rjmhereunderprotest - Tumblr blog

rjmhereunderprotest · 7 months ago

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I Miss My PC Games

Years ago, I had a desktop like pretty much everyone else. Had all my stuff on it. All my games. All my work. Everything important to me at that time. Then, out of the blue, the whole rig just died on me. The disk drive gave out. I lost everything prior to my back ups. It was devastating. Since then I've been using a succession of laptops, one after the other, as my desk where the desktop used to be has become cluttered with stuff. I've kept saying I'll get a new one, I never have. And something always seems to go wrong with my laptops sooner or later to boot. This one I'm currently writing on is honestly reaching the end of its lifecycle. I'm considering getting a new one.

But I suspect, the next laptop won't be anywhere near powerful enough to work with any of my games. The ones I've had sitting in storage, waiting for installation. I've repurchased them digitally from Steam of course, but the laptop can't play them. Hell, about all I can play on this thing is Doom, which isn't very impressive. Doom plays on everything. Meanwhile all the other games I want to play with, the old favorites, the franchises I love? Sitting in a corner or stuck in the cloud.

Every year I get especially nostalgic around this time. I remember things I missed and haven't seen in a while. So, because I'm feeling extra sad because of... everything, I wanted to try and cheer myself up some, remembering fond memories of the games I used to play. And hope, one day, to play again.

First a brief disclaimer, I'm excluding a few games based on the fact I can still play them with minimum difficulty. It's also based on how comfortable I am playing them on the consoles they're available on. As well as the quality of the remaster or console release. There's some exceptions to this, but not many. So let's start.

RTS games were always a big thing for me. Playing the general in a massive war never failed to excite my young mind. Empire Earth appealed to my inherent history nerd, more so than most as it didn't tie itself down to to a singular era or form of combat. From the Stone Age to the far future, you could command all sorts of armies to absolute victory.

With four campaigns in total, Greek, English, German and Russia, each with their own distinct settings, it was an amazing slice of history to play around in. I remember spending hours upon hours battling from Medieval England to the Napoleonic Wars under the English banner. Where else could I go from knights to muskets in the span of a few minutes?

A lot of my time though was spent on the German and Russian campaigns, although I didn't particularly like the final missions of the German campaign because it involved an alt-history scenario where the Nazis. As I'll explain, I don't like helping the Nazis. I prefer to kill them. The WW1 levels though were pretty good. Fighting through Verdun, brutal, but very rewarding.

The Russian campaign, that was something else entirely. A completely original story set in the future where brutal Russian dictator seizes power and attempts to conquer the whole world. Only he can't live forever to see it through, so he downloads his mind into a robot successor, who becomes even more brutal in its insane quest for power. The only hope in the end is for a heroic pair of warriors to travel back in time and stop the dictator before he ever comes to power. It was a really fun campaign... although I imagine a reemergent Russian Empire is not exactly as fun to talk about these days.

There was an expansion that added new campaigns, including an American one spanning most of the Pacific War. As well as another future campaign with a new epoch to expand into, the space age. Now that was a hard campaign, I much preferred the Pacific War, as a I'm always invested in the World Wars historically. I'm sure someone big into Roman history would've enjoyed the Roman campaign way more than I did, although I like it fine.

What was great about Empire Earth was how much it revered history as much as I did and used history to tell its own stories. It's unfortunate we don't get more RTS games that are willing to span the length of history. Nor as many that will take on less well known or used eras in history. There really should be more WW1 Real time Strategy games honestly, far too few in my mind. Sadly, the game is still only on PC. I mean, the RTS genre works best on it. But really, with advances in tech that's making consoles basically just PCs in their own right, it should be a lot easier to adapt them to consoles more often. If only to make it easier for everyone play them.

This one might be more familiar to you as a result of some recent developments. Age of Mythology was always right up my alley. As a student of history, I was also always drawn to the myths born of history. An RTS that explores Greek, Egyptian and Norse myths? Sign me up! You don't know the true joy that can come from raising an army of Hydras that only get stronger the more heads they grow. Or watching an alligator with a sun beam laser burn through enemy fortresses. Or summoning Nidhogg the dragon to basically annihilate your enemies from on high. Simply the best.

I played through the whole campaign at least twice, because I was that obsessed with it at the time. It was the only way I could use more of the crazy awesome units available to you in this game. Scorpions, Valkyries, Krakens, Anubis Soldiers, there's a friggin turtle that you can use to transport troops! And let's not forget the god powers, summoning meteors from the sky is never not fun!

It was also just really nice to see Egyptian mythology represented for once. I do love me Ancient Egypt and it's pantheon of Gods. Sadly, they're not as used as the Norse or Greeks for things. Which is really a shame, they got some killer stuff that is worth adapting. In AoM, we actually help assemble Osiris so he can come back to life and help stop the apocalypse! I feel there's a bit of a concern among people though, that they'll get it wrong and offend someone. Which I can sorta understand. But not using Egyptian Myth to create media is almost as bad as getting it wrong.

I suppose I should just be happy they aren't going to have Kratos kill all my favorite Egyptian Gods. At least I can be grateful for that much.

You might be asking, why not just play the Retold remaster? I would, but it's just not the same. Something feels lost in the dialogue and delivery of the updated campaign. I don't know if its me or I'm just misremembering it, but I felt Arkantos had a much better commanding presence with his original voice actor. Now he just sounds off. Don't get me started on Gargarensis. He just sounds all kinds of wrong, his evil poetry doesn't read the same. Also, the achievements are a problem too. So ridiculously overly difficult. I'd be forced to play the game forever just to get most of them. Not really worth it in my mind sadly.

Overall, I'd rather play the original on PC, not as many issues there. But at least I still have the original disc if I ever want to go back.

Let's switch this up, Crimson Skies is an arcade-style flight combat game. One that, in my mind, is one of the few alt-history settings I'm still actually interested in post-TNO and what it did. More on that, but not too much, later. Right now, it's the Fortune Hunters' time!

You play Nathan Zachary, ace fighter pilot and ex-playboy who leads a band of merry sky pirates, the Fortune Hunters, in an alternate 1930s America that has split apart following the stock market crash of 1929. In this Balkanized United States, conflict is ever present and railroads and highways are no longer safe for travel and trade. Which means zeppelins have become the new means of import and export and that's opened the path back up for the cutthroats of the world to start a new golden age of piracy!

I love planes, and Crimson Skies offers so many to choose from. All of them wildly imaginative in design, from reverse construction with the propeller in the back, to planes with rear turrets in their tails, bi-wing design or whatever crazy stuff you can think of.

If nothing else, Crimson Skies drew me in with its cast of colorful characters, pulpy action-packed storyline, and damn good dogfighting action. Seriously, so of the most fun I've had flying the unfriendly digital skies was in this game alone. I've pretty much measured every flight sim and air combat game by its metric. If it's not nearly as fun as Crimson Skies, it isn't worth my time.

The game did get a sequel, on consoles no less, which is backwards compatible, even better. High Road to Revenge is indeed a great game... however, it's downsized. The cast of Fortune Hunters is cut down to three, which includes Nathan, so it's more like two. It's not nearly as long, there aren't many returning characters or factions, and frankly it's just more simplified in its roster of planes and upgrades. It's a good game, but its not the original, which is nowhere to be found on any console, remastered or otherwise. It's not even on steam. If you can get a physical copy, good for you. Probably might cost you a bit though. But the truth is, if I ever want to play Crimson Skies' original entry ever again, I'll need to get a new PC.

I don't even understand why there hasn't been a new entry in the franchise. Microsoft just lets it lay there on the shelf, practically abandoned. I wanted to see what this world's WW2 would've ended up looking like. Can you imagine how a United States with such divided ideologies would end up like? Trust me, something like THAT would be worth exploring.

From a past that never was, to a far future in space where none can hear you scream and if it bleeds we can kill it. Aliens vs Predator 2 is the pinnacle of either franchise in shooter form. There have been many games since featuring both the xenomorphs and predators, but none have ever reached these heights since.

Playing as a Marine is perfectly fine for those just looking for a solid FPS experience, but it's really only the tip of the iceberg. Being able to play as the Alien, facehugger to warrior brings an entirely new dynamic to the game as you become primarily focused on stealth more than anything. Similar to the Predator, but you have more weaponry and other abilities that switch things up considerably.

Each campaign had its own feel to it, following branching paths of the same storyline. Everything you could ever want out of these franchises is here. From the Marines' assault rifles, to the Xenomorph being able to skewer enemies with its tail, to the Predator's plasma cannon and thermal vision. And each of them feel powerful in their own right.

While I can always pick of the eventual sequel to this that came out on consoles, it's still not the same. Something about this entry just feels the best of all of them as it wasn't too reliant on nostalgia and fanservice as others. It was just focused on telling a story in this world, helped along by the Aliens vs Predator comics that were so prevalent around this time. Don't take this as me complaining about how Disney owns both IPs now, its not. I just recognize that, at the time, games based on big IPs weren't as concerned about recreating moments you're familiar with. They were concerned with getting the feeling down.

I really don't want this to sound like I'm complaining, so I'm making that clear. AvP2 just wasn't worried about reminding you why you liked these two franchises because their place in pop culture was more recent and known to the target demographic. Regardless, maybe we're starting to see a resurgence. The success of "Prey" and "Alien: Romulus" proves there is still life in these franchises, and maybe they'll actually meet up again in the future. Although if they do, one would hope they follow this game's lead. Send in the Marines! Come on, it's been decades since an Alien movie has featured the Marines! Disney, you have James Cameron on payroll now! Ask him to make the next AvP movie with the Colonial Marines once he's done with Avatar! Come on, give people an excuse to release a new AvP game or at least remaster the old ones.

Freedom Force is a comic book lover's dream, a top down RPG in the vein of Diablo but starring Superheroes, in a Silver Age 1960s ripped straight out of the panels. If you love classic comics of the era, whether DC or Marvel, Freedom Force checks every friggin box.

There are so many awesome characters in this, it's hard to pick a favorite. Minuteman, the leader of the team. A clear stand-in for Captain America, save for the fact he's not actually a frozen WW2 Soldier, but an aging scientist who worked on the Manhattan project, revitalized into a younger version of himself with twice the strength and patriotic bravado because an alien chemical landed on him. Yeah, it's basically that sort of game throughout. The Any is basically Spider-Man, but he got Ant powers, again, because of alien chemicals. Man-Bot, former playboy, got in an accident, hit by the chemicals, forced to live in a metal suit forever. You get the picture.

You work your way through chapter after chapter fighting a variety of bad guys and enemies in various scenarios that you could've found in any of the comics of the 1960s. There's even some cutscenes done in the style of those old comic books. Your powers even make the same sort of sound effect onomatopoeia that is so connected to the medium. It is very clear the creators loved old comic books. Oh by the way, Ken Levine of BioShock fame worked on this, just to let you know.

There was an expansion, this one featuring time travel, where the heroes go back in time to stop Nazis from re-writing history. It introduced some new heroes, including my two favorites, Green Genie and Tombstone. The former, a fun loving Muslim-girl whose powers have granted her reality warping powers and green skin. The latter, a wrongfully accused man who was executed in the electric chair just as the alien energies struck the power lines. Turning him into a badass skeletal specter who punishes the guilty. He might be a little out of place in the Silver Age, but damn it if he isn't cool.

I don't play a lot of games like Freedom Force, the Diablo-Style mechanics can be overwhelming. But it had a number of features that made it easier to handle, such as pausing the action to plan out attacks. This made the gameplay a lot more accessible but no less fun, as picking the right team of heroes and upgrading them effectively to face any foe was pretty much half the fun. It's been forever since I've played the game, but I still remember the joy I got watching Minuteman clock a goon in the face straight up before shouting "FOR FREEDOM" at the top of his lungs.

If only they had made a sequel, they would've expanded out to future comic book eras and added even more heroes and villains based on those periods. Sadly, while it is on steam, it's not on consoles and probably never will be because it's not exactly the most well-known superhero game out there. I don't believe in this "superheroes are played out" nonsense people claim is going around. That's simplifying cultural shifts in my mind. There's always going to be a place for superheroes, in films and games.

