Stoic Loners and playing as people we'd hate.

You've seen them before. You've played as one before, or, they were a supporting character somewhere along the way. And, if you're lucky enough (or not), you've seen them in real life (hint: they're probably wearing black, because they do so almost exclusively). What I mean by "Stoic Loners" is, of course, the people who keep to themselves, are usually pretty quiet, supposedly hate everything and everyone, are usually angered easily, don't easily cooperate, are usually in any given situation for themselves, but occasionally say or do things that are worthwhile.

Think about the qualities that I've just described; if you met this person in real life, what would think of them? You would think they are selfish, arrogant posers. These are, for the most part, bad qualities. They're certainly not going to get you anywhere in the real world. Job interviews would suffer from them not answering any questions and saying how much they hate the person. When someone asks you to get a report filed in or to clean up your area, the last thing you want to do is tell them to go die (especially in a bad economy). Long story short, being a dick in the real world just doesn't cut it.

Then you look at games. Playing second fiddle to the effeminate hero in JRPG's, the Stoic Loner is usually one of your most valuable party members, and usually gets all the cool-looking powers and equipment. They're usually also invaluable to the story, because for whatever reason, someone has given someone who hates everything one of the most important jobs. They get lots of respect for supposedly being cool, and sometimes act as a guide for the hero, giving them life lessons to live by, and of course the hero listens, for whatever reason.

These people don't usually make good role models. When you don't talk to someone because you don't like them, that's fine. It's natural to do so. But when you hate everyone, and don't talk to anyone, that's a problem. These types of people are looked down upon and generally considered either insane or lame by everyone. Except in games, where not only are they glorified by the games themselves, but are also lavished by fanboys/girls to no end, which begets developers to create more of these characters, who are in turn again lavished, and so on, creating a never-ending cycle of "cool".

And this extends even beyond the imagined cliche-riddled world of JRPG's; Niko Belic is certainly not a person most people could get along with, and certainly not someone like Kratos. Marcus Fenix might also not like you very much. But here we are, playing as these people, admiring these characters' ability to kill and maim, even knowing they'd probably hate us for doing so.

And it's not like that's all that gaming has to offer. Plenty of games have positive role models to get behind. Link, while the epitome of the quiet hero, is a very kind person who helps out townspeople in need (even if he's mostly doing it for some reward). Nathan Drake is also someone that you could get along with in an everyday sense, even if he might annoy you at times. Professor Layton is definitely someone whom I'd like to hang out with.

So why do we happily play as people who we'd avoid in any other circumstance? Is this part of our desire to play into a "power fantasy" experience, where we play roles that are so outlandish that we could never take them on in real life? Why is it that the Stoic Loner character is such a fan-favorite? What sorts of characters would you and would you not hang out with? I'm sure the answers will surprise me.