Cerebral? The heck did you find cerebral about her story in Swarm?

In some ways it was focusing on exploring what made her her. She questions herself, and has doubts. Personally I really fucking loved it. There were rough patches but as a character study it was good and Kerrigan underwent more development in Heart than ANYWHERE.

SC1 was rough in places but it was a good story. However, I think that BW was overrated. Fanatic Templar beautifully explained why it wasn't quite so hot and why the characters were all idiots. SC2 had problems but I'll take it over BW.
You're outline isn't very good. First of all Kerrigan in BW could be seen misognistic. It's the "damsel who needs to be killed." She's generic and her fall didn't even make that much sense. She was established to be a strongly moral person in many ways (Devoted to Mengsk, CARING for Jim (not necessarily love but she cared) and not only wanting a better future but opposing using the Zerg even on the people who made her life a nightmare for years. I can buy her becoming angry, vengeful and a tad sadistic, but not as evil as she was in Brood War. Heart of the Swarm gave her a reason why she cares for Jim and why her feelings are the piece of humanity Amon and the Zerg couldn't extinguish (he was the one person who treated her like a human being and showed her kindness).

Also Amon ISN'T a retcon. Duran was established as a deeply monstrous individual (using people as pawns, being an evil SOB all around); he also abandoned Kerrigan to the combined forces of the Terrans and Protoss so he probably didn't care for her all that much

Finally it's too bleak. One of the reasons Warhammer is hard to get invested in is because nothing good happens; humanity's boned no matter what. SC2 being more uplifting worked better since it's easier to care for what happened. In SC2 things change for the better; in WOL Raynor makes real progress and the Zerg finally face a real loss (BW retconned Aiur into a Zerg victory); in Heart the Zerg are less assholish and humanity has it's first truly benevolent leader in decades; in Legacy the races are at peace, the Protoss are finally evolving, and Amon's fall means that the era of strife and misery is over.

There's loss along the way, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

Too many people seem to associate Bleakness with good writing. If things are only bleak that's crap.

PS

Originally Blizzard explained that what they were trying to convey was "Raynor originally wanted to kill Sarah. Once the artifact raised the possibility of deinfestation he realized she could be rehabilitated, and sick of wallowing in despair he tried to gamble."

Honestly SC2 had flaws. But the overlying story (Kerrigan's redemption, Amon and the Hybrids) was not the problem.

Sorry, an ATTEMPT to be cerebral.

The story is more concerned with poorly executed and thought through ideas and concepts than it is exploring something more real.

That's what I meant by cerebral.

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

I didn't dislike Starcraft 2, but it definitely let Kerrigan off the hook way too easily.

The game was fun to play, but it didn't stick with me. The first one did... but honestly, that might have been because I was 14/15 when I played it. Don't get me wrong, the first game was definitely better written, but I think a lot of the fondness for it rests on nostalgia.

Admittedly it's been a very long time since I've played it, so there are likely good (and bad) elements of the original that I've just plain forgotten.

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See WoW in a way you've never imagined it.

"He came to Ahn'qiraj for the strife... instead, he found a wife! She's my qiraji love-bride, next on Sick Sad World of Warcraft!"

Originally some of Sarah's egregious acts in Heart (killing Lassara) Weren't there. Hell they would have interacted more and lassarra would have become a friend. They should have focused on making Kerrigan penitent. Hell I posted an outline earlier of how I think heart should have gone. It would have emphasized her inner turmoil and desire to atone for her crimes.

In some ways SC2 was an attempt to tell an epic story and for that I can't fault them. There are tons of thins you can lampoon about Brood War for instance. Fanatic Templar and Drake Clawfang both lampoon SC2 and call out it's flaws....but they're willing to turn the lens on BW too. All too often a lot of people try to avoid doing this and treat brood war as some gem.

Eh, StarCraft isn't really inherently about karmic justice, though.

In fact it's frequently about karmic injustice. Brood War especially is all about totally wanton and unrighteous retribution. Which I think is part of why A LOT of people don't like it.

My issue with SC2 and Kerrigan was more that she was portrayed as being somewhat righteous and principled in a way she never has been. They really boiled her down to a much more simple moral dichotomy and involved some really lousy unwarranted false equivalency.

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

I'm not saying it's about karmic justice. More that the player is expected to sympathize with Kerrigan without being given enough reason to actually do so. In Brood War, she was straight up evil, and fulfilled that role quite well.

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See WoW in a way you've never imagined it.

"He came to Ahn'qiraj for the strife... instead, he found a wife! She's my qiraji love-bride, next on Sick Sad World of Warcraft!"

