rpanons | [D] Free space

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I think some of us are still here.

Anything you want to discuss in particular, anon?

A lot of stuff in general? I mean I'm kind of new to DGM fandom so it was a bit of a surprise to watch the level of vitriolic raging going around the last post and this one about bad character portrayals, so I've been curious about what people consider good portrayals.

Though I guess that's a bit too broad a question, so maybe something like....

"Dear anons, what are three things you consider important/keep in mind about playing ________? Why?"

And starting with Allen, maybe.

i can start with 3 basics

1. allen walker is his back story: there's a reason for the way he acts, looks, speaks, and even his name. keep in mind why he's this way and where he comes from.
2. allen speaks formally. how you translate polite japanese into english is up to you but it should be noticeable. when it's pointed out to him in canon that he has started to speak informally to lenalee and johnny, he immediately switches back to formal speech.
3. always remember that just because he's a kind person doesn't mean he's a pushover. and he can create negative cr as easily as positive cr.

wow

this comment and the one that comes after it

gj illustrating the difference between shallow and deep, i guess

While there are marked differences between the two comments, that does not make either of them less a contribution to the civil discussion I was asking for.

Are the points that the first commenter brought up are any less important to consider for their brevity?

um yeah

the first comment starts off with a completely generic statement that's basically true of any character and then gives two statements that are so obvious that they're pretty much useless

if you've read the manga then you know those things

it's about on the level of someone answering the question of what people need to remember about allen by saying he's a kid with white hair a scar on his face and a weird left arm SO BE SURE NOT TO FORGET THOSE THINGS WHEN YOU'RE PLAYING HIM GAIS!

This, tbh.

First comment might as well have been "I've read DGM!" while the second comment says "I actually give a damn about the nuances of this character."

It's not that the first comment is wrong but that's kind of the point: it's so obviously right that it's not really advice. I'm not saying this to be a jerk or anything but the second comment actually goes somewhere and does something that the first comment doesn't and can't.

I've seen debate over (2) as to just how formal Allen speaks, do you know if the official localizations are any help voice-wise?

Wrt 3, though, I'd like to hear more about what you think motivates Allen's "kindness"/the kind of kindness it is. Or good scenes that really exemplify it (or question it). Is he kind because of trying to emulate Mana, or was he always that kind of boy? The person who would someday develop an Innocence centering around "one hand for the akuma, one hand for the humans"?

Regarding Allen's formality, that comes from the way he speaks in Japanese canon which is easily recognizable in that context as "polite Japanese." It's a little more difficult to convey in English (especially American English, as the case is) because "formal English" just isn't comparable to the "polite Japanese" Allen uses.

The whole "'formal English' just isn't comparable to the 'polite Japanese'" line is just kind of silly, imo.

No, they're not comparable, but that's also not the point. It is very possible to be true to the spirit of speaking politely in English, and also of speaking more formally or more casually in English. The fact that the precise mechanism for doing so isn't the same as it is in Japanese is neither here nor there. All the problem takes is a modicum of attentiveness.

And the whole thing is doubly a red herring because even though the manga is written in Japanese, the characters are understood to be speaking in English (not to mention that Allen wouldn't be speaking in American English anyway, because he's not American). People who are trying to be "true" to the letter rather than true to the spirit of the manga are just being pedantic. And people who claim that there aren't more formal and more colloquial ways to speak in English are just being obtuse anyway.

Actually, I think you're completely right on this point. I didn't mean to make it seem like you can't convey formality and politeness in English, and I did mean to imply that Allen doesn't speak American English but I don't think I made that very clear.

But no, I think you're absolutely right there. My bad :(

I like this idea, anon. I'm not an Allen player, but I've got some thoughts on what makes a good Allen (and what doesn't).

It's important to keep in mind that:

1) Allen shouldn't cry often, and he definitely shouldn't cry for himself or for selfish reasons. It's true that we sometimes see Allen cry in canon, but we don't see him cry out of self-pity. He shouldn't be a character who turns on the water works at every sadness or let down. When Allen cries in canon it's because of a death (or the prospect of death) which comes after a sad life. It's not just death itself, but the sadness of other people's stories that gets to him. Allen thrives on hope, specifically hope for others, so, for example, if Allen's in a panfandom game and someone he cares about gets sent home, that is not the sort of occasion when he should cry. That's something which benefits the person who's gone home, and even if Allen is sad not to be with them, he's not a character who would put his own sadness ahead of what's good for someone else. He smiles through most pain, puts on a brave face. He does not make huge demonstrative displays or beat his breast or cry on the shoulders of his friends. He doesn't use sad things that happen to other people as the occasion to have a new installment of his own personal pity party. He's far more stoic than that when it comes to what he's feeling, and he's not a great sharer of his own feelings either.

