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Ten Best Heroes in Gaming
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The Avatar
True to his title, the Avatar of Origin's Ultima series is more a manifestation of heroic properties than of a specific personality. Since his inception in Ultima IV, he has returned to the troubled land of Britannia many times and managed both to restore order to the realm and set a moral standard for the land's population. He is an embodiment of virtue and purity, he is powerful and wise, and he is a hero of epic proportions. That the Avatar is devoid of quirky mannerisms or idiosyncrasies is what makes him so fundamentally accessible as a champion of everything noble.
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The Avatar remains anonymous - you can call him whatever you like. Ten years ago you were able to visualize him however you preferred, if not because computer graphics weren't advanced enough to give the character a specific form, then because the character was specifically designed to be whoever you wanted him to be. But eventually, Origin assumed almost complete creative control over the character. Consequently, the Avatar - though he lives on in the games - has since been stripped of the qualities that make him such an important figure in the history of computer-game heroes.
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Faceless and gender-neutral, the Avatar's attributes were determined by your response to a series of moral dilemmas. His strongest manifestation was in Ultima V, where he was explicitly nothing more and nothing less than how you chose to perceive him. He was represented with a unique icon that set him apart from the hordes of other characters in the game. Here the Avatar was perfect, or as perfect you thought he should be. Back in Ultima IV, before he became the Avatar, he worked a mundane profession of your choosing, from fighter to shepherd. Later, in Ultima VI, you had to give him a face, although you could choose from a wide variety of male and female portraits. Ultima VII reduced your decision-making merely to selecting the Avatar's gender, while Ultima VIII wrested even that authority from you by insisting on the Avatar's masculinity.
Origin's every effort to streamline the Avatar's character served only to reduce his effectiveness as a figurehead for the series. Origin decided that the Avatar needed a specific appearance, and that appearance can be traced to the cover painting of Ultima VI, which reveals the Avatar as the blonde-haired man who figures prominently in the introduction to Ultima Online and in Ultima: Ascension. In the minds of many longtime Ultima fans, identifying this timeless character by a face - and removing your ability to imagine his visage, or project yourself into the role - was a careless mistake on Origin's behalf. In Ultima V, the Avatar was more than a hero, he was a projection of yourself. Sadly, now he has become someone else - just another hero out to rid the land of evil.
Ben
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