I think it's a toss up between Diablo 2 (+ expansion), StarCraft (+Brood War) and WarCraft 3 (+Frozen Throne).

I know those are all kind of obvious choices (and they haven't done a whole lot otherwise), but I like all three for very different reasons.

Yeah, I get ya. I'd personally argue that Kerrigan is relatable in Brood War even if she's not particularly sympathetic while I personally believe she's far less relatable in StarCraft 2, and more unambiguously, almost manipulatively sympathetic but that's neither here nor there really.

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

Could you give examples of what you mean? I am curious.

Because to me Swarm is a pretty cut and dry revenge story.

What does she even have to atone for? As Queen of Blades she was pretty much straight up mind controlled, more overtly by the Overmind, more subtly by Amon and inherently by her zerg condition. This is also known to her so should she feel bad about "her" actions? The rest of the universe might not know or care about these distinctions but she should. And given her nature I don't think she'd much care about the opinions of some distant people, if anything that would just make her angry and less likely to take on any blame.

What she should feel bad about are her actions under Mengsk after being freed from Confederacy brain-panning. And her actions post-deinfestation, which as you point out are quite horrible. Killing millions if not billions of humans and protoss in her, relatively speaking, petty revenge quest. Being cruel towards Larissa and Warfield.

Those are the things she should be atoning for which incidentally make her hard to like in Swarm.

That's not quite true though. She had clear moral standards and a desire to make a better future. She certainly cared for others. She wasn't some bitter barely human creature. Her desire for revenge on the Protoss made no god damned sense either

Honestly not really. In bw she's a cardboard cutout. Heart was a attempt to add depth. It's results were mixed but the fact she undergoes more development there speaks volumes

One problem is that she so quickly reverted back to her "Queen of Blades" persona. Yet at the same time, she came off as a watered-down version of the same.

If they'd wanted to actually make her sympathetic, they should have have her been less certain. When circumstances require her to do something awful (like with that one protoss woman), she should show guilt. Instead, she adopts the same imperious attitude but is supposed to be likable.

Plus, there's a strong implication that she's murdering millions of humans (it's a little blurry, since she does hold back from civilian casualties on Korhal, but it seems to be there).

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See WoW in a way you've never imagined it.

"He came to Ahn'qiraj for the strife... instead, he found a wife! She's my qiraji love-bride, next on Sick Sad World of Warcraft!"

She shows some guilt actually (when Izsha is glad lassarras gone Kerrigan expresses remorse.) I agree kerrigan should be more uncertain and more heroic overall though. Heart of the swarm had good ideas if not execution


I mentioned earlier that lassara's death was a later addition. Originally she and Kerrigan would be friends after a long series of talks

Unfortunately they wanted the revenge route instead. Shame

The story her body's plaything did a good job of penitent Kerrigan

Huh, I'd forgotten that.

And the earlier version of the story would have been more interesting.

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See WoW in a way you've never imagined it.

"He came to Ahn'qiraj for the strife... instead, he found a wife! She's my qiraji love-bride, next on Sick Sad World of Warcraft!"

Indeed. It's what I thought was going to happen too. It would have led to more interesting character development. Speaking of which what do you think of the outline I posted on the previous page of how Heart of the Swarm should have gone

I have no idea what you're talking about here.

When did she have clear moral standards? When she was working for a terrorist cell as their go-to assassin and second in command? When she took revenge on Rumm in Uprising by eviscerating him? When she allowed her commander to exterminate an entire planet without raising a finger? In heart when she acts selfishly and self-righteously while flipping back and forth between wanting to save civilians and wiping out planets left and right?

Beyond that, my comments on Brood War are that her desire for revenge is unambiguously NOT righteous. It's petty and childish. Sometimes people are petty and childish. And it's not always necessarily logical or sensible.

At least the very least she's ideologically consistent in Brood War. Her modus operandi in Queen of Blades is essentially: "Challenge me in any way shape or form and I will bring you to your knees." And she follows through on it in a far more sophisticated way than she does in Overmind. Plot contrivances aside. (Which... no game in this series doesn't have strange plot contrivances)

The Protoss had been challenging her since New Gettysburg, they caused nothing but headaches and anguish for her. The fact that they're 'good guys' doesn't change that.

She... really doesn't. She's a very, very different person from the beginning of Rebel Yell to the end of Queen of Blades. She's... more or less the same person in Heart from beginning to end. Outside of the random, unwarranted shifts in characterization.

