When Side Plots or Minor Details Are More Interesting than the Main Plot

[Tara]

Sometimes there exists a movie, a book, a game, a comic, or whatever that has such a strong, compelling narrative that it comes to define our understanding of the art of storytelling.  These are stories that are so thought-provoking and engaging that you always find something new to appreciate every time you pick it up.  Then, there are those stories that are just sort of okay.  Not bad, but not game-changing.  Then there are those special sub-types of "just okay" storylines, where you'll find yourself feeling a little disappointed at the lacking of anything with more depth when suddenly... a minor character will throw out some line, or maybe you'll notice something in the background, and it will fundamentally change your view on the character or the world around it.  The problem being, it has very little bearing on the main plot.  Even worse, it's actually more interesting than the main plot that you're supposed to care about.  It makes you wonder why this plot would be given such little emphasis.

Here's just one example of such a phenomenon that I can think of.  It revolves around the character of Harley Quinn in the Batman: Arkham games.  First some background information for those unacquainted with her character or maybe those who are only familiar with her more recent outings.

Harley Quinn was introduced in Batman: The Animated Series as a female companion for the Joker.  She started out as just that.  A female companion and nothing more, but as the show progressed, she quickly started becoming her own character with her own unique outlook, views, and personality to the point where she became a staple of the Batman mythos.  Her relationship with the Joker is very... complex.  You might ask yourself, who but a complete psychopath could fall in love with someone as murderously insane as the Joker?

Paul Dini enlightens us with his comic Mad Love, which explains how Dr. Harleen Quinzel was once a bright and intelligent psychologist, who had been assigned to work at Arkham Asylum.  When she is assigned to The Joker, she's at first not fazed by his antics.  But the Joker, being the emotional manipulator that he is, starts to play games with her head until Harley is convinced not only that good ol' Mr. J is in the right, but that he actually loves her and wants what is best for her.  Thus, she adopts the alias of Harley Quinn and devotes her life to assisting the Joker through thick and thin.

Unfortunately for her, the Joker is an abusive partner.  Physically, emotionally, and (deeply implied to be) sexually abusive.  As anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship knows, it can be hard to break free from the chains that the abuser puts on you.  Abusers are manipulative and know how to convince you that all the wrong things they do are entirely your own fault, even though they're not.  Even the strongest and most level-headed people can find themselves subject to this kind of abuse.

All this to say that Harley Quinn as a character serves as more than just a female companion for the Joker.  She also serves as the ultimate symbol to just how evil the Joker on even the smallest of scales.  The Joker has no empathy.  He will topple buildings, murder in cold blood, and even abuse a poor girl who did absolutely nothing wrong to him, all without remorse as long as it benefits his plans in the long run.  The Joker's treatment of Harley is so bad that even Batman has to look away as he punishes her right in front of his eyes.

 

Flash forward to 2009, and by this point, I feel like most people have forgotten why Harley is such a compelling character in the first place.  The worst part?  Even Paul Dini, writer of Mad Love, seems to have forgotten.  Batman: Arkham Asylum is a fantastic game, and for the most part all the characters are very accurate to their comic and cartoon counterparts.  But I can't help but be annoyed at how they portray Harley as little more than a complete idiot, with Batman even claiming that Harley "never was very bright."  Despite the fact that in Mad Love (which is still considered her best appearance by many), Batman even mentions that Harley has gotten closer to killing him than the Joker ever did.

Two years later, we have the release of Batman: Arkham City, widely considered the best superhero game of all time.  Such a release would be the perfect time to further explore the eccentricities of the characters.  Instead, I feel like Harley Quinn is sexualized and infantilized to the point where what made her such a compelling character in the first place is all but lost.

But then it happens!

You don the mask of Batman, exploring the Sionis Steel Mill on the hunt for the Joker, and you find Harley's old costume from Arkham Asylum and think "Wow, that's a pretty neat Easter Egg!"  But wait... what's that on the floor next to it?

That's a pregnancy test!  And it's positive!

Harley Quinn is pregnant, presumably with the Joker's baby!

Holy shit.  This is game-changing.  The son or daughter of the Joker has been brought up in other medias before, but it would be interesting to see how it impacts the Arkham series.  BUT THEN-

Grief-stricken over the Joker's apparent death, Harley sings this little number during the credits at the end of the main game.  It's actually really heartbreaking to listen to.

