It is with full sincerity that I tell you that I struggled with myself over whether this rant should just begin and end with the single sentence, “It’s stupid.”
Because why should I elaborate? You already know why it’s stupid. And if you don’t, if you cannot already guess everything I am about to say, then the only explanation is that you’re 1 of the goons in the writer’s room who perpetuates this trope, and I know no one on any of those staffs is reading this blog.
But fuck it, we’ll do this the proper way. I’m still not over the novelty of seeing words magically appear on a screen that say the thinky-thinky things my head makes inside, after all. But I’m keeping it short. Even I have better things to do than dignify something this transparently dumb with a long treatise. And lest ye forget, I’m the guy who once wrote a critical rant about helmets in RPGs based on Dungeons and Dragons. So just keep in mind how low that bar is.
There are a lot of advantages to ranged weapons. Longbows had enough power to penetrate the most advanced, heaviest armor the middle ages could produce--that’s a hell of a lot more than you could say for a guy wielding a sword. Crossbows are so deadly that the Catholic Church actually banned them in warfare for a little while, on the grounds that they were so unfairly effective killing instruments that God Himself found them hateful--and that’s a quote.* Spears may dull, axes may rust, clubs may break, and swords do all of those things and more, but as long as you can find some rocks, yes just goddamn rocks, a sling's gonna be a reliable armament, and damned easy to reproduce if it does break. And of course, the typical star of ranged weapons, firearms? Handheld ones can be easily concealed, and large-scale stuff like canons can penetrate not just armor, but even vehicles and defensive fortifications.
But the 1 most important advantage to a ranged weapon, the most basic, intrinsic virtue it possesses that even the most slack-jawed drooling dipshit on Earth ought to be able to see, is the fact that they’re, you know...ranged. You do not have to take the time to approach someone to attack them if you have a bow. You do not have to deal with whatever close and personal offenses the other guy has available to him when you’re holding a blowgun loaded with a poison dart. If your opponent has a sword and you’ve got a gun, and he’s more than 7 feet away from you, then congratulations, you win the fight as long as you yourself don’t muck it up by aiming wrong.
Which is why Thane’s death in Mass Effect 3 is utterly idiotic. Thane, armed with a pistol, is facing off against Kai Leng, who is armed with a katana. They start off in close quarters as a matter of circumstance, but at a certain point, Thane manages to knock the glee club ninja back about 15 feet or so. And what does Thane do then? He fires at Kai Leng, while RUNNING TOWARD HIM. Completely out of the range of Kai Leng’s outdated wasn’t-even-a-major-weapon-of-warfare-in-its-heyday-so-stop-jizzing-your-pants-about-it-Japan katana, got Kai Leng unobstructed in his sights, possesses a lifetime’s experience of perfect marksmanship as the galaxy’s top assassin, and knows he himself is on death’s door from a terminal illness in his lungs...and Thane intentionally moves toward his enemy. And oh hey, what a surprise, the man whose lungs are working at 10% capacity and who isn’t armed with a close-quarters weapon gets mortally stabbed immediately thereafter. It’s almost like throwing away the advantage of range when you have a ranged weapon wasn’t a stroke of tactical genius!
Of course, the situation wasn’t helped by Shepard and company being hit with a heavy dose of Voyeuristic Paralysis Syndrome during the whole fight.
And speaking of Shepard himself being dumb, this isn’t even the only time Mass Effect 3 pulls this idiotic shit. As long as you don’t have the good sense to download the real ending to Mass Effect, Shepard will, in the Destroy ending, choose to walk into an explosion. Yeah, the dumbass is faced with the task of destroying a computer console--that’s an inanimate target, mind you--with his pistol, opens fire as he walks toward it, and keeps advancing AS IT EXPLODES. Kai Leng at least would have attempted to close the gap himself, but the only way that Shepard could suffer damage in this scenario would be to knowingly place himself within the explosion. And that is exactly where he chooses to be. It’s not like he doesn’t know what’s going on and doesn’t have time to turn around--the damn fool actively flinches in his pace as he sees parts shatter and bursts of flame go up from it! And it ain’t like he could possibly think that his attack isn’t having an effect and thus he needs to get closer for more damage, because, again, he’s REACTING to the explosions from the damage that he is CAUSING to it.