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

1.) When she is openly disgusted by using the zerg on the terran soldiers even though they're the same people who tortured her for a decade. Yes she had a darkness inside her but she wasn't some depraved harpy one bad day away from falling. She CARED for Raynor (note I said cared not loved; even though the overmind orders her point blank to kill all the terrans she lets Jim go, and this was when she was the overmind's thrall) was loyal to Mengsk (and is implied to have believed in the justness of his cause.). Even Tarsonis can be explained as a.) she thought that Arcturus would see sense and evacuate everyone once the Confederacy was dealt with b.) misguided loyalty. She wasn't some psycho like you claim. In Heart even when she's at her lowest she expresses regret (she openly expresses remorse for killing Lassara) and she has a genuine heel realization (when she's trying to justify her actions on the Moros she sounds more like she's trying to convince herself whereas she's far more confident in her justifications on Kaldir). THAT'S how you do a developing character.

Also

"There she is again, the young woman that experienced deep distress on Antiga prime, facing the ethical conflict between sacrificing millions of lives and the command of her savior who (apparently) always knows whats best and cares deeply about her. That is not the reaction of a cold blooded killer."

If she was as cold blooded as you claimed she wouldn't have ANY doubts at all about Antiga Prime or Tarsonis. That she did shows she had a conscience.

2.) Okay now I know you didn't play the game. At the start of the game she's conflicted over whether to go after Mengsk or try to live a normal life. After Mission 3 when she thinks Jim's dead she becomes more cold and angry, determined to do whatever it takes to get her revenge despite misgivings (though she does show emotion when reminded of Raynor). After learning Raynor's alive she starts to question herself. After Raynor calls her out she realizes how selfish she's been and starts actively caring about civilian casualties. She's not the same person at the end that she was at the beginning. She changes her beliefs for legitimate reasons (Become violent when it looks like her one chance at normalcy was taken from her by the same asshole who wrecked her life the first time).

BW Kerrigan is the same character from start to finish. She stays static and is not really all that interesting.

3.) I NEVER said Kerrigan wouldn't be vengeful angry and bitter. Hell I can even buy her being somewhat sadistic. But NOT to the degree she was in Brood War. This is the woman who was disgusted at using the zerg on the same people who tortured her for a decade. She's not going to instantly go to cartoonish acts of sadism on people who humiliated her in a scrap a few times. That's like going after the kid who stole your lunch money a few times and it's a complete 180 from her previous characterization. That is stupid writing in every sense of the word.

The fact remains it was ENTIRELY legitimate to buy that the BW Kerrigan was the infestation amplifying an inner darkness that was there and not entirely by choice. You seem to think that it was only possible to say that Kerrigan must have chosen it of her free will. At best it was partially it but there were other factors.

It's basically grimderp bullshit and I for one think it's shitty writing. SC2 tried to actually make it possible for there to be a light in the tunnel. Unfortunately a lot of emo little shits are of the opinion that grimderp = good storytelling so they overexxaggerated the flaws that were present (and yes there were flaws) while ignoring the flaws in the allegedly mature BW.

HOTS had problems; trying to make Kerrigan change over the course of the story rather than being snidely whiplash the entire time wasn't one of them. You seem to think a character being static is a good thing. Too many people want her to stay the way she was in Brood War even though characters need to evolve. That or they were overly attached to Fenix and were just bitchy that the story went in a different direction

I never said she was 'a psycho'. But she was hardly a principled person. A principled person does not make excuses for why it's okay to exterminate civilian populations and to assassinate people for political purposes. They don't take revenge on those who wronged them.

I'm not saying she was an especially evil person, but she was INCREDIBLY weak. And she let lots of awful things happen because of that weakness. Raynor's complicit for a lot of what happens in Rebel Yell too. Though I think he does what he does more out of misguided idealism whereas Kerrigan does it more out of guilt and a lack of autonomy. The story doesn't excuse her for this. That's such an important factor, Brood War does not just treat Kerrigan as a hapless victim who wanted to do the right thing. Which I think Wings of Liberty and to a lesser extent Heart of the Swarm absolutely do.

That contrasts with Brood War Kerrigan -- who is strong and fully realized. She knows what she wants independently of everyone else, she has conviction, she actually fights for what she wants (control, authority, the power to make the changes she wants in the world). I'm not talking about the moral dichotomy of the character and how as I see it, your argument seem to boil down to believing that Kerrigan is a fundamentally good person and a good person cannot do bad things. But I don't agree with that foundation. Because Kerrigan is not a morally *CONVICTED* person regardless, she's not heroic even if you find her sympathetic. She complains that Mengsk does things that are wrong, and then not only doesn't try to stop him but actively helps him in his actions REPEATEDLY. Again I'm not saying that's evil, but that's definitely not righteous.

And beyond all that, I wasn't really trying to make a point about Rebel Yell Kerrigan. I was talking about how unambiguously nuts and afflicted Brood War Kerrigan is and how that sort of goes against a conventional karmic justice morality-type story. Kerrigan is an evil bitch and she ultimately succeeds in what she sets out to do. It isolates her from everyone she ever cared about. But she's ultimately successful. And the tone of that moment is not a simple 'woe is Kerrigan, for she is alone after all'. In fact it's the opposite, she's "the Queen Bitch of the Universe". It's triumphant. She sacrificed everything and she won and she doesn't feel bad about it. And I don't think it's nearly as edgy as you're making it out to be because it's not joyful at all, it's nihilistic. As I said, the story is not sympathetic to Kerrigan, but it does try to make her understandable.

I think that's more interesting than just another morality fable about how power corrupts or something. I've seen that story a hundred times.

On the subject of Heart of the Swarm I don't think the writer even really properly captured the tone of Kerrigan's dialogue properly. I mean that's true of pretty much every character, but it's especially true of her.

Kerrigan has a very sort of casual, familiar speaking tone in the original game through out (except in Overmind). She likes to be sort of humorous and natural and while she can be occasionally grandiose and grand eloquent (her soliloquy at the end of Queen of Blades for example), but that's not typical of her normally. But in Heart everything she says is urgent, over the top and reeking of self-importance. It's really, really weird. Even casual conversations sound like a royal decree. And it doesn't help that she's almost exclusively talking to Zerg through out the game, but even when she's talking to other humans it's still there.

They sort of fixed it in Legacy of the Void, though.

It's almost like something happened to her in the interim that changed her world view and made her bitter and angry or something.

How totally not human or relatable at all.

I mean you can not buy it, or not like it, but people do change to that degree from trauma. People abandon their principles too (especially people who didn't have strong principles to begin with).

I'm not even sure how you can argue otherwise at all.

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

You kinda did imply she was barely sane to begin with (at least that's the impression I got).

I fully agree that Kerrigan had a darkness inside of her, however there were other factors. Her "Arcturus will do the right thing" Implies she genuinely believed in Arcturus, maybe even saw him as a father figure. She may not have loved Jim but she certainly CARED for him (in Agent of the Swarm the overmind point blank orders her to kill all the terrans, so her letting Jim and his friends go was a direct violation of his orders.) That implies that even after what happened some degree of humanity shone through. She certainly had morals even if she didn't always act on them. And you can make a case that she was genuinely fighting for a better future and to make sure no one else suffered like she did. You assume that it was purely guilt for killing Angus Mengsk but I don't think that's true and if anything is rather limiting. It might be A factor but one can make a case for idealism. She was certainly more complex than the one dimensional caricature in Brood War.

The issue with BW is that I fully agree that trauma would change her to a degree, and might make her bitter and angry. However they made her do TOO much of a 180. I can buy her being willing to sacrifice people for her goals, I can see her pushing regrets aside to do it. I can see her being somewhat sadistic. But given that even as a brainwashed servant of the overmind she cared for certain people (Raynor) her being as sadistic didn't ring true. In any case, it was STILL possible to argue that things like the infestation amplified an inner darkness and THAT influenced her. Genya came to that conclusion entirely on his own, so it was a more than fair interpretation. You might not AGREE with it but it was still an entirely fair conclusion to reach. There are SHADES to which a character changes due to trauma. While some change entirely, enough of the human kerrigan shown through in the Zerg Campaign that it doesn't really hold up. Some find it halfway (they abandon large parts but hold on to key elements.)



Back on SCLegacy Hawki made several insightful posts
1.) "The examples you're citing are examples of a developed character, but not a multi-dimensional character. A developed character has depth of character(ization). A multi-dimensional character has numerous different facets of that characterization. Kerrigan gets singular development in BW bar mission 5 and the green text, and both are irrelevant to her character. Her motives are clear, there's no regret, no looking back, her goal is simply to gain power, and even if you argue that vengeance was in her plan all along, it's only in the spotlight for one mission and never brought up again."

2.) "So, on one hand, we have BW Kerrigan who sings the same tune the entire game, doesn't change as a character, and is singuarly focussed on one goal. In contrast, we have HotS Kerrigan, who's torn between morality and the need for revenge, who manages to shed the emotional burdens by the end of the game, and displays aspects of her personality that are varied. By definition, HotS Kerrigan is more multi-dimensional."

