Sly: I Love Being In STEM (shenanigans, Tomfoolery, Escapades, And Mischief)

Fun afternoon sketch of Penelope from Sly Cooper for @Lionalliance0!

"To me, the Cooper Gang will always be Sly, Bentley, Murray, and Penelope."

Confessed by: Anonymous

(Editing the Guru out of this picture made me very sad. :( ~Mod)

Another  thing I like in Sly Cooper is how each game opens with the Cooper Gang having a conversation before a big heist– but the conversations are all very different because the characters are Growing Up™.

Like– in the opening Paris heist, Sly 1 Bentley is anxioUSLY SCREAMING about how nervous he is.  But in the beginning of the Cooper Vault heist, Sly 3 Bentley is confidently and excitedly telling Sly that they’re going to pull off the Crime of the Century.

Sly 1 Murray is waiting in the van, Sly 3 Murray is “PUMPED” and ready to go out into the field.

Sly 2 Sly rolls his eyes at Bentley and makes fun of his dorky attempts to use code-names….. Sly 3 Sly is TOTALLY on board with Bentley’ dorky code-names and takes them very seriously, because he’s grown to respect Bentley so much more over the events of the previous games.

 It’s just really sweet! The little thief children are growing up…..

Writing Notes: Types of Characters

You may recall from your literature classes that characters can be “flat” or “round,” and likewise, “minor” or “major.”

A character also may be a protagonist or antagonist.

Look at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby for examples of character types.

Note that the characters in the novel are more complex than what is stated here, and that Gatsby faces other antagonists—such as class, bourgeois snobbery, and the progression of time itself.

Protagonist: the main or central character, the hero (Gatsby)

Antagonist: opponent or enemy of the protagonist (Tom Buchanan)

Flat/Minor: a character(s) who helps readers better understand another character, usually the protagonist. Also, “a static and undeveloped character of two dimensions” (Knorr and Schell 165). (Nick Carraway)

While Gatsby is our protagonist, the one who we want to succeed, his success would mean ousting his beloved Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan.

An idea can also function as an antagonist: Gatsby is also fighting against the bourgeois prejudice of elite 1920s New York City, where “old money”—such as the Buchanans—is worth more than new money, as exemplified by the divide between East Egg and West Egg.

Usually, the protagonist is also a Round character, “a developing three-dimensional character” (Knorr and Schell 165).

In other words, the protagonist must be a character that grows and changes during the story; it is the progress of this change that keeps the reader interested and cheering for the character.

Archetypes

Part of why The Great Gatsby has endured in American literature is because the characters are complex, rather than being simple archetypes.

You are already aware of many archetypes; you can recognize them in the movies you watch, such as the Reluctant Hero (Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games series).

Using an archetype is a kind of shorthand; if you put in a character like The Lonely Old Lady With A Dog, the reader recognizes the character and knows what to expect from them.

This may be helpful when populating your world with minor/flat characters, because it is reassuring and comforting to your reader; your reader knows these archetypal characters already.

Unfortunately, that also means that archetypal characters may be clichéd. Once you put your character down into their world, they can react in various ways to the setting and reality of their lives.

In Mooring Against the Tide: Writing Fiction and Poetry, Knorr and Schell write:

…your characters may react to the world in one of four ways. They may see this society and its values and assimilate by adopting those values as their own; they may accommodate in that they do not like those values but will adopt them anyway if only to get along; they may rebel against those values in any number of ways; or, they may take flight from that society and, as did Huck Finn, head out to the new territories.

In other words, just as our choices in life determine where we go, the plot of your story is determined by the nature of your characters.

These four choices might not seem to offer many different plot options, but in reality, they can play out in an infinite number of ways. Think about your favorite novel or short story—it’s likely that the main character is faced with a choice and has to pick one of the four routes described above.

Otherwise, there may not be much conflict in your story.

Source Writing References: Worldbuilding ⚜ Plot ⚜ Character

sly cooper gijinkas bc brain rot is real

Penelope and the gang <3

Murray and Penelope’s shopping day

I totally see these two being shopping buddies (at least where it comes to parts for the van and RC devices)

One interesting thing I LOVE about the Holland Level in Sly 3:

So I’ve talked before about how every Sly Cooper level is based on the personality of the character who owns it. 

Generally, this means that the level’s color palette will be based on the villain’s color palette! You can see this very clearly in Karin Madan’s concept art for Sly 1:

But then you get to the Holland level. You’re introduced to the Black Baron, whose color palette is obviously BLACK and RED.

So you go into the level expecting to see a lot of black and red. The Contessa was another black-and-red-themed character, and her levels had RED SKIES and BLACK SHADOWS, because that’s how Sly Cooper level design works.

But then…. you don’t see that?

Instead, the level’s color palette full of purple…

 Gold….

And light blue skies.

Because the levels are based on the personalties of the character who owns them! Purple, gold, and blue  aren’t the Black Baron’s colors–but they ARE Penelope’s colors!