I just wanna watch Green Genie change some dude into a flower vase while Tombstone shoots a goon with his dual blaster guns. Is it weird I ship them? It's probably weird I ship them together.

Alright, time for another alt-history and RTS game, this one a bit more interesting in my mind, as its about the Soviet Union, recognizing its about to die and can't sustain itself, makes the Cold War go hot, invading West Berlin before the rest of Germany and Europe. Finally taking the war to the shores of America on the very day in our timeline when the Berlin Wall was supposed to come down.

My version of the game is played exclusively from the American perspective, leading company of US Army Soldiers as they tried to turn back the red tide as it sweeps through Washington State. The ultimate goal being to take back Seattle before America and Russia inevitably turn this conflict into a nuclear one.

There was an expansion I never played because I rarely care about playing the obvious bad guys. Soviet Assault gave the game more missions from the Russian point of view and greater towards the larger conflict. You don't actually change the outcome of the campaign, this doesn't add a new ending, as the Soviet missions play out parallel to the American ones. But they got a long way to showing a different side to the events unfolding in the story.

For me, World in Conflict was a seminal game and a core memory, important to crafting my ideas concerning how to tell a war story. It had some of the most exciting missions and gameplay in an RTS, focusing purely on commanding units rather than base building. It kept the action fluid and constant. And it made you very careful about which units you ordered into the fight and how you used them.

The real fun part was when the game let you go all out with artillery and air strikes. That was the big draw honestly. If you accumulated enough combat points and did well enough in objectives, you'd gain access to powerful strike capabilities that could turn the tide of battle. Napalming Soviets on the highway or targeting occupied buildings with surgical airstrikes is supremely satisfying. And with how often enemies will get in close, you will be shouting "Broken Arrow" more often than not.

I'm pretty sure every current edition of the game is packaged with Soviet Assault, completing the overall experience. All I know is, without a proper PC rig, I cannot run the game anymore. So I'm locked out of one of my favorite RTS games with one of the best campaigns I've played in a long time.

They say every time you mention this game, someone, somewhere reinstalls it. I can believe that, it's just it's never been an option for me for a good while. Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines is just one of those RPGs that manages to succeed despite itself. Not because of anything it fails at, but because its development was screwed and it was released in such a sorry state. Fixing it proved to be more than a little difficult, but fans pulled through and have been consistently adding onto the game for years since, long after the license has expired.

For me, this was the one time in my life I actually wanted to play as a vampire. When it comes to supernatural creatures, vampires are always last on my fantasy list. Bloodlines somehow managed to make it something worth playing, by abandoning some clichés, enhancing stronger tropes, playing around with the mythology and actually making the Vampires interesting as a species and culture. I tend to better respect something that can defy my usually and admittedly steadfast and stubborn edicts. If you can somehow get me to like something I'd otherwise hate, you have my respect forever. That's Bloodlines, it made being a vampire fascinating.

Not because Vampires were all powerful or anything, but because they were all so deeply fucked up. The game blatantly admits that vampire society is basically full of scheming, conniving backstabbers. That they're all absolutely terrified of their own disease that gives them so much power and are constantly fearful of being extinguished. Their entire society revolves less around controlling the world, and more around just surviving by any means necessary. It's a sad existence, but they don't really have a choice. It's this or damnation. And even then, they're all still worried about a possible coming apocalypse that will spell unspeakable doom. And you, as a fledgling vampire, get caught up in the middle of all this, as a pawn of various factions and individuals, all out for each other's blood. At the end of the day, your job is the same as everyone's, survive.

It's a unique take on vampires, basically admitting that you're a blood-sucking parasite and you're probably on borrowed time. Best you can hope for is to try and make it to the next sunset alive. And seeing how all these different vampires deal with the reality of their existence, none of them really good, but not exactly evil, humanized them somewhat in my mind.

And yes, fine, Jeanette Voerman is super hot and I love her and all that. I really love her and her sister's storyline. Her school girl outfit and pony tails did things to me, whatever. I'm not going to lie about what I am, but I would prefer not to be mistaken for a stupid gooner gamer. I played this game several times over for a lot more reasons than just Jeanette you know.

I also really liked playing the Malkavian for the funny dialogue.

Obviously, since it has no console release, I can't play it anymore. And it looks like the long gestating sequel is going to be an entirely different animal that is slowly losing my interest as more about it is revealed. I don't even know if Damsel is still showing up or if I can customize my character at all anymore. And that's if it even comes out. Next chance I get to play this game, I'm going to do my first playthrough with something other than a Malkavian for once. My original playthrough was with Brujah, which was fine, and I prefer being a Malkavian overall. But I think I need to try something new for next go around.

And maybe fix the dialogue fonts too, they never appeared how they were supposed to.

I don't know why we keep trying to colonize Mars when it's just gonna cause problems. All the video games say it will. Red Faction was one of them. Sold on the very exciting concept of being able to destroy the environment around you to create shortcuts or take out enemies, Red Faction was a kickass shooter about rebelling against corporate tyranny on Mars.

Created by the dudes who would later go on to make the Saints Row series, Red Faction might have otherwise been an average shooter was its environment destruction mechanic not its focal point. Being a miner on Mars gave you access to a lot of explosives, honestly the Ultor corporation should've seen this coming. So as a result, within the very first level of the game, you're already blowing up walls or busting through floors to push forward. Before long you'll be doing the same to take out towers, bunkers or maybe just get past a locked door.

Don't get me wrong though, it is a fun game. I've taken a lot from it honestly and the idea of fighting corporate tyranny never gets old. I just recognize that there isn't much else that separates it from other games of the era. Although it took some seriously crazy swerves. Fighting an evil psychic-enhanced mad scientist and all his creepy mutant creations was not what I was expecting to take up a good portion of the second act. Let me tell you.

It's been so long, but a lot of the game still remains fresh in my mind, even if its less gameplay and more specifics. Really though, none of the other Red Faction games did it for me in the same way. The Rebels became exceedingly unlikable come "Red Faction Guerilla" and the actual Red Faction 2 is not at all connected with this one. Strangely, I could play this game again without the PC, it's on the Playstation 2, which I have. I just haven't gone out of my way is all. I suppose its because it's never been more core console. I am an Xbox gamer. I know, a lot of you probably want to call me scum right now. I get it. But I still love the system, nothing you say is gonna change that, no matter how crappy the company can act. It's not like they're the only ones being dicks in the gaming market today.

Just to be clear, this is the whole series, which are too many to really name as of now. Getting into all of them would take too long. Let's just say, C&C had a huge impact on me and it has not left me since I first played around in their worlds.

From fighting the Brotherhood of Nod and it's seemingly ageless charismatic leader Kane, to thwarting psychic megalomaniac Yuri in Red Alert 2's expansion pack, I am intimately familiar with the series' ins and outs. As well as its highs and... lows. Real big lows.

Let's not mix words here, EA fucked this series. It fucked it so hard. They wanted to turn it into an E-Sports game to rake in Starcraft money and it failed so hard. They ruined the Tiberium universe with the fourth entry. Cancelled the Generals sequel outright. And Red Alert 3, while perfectly fine, is pretty much just so ridiculous that you can't take any of it seriously. Granted Red Alert 2 already made that half of the universe less serious to begin with, the Soviet campaign had you turn the Eiffel Tower into a Tesla coil. But there was still a semblance of taking the material seriously beneath the B-Movie charm.

I still have a love for the various entries though. Red Alert 2, Generals, Renegade, (Who would've thought you could make an FPS out of an RTS?) each hold a place in my heart one way or another. I just wish I could try to experience the games again from the start. Don't get to though, no console release, not even for the remasters. I still have my box set for the original four games, the Renegade CD, Generals and its expansion (Although I'm not as fond of said expansion because its campaign's story is ridiculous... even if currently plausible thanks to certain recent events) and of course there's Yuri's Revenge, which really cranked up the silliness before Red Alert 3 came around. All the same, good series in its heyday. Wish EA hadn't basically destroyed it like it does most games and studios it touches. Let's keep hoping BioWare doesn't join Westwood in defunct studios owned by Electronic Arts. Mass Effect 4, you are our best hope now.

"Cause No One Lives Forevvvvveeeerrrr! But evil never diiiiieeeesssss!"

Cate Archer is not only one of the most awesome/hottest fictional spies out there, she is also one of the least well known. Its unfortunate that her series faded into the background, but I suppose that's the consequence of the shooter boom post Half-Life and Halo.

However, that doesn't diminish what this game accomplished, creating a wholly original spy thriller that somehow was able to keep the camp without sacrificing the seriousness of real-world espionage. Sure, Cate uses a robot poodle to blow enemies up, but she's also a consummate professional dealing with 1960s sexism in a field dominated by men. I'm sure today grifters would be complaining this thing was "Woke" or whatever. Or maybe they wouldn't care because Cate shows off her boobs while wearing a tight spandex spy suit. Who can say?

All I know is I had a blast whether sneaking or fighting in both entries. And I enjoyed how much it paid homage to the classic spy movies of the era without ever feeling crass or cynical about them. It played itself straight at all times, even when the dangerous menace that threatens is using a weaponized chemical agent that makes you burp a lot before you explode violently, killing yourself and everyone.

Yes, that is real. The sequel makes you fight mimes while escaping on a tiny bicycle. Also ninjas.

You laugh, sure, but it's still fucking cool. Don't expect a video game now, let alone a shooter, to ever be allowed to have some fun anymore. I'm more than positive someone out there would claim this type of silly pulpy humor would be cringe or whatever. Maybe Cate's eventual reboot will be some hyper-realistic spy simulator that takes itself extra seriously and removes anything funny from its story. All in favor of increasing the edge super high because its the only way you'll take Cate seriously. Women aren't allowed to be funny anymore, look what happened to She-Hulk. She cracks a few jokes and dances a little, suddenly everyone wants her head on a pike. They even predicted it would happen! How you think Cate Archer having a little fun with her killer robot poodle or weapons disguised as accessories is gonna be treated? Not well, I can tell you that!

Maybe I'm overexaggerating some. Point is, No One Lives Forever was a franchise gone too soon. I wish someone would try to bring it back in some form. Maybe Nightdive has it on its Radar. I suppose we'll have to wait and see. Until then, I won't be playing it. Just waiting for a chance to.

Time to get into a theme here, starting with this one. Company of Heroes was a top down RTS game that followed various branches of the US Military as it worked to retake France from Nazi Occupation. From D-Day to the Falaise Pocket, it recounts the struggles and triumphs of the first step to liberating Western Europe.

This holds a special place in my mind because... I never finished it. I got to the last level, the last mission... didn't finish. And because my computer crapped out, I probably will never get to finish.

Company of Heroes has had other entries, but this is the one that I care about the most, as over time I feel it has run into the trap so many of these RTS games do now. The sequel that took place on the Eastern front with the Russians drew criticism for seemingly demonizing the Russians you were playing as for their, historically accurate, brutality against their enemies. The third game decided it was going to frame its single player campaign on the German side of things... while trying to pay tribute to the indigenous population they committed war crimes against.

Ok... what? You want me to play as the guys who did war crimes? I already don't like playing as Germans in WW2, it always leaves a sour taste in my mouth. But... I gotta tell ya, RTS games let you play as Nazis a lot more often than should be normal. Disturbing, I was instantly turned off of the third game, needless to say. If the only real narrative campaign option I have is the fucking Germans, you've instantly lost me. You could've let us be the British, but nah, just play as the fucking War Criminals I guess. Sure there's another campaign where you play as the Allies taking Italy, but that's an entirely different sort of single player experience that is much more free flow. I'm talking about the narrative campaign that I usually pick these up for.

Company of Heroes, the first one at least, knew better than to try and make us play as the fucking Nazis. Its cover system for your squads was engaging, the units themselves diverse and interesting, and the tactics involved in how to use them effectively were fun to figure out. I did bust through the various levels after all, I had a ton of fun getting through the game. I just... never got the chance to finish it is all. Sucks, I know, and I just want the chance to properly finish something I started. I don't like leaving things unfinished.

