Nominal Importance: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

{{quote|'''Jason:''' You're not gonna die on the planet, Guy.<br />

 

''Only people that are relevant to the plot or a [[Sidequest]] will be blessed with names. Everyone else will be [[Nameless Narrative|nameless]] or be referred to with [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|generic or descriptive titles]].''

 

* Only relevant characters will have voice-overs.

 

A common exception that proves the desirability of the rule is when early non-important NPC's have names and faces, but the writers start running out of time or patience and just put in generic people later.

 

== Action Adventure ==

** Taken a step further in ''[[Breath of Fire]] 2'', where the endgame sequence gives every character a name, first and last (and a few middle) on the other hand, the credits are obtained through a [[Guide Dang It]].

** ''Wind Waker'' might still be an example, if you consider taking a pictograph of every NPC and enemy and taking them to be made into figurines to be a sidequest.

* ''[[Okami]]'' gives names to most of the characters, as well as a small introduction sequence and their name on a briefly appearing scroll. Even some of the monsters have personal names and titles, and there's also "Newly Dubbed: Sleepy", a bear who is, you guessed it, sleepy.

* Averted in the ''[[Spyro the Dragon]]'' series, where every NPC and collectable has a name.

 

 

 

== First Person Shooter ==

* Every single friendly soldier in the ''[[Call of Duty]]'' series has a name. Characters [[Redshirt Army|not important to the plot]] have randomly generated names, but they're names nonetheless.

* Regular enemies in the ''[[Ace Combat]]'' series are identified on the HUD simply with their aircraft model names. However, the rare ace pilots additionally have their callsigns appended to the plane model, marking them as priority targets, since they are usually much more dangerous than regular [[Mook|mooks]]. ''The Belkan War'', which shifts the gameplay focus from blasting through nameless hordes to more personal one-on-one dogfights, takes this trope to the extreme, with [http://acecombat.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_aces_in_Ace_Combat_Zero 169 named enemy aces] (more than the rest of the series combined), ''each'' of whom has a unique short biography unlocked after shooting him/her down.

* Averted in the Hobopolis clan dungeon in ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' - all hobos have [[Procedural Content|randomly generated names]], and as most of them have one or more nicknames in addition to a first and last name, there are millions of possible combinations. This does result in occasionally fighting [[The Beatles|John Lennon]].

* Played straight in ''[[Runescape]]''. If you see a named NPC, then, even if they aren't plot important, they'll have some humorous interactions available or something. Unlike say, "Ardougne Guard" which you can attack, pickpocket or examine and that's it.

* Averted in ''[[Guild Wars]]'': Although there are a few exceptions, almost all NPCs have names, even if they're simply merchants or there to provide services.

 

* Most games in the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series.

** ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' was especially bad, as the naming screen for every character you eventually got was distinct, meaning there were a couple characters you encountered early on, but didn't use till a while later, [[Interface Spoiler|that you nonetheless knew would eventually be team members]].

** ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' totally averts this. With the exception of some random thieves and brigands, ''everyone'' with a speaking part in the many cutscenes gets not only a name, individual character portrait and sprite, but also a ''several-page-long biography'' detailing their lives and connections to the plot. Not only you never get to actually meet the grand majority of these people, most of them are thoroughly unimportant, die in their introductory scene or just plain don't ever show up at all and are just referred to.

*** Also every single generic mook you meet throughout the game has a name, even the monsters. They don't get personal portraits though, so you can tell they're expendable.

*** Humorously, they are some of the most normal names in Final Fantasy history. Especially strange considering this game has such important characters named Zidane, Mikoto, or Cinna.

**** Played straight and almost [[Deconstructed]] with the Black Mages, who are all named numbers, being mass produced. Even after they gain sentience, they still refer to each other as #86 or #147. Even the leader is #288. Only Vivi has an actual name, and learning about the Black Mages, goes through an existential crisis as he wonders if he too has a number.

** Partially averted in ''[[Final Fantasy Adventure]]'': The player is assisted in an early dungeon by an NPC named "Man". {{spoiler|He's later revealed to be the [[Big Bad]] in disguise.}}

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Dragon Quest Monsters]]: Joker'', where someone in the main town claims he is your rival, but then muses that you probably think of him as "some random blue-haired NPC."

* ''[[Jade Empire]]''. The Old Man might be an exception, though, since he's a quest giver with the name of "Old Man".

** In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', several mercenaries on side-missions have names and faces, [[Elite Mooks|usually the tougher ones]]. In the ''Arrival'' [[Downloadable Content]], this is played with by having [[Enemy Chatter]] about how you're massacring their friends.

* ''[[Morrowind]]'' goes the opposite direction -- nearly ''all'' humanoid [[NPC|NPCs]] have unique names, even bandits who attack you on sight. There are still numerous "Town Guards", though, and although the NPCs have a ''staggering'' amount of dialog large enough to feel diverse, [[Welcome to Corneria|their spoken lines are far more limited]].

