Mr. Popularity

At it again, eh playboy?
It's quite a common running gag: the flirtatious male character who chases after the pretty girls and suffers an embarrassing lack of success. A lot of storylines give us guys like that. We all know them...but we don't all love them.

Let's face it, the playboys get bad raps. Some not-so-shining examples: Final Fantasy IV's Edge and VIII's Irvine. Lech, they say. Pervert. Or just plain shallow, as an alternative to all the other names. Lots of derogatory labels get slapped on the flirty boys.

But the Estpolis fandom seems isolated from all that. Dekar is a flirt supreme (and in the continuing tradition explained above, a failure supreme as well), yet he's extraordinarily popular with fans of the series. He's the only exception to the flirty boy rule that I can think of off the top of my head.

So what makes him so successful as a character? I place the blame on the clever formula his developers conceived.


A typical Dekar brain fart.
First: Dekar's humor doesn't rely on his romantic fiascos. His intellectual lack gets top billing. And it isn't overdone or over-the-top, either. In fact, it's so well done that fans of his often bring up his dumbness as one of the reasons they like him so much. One Estpolis II review I read described Dekar as being "as dumb as an ox" (and with "the agility of a three-legged cow" to boot), then went on to admit that he's a big fan of his. Another review, written by someone who greatly disliked the game, called Dekar's stupidity one of its shining points and admitted to quitting it after Dekar's "death" in the Karlloon shrine.

And yet in spite of all that, Dekar always manages to save the day, right up to the very end of Est II. He's not comedy relief that the game picks on; he's a genuine hero.

Then we have the arrogance. Even in the face of complete disaster or embarrassment (e.g. the top of the Tower of Sacrifice), Dekar can always hide behind his unwavering pride. This man is an ego trip from Bound Kingdom to Karlloon, quite literally. Yet because of the touching moments scattered throughout his travels, the otherwise grating effect of such egotism is softened, so that it too becomes something we can laugh at. He even has his observant moments, and his practical ones too.

For both big flaws Dekar was given, his makers added a virtue for balance.


Aw, shucks.
Furthermore, Dekar has depth as a character. For all his conceit, he's very sensitive inside — to the needs and feelings of others, that is. Selan admitted that his concern for Prince Alex's wellbeing was "really impressive." Tia admitted that his talk with her helped her feel better, during one of the most touching moments in the game. Dekar is the epitome of sympathy when he needs to be. He's also humble at right times, too. Think about how often he tolerated Prince Alex's belittling. He could've easily put the prince in his place, but he never did. For a flirty boy, he has a lot of self-control.

Or maybe that's just the real Dekar we're seeing then, a guy who's really not full of himself at all, and whose attempts to gain the attention of the opposite sex are really just cries for general attention or affection. Or maybe he likes to put on a show for the sake of a performance (that Leo moon at work, hmm?). But as a byproduct of receiving all the limelight, he receives little of the sensitivity that he himself is capable of showing.

A famous RPG character once said, "I'm not a love-starved twit." She may not be, but Dekar certainly is. Or could be.

But perhaps the one thing that works best of all is the total lack of angst. Dekar doesn't brood darkly in the corner like so many other RPG characters. He doesn't have a complicated past that follows him around like a second shadow. His character depth relies on being emotional in a postive way — by reaching out to others — rather than withdrawing into himself, or by having psychotic breakdowns or neurotic ticks. Now don't get me wrong, I love a long list of psycho characters. It's just so refreshing to see a character who's facing the future and not the past, who is truly free of emotional baggage.

We love him because he's stupid, and we love him because he's funny, but I think there's more to Dekar's popularity than all those running gags. And maybe this section got you to see that side of things in a little detail.