Alright, we're down to the real good stuff now. The games that cemented my status as a gamer. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was one of my first full-fledged shooter titles. Given its release timing, I likely played Halo on Xbox first, but that hardly changes things. All I know is that this game spoke to my history nerd so hard. I needed to experience it, I was not disappointed.

I think Allied Assault was special to me because it proved how cinematic games could be. Yes, the D-Day mission is straight out of Saving Private Ryan, but a lot of it was like that. The music, the action beats, the in-game animation, it all just expressed this incredible aura. Like I was starring in my own adventure. That I was a part of history.

That's what worked so well for me, that it completely pulled me into this period in time. Infiltrating submarine bases, moving up Omaha Beach, pushing my way through sniper alley, stealing that tank and using it against the Germans, all to an epic score I can still hear in my head.

The game of course had two expansions, extra missions covering other aspects of the war in Europe. Spearhead and Breakthrough were both excellent additions in their own right. The challenge was at times frustrating, but ultimately rewarding. And while Medal of Honor couldn't survive the transition to modern shooters like CoD did... I'm kinda happy it didn't. I don't think I would've liked Medal of Honor sacrificing its heroic optimistic outlook and production values to become what Call of Duty is now. A dreary, hyper monetized, cash cow that can feel exceedingly soulless in the face of how many studios are slaved to making its multiplayer maps. We can only hope Raven will one day be free of those mines.

I suppose there is merit in better showcasing the horrors of war, but CoD has just completely slipped in to a very right-leaning outlook on a lot of things, torture especially, although that is by no means unique to it alone. Medal of Honor always felt like it was more balanced. That war is hell, but there is still inherent true heroism to be found within the horror. Perhaps it hasn't all aged perfectly, and its own brand of patriotism can be tiring, even misguided. But I appreciate the series for shedding a light on the sacrifices made to defeat the greatest evil this world has ever known. I wish more people today were as willing to take a stand against similar ideologies, especially since similar ones to the Axis powers have become so prevalent today.

I just miss when games like Medal of Honor tried to share history with you, as much as anything else. And help place back in another time, to help us understand what it was like. And I really wanna hear that music again, okay? That shit was fucking kickass!

Call of Duty wasn't always the shooter juggernaut. It wasn't always the biggest franchise in existence, released annually like Madden to keep the multiplayer shooter scene satiated. It wasn't always stale and desperate and edgy and bereft of anything original. I hear Raven actually managed to make the new Black Ops at least a little less formulaic at least, good for them, hope they can get to do their own damn games again soon.

Back when CoD was just starting out, it had one mission, to illuminate the lives of those who fought in WW2. Not just Americans, but British and Soviet soldiers too. Trying to show everyone that wars are not won by singular individuals, but by scores of people risking everything for the homelands and the people beside them.

And it worked. We got to experience being an Airborne Paratrooper, an SAS Operative and a Russian Conscript. Each of the fighting on their respective fronts to bring final victory in the most devastating war known to man. It was a fun and engaging game that never got stale because you were always shifting perspectives, you were never static or in one place. There was always something different waiting around the next corner. It felt like a breath of fresh air in a sea of steadily increasing WWII titles that even by then were getting a bit much.

As CoD went on, it adopted more and more of its less savory aspects. Focusing more on multiplayer, single player getting downplayed, formulas being overdone, things just not working out the way they were supposed to. CoD got further and further away from its origins, now it practically own the FPS scene to the point it has become stifiling.

I barely play CoD games anymore. The only time I purchase them is when they go back to WW2, hoping to capture the same magic again, never really managing. I can technically still play the first CoD. It's on my Xbox 360, released under the arcade titles. However, you can't get that anymore with the 360 store closed down, so the rest of you are out of luck on that front. But I can't play the expansion, United Offensive, which I guess is why it's still here. I'm locked out of the full experience for the first Call of Duty. And that's sad, it really is. Maybe one day, that won't be the case though, we can hope.

Of all the games I've talked about, this one, right here, is the most important in my mind. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is the single most important game in my life, alongside Halo and Medal of Honor, as I played each in very quick succession of each other. But RTCW has always held a huge place in my heart because it spoke to me on so many levels that have become synonymous with how I view gaming even now.

Sure, there are stealth sections that can be a pain. Sure some enemies can be cheap as hell. Sure the challenge can be overbearing to the point of madness. But I replayed this campaign from start to finish on my PC more times than I can count. That's how damn good it was.

From the second I woke up in the castle dungeon and knocked out that guard, I was hooked. I made it my mission to try and sneak around, not get caught for as long as possible. Generally so I could over hear the Nazis in the next room going on about stuff. When it was time to go Rambo, I did so. Kicking in doors, blasting off a stolen MP-40, raining lead down from on high before finding a plate of delicious food to eat to heal me up.

This was, in my mind, the pinnacle of gaming. It was like Indiana Jones meets Captain America, it was everything I ever wanted. The supernatural elements, the crazy mad science, the kick ass weapons, that scene at the rocket plane airbase, when the elite Nazi paratroopers drop in, that was fucking cool from start to finish. Everything about this game made me smile, I loved it that much.

I was a fan of the Wolfenstein franchise from then on... until Bethesda and Machine Games broke my heart with that insult of a reboot. The New Order, in short order, killed the series for me. It's alt-history storyline was a complete clusterfuck, it's characters pissed me, its weapons weren't all that fun to use, and they literally stuck a middle finger up at the previous games in the series. First by dismissing any supernatural elements from the story outright, then by releasing that godawful Old Blood stand alone that was nothing more than them redoing RTCW's story, but worse.

I hate what they did to the series. I hated what it did to me more. I became so bitter and angry. By this time, my desktop computer had already given up the ghost, so I couldn't go back and play it again to wash the stink out. I had to get the game's original Xbox release just to be able to play it again! I needed to play it again just to remind me what had been lost.

So yeah, this is the one game on this list I really can still play in full, but I miss playing it still. As much as I love that the Xbox version is there and even has some improvements on the PC version, it's still not the same, it doesn't feel the same. And that's why it's just a substitute. Yeah, I can play it, and enjoy it on console. But I do still feel I'm missing some only the PC version had, sadly.

Well there it is, a small stroll down memory lane. Hopefully this brought some memories back for yourselves as well. I know this probably isn't my most insightful post. But maybe it gave you all a better idea about me.

We'll see what the future brings. Maybe I'll get a computer that can run these games again. We can only hope. Until then, I'll keep waiting to return to my old stomping grounds.

#video games #return to castle wolfenstein #medal of honor #call of duty #no one lives forever #red faction #world in conflict #command and conquer #crimson skies #age of mythology #empire earth #company of heroes #aliens vs predator 2 #vampires the masquerade bloodlines #Jeanette voerman #Freedom Force #nostalgia #I expect to get in trouble for my thoughts on the new Wolfenstein games. Never fails to attract angry people to me.

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rjmhereunderprotest · 8 months ago

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Ah, I see that Kamala's shitty new friend has turned out to be just as shitty as telegraphed and has betrayed her to the new villain. Once again, proof that getting forced into X-Men bullshit has only imposed relationships onto her with some of the absolute worst people in Marvel comics. But then again, this is an Emma Frost disciple, what did we expect? Anyone who follows HER teachings and philosophy is bound to end up being a complete backstabbing bitch.

Kamala deserves much better than being forced into shitty X-Men drama. I hope someone with sense prevails eventually and retcons the stupid mutant crap out of her DNA soon enough.

NYX #4 (2024)

written by Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly art by Enin Balam & Raul Angulo

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rjmhereunderprotest · 9 months ago

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Only Human: Species Bias in Fantasy/Science-Fiction

Let's get the premise for this little essay out of the way now: Humans are Boring. They are the most overused, overemphasized, overdone, overrated race in any fantasy/sci-fi setting. And I'm honestly SO tired of it. And by that I mean, humans, and human-like races, are consistently the primary characters of any story. Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, they're all overdone to death, but Humans? Those other races are generally just derivatives of them anyway and they are constantly placed into the primary focus of any story. Often to its detriment in my mind. We always complain about how we want other perspectives, different heroes, different narratives, but we always default to humans and frankly its gotten stale. For me, it's become even more so the longer this has gone on. So in a follow-up to my entry about Monster-Narratives with Sarah Kerrigan, let's talk about humans and why they're so goddamn boring.

Disclaimer First

I am not saying ALL human characters and ALL human centric stories are boring. I can name many a human character who is compelling and interesting and deep. My problem isn't humans as a central POV, my problem is when given the option in a setting to do ANYTHING and be ANYONE... a story will default to human. Every. Single. Time. And worse yet, they'll even make Non-Human races more human like.

Besides the aforementioned Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits, a lot of alien or fantasy races can end up just being humans with a slightly different coat of paint. You don't need to look any further than a lot of monster girl fiction, which has universally decided that you can just have any human woman put on cat ears or pop out a fox tail or grow some wings and presto chango they're a monster now I guess. It's cosplay, nothing more. No one actually has the dragon BE a dragon i full. They have to look like a human somehow.

And let's be clear here, the reason for this is obvious. Write what you know. Everyone knows how to be human, so it's easier to just WRITE a human. The perspective will ring more true if you know what a human is and can properly depict them. And since everyone is human, everyone at least has an idea of how they're supposed to be. I'm not blaming anyone for going to the default option on this, it makes sense.

But all across media there exists multiple opportunities to actually present a perspective or allow someone to step into the shoes of something that isn't human. That isn't just a derivative of humanity. That is truly foreign to them. Sadly they rarely take the chance and when they do... well, a lot of the times it falls into some bad writing clichés. Before we get into some of the main offenders, let's address one of said clichés of the bat to better understand why human centrism in genre fiction can lead to some terrible ideas.

Planet of Hats

The Planet of Hats is the well-worn concept that alien/fantasy races are monoliths. That every member of a species thinks like each other, acts like each other, builds their society around a singular concept, is entirely devoted to that particular concept, and is forever entrenched in that one state of mind forever. That is the Planet of Hats. You see it manifested in every Warrior Culture or Pacifist Society or Amazon Island or Gangster Planet. An entire people bent to serve a singular overriding "Problem of the Week" scenario to comment on a singular issue. Mostly by going completely overboard with it. And if you want to know the biggest offender of this... well, all those examples I listed come from one single IP who has done at least one iteration of those worlds over its very long life-span.

Sorry guys, it's true and you know it. For all the good Star Trek portends to be, all the progressive ideas it puts forward, for all the social commentary it has added to zeitgeist, one place it consistently falls short in is depicting alien races. How you ask? How is one of the most socially conscious and ethnically diverse franchises in history failing in this regard? Especially considering it has spawned some of the most iconic alien races in all of fiction?

Because as I just pointed out, a lot of their alien races are basically just one note stereotypes. Built around a single idea to create a "Problem of the Week" episode. This has been true as far back as the original series. Which was completely episodic and rarely if ever revisited alien races it ran across. Now of course there are mainstays and they've been fleshed out over the decades, but a lot of that fleshing out has been a result of Star Trek trying to push back on the Planet of Hats problem. And they still don't really address the crux of it.

The best way to explain Star Trek's problem lies in how one alien race was introduced to us, the Ferengi. You know them, the big eared hyper-capitalists who are best known for being the franchise's greedy assholes/Comic Relief. And boy, was their introduction a MESS.

It's fair to say the first two seasons of "The Next Generation" were... bad. As in... awful. "The Last Outpost" is one of those awful episodes where the Ferengi first showed up. Roddenberry, Star Trek's creator, wanted to evolve a lot of the concepts from the original series. The problem was he didn't have anyone to tell him "This doesn't work" The Ferengi were made to replace the dated "America vs Soviets" allegory that a lot of Trek's previous antagonist aliens represented. For Roddenberry, the real danger was unfettered capitalism. Hard to argue with that, problem was the Ferengi weren't a threat.

"The Last Outpost" presents the Ferengi less as an alien race and more like farcical clowns who basically exist to make the Federation (Humanity) look better by comparison. The Ferengi run around the entire episode, acting like unhinged monkeys, while Commander Riker struts about with his superior moral values and beliefs. At no point do the Ferengi resemble a legitimate threat to humanity. They're buffoons, made to present less a commentary on hyper-capitalism and more of a mockery of it. As a result, none of the Ferengi come off as characters, they're caricatures. Silly, nonsensical, idiots who are there to make Picard look righteous and humanity as more evolved.

