Talk:Protagonist of Nier

Requested move 18 December 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Moved to "Protagonist of Nier" per discussion below. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 20:03, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

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Protagonist (Nier) → Nier (character) – This character is referred to as Nier by fans, sources, and apparently even Yoko Taro himself (according to one of the sources in the Concept section). Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURAL, this article should be renamed and modified to reflect this. The introduction can be rewritten to say that this character's name is player-chosen, but is most often referred to as Nier. ThePoggingEditor (talk) 15:32, 18 December 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 08:14, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Sources where the protagonist is called Nier:

- https://kotaku.com/the-nier-replicant-remaster-does-many-good-things-and-o-1846743596

- https://www.gamespot.com/articles/yoko-taro-didnt-mean-to-make-nier-sad-on-purpose/1100-6490892/

- https://www.polygon.com/reviews/22395953/nier-replicant-review-ps4-pc-xbox-one/

Not an exhaustive list, probably plenty more sources ThePoggingEditor (talk) 15:37, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose The protagonist is meant to be unnamed, and while "Nier" is used as shorthand for him later on, the games themselves to my knowledge don't use this Nier name as canon. Cherry-picking a few times where he is called Nier doesn't make it so. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:32, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

  Does common name apply to fictional characters? I thought it did but I suppose I hadn't seen it ever used for such. ThePoggingEditor (talk) 07:14, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

  It applies to real persons, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply to characters. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 07:20, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

  Couldn't Nier be considered the common name then? I also think that using fictious canon as the basis for naming articles can only go so far before we have to take into consideration the real world and how people actually refer to these characters (especially if they are either unnamed or have a player-entered name). Also I found those three sources while I was at work so perhaps I myself can do some more digging to establish that the protagonist's common name is Nier. ThePoggingEditor (talk) 07:53, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

  So far, I have found this article where he is referred to as "the protagonist", and this one where he is called "your protagonist". He is also called "the protagonist" here. However, he is called Nier here. This leads me to believe there is no common name for him, which means it should probably default to what the game uses. From what I remember of playing Automata, he isn't referred to as Nier there either in what little mention he gets. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:38, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

  The problem is that there is no default name. He's not even called "the protagonist" in any Nier media. Some souces just don't refer to him at all and instead refer to "the player" or "you." I'm still in favor of some form of natural disambiguation that lets the reader know off the bat that the character's name isn't "Protagonist", so we could also consider "Protagonist of Nier", which is similar to my alt proposal in the discussion thread for moving Protagonist (Persona 3) to Protagonist of Persona 3. ThePoggingEditor (talk) 15:04, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

  If "Protagonist" can be interpreted as a name assigned to the character, then "Protagonist of Nier" certainly can as well. The problem remains the same. I think some level of WP:COMMONSENSE must be assumed on the part of the reader that they won't believe that after reading the article's lede. It's still better than giving a nameless character a name that they aren't always known by.

  I do admit that is an opinion on my part though, and people would be fair in saying that if they are sometimes known by a certain name it's better than no name. But it does annoy me when I see an article about a nameless character being called by a certain obscure name. When the point is to be a player avatar, giving them a name feels like thumbing your nose at any players who named them differently. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 15:35, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

  @Zxcvbnm in your defense, Nier Replicant is a very strange game and this is an unusual situation for naming an article. But I do think "Protagonist of Nier" would be the cleanest and most concise way of expressing that the protagonist of Nier doesn't have a name (set in stone, at least). I'm also not a fan of using a narrative term followed by an explicit disambiguation as an article name for a character (DQ's Heroes being exceptions bc Square Enix and Smash Bros calls them that as their name), that's just me though. ThePoggingEditor (talk) 17:42, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

  @Zxcvbnm I've given this move request some thought and yeah, I actually agree that Nier isn't quite common enough of a name to do this move. That being said, I have a feeling that the move discussion for Protagonist (Persona 3) is gonna result in a name change to Protagonist of Persona 3, and perhaps because of that, maybe we should consider renaming this article to Protagonist of Nier, perhaps with some redirects for the different versions/names of Nier (the game). ThePoggingEditor (talk) 04:14, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Support move to Protagonist of Nier per above and to be WP:CONSISTENT with Protagonist of Persona 3. Thanks, Glasspalace (talk • contribs) 08:22, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The first sentence of this article

First off, happy new year to anyone reading this! Here's to a great year of Wikipedia editing and the only context in which internet arguments are productive.

Anyways, now that this article has been renamed to "Protagonist of Nier", should we do anything with the first sentence? I would like to emphasize the fact that this character has no canon name as he is player-named. As such, I have changed the first sentence to address this fact, but I'm curious as to if anyone has any objections or modification recommendations. The same also goes for Protagonist of Persona 3, so I will link this topic to that talk page as well. ThePoggingEditor (talk) 09:00, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Protagonist of Nier/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Tintor2 (talk · contribs) 23:56, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Boneless Pizza! (talk · contribs) 04:24, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Heya. I'm willing to review this. There will be random spotchecks and source removal suggestion also like what you did here after I suggested . 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 04:24, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

• Nier: Automata (2017)[12]- Can you put ref 12 after PUBG: Battlegrounds (2017)?
  • Done.
• (世界を滅ぼした男, Sekai o Horoboshita Otoko), - Replaced to period
  • Done
• SINoALICE alongside Emil - SINoALICE, alongside Emil.
  • Done
• What is "Emil"?
  • Explained
• after the protagonist has been produced - It should be "have"
  • Done
• including a plushie[19] - Put the citation beside ref [20]
  • Done
• over the teenage protagonists common in Japanese games of the time - Can you rephrase this?
  • Done
• young, slim man - Young and slim
  • Done
• What is "do-gooder"? Can you reword it?
• Reworded
• Price was sad that his version of the character went unused but understood the situation upon researching the original game's development and was glad some of his work remained in-game.[34] - Can we remove this since the source is not reliable?
  • Removed

Random spotcheck and etc at reception

• Ref 38 - Y
• Ref 39 - Y
• Ref 42 - Y
• Ref 41 - Y
• Ref 43 - "Joel Miller from The Last of Us" is not mentioned in the article
  • Removed. Apparently, the source you mentioned in the edit summary had the link to Joel.
• "With the release of Nier Replicant in Western regions, Replicant's take on the younger main character was found boring Kotaku as he called it cliche in role-playing games." - Please rephrase this
  • Done
• Ref 1 - Y
• The protagonist's acts of violence - "act"
  • Done.
• Ref 50 - Y

Overall, the article is okay but it would be much better if this article was requested at Copyguild. Let me know if everything have been addressed. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 02:01, 3 March 2026 (UTC) @Boneless Pizza!: Thanks for the review. Sorry for the delay. There was a blackout in my city and when lights came back I couldn't stay awake and couldn't edit here until finish work. Pinging @PresN: in case since he has better writing than me.Tintor2 (talk) 18:45, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

No worries Tintor. I just thought that it would be better for the article to be sent at copyguild, not that your writing is awful. I'll recheck the article later. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 19:35, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

PresN jus revised the prose. Tintor2 (talk) 19:11, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.