Arkhma City has a post-game campaign called Harley Quinn's Revenge.  During this campaign, you revisit the Joker's secret hideout in the Steel Mill only to find this.

For thoe that don't know, that is Scarface, the dummy belonging to classic Batman villain the Ventriloquist.  Neat cameo, but why is he in a crib?  And also, what's that on the floor?

 

More pregnancy tests, but wait!!  This time they're all negative.  Add to that is the sheer number of them found on the ground.  There are a total of 16 negative pregnancy tests scattered on the floor at this point.  

It's not known if the original pregnancy test was a false positive or if Harley suffered a miscarriage, but the loss of the Joker and now her child has driven her over the edge.  In the span of one night, Harley Quinn has lost everything that matters to her, which makes her line at the end of the post-game campaign ("You should have left me to die, so that I could be with him!") all the more heartbreaking.

This is a fantastic little detail that adds so much depth to Harley's character, and really gives an enormous sense of weight to your actions as the caped crusader.  Sometimes you save the day and everyone is happy.  Then other times, you save the day and you rid an abused woman of everything she holds dear.

It's emotional, it's really hard to swallow.  I know when I first saw this playing Arkham City, it was really difficult for me to grasp.  My sister suffered a miscarriage about two years ago that emotionally destroyed her, and while I'm not the most maternal type of person, I know for a fact that I wouldn't be much better off in a similar situation.  This is the kind of thing I subscribe to the Batman series for.  To see this kind of emotional depth poured outward.

The problem?

This whole "Harley Quinn is pregnant" story is told entirely through background details.  Don't get me wrong here. I can more than appreciate background stories in a similar vein to the original Five Nights at Freddy's.  But with the Joker and Harley being such prominent characters in the game's story, the fact that the Joker's supposed baby isn't mentioned even ONCE in the main game makes it pretty jarring.  Not to mention that while the main story isn't by any means bad, it sure isn't so compelling that it wouldn't have benefitted from something more worldly and poignant.

If this were a part of the main story, this would have so much potential for character development, but instead, it's just relegated to the background to the point where the main story could have existed completely without it.  It's just saddening seeing a series known for its emotional potential to just wave that off in favor of more ACTION FIGHT MAN PUNCH!!!!

So that's just one example I can think of where a background story is actually a thousand times more compelling than the actual story.  I was going to post this in the Batman Arkham thread, but I also wanted to leave it general so that others could post examples of this kind of thing.  Have you ever found yourself more interested in something that wasn't supposed to be the main focus?  Share it here!

[Celestia]

I immediately thought of Xenoblade Chronicles X. It's not that I particularly dislike the main plot, but I was way more invested in the Affinity Missions.

The main reason for this is that the side stories are what made me care about almost everyone in the party, since only a small number of characters actually get a lot of screentime in the main story. (Mind you, some of the playable characters were DLC in the Japanese version, so it makes sense those ones wouldn't participate in the main story--but I digress.) Even with the characters who are featured in the main story, getting to know the cast and see what they're up to when they're not actively in your party was way more interesting to me than the story missions.

[Lady Soniko]

Going back to Batman related matters something that distracted me for a good amount of time during the main story in Arkham Knight was the Manbat side mission. If you didn't know the story, a Zoologist/scientist called Dr.Kirk Langstrom wanted to cure deafness in people across the world, so he spliced DNA with a vampire bat in order to get traits of exceptional hearing into the human body, his wife Francine was also his lab assistant but things took a drastic turn when he attempted the experiment on himself and became half man half vampire bat, becoming Manbat.

 

A side mission leads you to his Lab on which you piece together what has happened, you walk into a disturbing scene where the footage of their experiment loops indefinitely on a broken monitor whilst eerie music plays, to the left is the corpse of his wife Francine, presumably Kirk killed when he became Manbat and escaped the Lab. The Laboratory is absolutely trashed as Batman does his investigation, if you interact with Francine he closes her eyes and makes a comment on how she died and that Kirk had no idea what he was doing. You then use his research to find a reverse cure for his condition and continue on with the mission by leaving the Lab, removing the marker of the Lab from your map.

After capturing Manbat and locking him up in GCPD the more chilling and interesting discoveries is if you return to the lab after Manbat is in custody.