Now let's not act like Roddenberry was supposed to be fair to the alien race he created to represent the things he hated. But he was supposed to make them a culture and not just strawmen he could beat up for an hour. Hell, decades earlier, he had bothered to give the Nazi Planet more nuance! And that was a planet, as stated, full of Nazis! But even that felt more like a culture than the Ferengi running around like baboons, hooting and hollering as they unconvincingly tried to pull one over on the natives they intended to exploit. Natives that the oh so perfect Federation, embodied by Commander Riker, easily protected by simple human fortitude and stalwart moral fiber.

Of course, years down the line, the Ferengi were finally developed into something that resembled a real civilization instead of punching bag. They actually had a degree of morals, not like the Federation, but they weren't entirely monstrous. Characters like Quark helped immensely in rehabilitating the image of the Ferengi without completely discarding their original characterization. But Star Trek has never really completely abandoned it's human centrism. Nor it's tendency to portray humanity in general as the "Better Way/Only Way."

Because let's be honest here, the Federation is just humanity. Sure other races are in there, work with them, and we are TOLD their customs and beliefs are respected, but be honest. How often have you seen an alien on Star Trek in a Command position? How often are aliens in Star Trek the central character? Has any captain or lead character in any Trek show ever not been a human?

You may point out Spock or Worf, and fair, but Spock is half-human and Worf was raised by humans. They're also not the Captain of the ship of their respective series. Even then, Vulcans and Klingons don't get off so easily. How many times have the Vulcans and their reliance on logic being criticized because they don't express outward emotion like humans? How many times have the Klingons had their culture scrutinized as purely violent? Yes, they've always come back around to highlight the value of their differing perspectives, how their voices at the table are worth listening to, and how there is more to them than just the warrior and hyper-logical. But ultimately, a lot of Star Trek comes back to how each of these alien races REALLY should become more human. Oh the Federation won't FORCE it on them, but they'll just kinda neg them on it. You should really show more emotion, Spock. You should really stop being so war-like, Worf. Be more human, be more sensible, conform! Why don't you conform already?

You might argue that's not the case, but it kinda is. Star Trek will always come around to how if a lot of these alien races were more like the Federation's ideal of humanity, they'd all be much better off. And it all stems from the Planet of the Hats cliché. Which purely exists to give the Federation some problem to preach about and argue against. The Federation won't conquer you to be like them, but they will kinda pressure you to change. And sure, a lot of these cultures could do with reform. But a planet existing purely to be used as a soap box isn't a culture, it's just the Ferengi of "The Last Outpost" again.

I'll sum this section up in terms that were expressed by Chuck Sonnenberg of SFDebris. Star Trek's tendency to put alien races in a box is detrimental to its world building. If Germany was a fictional race in Star Trek, it would be defined by industrial power, a love of war, and expansionist foreign policy coached in racial purity. That even after being defeated, said society would constantly be trying to claw back to its perceived glory days, never changing, just constantly being stuck in its singular mindset for all eternity. The only thing keeping them in check being the Federation of United Planets, mostly dominated by humans, who shake their heads at how awful Germans are for refusing to change and be more like them.

Doesn't that sound stupid? And if the Federation of Star Trek, the epitome of Optimistic Science Fiction, can make such a mistake, how do franchises that aren't so hopeful and cheer faire? Star Trek is an incredibly influential series in genre fiction. It informs a lot about how its done even today. If it can't help but put humans on a pedestal, even though it shouldn't because that's antithetical to its own world-building, how have other IPs faired in that regard?

Well... not good. Not good at all.

Center of Everything

I could list so many examples of humans being positioned as the most important element of any fantasy or sci-fi story. It almost feels redundant. Star Wars generally has humans as its main protagonists. A good deal of Lord of the Rings involves the nations of men being the main bulwark against the forces of Mordor. Earth is basically the most important planet in both Marvel and DC and humanity is the most special of all races out there. How many humans get to be a part of the Green Lantern Corps? Overall, humans are going to be the focus of any story. Even if they exist in a setting where they aren't the only sapient race out there. Humans get to take center stage and lead the plot. Even if they really shouldn't and they aren't supposed to and you know where this going...

I think this is probably the best example I can use to point out how Human Centrism can be a problem. Because I think enough people at this point recognize what went wrong with the live-action Transformers movies. Yeah, I know some folks keep trying to rehabilitate them, I don't care. I'm dying on this hill! They were never that good!

A movie about the Transformers should not be so reliant on the squishy humans that no one ever cared about. A series of dynamic characters who, at the point of the first Bay Movie's premiere, had carried several stories on their own despite not being human! A race of alien robots with intriguing inter-cultural dynamics, opinions, philosophies, so much character and complexity. Sure they were toy commercials at the end of the day, but no one who watched Dinobot's sacrifice in Beast Wars' "Code of a Hero" would be able to deny that the series could not transcend that stigma! The Transformers were always meant to be the center of their franchise, as they rightly should be because they can carry it just fine on their own.

Then Michael Bay showed up and decided to turn the whole series into an extended US Army Recruitment Commercial instead. I think we can all agree Military-Industrial Complex Propaganda is far worse than making kids want to bug their parents for toys. But that's neither here nor there, even if Bay hadn't been jerking off to the US Military in these movies, the problem with them was apparent from moment one. When the films became more about Shia LeBeouf wanting to get laid than the alien robots. The films excessively/progressively revolved around humans and their interactions with the Transformers. They became the primary focus more and more until they essentially took over huge swaths of the plot and narrative. Autobots and Decepticons alike, no matter how important, iconic or well-known, were very casually tossed aside and killed off over the various sequels. And no one really cared because the Transformers on both sides became so highly interchangeable and forgettable that sometimes you could blink and miss them. Remember Arcee? Prominent female autobot? Strangely split into three motocycles for some reason? Murdered to death! With only one line of dialogue!

Oh sure, Optimus and Bumblebee got to be front and center, but mostly because they got to be colors that were just a mess of greys, browns and blacks. That and Optimus is by far the most popular of all the Transformers and the face of the franchise. But if you want an example of humans taking over a narrative to its detriment, Michael Bay's Transformers movies are the singular defining example of just such a problem. And you probably heard the defenses, it gave audiences a anchor point, a relatable view, something they could connect with.

Strange, none of the fans over the years needed humans to help them connect to any of the alien robots that were the main narrative focus of countless tv shows and comics. But I suppose Hollywood Executives know better. When have they ever been wrong, right?

To be honest though, this is nothing new. Science-Fiction especially has always had a problem with positioning humans as ultra-super special. And some people could recognize it for the dangerous prospect of what it was. Issac Asimov noted John W. Campbell's tendency to position humans as the most important or superior race as opposed to others it encountered in fiction. And to Asimov, that also appeared to extend to the smaller scale of reality and Campbell's... well, let's say belief in American Exceptionalism. Asimov didn't like arguing with Campbell, so he tried to avoid using aliens too much.

You can see the problem though, insisting on the exceptionalism of humanity often denotes a general sense of racial/national superiority. There's nothing wrong with rooting for the home team, but not everything should be a competition and humans shouldn't take over every story for themselves. Especially if it isn't their own, like the Transformers. Their franchise is proof enough that humans don't have to be central element to be successful. And yet, until now, most theatrical films felt the need to involve humans in some aspect. And sadly, because of "Transformers One's" not so stellar box office performance, that belief might persist. And it will continue to hamstring the Transformers property like it does with other stories in genre fiction.

Illusion of Choice

Even if this mindset doesn't inherently compromise a story's narrative, it can still kneecap it. The best example of how involves gaming, specifically RPGs. Despite portending that our "choices matter", so often in games they do not. Because, here again, too many franchises decide that the only perspective that matters is one that looks similar to you.

Discounting the many video games that might allow you to be an alien, monster or even just an animal, because they are out there, I feel far too many RPGs can be very limiting. Does Fallout let you pick if you want to be a Ghoul or Super Mutant? No. That's only been a recent development and only for one game and its an MMO. Video games in general, when set in a fantasy or sci-fi world will default to one of the pre-approved human or human-like races, if they present the choice at all. Dragon Age 2 famously hard locked you into being a human despite the last game letting you pick your race. Now you can say that's because they had a set story to tell that needed the characters to be human. But it's still jarring.

And I think there's one instance where BioWare itself had a huge opportunity to change things... but decided they were just going to play it safe.

After three games of playing Commander Shepard, who had to be human because that made the most sense for the story they were telling, BioWare had an opportunity to shake things up. They had a whole new story, not tied to Shepard. A whole new galaxy, again, not tied to Shepard or humanity itself. And they decided to just go with another human character... again. Mass Effect has probably some of the most diverse alien races out there and even now, you can still only play them through multiplayer. The main games? Stuck with human protagonists.

I'll freely admit I probably defend Andromeda more than most Mass Effect fans. Not completely, because it does have a lot of problems, but I admire it for what it was TRYING to do. What I can't forgive is what it didn't even attempt. It could've easily crafted a story that enabled the player to pick whatever race they wanted to play as. Turian, Asari, Salarian or Krogan! Quarians! They could've let us be quarians, but NO! We are always stuck as humans, never given the opportunity to experience this galaxy through any other eyes but human ones! Even when given the perfect opportunity to do so, Andromeda chickens out and just sticks us as an ordinary human again.

It's so painfully sad. And while being given the option to be something other than a human probably wouldn't have fixed the game's other problems, at the very least it would've been looked at as some admirable. As something that tried to expand Mass Effect's unique setting and give more dimension to the aliens it had crafted.

Humans are simply the safe option. Safe to animate, safe to draw, safe to craft stories for, safe to empathize with. The second you have to do it for something that is properly alien or decisively not human, that's when you run into trouble. Because if you can't get the audience to connect with a character, it's over. And that becomes harder if the alien or fantasy creature does not share something in common with us.

It's kinda sad honestly that the biggest departure from human-based races that Dragon Age has even done is qunari. And they're technically just horned giant people. They're not exactly inhuman enough, hell if character creation teases are anything to go by, they've actually tried to make them MORE human looking for the next game.

Which brings us to a whole other issue that is pushing us further down this hole within the confines of gaming itself. For far too long now, the gaming industry has become increasingly obsessed with hyper-realism, both in graphics and design. Unique artistic styles and aesthetics have slowly been eroded away by an obsession among developers and publishers alike. A need to force characters and games themselves to be grounded in the real, no matter how fantastical the setting is.

lately, people have often complained about how the faces of game characters have gotten "ugly" over the years. The stupid among these people think its a conspiracy to get rid of sexy ladies in video games and alter beauty standards in the mainstream for some agenda. The reality is known to the smarter set of folks, who have seen the industry cultivate motion capture technology to reduce their reliance on artists to craft characters for them. Just get a recognizable face or literally anyone you can find and make them act out the lines while wearing a facial capture rig. You wanna blame anyone for making women in gaming less sexy? Blame LA Noire for proving the viability of facial animation capturing, not some evil conspiracy of developers obsessed with some innocuous message.

As a result, gaming has emphasized realism more and more in its aesthetic design philosophy. Particularly among the Triple A Games, where they seem to think that if the characters don't look real, gamers will feel that things look too old and ugly. There's no room for artistic interpretation, that costs money. No, slap a rig on some actor's face and make them do all the work. You wanna know why MJ in the second Spider-Man game looked off to you? Well that's because the actress is a real person and faces don't always stay the same and alterations to a face scan can potentially mess things up even more.

She also suffered a car accident that required doctors to reconstruct her face, but that's probably only a minimal issue since she you can't really tell the difference as I understand it.

The point is, hyper-realism has damaged gaming to an insane degree artistically and further harmed non-human characters. Because in order to get that hyper-realistic look, games have compromised themselves. Now the qunari look even more like SyFy channel aliens than ever. The boundless creativity of CG reduced to what can be produced on a budget within the make-up chair.

And I don't expect Mass Effect's eventual fifth entry to be much better. If BioWare is still this scared about letting us play something truly non-human in a fantasy setting, then they're not even going to try to let you build your own turian in Mass Effect Beyond or whatever generic subtitle they shove onto it.