*** Many other characters in the series are usually left nameless as well, but [[Fan Nickname|fan nicknames]] do exist, such as "Jim Gai" for the random person who gives you advice in gyms, or Nurse Joy for [[You All Look Familiar|every main nurse in the game]].

** For a meta example, those who play a Pokémon game under [[Nuzlocke Comics|Nuzlocke]] [[Self-Imposed Challenge|rules]] find that naming your catches creates a much more memorable, intimate connection with the Pokémon, and thus makes it hurt all the more if you allow them to [[Final Death|faint]]. Of course, the victories and the near misses become much more dramatic and thrilling, too.

* This editor figured out that Ms. Toriumi, your homeroom teacher in ''[[Persona 3]]'', {{spoiler|is actually Maya, the Hermit Social Link}} by virtue of the fact that she's the only female teacher with a character portrait.

** In ''Persona 3 Portable'' you can have a strange conversation with a man who, while lacking a name (he's called "Man Drinking Alone", has his own [[Character Portrait]]. It was immediately assumed this man was an [[Early-Bird Cameo]] for an upcoming Atlus title. Cue cries of [[I Knew It!]] when the game ''[[Catherine]]'' was revealed, starring the aforementioned man (whose real name is Vincent).

** In ''[[Persona 4]]'', a rather strange looking kid hits on Yukiko rather early in the game, and judging from his character portrait, you get the distinct impression that he becomes important later (and he does; he's a {{spoiler|minor villain by the name of Mitsuo Kubo}}). The same could be said for {{spoiler|Taro Nametame}}, who is introduced early on and has nothing to do with the story until you find out {{spoiler|he's the one who's been throwing people into the Midnight Channel}}. On the other hand, {{spoiler|the gas station attendant}} lacks both a name and character portrait until after the big reveal in the {{spoiler|true}} ending.

** And, of course, the most important character, i.e. the protagonist, does not have a name {{spoiler|at least, until the very end.}}

* All the ''[[Wild Arms]]'' games give names to every single NPC; some even let you change their names!

* Averted to some extent in ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins''. The best example is with temporary party members - many people you can get in your party only for about ten minutes in one of the [[Backstory]]/tutorial quests have tons of unique dialogue, their own battlecries/snarky lines they say when killing things, and in some cases well-developed backstories and personalities, making it impossible for you to tell who is in line for a [[Plotline Death]]. Of particular note are the other trainee Grey Wardens - there really is nothing that will give away the fact that Daveth and Ser Jory are {{spoiler|[[Sacrificial Lamb|sacrificial lambs]]}} while Alistair will probably be around for the entire rest of the game, if you provoke him into leaving. Also Jowan, who you can very briefly have in your party, comes with not only his own battlecry, but several, many of which are funny. He's also one of the most three dimensional characters in the game. You can have him in your party for ten minutes, tops. There was an [[Aborted Arc]] in which he could join you, so that's probably why.

** However, ''[[Dragon Age]]'' still has generic NPCs -- 'Bandit', 'King's Guard' etc.

** {{spoiler|Down right [[Deconstructed]] during the final act. The [[Big Bad]] reveals that this world is a world where everything ''everything'' is governed by classification, esspecially people so that his daughter can live a life exactly the way she wants: full of adventure. The titles are the actual basis and programming for the character, with everyone just going along with what they are expected to do. This includes your team, from "Hero" Rosalyn who valiantly opposes everything bad and injustice, to "Eccentric Scientist" Kisling, who reserches ghosts and collects toe nail clippings. Everyone except Ari, who lacks a title and is such a [[Hope Bringer|deviant]], someone who can force everyone out of their programming. And indeed, once we find this out, the team begins to break free of their descriptions. You can actually see the [[Foreshadowing]], because the game has a wierd obsession with classifications.}}

* Played straight in ''[[Summoner]]'' but averted in ''[[Summoner 2]]'', in which everyone you spoke to had a name - except in the Realm of Twilight, in which everyone you can speak to has a title. This is because they actually don't have names, not just because you don't know or care about them. It's worth noting that there are far more NPCs in the first game than the second.

 

 

*** Also well done. Given that '''all''' bosses have portraits and names, some can be recruited, most can't. Also, some characters have appeared with portraits despite being un-recruitable (to more or less screw with the player) such as Khosen the manekete and Heimler, both from FE1 and FE11.

* Subverted in ''[[Disgaea]]'' with a Sassy Demon named The Dark Adonis Vyers, er... Mid-Boss, dubbed such by Laharl because he deems him unimportant. His name even shows up as that on his text boxes. {{spoiler|He's still important to the plot in the long run.}}

 

 

== Miscellaneous Games ==

* In the PC game ''[[Pathologic]]'', all of the main characters and important side characters are given names, while minor characters are named [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|by their description]]. In addition, when you talk to any of the characters, an icon with a black-and-white photo appears in the corner of the screen. With storyline characters, it's a person resembling the model. With random people, [[Lampshade Hanging|it's a creepy ragdoll]].