Now, even if I personally love the game besides the horrible ending, a lot of people hate Mass Effect 3, so you may be thinking to yourself that this moronic cliche is only a problem for “bad” RPGs. Yeah, not so. I’m fairly sure that almost everyone agrees that Horizon 0 Dawn is a solid title with good writing, and it pulls this exact same stupid shit! When Rost is squaring off against Helis, this battle starts with Rost being, I dunno, a good 20+ feet away from Helis, with Rost scoring an arrow in Helis’s back while Helis is armed with only a knife. What’s Rost’s next move? Why, to hurriedly scramble toward Helis, closing the gap between them so quickly that he only has time to fire off 1 more arrow (which Helis blocks) before he has to engage in hand-to-hand combat with him. Now Rost ain’t stuck in the last stages of a terminal illness like Thane was, but for Pharasma’s sake, he’s got a chance for several more free shots before Helis can get to him! Just because the jerk can block 1 arrow (which isn’t relevant since Rost is moving toward him even before that happens so it didn't affect his decision to do so), that doesn’t necessarily mean he could block 2 or 3 more, and even if he can, the worst that comes of that is that Rost still has to take him on with his spear after getting those free shots. It’s not even like Rost could be worried about hitting Aloy, because Helis stupidly drops her instead of using her as a body shield. No, he just goes as fast as he can to a distance where his enemy has a chance to kill him, and what do you know, it gives his enemy a chance to kill him.
OOOOOH but it’s so much more dramatic for Rost to rush into close quarters, so much cooler for Thane to do a shooting sprint, so much more cinematic for Shepard to stride headfirst into flaming shrapnel. Who cares about competent storytelling or character consistency when there’s the chance for extra glittery flare in an action scene, right?
It’s not just an RPG problem. Oh man is it ever not just an RPG problem. This dumbass trope rears its empty head practically once a week in other video games and shows and cinema; hell, it might be more reasonable for me to get on my knees and give heartfelt thanks that it’s actually fairly infrequent in this genre. Nonetheless, it’s a damned stupid cliche, it’s obvious that it’s damned stupid, and creators really need to stop using it.
* I’d kill to see someone crash any given stupid faux-Christian protest rally with all those “God Hates (Insert Marginalized Group Here)” signs and whatnot with his/her own sign proclaiming “God Hates Crossbows.”
In defence of these shooters, it is easier to hit targets that are closer. There's some logic in closing the distance if the shooter has something like a handgun, which is difficult to aim at long distances. However, Thane's mistake (and I think the mistake you're referring to in general) is that he gets way, way too close to his opponent.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, characters annoy me a lot more when they don't finish the job, so to say, when fighting someone with a gun, and then walk away from their seemingly unconscious opponent without taking away said opponent's gun! Then, the opponent inevitably gets up and shoots someone. It happens so often in the Yakuza series.
But that's the thing - you really don't ever see any scenario in which the question of accuracy is a viable one. Shepard sure as hell ain't having trouble hitting his stationary target, and Rost starts out by getting a bullseye on Helis; each of them is actively shown not to need to get closer to hit their opponent. And even in a case like Thane's, where the bad guy actually has some dodging capacity, you're still inevitably talking about a situation where closing the gap is going to be more advantageous to the enemy than to the shooter. If Kai Leng can dodge a few shots, let his shield absorb some more, what of it? He's the one time is against and as long as Thane kept that distance, he had the leisure of missing because there wasn't dick-all that the prancing git could do against him. Maybe not every situation is as cut-and-dry as Thane's, but it's still gonna be a damn rare occasion you'll find where a hero strides at the opponent they're shooting at where the mild increase in accuracy isn't starkly and obviously outweighed by the loss of distance's advantage.
DeleteYeah, that's another stupid trope. It's like...you hero assholes loot every single belonging your opponents have, right down to their very skin, every OTHER time you win a battle, but you pick THIS moment to just up and walk away from your enemy's special weapon? THAT'S the 1 trophy you idiots aren't gonna think to separate from his supposed corpse?