 The lab is even more trashed, Francine's body is gone and the monitor the footage played back on is now broken and hanging from wires, there's a message apparently written in blood on the smashed screen saying "Forever my love" presumably one of 2 things happened. 1. Kirk returns to the Lab with some semblance of his memories and grieves his wife and takes her elsewhere to bury or preserve and leaves the message behind after destroying the TV and Lab out of sadness and regret. Or 2. Francine actually becomes Shebat (which is speculated on forums and the Wiki) and she leaves the message behind as closure for not blaming Kirk for what he did and that he had good intentions and she still loves him. Either way it's still very unsettling not knowing where her body goes to and walking into an even more run-down Lab.

That's not all, if you happen to play Arkham Knight on the date of Halloween you'll be presented with a Jumpscare when grappling a tall building where Manbat screeches in your face and flies off, upon going back to GCPD where he was locked up his cell is broken and NPC's tell you he escaped presumably due to turning back into manbat, they couldn't stop him and Batman retorts with "I was afraid this would happen" Batman had a little bit of doubt that his cure wouldn't last forever, and the GCPD NPC says "Happy Halloween huh?"

[Kuzu]

I feel like this idea stems from the fact that these plot points are just relegated to background or side material, and that's what gives them their intrigue. With plot points like this, because they're undeveloped, you're able to fill in the holes with your own thoughts and potential and start thinking "Well what if this happened" its basically thinking up your own headcanon. And thinking of your own story will generally be more investing than watching someone else's play out. 

However, when these plot points actually are explored in the series proper, they usually don't live up to the expectations we thought of. 

 

 

But yea, there's been plenty of times I've wanted to see a side plot explored that never actually goes anywhere. Not that I'm uninterested in the main plot usually, but it'd be nice to other potential interesting plot points focused on. The Harley Quinn example is easily one of the biggest "Holy shit" moments that gets neutered before it even has a chance to take off and that's really disappointing.

[Tornado]

Also Known As: Why Bleach Sucks

[Tara]

Bumpity-bump because I just thought of something.

The Ace Attorney series is probably one of my favorite game series.  It's such a colorful little game that overflows with top-notch comedic timing, colorful and interesting characters with exceptionally detailed backstories and personalities, and a very surprising layer of realistic emotional depth.  One minute the game could be making me laugh so hard it hurts during a cross-examination with a bird, the next minute I could be crying over a character's turmoil about the death of his wife.  It's such a well-rounded and beautifully-written series that even with all its narrative faults, I always refer back to it when discussing successful character development.

Except when this game is brought up.

Okay, there are a million things wrong with this game.  The writing is sloppy, often times contradicting itself only a matter of seconds after proposing an initial thought ("Here we have a gun that, when fired, generates enough recoil that it would dislocate a grown man's shoulder; naturally, then, our primary suspect is a scrawny 10-year-old boy with two functioning shoulders."), almost all the new characters are terrible, and the recurring characters aren't even in character (pretty sure Phoenix Wright was never a Spiderman-esque, wise cracking shmuck in previous games).  I could go into more detail, but that's not really the point.

My main point is that there is a plot point in the game that I found myself fascinated in, and it probably comes to no surprise that it actually shares similar theming with the Batman example I posted before.  During the course of the game, the biological father of Trucy becomes an intense plot point that intertwines with the rest of the main story.  As a result of her family turmoil, Phoenix Wright, a man who is not perfect but always has his heart in the right place, takes it upon himself to adopt at-the-time eight-year-old Trucy as his own daughter.

The transition of Phoenix Wright from young and dumb college student to a father nearing his early 30's in all respects should be a pivotal moment of character development that drastically changes the way the character behaves and sees the world.

But it doesn't.

In fact, the scene in which Trucy is adopted is not only downplayed considerably, but is only like five seconds long.  The basic jest of the conversation is this.

Phoenix: "Call me daddy!"

Trucy: "lol k"

And that's it.

It's never mention again.  It's never given any sort of crucial focus.

And maybe I'm just upset that because I wanted some cute father/daughter moments with Phoenix and Trucy.  Is that so wrong?! ;_; - The followup games have yet to fully address their relationship.  We know that Phoenix does love Trucy considerably (as evidenced by the fact that he keeps a locket with her picture in it from AA5 onward), but she's treated not much differently than his other companions like Maya or Athena.  It honestly just seems like such a waste to skim over a plot point that practically forces you to consider character development.

