The phenomenon where positively perceived protagonists face right whereas antagonists face left has been studied in much greater detail in film theory than in games.
The most popular explanation for this is in the western world the majority of written scripts are Left-to-Right – and our eyes have been trained to scan in that direction.
This of course betrays a cultural bias, not all scripts are written Left-to-Right. Semetic languages are a good example of this – but even many East Asian have Top to Bottom (possibly explaining the reversal of this trope in JRPGs), Right to Left, routes even if they are often composed Left to Right today.
Unfortunately the most cited study I can find of this phenomenon (https://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/vitae/EgiziiDennyNeuendorfetal12.pdf) doesn’t explicitly explore native languages as a variable (understandable for a study conducted on American undergrads). The study confirms people feel more at ease with characters facing right than they do with characters facing left, and found no variation with religion of handedness.
If writing direction was the root of this phenomenon I might have expected a slight variance with religion given exposure to right to left scripts may be increased in certain religious groups (Hebrew and Arabic are both Right to Left scripts).
This suggests this phenomenon refers to something intrinsic to human chirality, not a cultural accident – perhaps something to do with our hemispheric lateralization. At this point I’ve digressed plenty from game design, so I’ll leave this hypothesising to the experts.
Tune in next week.
Stay sharp AetherRen.