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fools-of-andromeda · 8 days ago

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Not enough people analyze my canon self this well. You’ve given us something to think about, fellow Mark Temple fan. I’ve always said the Reds and Blues could have gone down the same path, just like I put in the comments on this post. Not enough people talk about how the blues and reds are the “Bad ending” or the “what if” where our beloved heroes we knew in season one find out about project freelancer and say “f this” and I stand by that - 🧊 (Temple)

I like Mark Temple wayyyy too much for it to be normal

So I'm putting my thoughts here in an attempt to journal and understand myself better.

When I was (re)watching Red vs Blue Season 15, I realised that for some reason, I was really rooting for Temple. And NOT the Red and Blues of Project Freelancer.

"But what I love most about chess is that sometimes....pawns kill kings." - Temple

And I wasn't the only one. If I remember, I saw quite a few people in the comment sections where they actually support Mark Temple.

This got me wondering: why? Why do people like someone who's supposed to be a villain? Someone manipulative, someone so focused on revenge that he's lost all other sense of self? Someone so wholly opposite, yet somewhat similar to Church?

Did the writers screw up the personality and likeableness of the protagonists? Maybe the series by that point had gotten a decrease in quality that some people wanted Temple to just kill everyone and be done with Red vs Blue?

Well, after some soul searching (and essay writing formats, because I had no idea how else to structure this), I present to you: a comprehensive character analysis and review of Mark Temple from the Blues and the Reds.

Temple's Personality - sympathetic villain, or tragic victim?

I know what you must be wondering. Tragic victim? Are you kidding me? But wait, let me explain.

Temple was just a regular guy who wasn't built for the military. He had found a friend, maybe a best friend, with Biff during his childhood. Of course, he had unknowingly signed up for Project Freelancer's Simulation Troopers. Which is definitely illegal, and sort of parallels Project 100 000, a drafting technique during the Vietnam War where men, usually unsuited for the military, where shipped out as standards fell.

Of course, when Temple found his buddy Biff on the other side of the war, they both come to some conclusions. But they didn't know how to bring this up to the people in control. They were just average men, like you and I. So, they had to keep up the facade.

But Biff wanted to leave. His Georgina was waiting. They had to devise a plan to get discharged from this sick 'game'.

Too late did they find out that it was still real. Deaths occur in this 'training simulation'. And to be found out to be so worthless, to be just numbers on a spreadsheet, and watching his best friend lose his entire life, unable to go home to Georgina- Temple lost it.

The trust between a regular civilian and a politician has a contract. People have to trust the system to protect them, to want the best for them, when it rarely happens. When Law Enforcement use the wrong amount of force, when murderers get off on a technicality and you don't get justice for your child/significant other.

This is what happens. Temple is essentially- powerless. What did he have? Connections? Money? Actual fighting prowess? No. What he had was his mind. And he had to learn to use it well.

After the traumatic fight that could put any normal person into debt after years of going to a therapist, Temple essentially rewrote himself. He became the de facto leader of the Blues and the Reds. He shows a manipulative side that hasn't shown up before.

He essentially became a serial killer, with his own set of morals, and maybe a bit of charisma that isn't accurate to his actual personality.

He definitely is a flawed character. He didn't hit the ground running. He has to search up how to be a villain. He isn't inherently sociopathic or anti social, the traumatic experience made him.

And when he started killing, he couldn't stop.

I think that he feels empowered when he kills someone, just to assure himself that he still has some power, some control over the universe that he lives in. Killing is an addiction and therapy for him.

In his mind, the more he killed, the less people that have the power to kill existed in the galaxy, and the safer he felt.

He had to 'work up' to his end goal. Other than killing, he wanted to see Biff, and Loco was working something for him. Since Texas has died, Temple only had the other person he could blame and feasibly get to- Carolina.

And he couldn't just only kill her. He had to get rid of all witnesses, which was Washington and the Reds and Blues. But he didn't want to kill the Reds and Blues. They were common men, people he could relate to, people who were just as screwed over by Project Freelancer. In his mind, he thought that he could win them over.

Mark Temple has a tragic backstory, but 'evil' is defined by who controls the system. Evil is blasphemy in many religions, but atheists or those less extreme would see the punishments as evil.

Is he a villain or a victim? It all depends on your perception.

How the viewers perceive him - is he manipulating us beyond the screen?

On the other hand, the argument above has some noticeable holes. After all, it was Temple that told his backstory. And as we know, people can embellish or twist words into leading him to be the hero.

I don't doubt that the events didn't happen, but I do think that Temple has a manipulative side he's kept quiet when telling his story. Or he was good at hiding something. Usually, serial killers are anti-social, or have some childhood trauma to act the way they do.

I think that Mark Temple wouldn't be a serial killer without the catalyst that is the nonchalant and carefree way that the Freelancers killed his buddy, Biff. It's honestly a bit weird, but I guess that he's had his entire world turned upside down after being told that he wasn't important, nothing at all.

He also has quite a few flaws, and he didn't really give us a good reason to hate him other than what he was doing to our protagonists, which really depended on how much we actually like the characters. Most people wouldn't really see the Reds and Blues as actual people, given that they started off as cartoonish parodies of gamers from the 2000s.

Mark Temple was kind of a breath of fresh air, seeing a villain that didn't have that much power at all, yet still being able to do 'great' things. After all, most of the stories so far have a David vs Goliath feeling, with our protags as David.

In this season, Temple actually felt like the Underdog, which caused people to root for him, including me.

In fact, he was quite dorky at times, and he provided the familiarity that losing Church had made me missed. There was a comfort in the shade of blue, I suppose.