Also, when Phoenix, you should probably tell Apollo and Trucy that they're related before the shippers have their way and things start getting weird between them I mean I'm just sayin' I mean they're young and impressionable and those panties are supposedly magic so fuck I don't know how this shit works anymore

 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

This tends to kind of be "the story of my life" when it comes to Superman since the parts of the character and series that I'm really intensely interested in are apparently not considered that important by many. I love to see Clark Kent's day-to-day life and his interactions and relationships with his friends (Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, etc.), and I love for Clark and Superman to take on more grounded situations to help people in their everyday lives, and seeing him having to use cleverness and sometimes investigative skills without necessarily being challenged physically. Superman media is all too frequently not interested in these things, and instead just focuses on Superman fighting supervillains or whatnot. I understand for some people this is "obviously" the most interesting part of a superhero, but to me...well, pretty much literally the opposite is true. Not that it's BAD to show Superman punching superpowered bad guys, it's just that in my mind, there are so many interesting things you can do with the character that get ignored far too often for the more "obvious" things.

Really, I don't think it's too much to ask to ask for Superman to have genuine emotions, and to consider his relationships with supporting characters important, and for the challenge of saving the day to not always come from things that should naturally be very easy for Superman (physical challenges), but I guess that's just not what most people are interested in when it comes to the character. I will admit that the extent to which I take this can be a little weird sometimes. I can understand why death-defying action might seem more exciting than Clark getting yelled at by Perry, but in many cases I would actually be more interested in the latter

A good example of this was some Superman comics by Gail Simone I was reading from a trade. There was this background detail running through the comics of Clark Kent being demoted from star reporter to a more minor role while some professional rival of his took his place, but this plot point was given little attention. I remember reading scenes of Superman saving the day from twisted superpowered evildoers and feeling annoyed that they were focusing on this instead of Clark's demotion, which genuinely seemed like a much more interesting story to my mind. x)

It's also how I felt about Superman: the Movie. Overall I actually didn't like it, but I thought Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent was really enjoyable and just so fun to watch (the fact that I liked it so much despite the fact that I generally like Clark being competent says a lot about how darn good it was). In addition, the way he was portrayed really drove home to me even more than other Superman media the irony and strangeness, to the point of being utterly fascinating and almost miraculous in a way, of Superman's double life. While I would hardly say the movie was "neglectful" of that side of the character, I couldn't help but feel unsatisfied with the amount of relative focus it got simply because I was delighted with Clark and really wasn't satisfied with "Superman proper" in that movie due to him feeling too aloof and not well motivated. Maybe this doesn't make that much sense considering they're the same person?? I don't even know.

[Shade Vortex]

This pertains to Breath of the Wild and is more main than side quest, but I figure it's one specific part of the game that's way more interesting than the rest, and hopefully that means it belongs here. But I'll put it in a spoiler tag just in case.

Spoiler

So the whole side story of the Zora's is a lot more interesting than any other part of this Zelda game's story. I feel like it gets more attention, more development, more thought, build up and time put into it than any other part of the game. It's bizarre to me.

 

[E-122-Psi]

A bit of a topic bump. Sorry.

I'm not sure if this counts as a 'side plot' but there are many side characters and stories in a large series I wish had been looked into more.

Some of them come from the large filmography that is the Looney Tunes series of all things. Don't get me wrong, Bugs, Daffy and Elmer are some of my favourites, but one equally high on my list is Beaky Buzzard, a sympathetic antagonist that appeared in only FOUR cartoons.

Beaky stands out because of how damn wrath less an antagonist he is, he's not just bumbling, he's an outright shy and innocent infant. The one time he fought with Bugs, he spent more time playfully toying around with Beaky than 'thwarting' him. This made for a cute deconstruction of the usual 'loser bad guy gets pummelled' formula since Beaky couldn't even get as far as starting a spat.

There's a tragic undertone to Beaky's underplayed career, his creator Bob Clampett left WB shortly after making his debut appearances, and his voice actor Kent Rogers died in WW2, aged only 20 years old (though Mel Blanc did a good replacement in his lingering appearances).