you start talking and it fades out and fades in - that is something you can add imagination to I suppose.

But if not, that's not on me. You are being extremely unreasonable to defend some point like "If you don't see the purple dragon in the back ground well that's on you!" ... Except there was no purple dragon in the background and you are making stuff up to satisfy the point (imagining things your character says to say that's how he is, except he never spoke during the scene for you to be able to say he said anything).

Please don't make things up to make points... those aren't points - its just nonsense to argue fact with (saying you imagined extra scenes or something, if there are fade in fade outs for every talk then there are "in-between" scenes that you can say are designed for imagination but otherwise there were no scenes to explain the extra imagining scenes at that moment).

Assuming the point we are making is that silence makes or does not make a character easier to personalize - which I say it doesn't (for myself).


Edit: explained everything more / removed some unnecessary comments.

[KyahAlmasy]

the direct quote was "Silence is a characteristic and If I wouldn't do it at that time then it isn't "my" character." you also go on to use "silence" as an example for a dialogue choice.

based on that, everything i've said stands- and it seems like you actually don't understand. to put it into context- just because the silent protagonist doesn't say anything at that time doesn't mean they're not actually saying anything at that time. whatever you think or feel is the response, which you project onto them. if you're projecting silence onto them as a result of not seeing or hearing lines of dialogue, well... that's on you.

the point is, silent protagonists aren't your preference and that's fine. but your perception of them being silent and associating it with being a characteristic and therefore 'not you' doesn't, in fact, mean they possess a silent characteristic.

the default response of the silent protagonist isn't "silence"- it's whatever you imagine them to say. so it's only a characteristic if you yourself perceive it that way (which i suppose is understandable, but not at all intended)

The game has never suggested that our characters are actually talking during a conversation unless they cut away for a moment and the NPC clearly acknowledges a point we've made. As Shougun mentioned, the ever common "Fade" in, and out technique.

Aside from that, our character merely stands on the sidelines as the NPC's go about their conversation and we, the character are swept away with no personal say in the matter. It has become a reoccurring trait for our character to remain speechless, and thus Shougun is right; its a characteristic. For instance in the Limsa intro, even when the Miquote speaks directly to us and our character looks her in the face, they don't speak, but simply walk away from her. There's no dialogue there, but if you wish to pretend for the sake of projecting yourself, than by all means go for it. But the truth is right in front of you.

If it's a duck, it's gonna quack, no matter how hard you wish for it to bark.