But he wasn't a comedic villain. No, he was a really big threat. Did you know how easy it would have been, to just kill the freelancers after they have been armour locked? He was confident that they would just die in the meatlocker. And he got the closest to killing a freelancer than any other villain., and achieving his goals.

However, the confidence he gained from killing so many freelancers was a detriment, and he started to monologue like Felix.

He's got a blast of a theme song though, and it's in my playlist

youtube

I suppose that the scariest thought after all of this, is that Temple is the one character we can relate the most to. After all, aren't most of us nerds? Aren't most of us average people? What else are we to rely on, other than our leadership skill and our mind?

Don't we manipulate people day to day? We peer pressure people into thinking the way we want them to. We talk of big numbers, and structure our posts to gain the most interactions. We want to get noticed. We want to feel important. We want to be empowered. We need control. Don't you feel to urge to kill people sometimes? Don't you want to act on your dark desire, to just bring a knife to their throat?

*head bobbing intensifies as the Temple soundtrack comes to an end*

After all, what are heroes and villains, other than opposing people in their own stories?

What I like about Temple, is that he represents a darker part of ourselves. The possibility that any average person can be pushed off the edge one day.

1 in 100 people are psychopaths, after all.

Anyways, this brings me to my next point.

Church vs Temple - the take away

Going back to the comments section, many people compare Church and Temple.

After all, they are certainly made to parody and parallel each other.

While Church is seen at first as stand-offish and selfish, he actually cares deeply about everyone around him, only showing it deep moments. Like how Alpha reacted when Caboose was killed, and when Epsilon sacrificed his life for people that to him, don't seem to care much about him. After all, even Caboose said that he had been replaced.

Mark Temple is seen as opposite. He's nice to everyone at first, but really, he treats his friends and allies as disposable.

I think I have an explanation and counter point to this. See, he cares so much for Biff that he started this whole revenge act. So this means that he definitely has something in him to care. But maybe what Carolina said to him made him rethink his world view. Since everyone he knows is a pawn anyways, why not treat them as one?

The strategist in him needs to be able to see beyond friendship, to be willing to risk danger for the best overall outcome. He's seeing everyone in the Blues and Reds as a group, and not individuals. He convinced them that they had to take revenge, after all.

in my eyes, I think that Church and Temple are really, really similar. Church is just more mellow, less logical than Temple. Both of them take revenge kills- Alpha snipes Wyoming, Temple just had to wait because he couldn't do anything at that time.

In fact, I see Temple as a Church who is a true L-CIM of the Director, just as driven to chase a shadow, just as unable to let go, just as able to do immoral acts all for the 'greater good'. It was just that many parts of Church's personality was removed for him to be a copy of Temple.

With Omega gone, he couldn't be the villain. He couldn't be angry enough to go through with revenge.

With Sigma gone, he couldn't manipulate. He still sometimes could, like how he gets Caboose to get away from him, all in Season 1.

With Gamma gone, he couldn't lie. He still tried and hide the fact that he was a 'ghost' from Washington.

With Eta and Iota gone, he couldn't feel joy or fear. He wouldn't reallt feel scared of dying, or find joy in revenge.

With Delta gone, his plans weren't all that great. But he was an AI, supposed to be able to plan missions fo PFL.

With Theta gone, so was his trust. Temple never trusted anyone else to just not die on him, hence he didn't care much for anyone else, recognising that it would hurt less.

I've realised just how easy it would be for pre fragmentation Church to take revenge, just like how Temple did. If he was a true L-CIM of the Director, he definitely could have done it.

And that's where the appeal comes for me. He was a 'complete' Church, someone who couldn't get 'care' written out of his system as it had to be the basis of all AI programming to stop them from turning on their creators.

Church just didn't have the emotions to be able to do such heinous crimes.

About the Reds and Blues of PFL

Another part about why some people wanted Temple to win meant that people didn't really care that much for the 'heroes'. Of course, some people formed attachments, but some felt that the Reds and Blues were way too comedic to really treat them 'seriously'.

I also find that they get a lot of passes for the kills that they have committed Let's take a look at Sarge.

Sarge is possibly a greater serial killer than we give him credit for. He definitely has some mental issues, other than PTSD. Maybe psychosis, BPD, narcism and anti social disorder.

Because seriously, even though Sarge killing all of the people in basic and drill instructor was presented as a comedy, it is a tragedy when you take a step back. Sarge knowingly let a bomb under a car blow up one of his 'competition', manipulated the final standing person into killing himself, and killed Lemons.

And what was his reasoning? To gain a rank?

Not to mention he killed all of the privates in a suicidal charge afterwards.

In fact, in S15, when he 'spared' Surge, he spent so long monologuing that he completely forgot what he was supposed to do, and just vaporised the man? And feeling no remorse at all?

The silver screen really has some rosey hues, huh?

Also in Season 14, Simmons and Grif had lied and manipulated a fellow soldier's death as a cop out of why they didn't enter the base. They're just as cowardly and valuing their lives as what the wiki has written for Mark Temple's personality at the end.

Caboose seriously has no idea of right from wrong, but he gets a pass for his obvious mental illness. But did you know that 20% of serial killers suffered a head injury in their past? And then they became serial killers? Caboose has killed so many times that it's normal at this point.

I think that in Season 15, we the viewers realised how hypocritical the Reds and Blues are, and hence wanted justice on them. Hence, why we supported Mark temple.

In conclusion, please write more fanfiction about Mark Temple. He is my kin, I may be biased, and I would love to hear about your opinions.

Thank you.

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