Aloy is...kind of a jerk. (Early Game Spoilers)

[Aydrian]

I've noticed this while playing, but Aloy is kind of a jerk. There are times when she says something where I just kinda think "Was that really necessary?"

Like when Erend asked for her help with hunting down his sister's murderer. I was thinking "Alright, let's do this" but Aloy basically just told him it's not her problem. I just sat there while thinking "Why give me dialogue options if Aloy is going to be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥?"

I understand her interactions with other people were severely limited when growing up, and what interactions did happen mostly consisted of her being treated like garbage, but so far Erend hasn't done or said anything wrong.

It seems like half the time I go through the dialogue options I'm trying to force her to show at least a little interest in anyone else, but then she says something else that makes me cringe again. I mean, there was a grieving man who has been nothing but helpful and nice to her who needed some help and her response was basically just "Got my own problems, ♥♥♥♥ off."

I can only assume this changes with time, but right now I'm wondering if she is really supposed to be the ideal strong female protagonist.

[XxzodazZ]

After reading this thread,and what everyone has said,I too think Aloy fit her role just right.All I really was thinking,is even though when Erend at that one time said something like,help me find Ersa with that thing of yours,Aloy said out of the way Erend,he seemed so upset and said don't make me beg.Then she reluctantly said ok,I just felt as though she had already involved herself if helping to uncover the mystery behind Ersa's disappearance,and she was somewhat of an empathetic person,because she know's how he would feel not knowing where a family member was.But I realize you the player,have some freedom of choice,as mentioned above,so It works fine ultimately,because there are many times in the game Aloy doesn't have to be nice.

[Aydrian]

Ok maybe I should've explained the interaction better. Literally every single option I chose was helpful. I even chose the heart option as the dialogue. I the player was being sympathetic towards his pain.

Aloy turned him down ON HER OWN, at which point he practically had to beg for her help. In the end he just said 'If you want to help then go to this location" and that ended the conversation. Up to that point, none of the dialogue choices I've made in the game have been even remotely hostile to justify her response.

The quest wasn't turned down, Aloy was just kind of an ass about accepting it. In the end, it seemed like I the player was eager to do the quest but Aloy really couldn't care less. Her behavior towards Erend had nothing to do with my dialogue options, unless it was an option so obscure that it somehow led to her being callous towards a man who had suffered a big loss and that obscure dialogue option did a complete one-eighty from supportive to callous disregard.

Again, I reiterate, not a single dialogue option I've made has been even remotely hostile towards Erend. It was a complete disconnect between player choice and the character's personality.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

The thing to keep in mind with Aloy is that prior to the game she hasn't really had much social contact. The only person she's really spent much time talking to is Rost who isn't exactly a great conversationalist (she also talked to Karst occasionally but those conversations were necessarily brief).

She tends to come off as very blunt and direct since she doesn't really have much experience with social niceities or handling other people's emotions. Honestly, the fact that she's as well adjusted as she is is a small miracle.

[Aydrian]

Originally posted by Adeon Hawkwood:

The thing to keep in mind with Aloy is that prior to the game she hasn't really had much social contact. The only person she's really spent much time talking to is Rost who isn't exactly a great conversationalist (she also talked to Karst occasionally but those conversations were necessarily brief).

She tends to come off as very blunt and direct since she doesn't really have much experience with social niceities or handling other people's emotions. Honestly, the fact that she's as well adjusted as she is is a small miracle.

That's the weird thing though, up until that point I hadn't experienced her being so callous. Before that she was Ms. Helpful with everyone, and then bam! Even in that same conversation she shows empathy when you bring up his sister.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGu8DA4G5UI

Around the first three minutes of her conversation with him she's just talking to him, and then she's just really pushy. I mean, the guy just lost his sister, how about she show be a little bit kinder?

The conversation I'm primarily talking about is at 17:06. Erend has been nothing but helpful so far and even helped her break into his friend's house to get the information she needs. He decides to ask for her help and well...she's not too keen to give it.

It doesn't really match her personality up until that point. I mean, she was kinder towards the people who spent her entire life shunning her than the man who has been nice to her the entire time. Yeah, he's also very flirty, but I don't see how that justifies such a treatment.

If it was consistent then I would just shrug it off, but it kinda feels like she was written by two very different people with their own ideas on what kind of protagonist she is.

