Has this ever been put up for a rename, this is a horrible horrible name.
The start of the trope description lists what it is not. What are those tropes then?
The Final Fantasy XIII example - FFXIII has mostly an Ensemble Cast (no single The Protagonist), so does the example provided really fit (considering Vanille is part of the ensemble)?
For example (of Ensemble Cast) - Only Snow really thought of saving Cocoon at first (Lightning doesn't decide that until about halfway through the game - noted after Lightning + Hope + fal'Cie Carbuncle scene). She isn't the sole leader too because Snow + Fang leads almost as much as she does (when all six finally unite it's especially noticeable). She wasn't the only one giving speech
As for Vanille being the Supporting Protagonist / The Ishmael ?
From there: "...show the events from somebody else's perspective, who does not have the central role in the story. That's the Supporting Protagonist: someone who would normally be a secondary character by conventions of the genre is actually the main character. "
and here:
"...but who is chosen as the narrator because he has an excellent view of the action surrounding the real focal character. "
Vanille definitely had a central role in the story - It was her actions (or well her intentions to avoid her + Fang's Focus of destroying Cocoon by lying to Fang) that affected everyone (her actions indirectly caused Serah + Dajh to become l'Cie which dragged Light + Snow + Sazh into the conflict. Finally she got Hope to follow Snow which also caused Hope to end up in the conflict). She also had the most interaction with the most characters (including Serah in a flashback) in the game with plenty of scenes focusing on her during said interactions with characters.
Finally while she was one of the last to join the "try to save Cocoon" club (Snow being the first with Lightning second) because she thought there were only two options (destroy Cocoon or ignore Focus + turn to Cie'th), she does eventually joins and intends to (+succeeds with the others) save Cocoon, fitting one of the definitions of the The Protagonist (pursuing the resolution of the story's main conflict / opposing The Antagonist of the story).
Anyway the point above is to argue that while Vanille is the narrator, she also fits the definition for the protagonist (making her part of the ensemble) which means isn't the The Ishmael right? Anyone disagree?
Edited by Goldfish2
Is there a version of this where the focus is a group of characters? I'm thinking of Chaucer's Canterbury tales, wherein Chaucer's narrator is travelling alongside several pilgrims, who he describes and whose stories he writes down.
Hide / Show Replies
I see no reason why it's not possible to have a group of Ishmaels, but the Canterbury Tales isn't an example. There, each story is a separate narrative, and there's no narrator who's also a character in the story. The pilgrims only exist in the framing narrative.
Is Tidus really a subversion? I got the sense that Yuna was the main protagonist, and Tidus just happened to have an actual stake in the story rather than being completely irrelevant.
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Duplicate Trope
, started by Lightflame on Mar 20th 2012 at 6:55:49 PM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman