(Mods, please feel free to move this to spam haven if you think it belongs there)

Alright, I've had two questions on my mind:

One, I've seen a lot of dislike lately towards a certain character named Ean. Some say he's boring, others say he's useless, but I'd really like to know why so many people seem to dislike him as a hero and a main character.

Two, does anyone ever wonder if the villagers in the towns in Aveyond know that, right outside their towns, there are woods/mountains/beaches CRAWLING with monsters? I mean, what do they do when they need to go on a grocery run? Run screaming into the fray and pray you get out alive?

Question 1, I don't really "dislike" Ean - he just doesn't grab me. A lot of people (myself included) just see him as a standard "nice guy" without much personality beyond that.

Question 2, heh, it's like that in a lot of RPGs. I guess some of them take the Mule Express when they have to leave or they arm themselves for battle.

I like Ean, but without the rest of the gang (Iya, Rye, Emma, Gavin, Ava, Jack and Nicholas), I don't think he would be that interesting. I also think that the others probably preferred Rhen (or probably Mel?) than Ean; not necessarily "hate." =D

I don't know about the Aveyond series, since most of the populace would be in cities, towns, or villages; I don't think they're dumb, too. It's safe to assume that they would always take necessary precautions, just like when you go out of the house at night and walk along a dark, quiet street.

1) I don't hate Ean. I just don't care about him because he's BORING.

2) You have a rather weird perspective. You DO realize that markets exist INSIDE the towns, do ya? Just because we don't see them doesn't mean they do not exist. I mean, for the most part, Aveyond citizens hardly ever mention going out of town for the lulz. Maybe they just are too self-sufficient that they don't care to go out of town ever. Also, as per AV3, there's Magic Mirror Express that sends you off to far off distance quickly.

And most of the "monsters" in the forests are not really monsters. They're just wild animals. You know, creature you actually won't be surprised to see in forests. Wolves, wild chickens, foxes, etc. If there are trolls or whatever, they're in places that people don't normally go to anyway. The monsters are crawling all over the place for gameplay's sake (where else would you earn your freaking gold from?). I mean, if you want realism, then your characters ought to need food and sleep and go to the bathroom regularly, right?

1. Ditto D_a: I don't hate Ean. But he's so boring of a character that I don't care about him either.

2. Where exactly are they going that needs them to travel through monster filled lands? The villages seems largely self sustaining so I don't see why they would venture that far into the wilderness. And it's not so bad with the monsters: I often just run right past monsters so I don't have to fight them.

Ean is, IMO, just a main character that had to be male. I mean, look at him, he's the only main dude character and the plot is still not revolving around him, it's Iya it's all about. Iya being a huuuuuuge Mary Sue herself (but that's beyond the point)

As for the second thing. It REALLY is not the only weird thing that happens in RPGs. And saying that it's a RPG is enough. Seriously, did you see some of the side quests, where you had to fetch whatever to whomever? Like, are they THAT lazy they can't go get the damn book near the waterfall or search salamander eggs themselves? Or the Ravenwood beast quest. :/ You had to go to the beast, cage it, go back to Ravenwood and alert the citizens and literally two men went to the lair to check out. And you had to go to the lair yourself, just to "see what those men had to say about the beast" and when you returned to Ravenwood, the beast was already there, when no men passed you on your way back.

There are lots of these senseless details, but that's the nature of RPGs. We just have to go with the game or else there's no enjoyment. Like d_a said, characters would have needed to go to the bathroom.

I don't get how people consider Iya less Mary-Sueish than other girls. I mean, she (and Stella) are super nice and super kind, but being Mary Sue is more of a plot thing than a character thing actually - a character is only really Mary Sue if the plot itself is molding it for that specific character's favor. Iya, for example, got herself kidnapped when in a weak state of mind, and Stella was also brainwashed and ended up ruining things for the party against her will. Both of them were weak characters that later learned to become stronger. They're not Mary Sues.

As for Ean, I don't hate him. I don't think he's that boring either - I mean, he's a nice guy, but I'm not the type to consider "nice guys" boring. You can pretty much say the same thing about Talia or Rhen. They're just... normal. ^^;

Well, the primary reason why none of the AV2 characters made an impression to me was because their facesets are ridiculously ugly, that I can't bring myself to care about what they say or do. To be honest, I don't particularly like any of the main characters in Aveyond- not even the oh-so-popular Te'ijal and Galahad. Anyways, the characters don't make much impact if the extent of thair personality could only be observed in scattered cutscenes that are mostly optional. Most of the characters' roles don't matter to the plot anyway.

As for the monsters, well they don't actually show up in the civilization, so why should the people care if the beasts/animals generally don't bother them? Also, this is an RPG, not The Sims, so everyday routine activites, which are irrelevant to the plot, doesn't need to be touched on. You do notice, when reading a novel, the plot rarely write about how the characters go to the loo to relieve themselves, or describe in detail on how they shower before having breakfast. They're simply not important to the plot.

wow, a lot of good and in depth answers!

well, i for one feel the need to defend Ean (as well as the other AV2 characters, but mostly Ean). He may seem like a hum-drum kind of guy (and trust me, I see your point there). But people seem to forget that he crossed into another world to save his friend. He climbed a mountain littered with monsters armed only with a stick just so he could rescue Iya. And after he did, he stuck by Iya's side through thick and thin, even if the situation became bleak. Just because he doesn't have much dialouge, the unspoken actions speak volumes.