2) Allen is not Jesus. He's also not a martyr, and he's definitely not a martyr in the Christian sense. (He's not even especially religious. He only once in canon ever refers to himself in any kind of religious way, and that's in the very first chapters, before he ever even arrives at the Order. After he arrives, he never again claims himself to be some kind of clergyman or church representative; he doesn't wax poetic about God.) He may be self-sacrificing and willing to endure suffering and pain for what he believes in, but it's not the same thing as being a martyr. His tactic is not "I will willingly die for the truth (of the word of God) as I believe it," or "I prefer to die than to recant the witness I have born." His tactic is, rather, "I will run away to assure the integrity of my self and to keep me being me, even if I don't wholly know what that means or where it will lead me," and "I will say the words the Church requires me to say, even if my internal determination contradicts them." Allen shouldn't be played as overly religious, and part of that is not confusing his particular brand of suffering with martyrdom.

3) Allen is the kind of idealist who wants to have things both ways. He wants to have his cake and eat it too: destroy and save at the same time, protect everyone whether they're friend or foe. There's a kind of naivete in taking that approach to things. It's not just a wish for the world to be other than it is; it's also a kind of denial of the fact that he can't personally change the conditions of the world just by wishing it hard enough. Allen often acts like if he can just muster the energy then everyone really can be saved by what he does. All of this makes Allen very uncompromising, and in some respects his determination is a strength, but in others it turns out to hurt him because just having the will to move mountains doesn't mean the mountains are going to move when you run at them full-on, head first. So when it comes right down to it, there's a kind of egotism buried in Allen's idealism (and in him being so self-sacrificing): he's set his hopes on trying to make the world different but with a faith that it's his own blood, sweat, and tears that can do it, which is hardly a recipe for being humble. (On the other hand, I'm pretty convinced that some part of him knows he can't change the conditions of the world just by the force of his determination, which means that setting his sites on doing so is just a recipe for continuing to assure he will be hurt and punished by his own failures. So Allen's idealism kind of turns out to be a huge construct for self-punishment, which I think he thinks he deserves.)

Ugh, my phone battery is dying so I can't type as much as I want to in response to this till later, but!! Dumping a quick thought wrt (1): "is Allen a Stepford Smiler?" And do you think his smiling, "everything will be alright" deal is part of his trying to act as Mana would or just a general consequence of his original personality + subsequent trauma?

I think you'd have to explain what you mean by Stepford Smiler. I get the reference but I'm not sure how you mean it to apply here.

As far as the second question goes, I think that if you're thinking of anyone's actions in terms like "original personality" then you're never going to get very far.

Does Allen change over the course of his time with Mana? Yes, undeniably. Is there a simple either/or, cause and effect answer to how and why and what the before and after results are? I don't think there is. If any character was to try and deal with the loss of someone dear to them by just emulating aspects of their behavior as a kind of "tribute" then that would be an aspect of their personality and how they individually cope with loss.

I don't think that's what Allen has done on any conscious level, like he's just going through motions to mimic Mana. The aspects of Mana's outlook and approach that seem to have touched Allen most did so in much more fundamental ways. But I think that his behavior and approach to things had already changed long before Mana died. I don't think that he remained the same bratty child who Mana met at the circus right up until Mana's death and then started to copy him after. Identification would have happened by small degrees while he and Mana were together, a bit at a time. If that hadn't been the case, then I don't think Allen's actions upon Mana's death would have been what they were, and I don't think he would continue to hold him so dear after.

If I'm understanding your sense of "Stepford Smiler" here, I don't think it applies to Allen. Allen doesn't smile and pretend everything is okay, or even that everything is going to be okay because his hope and optimism is very different to him having a rose-tinted view on the world-he's had too much life experience to pretend that everything is actually just going to be fine if he smiles about it enough.

Personally, my take is that the smile isn't about acting like everything is/is going to be okay, but it's just Allen's way of keeping his personal pain or discomfort hidden wherever possible. The above anon wasn't wrong about Allen not crying for himself and only for others and in the same way if he wore his own negative emotions on his sleeve that would be self-absorbed and being a burden on others.

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