3.) "Disagree for the reasons stated above. Kerrigan's change from RY to O is due to external force. That's by definition not character change, not character development or growth."

4.) "And likewise, there are no rational reasons for her to spare certain enemies in BW. There's all this talk about inconsistancy, but BW Kerrigan is doing the same thing as HotS Kerrigan, only on different ends of the emotional spectrum."

5.) "Except BW does have it both ways, or at least tries to. Kerrigan's portrayed as this the evil bitch you describe, and gets some character development that's barely relevant. HotS Kerrigan has an unbalance of the facets described, but she still develops down those lines. Kerrigan at the end of HotS is not the same Kerrigan at the start of HotS. BW Kerrigan doesn't have that luxury of character development."

6.) "No, at the end of the day, BW is about power. Kerrigan gets revenge, but it's never her focus. Based on the old "what if?" discussion awhile back, if not for the UED, Kerrigan would never have had to rely on Mengsk and would never have had to betray him. Kerrigan gets her betrayal moment in mission 5, and the thread is dropped. Everything else is just to serve a means to an end."

7.) Isn't that kind of the point? Kerrigan feels completely different in Overmind, post-infestation. If the reverse holds true, she should feel like a completely different character after that infestation is removed.

Kerrigan in Heart of the Swarm goes through multiple facets throughout the game. From frightened and confused to so consumed with revenge she'll do whatever it takes despite her misgivings to doubting herself, to realizing she's been an asshole to finding a balance between hero and villain. She undergoes a journey as a character. I personally find that far more interesting than a character who stays the same the entire time. By definition she's more multifaceted than BW Kerrigan, and she undergoes actual development as a character over the course of the game. BW also tried to have it's cake and eat it too and made her inconsistent in a few areas (an example of BW fans failing to turn the magnifying glass on the work THEY admire) and didn't really make her all that deep (she's just an asshole who causes pain and misery and is evil).

Also, there's THIS point

2) Even ignoring point 1, why is it taboo to have an ending that isn't bittersweet or a downer? Such endings are not inherantly superior to others. And if you use those endings over and over again, they lose impact. Going by the SC games Blizzard produced, what do we have? Precursor, bittersweet ending. StarCraft, bittersweet ending. Brood War, tragic ending. Wings of Liberty, happy ending. Heart of the Swarm, bittersweet ending. Why must every installment in a series conform to the norm, and why is deviation from a norm inherantly bad? I'm not just referring to this series either. Leaving out spoilers, but a certain character (supposedly) dies in book 5 of A Song of Ice and Fire, and I could barely care. I liked said character, but when everything leading up to this point has been the same dredgery, it gets too much. Bittersweetness and tragedy loses its impact if it's repeatedly applied. Same applies for happy endings of course, but SC can hardly be accused to have an abundence of those. Pardon me for praising WoL's ending because finally we got something a bit different."

That's another reason why the ideas worked. If SC2 had the same nihilistic tone as BW it would be impossible to give a rats ass about what happens. Having a ray of light makes it easier to care. Having Kerrigan redeem herself was part of that and going from the "infestation suppressed natural empathy and compassion" was an entirely legitimate interpretation

Tl;DR: I agree that Kerrigan wasn't a wholly moral person; but she WAS a complex one and I consider that the interpretation later games went with (that the infestation amplified an inner darkness and suppressed compassion and empathy) a fair choice. She may not have ACTED on her principles all the time but they WERE there. I also felt the BW Kerrigan wasn't really multi dimensional and that for all it's flaws Heart did show a Kerrigan who evolves over the story (which I honestly found more interesting than simply her being evil the whole way through).

I wasn't the first to reach that conclusion. Genya did as well so I think it was fair.

I think she's genuinely psychotic in that she has like... psychosis. I don't think she was born an axe murderer or anything, but Uprising implies that she has a violent streak.

I didn't say she wasn't moral. I said she wasn't principled. Morals are having a belief, principles are having the conviction and strength to follow through on those morals. Sure, saying 'killing people is wrong' is something a lot of people can agree with. But if you're not willing to step in and put a stop to it when you're in a position to do so, how strongly do you really feel about that?

I think Kerrigan in Rebel Yell lacks autonomy. I think the Rebel Yell Kerrigan is as much Mengsk's slave as she would become the Overmind's slave later on. She does what he says. He manipulates her, she feels guilty, she sees him as a bit of a father figure for sure. But that doesn't mean it's a healthy relationship.

I mean, I see it. I think it makes perfectly logical sense for her to become what she did after what she went through. And that includes the physical changes.

Well of course being infested would change her psyche. Losing a limb changes someone's psyche. My issue is more that the infestation becomes kind of a scapegoat for her change in personality or for her actions when the story doesn't treat her that way and neither do any of the other characters (in Brood War mind you). The only person who even seems to think it matters that she was infested is Aldaris of all people. I think when you boil it down to mind control or a dark voice or an evil influence the characters lose a lot of their impact because it's like their decisions weren't there's to make. Heart of the Swarm BLATANTLY tries to avoid this, and I don't think it succeeds at all. (I'm referring to Kerrigan's comments about 'it never controlled me, etc. etc.") I think it really cheapens what happens in Brood War. And I think it's just lousy storytelling to chalk everything bad that happened up to an evil devil character who was lurking in the shadows, rather than what it actually was at the time: Kerrigan's hubris, Mengsk's greed, and the pathos of the situation.

I'm really not interested in responding to old SCLegacy posts, dude. That's pretty poor form.

As to her development in Queen of Blades -- I really don't wanna get into this, but I think to chalk everything down to True Colours is foolish. Revenge is something Kerrigan plainly states is part of her motivations multiple times. She pretty much spends all of the first half of Queen of Blades (which goes back to Iron Fist actually) setting up and using Mengsk so she can double cross him. Same with the Stand and Zeratul.

I mean the thread of her revenge on Mengsk is dropped in True Colours because... she got her revenge. (And it comes back in the last mission anyway) I'm not sure about her not killing Mengsk or why that's even brought up...weren't these posts in response to ones I made? So you're replaying a conversation I had with someone what... 3 years ago?

But that's another thing, the SC2 expansions all have beginning, middles and ends. Here's the villain. Here's the hero. Here's what the hero wants. Here's 16 hours of distractions until they finally get around to trying to get what they want. The end. The villains in Legacy aren't even interesting. They're practically interchangable (and until Legacy the less said about the Tal'darim the better).

SC1's campaigns (all six of them) all have multiple beginnings and endings. Iron Fist starts with the campaign against Mengsk, there's a twist in mission 5 with Raynor, then the focus becomes the relationship between Dugalle and Stukov, then it's about the Overmind. They all do that.

But then I don't even understand why Kerrigan does what she does. She's proclaimed to want revenge on Mengsk at the beginning of Heart of the Swarm, but partly because I already saw that in Brood War (and because that story was more of a direct follow up to those events) and partly because I don't think they did a great job explaining what that actually means it didn't do anything for me.

I didn't really like what that writer did with Mass Effect either, though. So maybe it's a style thing.

Heart of the Swarm is really not bittersweet. It is incredibly sentimental and romantic. All three of the SC2 endings are romantic actually because at some point Metzen (and his team I guess) decided StarCraft was a love story when it never was.

Even Wings of Liberty's ending isn't necessarily happy. But they did such a poor job with Tychus's arch it's really hard to even relate or understand him. Like that scene with the juke box doesn't even make sense.

Because the bittersweet, darker endings where sacrifices need to be made are deviations in the first place. Having a hollywood romantic, heroic ending is so traditional.

Not all the endings are even the same. The Fall's ending doesn't have the same tone as Queen of Blades or Iron First's. (Iron Fist's ending is hilarious amidst all the tragedy.) But to have something so BLATANTLY saccharine in a series which does it's damndest to avoid BEING saccharine is pretty disingenuous.

It's not that happy things can't or shouldn't happen. But Raynor's love story with Kerrigan is hopelessly self-aggrandizing and really lays it on thick. There was more to Kerrigan and Raynor than that, and it really just boils the character down.

I think your mistake here is that Nihilism is not equitable to dark. Nihilism just means things just... are. It doesn't mean that Kerrigan's story or what happened to her was pointless, it just doesn't judge her. I'm having trouble explaining what I mean by this.

Nihilism gets a bad rap for being sinister or apathetic, when it isn't necessarily. The point of Nihilism is that there aren't superheroic (either evil or good) forces working in the StarCraft universe to inform or decide events. Self-determination decides what happens, and people's choices (and people are not necessarily born good or evil) decide what happens. But everything in SC2 is fated, or guided by greater powers. It doesn't really fit the tone of the first game at all in that respect.

Like it bothers me so much that Zeratul is the only hero who gets an arch and dies. SC Brood War wasn't afraid to kill off characters no matter what they are or were. But SC2 only kills off it's evil, despicable, one-dimensional (TRULY one-dimensional) characters.

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

I disagree with the assumption she would change her personality AS drastically. Change it yeah but not quite as extensively.