And yet its doable, they can let you craft an non-human character to be the main hero. The fact Elder Scrolls was letting you do this for years is proof enough of that. Baldur's Gate 3 revealing I could be a Dragonborn was enough to convince me to pick it up eventually. Admittedly, any game that lets me be a lizard or reptile of some kind instantly has my attention if not purchase. Purely for this very essay's stated hypothesis, it's almost impossible to find any game that will let me play as something that isn't human. Because far too many games and stories prefer to just fallback on boring humans.

And yet, nothing I've mentioned so far is the worst example of this problem.

Ultrabores in the Grimbore Future

I'm not going to mix words here. The Imperium of Man of Warhammer 40k is boring. There I said it. And it's this feeling that is impetus for this entire little article of mine. In the lead up to the release of Space Marine 2, and looking further into the lore of 40k itself, I came across two inescapable truths for me.

1: Every other race in the setting was 10x more interesting and compelling, both character and lore wise.

2: Every Imperium of Man Fanboy is an Insufferable Douche Canoe of the Highest Order.

I might be overstating that last point, but it's hard to be subtle about this because I don't think anyone is going to listen otherwise. The Imperium fucking sucks! And I don't mean as characters, I don't mean as a faction gameplay wise, I mean in-universe it SUCKS. There is NOTHING admirable about this future human civilization or anything they stand for. They're objectively fucking horrible and Games Workshop itself has admitted this. And yet, despite this fact that even the most ardent hobbyist of this tabletop will admit to, you still will find more than enough Stans of the God-Emperor of Mankind who will INSIST they are the good guys. Or at the very least, necessary for the survival of humankind.

My answer to that is no. Very emphatically, NO. The Imperium of Man is not neccessary, at least it didn't have to be. It did not have to be this cruel, this dogmatic, this blindly loyal, this xenocidal and racist. It did not have to be at all like what it is, but because of the choices of Emperor himself, it is now! And it probably can't unfuck itself, because it's already fucked over so many other people within and outside its realm of control. It does emphasize the good things about humanity, it's oozes all the worst aspects of it. That's its point. That's why this universe is Grimdark. That's why it's not a good thing that humanity has become what it is in this future.

And yet, Imperium fanboys will refuse to budge. Insistent that the Emperor did everything right and it was only everyone else not just laying down and dying that screwed anything up, if at all. And while Games Workshop itself has stated the opposite, explained in detail that this franchise is satire, that you should not take the actions of the Imperium of Man as a lesson for how to run a civilization or your life... guess what the biggest seller and face of 40k franchise is?

Yep, humans.

You might think that's a contradiction, but it makes sense you realize those are the figures that sell the most. Therefore, the Imperium gets the most books, the most lore, the most focus on media outside the main tabletop. Sure they've made games where you play as the xeno factions and books with aliens as protagonists. But the majority of 40k lore is all about Humanity and it's really affected how this franchise is viewed at this point.

You see it doesn't matter how often you say something is satire or that it's aspirational. If you place the spotlight on it long enough, people start to gravitate towards it. The Imperium of Man, being the most popular of 40k's factions, is a victim of its own success in this regard. It has become increasingly difficult to separate the satirical dark comedy of the Imperium from the lore's various attempts to make them the most badass of all badasses. People like watching struggles for survival, conflict of epic scale, heroic sacrifices, it makes for really compelling drama. It also more often than not whitewashes all the bad things the Imperium does if you overly focus on all the cool shit the Space Marine chapters pull off.

You tend to forget that the only reason anyone survived the Fall of Cadia is because a bunch of Eldar showed up to help evacuate humans. Or that Cadia only stayed standing for so long because a Nekron helped out. You ignore the pointless war that turned Kreig into a wasteland, when all anyone talks about is how the Death Corps can take down Tau with a shovel. You can point out how the Emperor is in fact, for all intents and purposes, fucking dead, but when it's coming out of the mouth of a dude who's following a sadistic murder god, it's not very convincing. People always come back to this when the Imperium is involved. "So what if they suck, they're humanity's best and only option at survival. And they're fucking badass!" And Games Workshop doesn't push back on this, mostly to not piss off its fans, generally though because tried to do that once before and it backfired.

The Tau Empire used to be an up and coming foil to the Imperium in many ways. They were ruled by reason and science, not blind dogmatic faith and religious zealotry. They believed in harmony among the races, not genocide and supremacy. They had an optimistic and hopeful view of the galaxy, as opposed to the fatalistic one the Imperium had. As it stood, they were the most heroic out of all the 40k races... and a bunch of fans, mostly Imperium as I understand it, hated them. They felt they ruined the grimdark setting by being too goody good.

So Games Workshop eventually just gave in and decided to change the lore. The Tau were only like that because their leadership was essentially mind controlling them. Great, so they're no better than anyone else in this future. Wonderful. Can't have an opposing view from the Emperor's that might turn out to be a better path forward. Nah, turn them into a brainwashed cult essentially to further justify the existence of the Imperium. Forget that an earnestly good society in a galaxy that is probably fucked beyond repair is probably sufficiently grimdark since they're such a young race but probably equally doomed. We need to make EVERYTHING in this setting so completely utterly hopeless, because anything less means the Emperor is wrong for creating the circumstances that made everything worse.

And as a result, the Imperium of Man is the one major roadblock for me getting into this franchise. Now, don't misunderstand, there are things about the Imperium I like and find interesting. Like many, I like Captain/Lieutenant Titus, because he's not a dogmatic sycophant who acts like a religious zealot. I do actually like the Death Corps of Kreig if only from a history buff perspective because I'm into the WWI Aesthetic they have going on. And of course there are the Salamanders, the only Space Marines I will ever consider truly heroic because they give a shit about things besides duty and honor, as well as possess some degree of empathy for other lifeforms. I enjoyed the first Space Marine game a lot! It's why I picked up the sequel.

However, all of these points have asterisks next to them. The Death Corps of Kreig are cool VILLAINS to an extent. I don't think you can ever present them as heroes given their mindset or origins. That's true of a lot of things within the Imperium. The Salamanders are still beholden to the dogma that has consumed a good deal of the Imperium and they are not really going to do anything to break off from it. And while I enjoyed the first Space Marine game and had fun with Boltgun, let's just admit something right now... half the enjoyment of the original Space Marine Game came from this dude.

Grimskull was probably the most fun antagonist to go up against in any game. Him just yelling "Space Marine!" in his ridiculous Cockney accent always made me smile. Titus, as badass as he is, lacks quite a bit in the personality department. The sequel doesn't do much better, even if his character arc is at least serviceably good in that game. But he remains stoic and loyal, he isn't exactly a dynamic figure like Grimskull was. And be honest with yourself, that first game got real boring after you killed the Warboss.

That's the problem I have with 40k. There are so many more interesting, compelling, fascinating alien races. Sure, none of them are perfect good guys and a lot of them are downright evil... but they're at least unique! I had a lot more fun learning about the Orks honestly than I did listening to the one hundredth iteration of something super epic and cool an Ultramarine did. We get it, they're Master Chief and Doomguy on Steroids! Do they do anything else besides pontificate about how awesome the Emperor is and go on about duty and honor more than Zuko in season one? The Orks might be idiot rampaging soccer hooligans, but at least they're funny.

And yet there are far fewer Ork, Eldar and especially Tau related books and media than the plethora of Imperium related works that have overstuffed everything. And if you admit to liking anything other than the Imperium of Man, especially the Tau, you are instantly ridiculed. I would honestly pay way more money just to play as Commander Farsight than Titus. Because Farsight feels like a natural progression for Titus to take, but never will. He just can't. While Farsight will leave his government behind and strike out on a new path to pursue the Greater Good as he now sees it, Titus can't, because that would only be seen as heresy, both by fans and in-universe.

Imperium Stans will look at this picture and honestly claim this fucking sucks without hesitation. That's the degree of brainrot they give off. Calling some of the coolest looking shit lame.

I just instantly felt Farsight is a more compelling and complex character by default because of his arc. Whereas Titus will never really change much beyond what he is, a reasonable enough Ultramarine in a sea of equally super serial hardasses that aren't much different from him. He just thinks a bit more for himself.

Farsight's crew of mech piloting badasses at least have variety. But to my surprise, so many others didn't agree, annoyed apparently that Farsight was able to resist corruption of demons, baffled at how it was possible because he lacked faith in the glorious God-Emperor of Man! None of them considered that maybe, just maybe, Farsight was able to resist corruption because he's not governed by religious dogma at all. Maybe his open-mindedness and ability to reason protected him just fine! But can't have that I guess, humans have to remain special after all.

Despite everything going for him, actually retaining a proper sense of heroism, being a truly good person who wants to do the right thing even in a universe full of shit, I still saw Imperium fans giving Farsight shit over the stupidest of things. I found a video on YouTube not long ago concerning how Farsight rightfully pointed out the weaknesses of the Imperium Titan Mecha. Oversized bulky machines that are millennia old. But while scary, Farsight noted how they can be defeated and are not as efficient or effective as the Space Marines were. The comments were FILLED with Imperium stans laughing at this bit of lore, calling Farsight names and declaring that the Titans were older than his whole civilization as if that was some kind of gotcha.

Everything the Imperium uses is older than shit though, that doesn't make it better. The reason it's so old is because the Imperium does not know how to make this shit anymore. They lost the knowledge when they rejected science in favor of their stupid religious dogma. Now their old as fuck spaceships are finite, same as their Titans. The Tau can replace their losses, the Imperium ultimately cannot. And yet here were the fanboys, praising how cool and awesome the Titans were, ignoring Farsight beat one easily, had video to prove it and that they essentially sound like those weirdos who jerkoff constantly about how awesome the Tiger Tank was. Despite it being an overly expensive over-designed mistake. One that both the Americans and Russians put to bed because their tanks didn't need special parts to function or guzzled up fuel like a thirsty pig.

Treating Titans as superior because they are older than the Tau is like arguing a Trebuchet is better than an Abrams Tank. Sure, one is way older than the nation that created the other. Doesn't mean its going to last very long in a one on one fight. But because humans have to be super special and awesome in 40k, we can never point out how their various systems, beliefs and strategies are outdated and costly.

Frankly, I'm more interested in Warhammer Fantasy by default by this point. Not just because they have a full faction of lizard people, although that is a plus. But because the factions of that universe are more diverse, interesting and not as mired in adherence to the grimdark lore mindset. Even the human civilizations are more compelling because they're not all one singular entity and have differing ideologies and strategies. I'll take that over being expected to look at the Ultramarines in awe simply because they do something badass every Tuesday which will get them six more books whereas Farsight still only has two.

And I don't think I need to point out what this has resulted in. As Asimov feared, placing humans on the superiority pedestal has emboldened that very sentiment in reality. Look no further than the current fervor over the existence of a Black Space Marine and a female guardsman officer in Space Marine 2. Even with fans pointing out how both of those things are both perfectly fine in canon, it doesn't change just how much 40k has attracted a lot of racists over the years. So much so they had to change tournament rules to prevent people from wearing actual Nazi uniforms to events because one asshole did so.

If there is any franchise that truly showcases the dangers of humancentric narratives it's Warhammer 40k. Because we are hardwired to root for the home team and we've also proven that we're incapable of reading satire. Creating the perfect storm of events that leads to far too many people stanning a literal Fascist-Dogmatic Forever War Machine. And while Games Workshop has tried to get the other factions more time in the sun, I'm not sure they can ever manage to get them up to the same level of prestige as the Imperium if they keep holding themselves back from just giving the Space Marines a damn rest for a second.

Room on the Party Wagon

I don't want to make it seem like it's all so hopeless. That there's no way for mainstream audiences to overlook their inherent human bias. I do believe it is possible for non-human protagonists to take center stage in a property and remain there. I believe that because I've seen it done before. In fact, I was quite literally there.