As for the nature of RPGs, I know that's how it is. It just seems sort of funny. And gosh, how annoying is it when they say "oh, i'm so lazy that i can't even walk next door to get some bread. would YOU get it for me?" then again, if the villagers actually got exercise, all we would be left with was the main plot.

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Unspoken being the keyword. Implied interaction mean absolutely NOTHING because anyone can make up random nonsense for what cannot be seen!

Rhen tried to defend another slave from Lars and sticks up to herself when she was being bullied. Mel is loud and pissy at everyone. Those are NOT "implied" or "unspoken" action. Those we actually get on screen. And Ean? Oh gee, what was Ean like? I cannot remember!

Ean and Iya's interaction is VERY generic. It's like one of those nice boy nice girl conversation you get in children's books. "Hi Bob, how are you today?" "Oh, hi Sally, I'm very well, thank you." Bland! Boring! There are ways to portray a "nice guy" and still assert personality.

Also, just like Rogue says. FACESETS. Facemaker's facesets are SO GENERIC AND BLAND. BORING. They emphasize the characters' blandness and make them even more boring.

you have a valid point about the facesets, though i did like how, depending on their mood, their facesets changed slightly.

hey, i get really into these games. i'm a writer, it's my job to appreciate behind the scenes emotions. just look at my fan fictions. i took the av2 characters, put them in a situation, and wrote what would happen solely based on what i had seen (spoken or unspoken) in the game.

you, i might add, have EXCELLENT points about the whole nice guy nice girl thing. maybe i just subconsciously embellish it or something. *shrugs* i just think the unspoken things shouldn't be left out when judging the character of ean.

While Ean went to another world to save a friend is admirable, plenty of other games/novels/plays/movies/etc. already have this plotline making it more a cliche than anything. What ELSE does he do that makes him memorable and stand out from the rest of the crowd?

Seeing as I don't remember anything...

If you write AV2 fic, you're just putting your own spin on the game and is in no way canon. Hence you can't 'know' how they would react in certain scenarios because those scenarios didn't happen in the game. Also, as a fellow fanfiction writer who writes about a crack pairing in total seriousness (meaning I don't even have game subtext to feed on. Yet I still write T/R as if they were totally happening.), I still find Ean/Iya very boring.

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Yeah, I'm into the games very much too! I write this epic Tolkienesque fanon timeline for Aveyond going thousands of years back before Ahriman. I wrote Gyendal and Te'ijal's childhood and family! I write the Demon Realm governmental system and the daevas' backstory! Your point being? Fanfiction proves nothing. What YOU interpret will be different than what someone else interpret, and not one is more right than the other unless they are proven to have gone off canon.

I do the exact same thing with AV3. I watch every single cutscene and event involving Gyendal closely, and I use whatever I found to make absurd claims about how Gyendal and Mel belongs together forever. I can write fanfics about how Gyendal is so much in love with Mel and all his kidnapping and threatening is just his way of showing his love (see Te'ijal who thinks blackmail and eternal torment and bad name-calling very romantic). Then if someone else comes along and say that they have a different opinion on Gyendal's behaviour, neither of us are more right than the other. We don't see what Gyendal is like beyond him being all BWAHAHAHA I ARE EVULZ I WANTS RULE TEH WORLD, after all.

@d_a: crack writers who write totally serious fics FTW! XD

(I'm guilty with creating my own history for Teijal, heck my own vampires to suit my stories. And AUs are so fun! Especially when Teijal/Rhen are evil with the Oracle being an Ebil boss and helped take over/destroy the world .)

"Yeah, I'm into the games very much too! I write this epic Tolkienesque fanon timeline for Aveyond going thousands of years back before Ahriman. I wrote Gyendal and Te'ijal's childhood and family! I write the Demon Realm governmental system and the daevas' backstory! Your point being? Fanfiction proves nothing. What YOU interpret will be different than what someone else interpret, and not one is more right than the other unless they are proven to have gone off canon."

d_a, i'm not trying to prove my opinion is better than yours. i was just expressing why i thought ean and iya weren't boring. if you still find them boring, that's fine. i wasn't trying to prove anything against you.

@KTC: I generally write my stories with one fixed continuity in mind, but yeah. Random nonsense AUs are fun too Woobie Gyendal being my fave

@pinkjaguar: And I'm saying all those because I'm wondering just how in the world do your fanfics contribute to the discussion/debate whether or not Ean and Iya are boring. So you have scrutinized canon to make sure things match up to the facts and you "appreciate" the unseen events. Okay, that is great and all, but what does that have to do with why you think Ean and Iya aren't boring? You sound like you're saying "They're not boring because in my fanfics they aren't!" That... makes no sense.

The problem with the "unseen" is that it's exactly that - unseen. What we don't see in the AV games is open to interpretation, and people will have different interpretations. Some people will take a minor character who has one line and write a big complicated backstory for him, but that wouldn't change the fact that he has just one line in the game.

What we SEE of Ean is that he's a nice guy who goes on a quest to rescue his girlfriend. What personality do we see beyond that in the game? Not much if any.

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This. Except occasional quips that "Dur, humans are weird ", he's just a near-emotionless dude, regardless of the facesets look like. He doesn't seem to gain anything in his adventure in the human world. He's still the bland, somewhat naive elf boy at the end of the game.

@d_a thanks for sharing your opinion. in regards to mine, i have nothing against your opinion, so if you would be so kind as to not say it "makes no sense" that would be great.

@esme, you and abunch of other people have inspired me to play AV2 over again. maybe this time i'll lose my heroic view of ean and see him for what he is: a nice, if boring, elf

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To be fair to Ean, Iya was not his girlfriend at the start of the game, only his best friend