My main point was that Kerrigan wasn't really that complex in BW. She's basically a comic book super villain. And given that even as the overminds slave she still showed a few instances if humanity (disobeying the overmind and sparing Raynor) her going full hog didn't really ring true to me.

I also feel that if the same series has bleak endings again and again it's harder to care

Someone else made this point:

"Now why would a complex human, given great powers, immediately turn into a comicbook super villain? Even if we accept your claim that the mind of the being that was the Queen of Blades was not mostly the work of the Overmind and still very much the human being Sarah Kerrigan, why would she completely forsake the possibility of salvation, the hope of ever experiencing affection or love again? If she always was the psychotic being you make her out to be she wouldn't have been able to experience a connection with Jim - and even the loyalty and devotion to Mengsk, who pretty much was a father figure for her."

That she made connections with others shows she had human virtues as well and wasn't as psychotic as you'd like to imply. She had a darkness certainly but there were more human traits and the second campaign implied they weren't fully extinguished. That she only felt tired after Jim called her out also implies this. She wasn't completely irredeemable and it was still possible to argue that the infestation influenced her darker traits. You might not like that interpretation but it was there

Who made that point? In response to me now? Why do you always do this? Can you not just have a conversation without calling in back up?

And I don't think you understand what I mean by psychotic at all.

She's mentally ill and unstable. Mentally ill and unstable people can have human connections. Some people's fathers beat them, having a 'father figure' isn't always a positive thing or a positive connection. And I don't think Mengsk IS a positive father figure to her even before he betrays her.

I'm not sure why you think I'm arguing she doesn't have virtues, I argued that bloody Brood War Kerrigan has virtues. The only way even be a thing is if she was an honest to god sociopath, and I don't believe her to be a sociopath. My point is, someone who has darker impulses is of course capable of doing vile things and pre-infested Kerrigan has some pretty dark impulses. I just find it really infantilizing that SC2 acts as if she was a happy, friendly nun or something.

And it's not that I don't like that interpretation, it's just not really backed up by much and it kind of cheapens the whole thing. It takes all the agency out of the character and makes excuses for her. It's also not in evidence in Brood War at all. It's never implied, and the characters don't treat her as if she's under a curse or whatever. They treat her as if she is in total control of her actions and hold her accountable for them. It's just not an aspect of the story.

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

Actually that was from something else; unless you go by a different name on team liquid there wasn't anything to do with you. Basically some wanker was going on about ow how horrible heart of the swarm was and four of the commenters called the guy an idiot and said his interpretation of Kerrigan was simplistic (and that bw Kerrigan was two dimensional). The thing I wuoted basically summed up my thinking on the subject

Now you're strawmanning me. I agreed she had a darkness inside. She also had goodness in her as well that was still a part of who she was despite being an assassin.

YOU didn't draw that interpretation but others (Genya and Hawki) drew it on their own. Others elsewhere felt her transformation was dodgy and didn't fully make sense so it could be that they felt the writing was flawed. YOU might not have seen evidence but others did. You saying otherwise is remarkably arrogant and while the characters treat her like she's in control others interpreted it otherwise. Or they saw it as a way to reconcile what they saw as incoherent development. And for the record I don't think it cheapens her. It means that the darkness within was amplified and she still had to overcome her own inner flaws. That's a fine arc on it's own. Also while psychotic people can make connections they don't form deep ones a lot of the time. Kerrigan's deep connection with Jim didn't seem like that (that she was still angry about Antiga months later, as well as the fact that she convinced herself "Arcturus will do the right thing" implies that she genuinely believed those actions were wrong. She didn't defy Arcturus but she clearly felt they were immoral; since the confederacy made her hellish existence go on a long time that's impressive and speaks somewhat well of her). She had a violent streak but could be said to be a good person in some ways. She was an idealist as well.

Basically you seem remarkably smug. In other debates I've seen you rather cowardly dodge arguments that disagree with you. And given the strength of her connection with Raynor (disobeying the overminds instructions and letting him go) it meant she couldn't have been AS psychotic and unstable as you'd think.

PS

In some ways the "evil powerful female who needs to be put down" can be rather sexist itself.

Then present the evidence that her physical transformation was directly responsible for her behaviour. Even her demeanor in Brood War is different from Overmind.

If someone disagrees with me, they disagree with me. I try to address the points people make properly. I'm pretty earnest in my discussions or I try to be. I certainly don't make it a point to ignore a point unless it's a repeat of a point they made before.

Most of the things that make that type of story sexist aren't present in Kerrigan's story in Brood War. In fact, most of the stuff that's sexist about that kind of arc is in Heart of the Swarm, not Brood War. (i.e. woman is evil because she was rejected, she's lonely and needs a man, etc.).