If there is any more miraculous franchise than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I don't know of it. There should be no reality where two guys making a sketch of a nunchucking turtle for funsies in an apartment while chowing down on pizza could launch something this everlasting. And yet they did it. Ninja Turtles, 40 years later, is still going strong. And all with a lead cast made of decidedly non-human lead heroes. Better yet, it didn't stop with Leo, Raph, Donnie and Mikey. Over the years, countless heroes and villains have been added to the mythos. A good number of them fellow mutated animals, all with distinct personalities, motivations and interpretations over countless adaptations and timelines. It is truly astonishing to have been there from the start of Turtle Mania and to have never had them go away for very long.

And again, all with primary character who aren't human. How? Simple enough, people gravitated to the Ninja Turtles. They had distinct vibrant personalities. They were fun and colorful and different. They connected you to them by getting you to recognize their relatability.

There is still an interest in non-human protagonists, and not just dwarves or elves. I'm not alone in my desire to have something other than my own species take the spotlight now and then. Wings of Fire is fairly popular series that stars no humans at all for the most part. In fact they rarely show up. The real stars of the franchise are dragons, big fire-breathing dragons who all have unique cultures and perspectives that incredibly well-fleshed out and intricate. They're also not entirely humanized either, as dragons have very different morality and cultural cues from humans.

Another interesting take on things can be found in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Which, despite having him out for most of the runtime, was all about Rocket. He was an absent protagonist, but he was the primary because everything revolved around his story and towards him finally accepting his species' name and moving past his survivor's guilt. Rocket is probably the most prominent non-human hero in the entirety of the MCU as a result and that's a big deal.

What I'm saying ultimately is that there is room for multiple perspectives. Not just the ones we're the most comfortable with. Because if we only accept the experiences of those we consider familiar, we will never understand those that are other. The road to a society like the Imperium of Man is based in one of mistrust, fear and prejudice. To avoid that, we must be willing to look through the eyes of others and learn about the human experience from something that is not. That is what the best of science-fiction and fantasy can allow for.

If such genres are meant to be an escape, what greater escape can be found but one that is outside our limited human experience. We can never know it is like to fly, or swim deep beneath the sea, or see from a dozen eyes or just one. But we can imagine ourselves in that role and empathize with that which is alien to us. If we limit our fantasies then we limit ourselves, our imagination, our ability to connect. If all you desire in your sci-fi or fantasy is for some big burly human with a sword, regular steel or chainsaw, to murder orks and aliens, then that's fine. But there are others among us who don't want such arbitrary limitations. Humans are not boring by nature, but picking the same old fantasies and escapes IS boring. We could do with changing things up more.

What I'm saying is, it would not hurt anyone if they just did one Triple A Title in the style of the Space Marine games but for Farsight instead. We don't always have to be the Space Marine. Notif we've be okay being a Ninja Turtle. There's room for all perspectives, human or otherwise, in genre fiction. We should be doing more to open up the gates for those experiences. Sooner rather than later.

#Genre Fiction #Science Fiction #Fantasy #Star Trek #Mass Effect #Transformers #Warhammer 40k #Warhammer Fantasy #teenage mutant ninja turtles #baldur's gate 3 #wings of fire #Humancentrism #Aliens #Dragonborn #Lizardmen #Let me play as a Quarian already BioWare!#Leandros Sucks By the Way #Pour One Out for Warboss Grimskull #That Ork was the REAL OG.

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rjmhereunderprotest · 11 months ago

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Shocking News: Ubisoft Does What Every Developer Ever Does to get Positive Free Marketing for Upcoming Video Game! Rando CHUD Gamers In an Uproar!

This has been fucking bothering me at this point, okay? So I'm using this opportunity to vent because ignorant stupid people don't know how the gaming industry works and/or are exploiting the fact people don't for clicks. And I'm so fucking sick and tired of this shit at this point so I'm going to rage for a second.

Try not to see this as me defending UbiSoft, fuck them, I have no love for any video game company ever and feel that cheerleading corporations is fucking stupid, either for or against them. But this sudden attack on them is less about actually shitty gaming industry practices that HAVE valid problems associated with them and more about the ridiculous culture war that this Space Wizards IP is trapped in. If this was any other game by UbiSoft no one would care, but it's a Star Wars game, so some idiots do care. Here's the run down.

UbiSoft recently sent previews out to various gaming news websites and major YouTube Gamer Influencers concerning the impending release of "Star Wars: Outlaws." A bunch of them got to go down a private preview event where they got free merch, hung out, played the game for a few hours, that sort of thing. They supposedly even got a trip to Disneyland out of it and a Boat Tour.

Finding out about this, every single right-wing culture warrior on YouTube instantly pounced on this and declared that UbiSoft was bribing people to give good reviews for "Star Wars: Outlaws" to convince people to buy it! Because the game is actually terrible and no one would actually like it on its own merits, and they know its terrible despite not getting to play it because... well... uh... it's Disney-Era Star Wars and that's always bad! Kathleen Kennedy made their wives leave them and shat on their rug! It wasn't them, it was Kathy! She did it! She snuck in during the night and shat on the rug! Then she took their last can of gamer fuel and broke their waifu figurines!

If you must know, the real reason "Star Wars: Outlaws" is in the crosshairs this go around is simple enough. The lead star of the game is a woman you see, a not fair-skinned woman, and people got pissy over this. How dare they not make the most basic ass video game protagonist design for this one game! Brown hair and eyes with four o'clock shadow white dudes are the only heroes that should ever appear in any video game ever, says they. "Why can't you just let us pick our gender?" they cry. You couldn't pick your gender in "Jedi Fallen Order", where was your crying then? Oh? Was the protagonist a dude there? Gee, I wonder why you found Cal Kestis being your only option as a player character okay, but Kay is an awful choice forced onto you?

So Kay Vess being a woman means "Outlaws" must be opposed, must be bad, and therefore must fail in order to stop the horrible scourge of DEI Gaming Development before all our precious white male protagonists are gone forever! Boo hoo! We don't get to play a dude in this one game out of the several dozens that will allow us to! If we don't stop this now, gaming is ruined!

And of course, anyone who plays the game and has something nice to say about it? Well obviously they're corporate shills, who were bribed by Disney to say positive things and there can be no other possible answer. No one can legitimately like a game that has a g-g-g-g-girl as the lead character! That's insane! And to prove how not sexist they are they'll list all the female characters they actually like in games, mostly all the ones that make their peepee hard.

They even went after GManLives, a respected independent gaming critic, just because he apparently played and liked the game. And they're still going after him even after he took the video down because he didn't want to deal with that shit. Accusing him of selling out his principles for a trip to Disneyland.

It's ridiculous and not just because it's a bunch of people complaining about a video game that isn't even out yet and hasn't been properly reviews. It's because critics and influencers getting special perks and shit for previewing games is nothing new. It's been going on forever.

Publishers of video games want to maximize their chances of getting good reviews. But they don't bribe people for them. They try to butter them up a little by inviting them to big marketing events, but that's just standard. You always try to give the people looking at your product a good time. Especially if they are critics with the power to sell it for you for free.

What they generally do is promise you exclusive coverage, behind the scenes details, access to developers, hands-on demos, interviews with the cast, inside information. And they provide it to the critics and influencers first who they feel will best promote and be favorable to their product at no extra cost to them.

If you decide to not be fair or NOT provide positive feedback, well then next go around they won't invite you to the big marketing event party. They won't give you hands-on demons. They won't get you access to developers or the cast. It's a major misbalance of power, but it's been a thing in gaming since forever. Nothing "Outlaws" is doing in the lead up to its release is that different.

And no one is actually hiding this anyway. Gaming websites and the influencers in questions regularly admit they were provided these previews by the publisher or developer of the game. That they were invited to check it out directly. That this is a preview that they scored under the watchful eye and with permission by the developer. They admit to the sponsorship element of what is essentially a commercial advertising something. They can't be too harsh or they won't get invited back, but they also won't withhold criticism if they find fault in something. In fact, sometimes to convince people they're not being too positive, they will force themselves to say something negative in some way to prove they aren't biased. It's usually something extremely subjective concerning the article writer's or content creator's personal taste.

Being driven out to Disneyland or given a boat tour aren't what I'd call major bribes. They're at best, the company trying to cozy up to an interviewer or influencer in order to keep them in a good mood and retain positive feedback. It's about maintain the relationship between their halves of the industry, putting on a show, treating the guys who help you sell your games right. Is it a problem? Oh yes, it very much is, it makes a lot of gaming web sites rather unreliable given how they'll go softer on a game to retain that relationship. But it is nothing new and Outlaws hasn't been the first game to do it, nor will it be the last.

And all the same, if the positive feedback as that consistent overall, it's not because they were bribed to say it. It's because they genuinely enjoyed the slice of game they were given and allowed to play around in. Even then, in those positive looks, I noticed complaints about this or that, minor quibbles, about what I'd expect from a preview event that went well but isn't ready to call it just yet.

My opinions on UbiSoft are fairly simple, they make some pretty good games overall. But they're still a gaming company, and that comes with a lot of baggage. Especially given Ubi's recent sexual harassments scandals and poor working conditions. They're not special and deserve to get ripped open when deserved. But not for letting a bunch of influencers run around an organized event where they got to play a game, get a plushie alien salamander and then run off to Disneyland when they were done. Because that's not a UbiSoft problem, that's an industry problem and one not easily solved. If you're a major gaming company, is it wise to keep giving exclusive peeks into your stuff if the news site was unfair to you? That's money better spent on someone who doesn't have an axe to grind. And gamers can hold grudges worse than anyone. I should know, I'm a gamer. I tend to hold a grudge.

Everything I've seen so far about "Star Wars: Outlaws" suggests it is, at the very least, a solid open world action game with UbiSoft and its stable of developers is fairly good at creating. And Massive Entertainment, the developer, has made some of my favorite games in the past. I believe Outlaws will be good, nothing I've seen suggests it's a bad title, let alone a bad entry in the Star Wars brand. I just don't see the justifiable reason to cry foul play here. This isn't like "Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League" where the red flags are obvious from the word go. This isn't even head-tiltingly worrisome like Cyberpunk 2077, which kept getting delayed and delayed and problems were apparent even in preview builds that news sites raised eyebrows over. Nothing Outlaws has done suggests this impending disaster. At worst, it will be a fairly okay game, but nothing that's going to completely collapse a company under the weight of its failure.

But that's not the point. This isn't about any of that. It's about a stupid culture war and it's pissing me off how some idiots are pretending they have anything legitimate to complain about. Fuck, if they thought they could get more money out of it, they'd all be lining up to go to Disneyland for Free and take a boat tour themselves. But they're pathetic, loser, dipshit little fuckwits who can't cut it as real journalists. Because then they'd have to actually fucking do real work instead of shitting out 12 videos about how Brie Larson is evil incarnate in a day.

And at this point, I'm seriously rethinking my plans here. I was intending to get Outlaws at a reduced price through some Microsoft Rewards points. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe I should just pay for most of the game or something, if only to piss off the fucking CHUDs who want to convince me it will be a horrible failure. But I don't like the idea of playing the Capitalist Cheerleading game just to own some fucking douchebags on the internet. So I'm not sure at this point. I know I don't like playing $90 for a fucking video game. Wish they'd complain more about the increase in prices for Triple A titles than bitching about Girls existing in their Space Wizards Media.

Fuck it, I don't know what I'm gonna do at this point. I just know that stupid people are given way too many platforms these days to spew stupid shit and no one calls them out on it. It's fucking infuriating. Pre-Order or don't to your heart's content folks, stop listening to fucking idiots on the internet.

#star wars #star wars outlaws #Rant

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rjmhereunderprotest · 11 months ago

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Elora & Cynder: A Triangle in the Mind

Shipping in Fandom seldom makes any sense. This coming from someone who hopelessly follows the relationships of far too many fictional people. For one, we all get way too invested in a romance that is even more out of our control than usual. We also tend to overanalyze, project onto and impose our own values concerning romance onto these characters.

And then of course there’s always the big fight that crops up, the quest to be canon. To see our choice of a pairing validated in the actual story. Because it’s the big win, it says the creators listened to you, that you had a hand in either creating this outcome or you solved the matchmaking mystery for the franchise. It’s literally people chasing after the fabled Marvel No-Prize, all you get is momentary satisfaction that your romantic preference won out.

Frankly, as time has gone on, I’ve found the desire to be canon more and more silly on its own merits. Is it nice to know your ship is confirmed? Of course! Is it extremely satisfy to watch said ship either finalize or progress? Very much so. Is it worth screaming at people on the internet over or harassing creatives on twitter or writing revenge and fix fics if it doesn’t go your way? No, never. That's the sign of a very insecure person. I was personally shocked to find out some fans of “Road to El Doraldo” hate Chell and write her as a conniving two-faced thief who betray Tulio and Miguel the first chance she gets… because they want the two dudes to get together. And my first thought upon learning that was, beside the semi-racist connotations of turning the lone native character in the main cast into a villain, a very simple question. One that YouTube Shit Poster come Professional Voice Actor ProZD, SungWon Cho, asked… “Why don’t they all just F--k each other?”

That never seems to be the answer doesn’t it? Despite the obvious resolution of just making some throuple or threesome or polyamorous/harem situation, most fans reject that option. They gravitate to singular ownership, a traditional coupling regardless of gender orientation. Mainly because that seems to be the socially acceptable dynamic. That romantic love cannot be shared and must be exclusive. Anything else is a fantasy. Not say no one likes stories that feature non-traditional relationships, it’s just the majority of fans prefer romances to be between two people. Despite all the toxic crap they cause, no one seems to want to resolve a love triangle in what appears to be the easiest method that makes everyone a winner.

I think it’s this natural affinity towards competition that gives shipping such a weird dynamic within fandom. I’ve always found it odd that no one can just be happy with their romantic preferences, they have to be made canon. If not, well, sometimes the most extreme reaction to that is disowning the whole IP and declaring it ruined forever. I can name more than a few people who didn’t just go down with their ships, but wished to torch the whole franchise as they sunk. So strong is the feeling of betrayal it seems among fans that creatives going a different way with their characters romance wise can result in such explosive reactions from the fanbase.

However, some shipping wars have an easier resolution than the threesome option. Ever since the multiverse opened up as a mainstream concept in storytelling, pretty much anything is possible now. You could just have either side of the shipping war win in one timeline over the other and vice versa. Everyone gets to win, I’ve argued this point myself, that it honestly would not hurt anyone for Felicia Hardy and Peter Parker to be a canon pairing in at least one universe within the Spider-verse. But even here, people are adamant. One ship must reign supreme across all worlds. Anything else is breaking the canon.

I just find it strange, that in this one area, it seems everyone agrees with Miguel O’Hara concerning Canon Events. Everything else is authoritarian dogma, but don’t you DARE let Peter Parker marry anyone else but this specific hot redhead!

And the Spider-verse is not alone, it seems that even the expanse of the multiverse and alternate timelines cannot stop people from putting their foot down. One Ship to rule them all and that’s where we finally discuss our subject for today, well, subjects to be more exact.

The “Spyro the Dragon” franchise is probably not the most explicit example of this sort of shipping war, but it is the most blatant in this aspect. The famous 90s mascot platformer wasn’t always an example of this, but circumstances arose to create a love triangle that exists nowhere save inside the minds of fans. The tip of the triangle, Spyro himself, the spunky purple dragon who flies, headbutts and torches his enemies while being too cool for school. The romantic rivals in question? Elora the Faun and Cynder the Black Dragon. The former, the defacto leader of a forgotten realm fighting against a vile usurper. The latter, a kidnapped dragon twisted into a villain only to be saved and thrust on a quest for redemption. Two romances for one dragon hero. There’s just one thing…

They don’t exist in the same timeline or even universe.

Elora is from the original timeline of games developed by Insomniac, primarily appearing in the second entry, Ripto’s Rage. Cynder is from the “Legend” Timeline of games, a more serious minded reboot of the Spyro series that did away with a lot of the cartoony aspects of Spyro’s world in favor of a more mature epic fantasy story. These games were published by Activision after they acquired the rights to Spyro long after the original games and their timeline were shuttered. Elora does not exist within the Legend Games, as in she does not have a variant of herself in that game’s story. Cynder did not exist period within the original games as she was made specifically for the Legend series. And she still does not exist within that timeline post its revival by “Toys for Bob” through the Reignited Trilogy. There is no reason for a love triangle to exist between these three because there are two different Spyros, two different worlds, and neither of the female characters exists within the other.

This should be simple then, Elora has original-recipe Spyro (Voiced by Tom Kenny), Cynder has Legends Spyro, (Voiced by Elijah Wood) and that’s that. They don’t even need to SHARE Spyro! They have their own continuities within the canon each with their own variant of the purple dragon hero. And yet, fans have created a rivalry between the faun and black dragon regardless.

Why? Why do something so pointless? There’s no need to fight here, even if just for fun. These are two separate timelines within the same franchise. No one has to win or lose, right? Well, not according to fans it seems. As far as they’re concerned there is only one Spyro and only one of them can have him. So again, why? What’s the end goal? What’s the psychology behind this?

Well, I’ve given it more thought than someone should for a platforming game about a wisecracking dragon. So here are my thoughts on it. It revolves around a few points, story tone preferences, character dynamics, missed opportunities, the shifting tides of copyright ownership and simple good old fashioned nostalgia, combined with the hope of seeing one direction for the series reign supreme. So let’s get cracking on sorting this out then. Starting with who these characters even are.

Spyro: The Purple Burniating Hero

In the vein of mascot platforming heroes in gaming, Spyro is fairly atypical. He’s a too cool for school wisecracking little fireball, ready to jump in and fry any bad guy or bully in his way. Also sheep, he kills a lot of sheep. The commercials said so. His personality and character is pretty just what it says in the manual. Like Sonic or Crash Bandicoot, he is perfectly fine with just chilling and taking a load off. He only throws down when given no other choice or when others are being treated unfairly. He’s not so much a reluctant hero as he’s the chill hero. He accepts responsibility, but he’d rather be relaxing. He won’t shirk a fight, but he doesn’t actively seek them. And when the fight does come he’ll have attitude and cracks to spare. He is the prototypical 90s hero, he even skateboards because presenting these characters as cool was in now.

Of course, that’s Insomniac’s Spyro. Legends Spyro is indeed a reluctant hero, a chosen one sent on the hero’s journey through three games to defeat a great evil. Over time he comes to terms with who he is, what he is and grows in power as he does so. He finds allies, he conquers foes and challenges, he reaches a point of no return and a lowest point, the whole Campbell shebang. And the fact he’s voiced by Frodo only reinforces this characterization further. He’s been called to save the world, coming from humble origins as the adopted child of a dragonfly family to the true hero of the realm. Spyro therefore has to grow in confidence, overcome his fears and doubt, decide what kind of hero he wants to be and make harder choices. Legends is a more serious story and relies more on fighting mechanics than the original games ever did. So while he’s also easy to explain, he’s not the same character. If he didn’t look like Spyro, you probably wouldn’t recognize him. He’s that different.

Keep this in mind going forward. There are two Spyros, with different personalities, different journeys and different overarching goals. Their games aren’t even really in the same genre or have the same aesthetics. Legends is very clearly a fantasy setting whereas the Original Games did whatever they wanted to do as time went on. These two different Spyros therefore require entirely different love interests if they have any at all. Because, and I can’t keep stressing this enough, they aren’t the same Spyro and their stories are vastly different in tone and style in general.

With that in mind, let’s actually look at the two girls vying for two different Spyros.

Elora: The Doe Next Portal Door

She’s a faun, you dorks, a nature spirit in the shape of two-legged deer girl. Her original look had her possess a fox tail. The Reignited trilogy decided to go full deer in her new design. Elora is a kind, caring and cheerful person. She is also the de facto leader of Avalar, and she is no push over. She does not take the invasion of her realm by a pint-sized tyrant lying down. She is proactive in finding a hero and in assisting Spyro to defeat her enemy. She is not at all in distress. She is doing her best to lead her people through a period of upheaval and support the hero she summoned as best she can. She’s also a bit of a snarker who’s capable of telling her own wisecracks when needed. Overall, like the Insomniac Spyro, she is not a fairly complex character. She accomplishes her role, being an expository character to push the plot along.

Despite this though, she’s endearing. She’s a friendly face who is more than a little sympathetic to Spyro for interrupted his vacation. And she’s fairly chill with him overall. She might have been a bit underwhelmed by his size, but she quickly got over that and became a firm supporter. Not just because Spyro was their only option for a dragon, but because he proved himself.

Elora in this respect is a very easy going love interest. She isn’t annoying or pushy, she doesn’t chase after Spyro, but she does support and admire him. She can stand on her own two hooves and she is not personally in need of constant saving. A change from most female leads in games at this time, because you’d think we’d have to save her at some point in Ripto’s Rage. Not so, she’s, once again, never the Damsel and surprisingly a competent leader among her peers.

This is what made her a well-liked character, even if there wasn’t much to her. And her affection for Spyro, while never explicit, was evident. Without getting too deep into this for now, they looked cute together, even more so post-Reignited makeover. Regardless of anything else, that was probably the biggest appeal for Spyro being with Elora. It was cozy, safe and chill. Perfectly matching Spyro’s attitude and the game’s tone itself. Insominiac’s Spyro games aren’t exactly action-packed bareknuckle stories that keep you on the edge of your seat. They’re fun cartoony platformers that are easy to pick up and play. So a romance that is fairly easy going makes sense for this sort of game. It’s the same dynamic behind Mario and Peach, except it’s a dragon and a deer-person who never gets kidnapped. It works, but it’s not going to get more complex than it already is.

Cynder: The Tortured Ex-Bad Girl

If you want a story arc with some meat on its bones, Cynder is your gal. A Black Dragon stolen from her nest by villains and raised to be evil, Cynder became a terrible horrible countryside burning dragon of death. Until Spyro defeated her, she shrunk to pint-size, and she was left regret over all the years of being a brainwashed servant of evil. Cynder has a lot to atone for to prove she’s not the same dragon that caused so much pain and she is a constant element throughout the Legend Trilogy as a result of this.

Her relationship therefore grows with Spyro alongside her character. She starts as an outright villain, only to become redemption seeking loner and then a fellow playable hero trying to save the day. While not the most complicated of journeys, it is fairly compelling in the respect that it’s a solid character arc. One that she sorta shares with Spyro, as it turns out. While she was brainwashed into being evil, Spyro potentially could be turned to Evil just by his nature alone. So they both have to face temptation and doubt concerning whether or not they can resist turning to the dark side, although in different ways.

This commonality creates a sort of bond between the two and the chemistry between them grows considerably. Cynder’s personality takes a while to develop though as its always shifting as she grows. Her final characterization, a sassy, sarcastic and moody dragon doesn’t really come into full display until the third game. But the path to getting there is at least believable and earned. Once Cynder fully emerges as herself, it is a rewarding element to her arc. Combined with her fears of turning evil and hurting those she cares about, as well as her tragic backstory, it makes her a very easily sympathetic character that players quickly grew attached to.

And it didn’t hurt that, by the third game, you could play as her and she had some cool powers to use. Fairly unique in fact from Spyro’s regular attacks, which made for an interesting dynamic between their playstyles. Overall, Cynder was just a pretty cool character with a lot of depth to her.

Given the changes in tone for Legends it only made sense that any romantic subplot would be more involved and detailed. Cynder having to overcome her fears of upbringing alongside Spyro’s fears that being a purple dragon might mean he is innately evil are interesting twists on the genre conventions. Cynder, the one in need of redemption, ends up being Spyro’s support a lot, while also having to constantly prove to herself and others that she’s not the monster she used to be. While Spyro does believe in her, the problem he faces is believing in himself and the hero he’s prophesized to be versus the villain others claim he’ll become. In their end, theirs is a shared heroic journey, which explains why the final game basically has a co-op function for two players. They are shared protagonists and their end goal is to find peace with who they are and what they are before they can finally admit to their feelings for each other.

Which they do, unlike the original games, Cynder very explicitly states her love for Spyro by the end of the trilogy. No cute little fireworks date, no unspoken glances, no ambiguity, just outright declaring your love for someone as the world goes white around you. A serious story, with serious stakes requires a greater sense of closure to be satisfying. And no one was going to be satisfied if the game did not end with the obvious chemistry between these two dragons paying off.