[Overread]

Quests in games might well be written by different staff - although one big difference with HZD is that its clear the same staff/team/approach was used for both secondary and primary quests. This generally translates to very detailed secondary quests that often tie into the main quests very nicely; rather than purely being fetch/kill quests (they are present too but they are more nicely wrapped up).


As for her attitude, don't forget he's not just a stranger he was a leader of a warband. Were it not for him falling from grace with drink and other influences then he'd have been able to resolve his sisters situation on his own with his own resources.
So some of her anger might be that here is a person who has fallen and hit hard times and expects others to clean up after him. He expected his sister to help him and now Aloy has to help him. In a sense she might be feeling a bit embittered on that score.


She also does have some bitterness in here now and again and it rises up here and there in some conversations. She's clearly quite against the old religious systems and "traditional ways of life" where they are shown to cause a negative impact on people and that ties very well not just with her general education and awareness of the world around her; but also her upbringing where the culture of the world basically shunned her. Heck don't forget she almost didn't have a name because of that.


So yeah I can see her having a bit of anger/spite/frustraition now and then. It's part of her being a more realistic character. It's also because she's not written for a DnD game where your alignment specifically stops you making certain kinds of reply. A good character in a DnD type game always gives the good answer. Aloy isn't in a DnD game so she can be grey. She can be selfless and helping and yet at the same time selfish and bitter too.

[fox]

She just watched her father die and was almost killed herself, she is looking for the killers and didn't have time to get side tracked. Her response was perfectly normal, if not a bit direct, but that's always been her personality.

[Shahadem]

Yes she is a jerk but it fits her character given her prior history and age.
It is perhaps the difficulty of playing a predetermined character instead of one of your own creation. So the character is going to act the way the writer envisions the character acting rather than the way you want to roleplay out the scene based on a character you didn't create.

Of course there will be certain situations where even the writer will fail to understand the character or have the dialogue make sense. For instance when Aloy wants to refuse to help Erend uncover some of the mystery surrounding his sister's murder after he just did her a major solid not even five minutes ago and he just lost his sister. It didn't make sense that Aloy wasn't a little more sympathetic with him given that she was or could be more sympathetic during the earlier dialogue.

Although I do feel that ALoy is a bit inconsistent as exemplified by this scene which I too had a problem with because it felt out of character given the totality of the circumstances. One of the reasons why this stood out is because Aloy never showed any of the same hesitation when other characters asked her for similar help. In fact that might be the first time she tried to tell someone to bugger off.

Plus Aloy is no Command Shephard although she is a Spectre (sort of, the stories do run parallel to each other but that is purely incidental and necessitated by the story structure).

https://youtu.be/-PjTuSQNLI4

Which by the way is good because Aloy as a young woman with very little experience of the world should be portrayed as more timid than Shephard the grizzled war veteran was.

[Baelzar]

I'm not surprised she's cold, even pugnacious - she's been treated like ♥♥♥♥ her entire life. No mother, no tribe, even her "father" was deliberately standoffish towards her. Abuse from other kids that she just wants to befriend. Frankly I'm surprised she's as kindhearted as she is in game.

Erend began their relationship by treating her like some exotic snack, remember. Then after her tough journey the very first thing he does is drunkenly cry on her shoulder? Wah wah wah, my sister, I'm a drunk. To a girl who has nobody. I'd have been fine if she'd clocked him.

[Overread]

Originally posted by Baelzar:

I'm not surprised she's cold, even pugnacious - she's been treated like ♥♥♥♥ her entire life. No mother, no tribe, even her "father" was deliberately standoffish towards her. Abuse from other kids that she just wants to befriend. Frankly I'm surprised she's as kindhearted as she is in game.

Agreed. She has a very rough upbringing whereby most of society she ever knew shunned her.

That said I don't think her relationship with her adoptive father was that bad. My impression is that they had a very good relationship in general. It's just that he kept secrets and so much of his annoyances to her were things that he lived by because of the tribes religion. Something that he believed in to his core, but which Aloy increasingly has trouble accepting because its those same rules that keep her isolated.
Her anger at Rost isn't so much at him but at his beliefs which influence how he behaves regarding certain key topics.
However we tend to see this side of things more so than not. The rest is just the harsher edge of survival when they don't have a tribe/family/friends to rely on. Even in the safer regions of where she grew up they were still alone and had to survive each winter; each spring; each shortage of food etc... all alone (for the most part).