Yes, they do. We also keep using the word psychotic which isn't really what I meant.

Here's my bloody problem. It's not impressive to go 'maybe we shouldn't unleash a horde of ravenous aliens on a civilian population and/or soldiers doing their jobs'. That's not especially moral. That's the normal reaction that a normal person would have. It does not prove that she is above reproach.

What would be remarkable is if she did a damn thing about it. She doesn't. She's Mengsk's thrall. She's weak, she knows things are wrong but she doesn't have strong convictions and thus doesn't stand up to him. And if she has weak convictions it's more likely she'll abandon those morals in the face of adversity.

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

I tend to view K and HotS like Ol'Yoggy. Granted the material that came afterwards expanded Kerrigan's pre zerg inner darkness but my impression when i first played was "oh the zerg made her evil". Yes she is s cold blooded assassin but cold-blooded-assassins-being-good-inside is something normal in fiction.

In the end its a matter of perception and Blizz simply saw things more like Yog and less like Aldrius

I do believe BW is overrated because in the end K manipulation there consists of "im good now guys do what i say" and the rest falling in line.

1.) Except that it wasn't just "maybe we shouldn't unleash a horde of ravenous aliens on a civillian population and/or soldiers doing their jobs." It was "maybe we shouldn't unleash a horde of ravenous aliens on a civilian population and/or soldiers doing their jobs" EVEN WHEN THEY WERE FROM THE SAME ORGANIZATION THAT HAD MADE HER LIFE A LIVING NIGHTMARE FROM THE AGES OF 8 TO 18. Many people in her situation would have been gleefully on board with a plan to hurt them back regardless of whether they were civilians or not. Kerrigan didn't, and THAT speaks well of her (the fact that she was opposed using it EVEN on the people who tormented her.) Her line about "Arcturus will come around. I know he will." and "The Protoss are coming to destroy the entire planet, not just the Zerg" also provide another explanation. She thought Arcturus would evacuate the people of Korhal once the Zerg took out the Confederacy, or felt that there was some chance of survival from the Zerg.

2.) You try to, but there have been cases when someone has made a point and you've just asserted your opinion regardless of the points actually made.

3.) Except that's not wholly true. It didn't say "She's evil because she's lonely." It was "she feels revenge is all she has left so she's going to do whatever it takes regardless of the cost. The "need a man" doesn't really hold up to inspection either. Kerrigan only went apeshit on Rumm after he murdered Somo Hung (who she cared for). And the fact she violently killed him could be seen as her getting revenge on him alone. Also, it's entirely probable that had Raynor been a woman she'd have had similar reactions; In Uprising she's drawn to Hung because he's a genuinely good person who cares for her. Raynor, like Hung, genuinely cared for her and wanted to help her. As such Kerrigan would have felt a connection. THAT'S why Raynor's memory worked to calm her; because he was one of the few people who was nice to her she couldn't just brush him off, meaning that his words had weight when they called her out. You're basically manufacturing reasons to not like her.

4.) Except that she DID show proof of morality even as a zerg agent.

Overmind: Well done Cerebrate! What I have wrought this day shall be the undoing of my enemies! Let not a Terran survive. Basically the Overmind ordered point blank to kill all the Terrans. Kerrigan directly disobeyed these orders when she let Jim leave with his life. That implies a fairly deep connection. She does make an excuse that it's because he's not a threat but that doesn't really hold up. She still disobeyed the Overmind's direct orders. She was also genuinely stung when Raynor threatened to kill her.

5.) There IS precedent for physical problems making people violent. Charles Whitman (the guy who shot people from the clocktower) had a tumor in the part of his brain that controlled fear and rage, and that almost certainly influenced him to make the decision he did.

6.) Kerrigan went from the "I don't like doing horrible things even to the people who horribly wronged me and needed to be persuaded to do it" to "I will be outlandishly cruel to the protoss even though Tassadar just outsmarted me that one time". That's just shitty writing no matter how you spin it.

7.) The "hitman with morals" is an established character so Kerrigan wasn't meant to be seen as "mentally unstable". They form connections but they tend to be rather shallow ones.

There's a reason I accuse you of rose colored glasses. You're unwilling to turn the lens on Brood War and have gotten rather aggressive when people disagree with you about it. You rather scornfully refuse to address Genya too.

I'm willing to acknowledge Heart of the Swarm's flaws, but I also acknowledge it had good elements. You refuse to turn the lens on the thing YOU like which is rather dishonest