From the two protagonists of Dishonored so far.

Who is a more interesting character?

Who is more fun to play?

And why?

I liked Daud more. For two very strange main reasons.

1. I like the atmosphere. I dunno if its intended (probably not - its too personal), but I get from TKoD that characteristic feeling of ultimate clarity that you experience in stressful situations. Its very particular - as if you see the world with somebody's else eyes. It fits well with Daud's situation. He is readying himseld for death, after all, and maybe hopes just a little that he can still avoid it by changing the situation or himself.

2. I like the character. Most of all its interesting that he is not a new guy like most game protagonists (even Corvo was new to his situation), he is a self made man, a living legend - well known and respected, with complicated ties and relationships. You feel as if you are in the center of events. In a way it is a fanservice. You want to play a supernatural assassin - you get the best one, the one you feared in the main game.

Also he has an amazing voice. And the improved Blink.

I can't say that it would be the same without the main story. Daud is still the protagonist of the additional story, so you can't compare him with Corvo directly. Corvo is sure more likable, and it's more reasonable to like him, but I couldn't associate myself with him properly while playing, and not because he was silent, but because I do not quite understand his type of personality.

In terms of character, definitely Daud. As far as I'm concerned, Corvo is just another voiceless dude with a camera for a head: this wouldn't be a problem for me if the main game wasn't trying to portray him as a fleshed-out character when in reality he was just an avatar for the player. Daud on the other hand actually has hopes, dreams and flaws and his history is a key piece of the city of Dunwall.

Having said that, although I like Daud, I don't think Arkane has really done justice for him as a character: his doubts about killing the empress come across as underdeveloped and disingenuous since the overall mission structure is still based around assassinating/eliminating your targets. I know this is supposed to be player choice (low chaos, high chaos etc.), but I never felt that MY actions were influencing his character arc to any meaningful degree, so he ends up just sitting in a character-grey-area without any meaningful development. I also never had a feel for the stakes in the Knife of Dunwall: from a story perspective I never felt that sense of urgency that the story was trying to convey and in the end I didn't feel deeply invested enough to care about the ultimate outcome.

From a gameplay standpoint, that's a tricky one. Daud has a better blink: I was worried pre-release that being able to stop time while blinking would make the Knife of Dunwall too easy, but Arkane seemed to have ramped up the difficulty in general, so it didn't matter. On the other hand, Corvo does have the possession power; which is possibly the second-best power in the game besides blink.

I think...I'll give this one to Daud 'cos he can acquire choke dust and more sleep darts.

I think Corvo comes across as better if you immerse yourself in a certain type of personality. Specifically, that Corvo is so amazingly ****ed off that he comes up with elaborately horrible revenge plans against his targets. That he's the type of guy who has a very sadistic personality due to the murder of his lover and subsequent torture--even if he's Low Chaos. If you try and project any other personality onto him. It just doesn't work.

For me, that begs the question: if Corvo can only really fit within a small number of projected personalities, then what was the point in having him be a silent protagonist? I suppose it's a personal preference, but I believe a character can still have personality without feeling forced or annoying e.g. Garret from Thief. In Garret's (was it one T or two?) case, his comments seldom forced a particular playstyle on the player, i.e. he never took a clear stance on whether to kill people or not, that was left to the player (on the normal difficulties anyway).

For me, I thought it was more a time-saving gesture than anything else. Corvo isn't particularly chatty either way. 90% of his dialogue would consist of.

"Mmm, hmm."
"Here, try this wine."
"Okay."
"Right."

I just assumed Corvo's silence was to reinforce this was a stealth game. He's not quipping a mile a minute like Garrett.

I wouldn't have considered Garrett's dialogue to be that frequent. In fact, I recently started replaying Thief 1 and found his comments were a lot more sparse than I remember them being. Although I will admit it gets a bit silly when he starts chatting right in front of an oblivious guard.

Or that other time in Thief 2 where he makes a comment to himself when underwater: is he actually speaking or are we perhaps just hearing his thoughts? If the latter, then who are we? Are we really controlling Garrett or are we a mysterious voice trapped inside his head that...

Sorry, got sidetracked again, what were we talking about?

It's true that Corvo wouldn't have much to say during his mission briefings, but what about his relationship with Emily and the Empress. It already strongly implies the fatherly-like bond he has with her, but all his interactions with Emily all end up being a one-sided conversation that could've had a much stronger emotional resonance if the relationship between them was more apparent. I mean, they give us some dialogue choices anyway, so the only thing left to our imagination is what Corvo sounds like.

I personally always pictured him as sounding like Josh Holloway, since he looks quite similar as well.

In any case, I would have preferred Corvo to be voiced but I don't think of the fact he's a silent protagonist completely problematic. I do think his personality is very specific for the narrative. It's not like Gordon Freeman where his personality is a blank slate, the kind of things Corvo does to people--horrible and good--have a specific personality element to them.

Curious that you should bring up Freeman, since I had a similar problem regarding that with HL2. In the first Half Life, there's very little in the way of characters: most of them just being exposition vessels to usher you to the next section, so Gordon's silence is fine in this case.

In Half Life 2 though (which is superb, don't get me wrong), Valve made the story a lot more character driven with everyone having unique and colourful personalities. I certainly don't have a problem with this, but Gordon's silence this time around makes him come across as a bit of an anti-social weirdo. It's even acknowledged by the game regarding this; "man of few words aren't you?".

Silent protagonists are an interesting phenomenon in games; especially when it comes to other characters.

@InDIGnation: It is Garrett.

I too wondered recently whether he talks aloud or it's his inner voice. It should be an inner monologue, but the way he speaks is too structured and he often tells dishonest things. Probably a game concession.

Corvo being a silent protagonist doesn't fit the story well, but it adds more variants between high and low chaos. I mean, we can interpret his actions and thoughts much more freely and differently this way. I can't say that I considered him sadistic during my low chaos playthrough by the way. It was as if he just used situations that were already going for his targets. I agree that he has defined motivation, but if you think of it you still can create for him personalities that are pretty different.

I think that silent protagonist worked fine in Half-Life 2 well cause Gordon is strictly reactive. He just goes with the flow, so his thoughts are utterly unimportant.

Player controlled character's interactions with NPC is an interesting topic. I always remember the thing I read on one of the gamedev blogs: that LGS tried to solve this problem in their games by making everybody but the main character dead in System Shock and by making the main character as if already dead in Thief.

I think I like Corvo more also because of the fact that Daud's depression bite into the narrative. I think I might have enjoyed Daud more if he was just hired to kill Timish and Rothwild. He's still an assassin by the seventh mission of Dishonored so it's not like the Empress was his last job. The quest for Delliah just flat-out doesn't tie into Daud's storyline--which is about how being an assassin svcks and he's grown sick of it.

Corvo, on the other hand, is a character with very simple motivations: Emily and Revenge. Everything more or less comes back to this.

I've always wanted a game about a magical/mystical assassin in a fantasy setting, where you just do your job. But then we, probably, wouldn't have an engaging plot and that is considered to be bad for a game.

I remember how I waited for the first Assassin's Creed - I believed it to be such a game.

Corvo's relationships with Emily are well done and very endearing. If anything Corvo has his reasons to act.