Feo Takahari
Auror
Let's say your main characters are doomed to fail at their primary goal, and the reader knows this from early on in the story. How would you get the reader invested in them, precluding the classical tragic arc in which the mighty are brought low by their own hubris?
To give some context for this, I just reached the ending of Sine Mora, easily the most depressing video game I've ever played. Most of the cast has no reasonable hope of a better future, stumbling blindly onward for no better reason than that they're too stubborn to admit defeat.* The game's narrative has at least three glaring flaws, but to me, the most interesting is the lack of investment brought on by the game's relentless dreariness. This sense of inevitable doom is so deeply embedded in the story that outright removing it would create a completely different and possibly inferior narrative. But was there any way to maintain it while still forcing the player to care about the characters?
*The father seeking to avenge his son's death knows that vengeance is a temporary salve for the pain, the rebels know their rebellion has been almost completely wiped out and will never be revived, and it's made clear that the presence of time travel in the setting won't and can't be the magic cure-all they want it to be. The one character who has a chance of escape is a survivor of both rape and cancer who spends the whole game being blackmailed with information that could get her put in a concentration camp. (This game is many things, but subtle is not one of them.)
To give some context for this, I just reached the ending of Sine Mora, easily the most depressing video game I've ever played. Most of the cast has no reasonable hope of a better future, stumbling blindly onward for no better reason than that they're too stubborn to admit defeat.* The game's narrative has at least three glaring flaws, but to me, the most interesting is the lack of investment brought on by the game's relentless dreariness. This sense of inevitable doom is so deeply embedded in the story that outright removing it would create a completely different and possibly inferior narrative. But was there any way to maintain it while still forcing the player to care about the characters?
*The father seeking to avenge his son's death knows that vengeance is a temporary salve for the pain, the rebels know their rebellion has been almost completely wiped out and will never be revived, and it's made clear that the presence of time travel in the setting won't and can't be the magic cure-all they want it to be. The one character who has a chance of escape is a survivor of both rape and cancer who spends the whole game being blackmailed with information that could get her put in a concentration camp. (This game is many things, but subtle is not one of them.)