* An odd variation appears in ''Enemy 585'' (by [[Nitrome]]). The only "named" character is Enemy 585, who was just another [[Mook]] in a platformer than finished before the real game started (which was to rescue Enemy 585 after he was trapped in the boss' castle after the "game").

 

=== Non-video game examples ===

== Anime ==

* ''[[Simoun]]'' averts the voiceover corollary in its first episode, which is narrated by a nameless [[Red Shirt]] pilot who dies (playing the main trope straight) in the episode's climax.

* One of the things that made ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' really stand out is that they played with this trope a lot, to often heartbreaking effect. Many enemy pilots got names and a bit of characterization, despite the fact they usually just ended up getting wasted by the Gundam in the end, anyway.

* In ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'', Akito gets replaced by an unnamed female pilot about halfway into the series. No prizes for guessing what happens to her in her first fight.

* In a Russian pulp-fiction novel, the villain holds the hero at a blank point. He's not a cold blooded killer though and even confesses how relieved he is to know almost nothing about his victim, as killing someone you know even slightly is so much harder. The hero hastens to provide his comprehensive credentials, much to the villain's chagrin from such selfish indiscretion.

* Count Olaf's henchmen in ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' are usually referred to with descriptive terms like "the white-faced women" and "the bald man"(they sometimes use pseudonyms derived from [[Significant Anagram|anagrams of "Count Olaf"]], though). However, at the time the hook-handed man gets some [[Character Development]] and a backstory in Book the Eleventh, we learn that his name is Fernald.

* Oh so VERY [[Averted Trope]] in [[The Wheel of Time]]. [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], a large chunk are not important to the plot at all, others are relevant only to their connections to a more plot-important character, and everyone else is a [[Chekhov's Gunman]] waiting to fire.

* Played with in the ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]'' (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) novels, which usually take care to name every member of every [[Redshirt Army]] Cain brings with him in the climax. Their survival rate appears to be somewhere in the lower thirties overall. Most people who die during the battle sequences do so unnamed, however, to say nothing of the [[Mooks]] Cain, Jurgen and said [[Redshirt Army]] mow down by the dozens each book compared to the longer-lived named villains.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* The [[Fridge Brilliance]] section has a reference to the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Midnight" -- where a monster controls people by forcibly repeating their dialogue and mentally turning them against one another. Nobody ''believes'' the Doctor when he tells them his usually fake name "John Smith". In the end the person who actually beats the villain of the week is the Hostess of the trio - and the cast realise, in the aftermath, that they never ''knew'' her name.

** There're a handful of Doctor Who characters who actually have names but they're never mentioned in the story itself for various reasons (short screen time, situation means it never comes up, etc.). They're named in the credits though.

* ''[[Burn Notice]]'' abuses this like crazy, though not the way you'd think. Most anyone with a line is given a name of some sort, generally because they're relevant to the plot of the episode. However, the show will occasionally bring back old characters as main characters.

* Played around with in ''[[Star Trek]]''. Many unimportant characters, even the [[Red Shirts]], are given names, while sometimes the [[Monster of the Week]] will kill unnamed ensigns and lieutenants throughout the ship or on the planet.

** Although, even when red shirts were given names, they were rarely given both first and last names.

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

 

 

 

== Webcomics ==

** Subverted in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0539.html this] episode, where [[Heroic Sociopath|Belkar]] kills a random gnome for no particular reason (other than that he could). When his companions are horrified by this, he says the gnome was unimportant and "probably didn't even have a name"...even though the gnome had told the group his name 7 panels earlier.

** He did it even earlier to the [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0021.html Chimera] as it was cursing the Order. Haley even complained about Belkar killing it mid-speech.

*** Lampshaded yet again, when Hobgoblin Cleric #2 complains that he could've become someone important too, if his mother hadn't named him Hobgoblin Cleric #2.

** And lampshaded again [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0784.html In this strip.] "Hooray! The people whose names I know are saved!"

* Averted in ''[[RPG World]]''. Galgarion fires one of his random guards, Evil Soldier #347, and he becomes a regular character set out to get revenge. His name remains Evil Soldier #347 throughout the entire comic.

* ''[http://www.shapequest.net Shape Quest]'' did this when [http://www.shapequest.net/?id=98 Theo discovered], to his horror, that Lance meet some new characters who actually had names.

'''Henchman 24:''' You just made your inevitable death ''more pathetic.'' }}

* In ''[[Frisky Dingo]]'' the Xtacles were all [[Faceless Mooks]] that always wore their helmets, although a couple were named. In the first episode the [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Xtacles]]'' a bunch of said soldiers take off their helmets and are given independent names. {{spoiler|It's then partially subverted when a bunch of them die anyway}}.

* The Scallions from various episodes of ''[[Veggie Tales]]'' lack names, other than their collective title of, well, "the Scallions". [[Lampshaded Trope]] in one of the Silly Songs with Larry:

{{quote| '''Larry''': ''[Singing to the tune of "Funiculì, Funiculà"] ♪ Oh golly... ♫ [normal voice]'' Um... what's your name?<br />