Looking at both of these characters, it kinda makes sense while people would gravitate to Cynder mostly. Her’s is the romance with a better payoff in the end. And yet, Elora still has her fans who still support her with Spyro. And again, there should be no problem with that anyway since Cynder does not exist in any of the Insomniac Games and Elora has no counterpart in the Legends games. Fauns don’t even exist there. So both ships should just not bother with one another, right? They have no reason to actually fight. What’s up with the rivalry?

Again it comes down to a number of factors, but a major one is very easy to explain. It all has to do with one of the fundamental forces of our reality.

Time

In terms of gaming, there was a long stretch between a lot of these titles. By the time Legends came out, the glory days of Insomniac Spyro were long gone, usurped by a number of Vivendi Universal titles that were far from beloved classics. But we’ll get to them in another topic. The point is, when Legends came around to breath new life into the franchise there was little room for the old stuff in people’s mind. The old continuity was gone and the new canon was here. Best to just jump on board because you weren’t getting any other kind of Spyro game other than this. And when Cynder is the only game in town romance wise, people just go with it.

However, Legends ended. Cynder stuck around of course, through the Skylanders era, but Spyro itself was far from its roots by that point. When the Reignited Trilogy hit though, the Insomniac Timeline had a huge re-surge in popularity. Cynder wasn’t gone from the public consciousness', but she wasn’t IN the new games at all. Because they were total remasterings, if not complete remakes, of the original games themselves. So Elora’s new cute design took center stage alongside its more romantically framed cutscenes.

Once people remembered that Elora was a thing, liked Spyro and she was a pretty neat character in her own right, people gravitated back to her. However, even though Legends was over, that didn’t make people forget Cynder. For a long while people wondered if she’d be added to the game as a skin or something. No such luck. But the point was clear, fans didn’t want to see Cynder lost in the shuffle to the ravages of time. So they had to keep her relevant in the face of Elora, who had suffered this fate originally.

And the only way to do that, especially if she didn’t appear in the games herself, was shove her into the continuity fanon-style and enact the oldest romance trope in the book! The Love Triangle, in all it’s bitchy, argumentative, petty glory. All because time’s passage flip flopped which girl got the most screen time with the titular dragon hero. Which brings us to the next reason which, more or less, is similar to time in that it deals less with its passage and more with its memory.

Nostalgia

Spyro’s games have two distinct nostalgic eras, Insomniac and Legends. And there is a bit of argument over which folks prefer. For a lot of fans, Spyro’s REAL games were his Insomniac days, a belief reinforced by the Reignited Trilogy. Platforming, puzzle-solving, collect-o-thons with diverse gaming mechanics and sections. Ripto’s Rage in particular is considered the best game of that era, the one where Elora first premiered. Like the Faun, this style of game evokes a more innocent period in gaming, before micro-transactions and battlepasses and overpriced DLC. When you could sit down and have a simple enough adventure with a fun character and that was it. That’s the era of gaming that engenders a lot of good feelings in folks. Insomniacs Games were cozy, light-hearted, funny interactive/playable Saturday Morning Cartoons. While certainly not perfect, Spyro’s original adventures remind fans of a fantastic point in gaming history that has, more often than not, been forgotten and left by the wayside.

Is it any wonder that when Reignited brought the games back, fresh and mechanically updated, alongside Elora herself, that all those memories flooded back in? So in that respect, Elora is not just a part of that era in gaming, she herself is representative of it, alongside Spyro. On some subconscious level, they’re both part of a legacy that still gives fans, old and new, warm feelings.

Legends is a different sort of nostalgia, less about games and more about story-telling. The Legend of Spyro Trilogy hooked fans into it with an epic quest, high production values and earnest attempt at evolving the character and the franchise. It was less of a simple platformer and more of a full born action-adventure title. One with gravitas, pathos, legitimate stakes, all the good stuff that makes these sorts of titles compelling. People came back to Legends mainly for the story, even if the gameplay was rather atypical at times. Not to mention it was something fresh and original. After years of franchise stagnation, of games that failed to hit the high marks the first three managed, the Spyro franchise was in a rut. Many thought it was basically dead. Then the Legends Trilogy came along to breathe new life into it, mature it out of its roots and do something different.

That’s all very admirable, but there was one inevitably problem, good stories know when to end and The Legend of Spyro had a very definitive ending point after three games. Factoring in its final entry’s mixed reception from critics, the writing was always on the wall. No matter how much fans engaged with the story, the Trilogy was going to end eventually. It couldn’t stretch on forever, the big bad Malefor would be defeated and Spyro and Cynder would have no one left to fight or torment them about their fates.

The thing about that is, once something is over, it’s very easy to grow fonder of it in its absence. Even easier when its replacement is… well Skylanders which was less of a Spyro game and more of a marketing to sell toys. Lots of toys. Toys with designs that frankly weren’t very beloved. So yeah, Legends was very quick to get re-evaluated among any fans with doubts as a result of Skylanders being around. Which only further exposed them to a game series that was attempting to do right by Spyro even if its gameplay wasn’t as interesting or timeless as the originals.

Cynder in this way represents this bold attempt at more mature storytelling, with conflicted heroes, epic fantasy quests, highly sought after vocal talents, emotional pay off and true investment in a relationship with long-form chemistry. Cynder is a hold over from a period of the Spyro franchise that was trying to be more than another Collect-O-Thon Mascot game. So it makes sense fans see Cynder’s relationship with Spyro as the one with more meat on its bones. The romance that actually goes somewhere, made you care about it and wasn’t just odd to the side in ambiguity just to seemingly give Spyro a girlfriend. Cynder was more involved, deeper and complex, and so were the games she was from, at least storywise.

If I could explain this any simpler it would be by comparing the two timelines to another pair of franchises. For many people, Spyro’s original games are like Pokemon, a solid title that was light on story that was easy to pick up and play. So what if it wasn’t always the deepest most complicated plot, what mattered was that people could have fun with it. The Legend of Spyro Trilogy is Digimon, a game that’s not going to stand out much, but its story is awesome! So what if it was just a brawler for kids like Digimon was a Tamagotchi for boys? Its story drew you in and offered some truly great characters, just like Digimon’s Anime.

And knowing that each love interest more or less represents their respective timeline in this regard this brings up us to the next reason fans have for this rivalry.

Future Direction

Spyro 4 is not exactly announced, but it is anticipated, and there’s a clear idea of where fans think it should go. Most seem to believe it will be back to basics, just like Crash 4 turned out to be from the same developers. But it’s clear some people kinda want their Legends era back, or at least Cynder. While it’s not clear how Cynder would adapt to the less serious Original Timeline, it’s obvious a little of her being a more tragic hero figure would lend the game at least SOME of Legend’s flavor to the proceedings. The thing standing in the way though is Elora.

It’s very obvious that Toys for Bob has no intention of leaving their design for Elora by the wayside. Her appearance alongside Spyro in the Crash Team Rumble game is evidence enough of that. This isn’t like last time when Vivendi Universal and Activision took over and shoved Elora to the side (We’ll get to that in a bit), no the fan response to Elora’s new design and the reinvigoration of her ship with Spyro have clearly had an impact of sorts. If there is a new Spyro game, chances are she might end up being playable. But if that’s the case, why bring Cynder along?

She’s just another dragon. Sure, she might have different and new powers from Spyro, but won’t a lot of her gameplay just be the same? That might fly for switching between Coco and Crash in their game, but Spyro? Shouldn’t fans expect, given how you could play different characters for some levels in Year of the Dragon, a bit more variety? Sure, people complained about some of those characters’ mechanics, but no one seems to outright hate them enough to wish they were gone. Elora potentially has a different moveset entirely, magic powers, different skills Spyro couldn’t do, maybe they could adapt some of her moves from Crash Team Rumble in fact.. What can Cynder really offer but just being another dragon?

Well, likely something actually. Any of her powers from the third Legends game, Dawn of the Dragon, could easily be adapted into a new mechanic to encompass her role in the platforming and such. Shadows for one could make for some interesting platforming tricks if properly utilized creatively. Perhaps she could jump from shadow to shadow so she has to find a way to destroy lights? That’s just one example, but you could do a lot with a shadows-based gameplay mechanic.

The question is less about gameplay then and more about story. Does Cynder really fit in a world like the one based off the original games? Can she work in a Reignited storyline from that timeline? Reignited brought back the chill, fun vibes of the original games. Does Cynder really belong there or is she just too foreign? It’s an ultimate question of will Toys For Bob evolve Spyro as a franchise or just replay its greatest hits? Does Cynder get to come along for the ride or has Elora already taken her spot?

That’s where the real core of this rivalry may lie. The fact that Cynder may be facing canon extinction as a result. That at best, she’ll get a cameo in the next game and be cosigned to her last appearance being in Skylanders, a fate worse than death. So the love triangle is a way to keep her involved, keep her relevant, keep her from being forgotten. Even if it makes no sense since she already HAS a Spyro and the one in Reignited acts nothing like the one she’s in love with. But that’s the issue in the end, does the series move on without Cynder because Elora gets to comeback despite not being in nearly as many games as Cynder has?

Fans wanting to impose their vision for the direction of a Franchise is nothing new, but in this case it’s about Cynder’s future within the Spyro IP itself more than anything. Cynder should be involved, in their minds, because Spyro shouldn’t forget Legends. It shouldn’t forget he had a longstanding romantic partner over the course of three games! Whereas Elora comes back in a remaster and suddenly she’s the Soulmate? How is that fair? Worse, how is it fair the faun gets to play a role in these new potential adventures while the black dragon gets left out in th cold?

Honestly, Cynder fans DO have a legitimate concern about her character being forgotten and Elora fans should know this better than most. It happened to the faun herself after all. And it was far more sudden. She didn’t even really make it to the third game in her trilogy.

Deer Crossed Out

After her prominent role in Ripto’s Rage, Elora appears one more time… in the closing cutscenes for “Spyro: Year of the Dragon.” As nothing more than a glorified cameo where she hopes Spyro will visit her and then watches fireworks with him. Elora doesn’t even appear in the special bonus stage unlocked afterwards as a character. In fact, much of her position from the second game, an expository support agent for Spyro, is replaced by Bianca instead. A magical rabbit sorceress apprentice who starts off bad and then goes good because her boss is horrible and she falls for Hunter the Cheetah. A key criticism of “Year of the Dragon” was its overabundance of new characters, taking the focus off of Spyro too often when Insomniac probably could’ve just used the ones they already introduced.

It didn’t help that, for a lot of fans, Bianca just wasn’t interesting as either an opponent or ally, as her story, in contrast to Cynder, is rather cliche in how it unfolds. To clarify here, no one "hates" Bianca despite all this. In fact, fans quite like her relationship with Hunter. But she still basically replaces Elora in the game and spends a good chunk of it as the obvious reluctant villain who will switch sides eventually. Leaving no room for Elora to develop or appear beyond her cameo just so the hero's sidekick can get a girlfriend.

Worse was yet to come, as Bianca stuck around, but Elora did not. As Bianca’s affinity for magic made her ideal in Vivendi Universal’s eyes to play the role they needed for the next game. Enter the Dragonfly is regarded by many as the worst Spyro game. Terrible graphics, stale gameplay, unexciting story, it just did not go over well with fans. So sadly, Bianca is associated with a huge low point in the franchise. Which probably doesn't help her popularity score.

Elora also didn’t appear in the game following that, Hero’s Tail instead introduced a new love interest, Ember. A pink girly dragon who constantly chased after Spyro like a more annoying Amy Rose. With an even more childish voice and even less use to the story than other companions in past series, Ember did not gain many fans for herself either. She has never appeared since and many do not miss her.

But why not bring back Elora for either of these entries? Where did she go? Why the decision to kick her out of the franchise despite her introduction being in its best game? That’s hard to pinpoint, but there are some reasons.

Mainly, as stated before, Elora’s function just kept getting filled. Either gameplay wise or structurally. Bianca became the de facto quest exposition giver, whereas Hunter is already Spyro’s friend. Year of the Dragon had so many characters taking up time that any chance for her to be playable was overridden.

They also might have decided to keep romance out of a primarily boy-centric action game. Ember becoming an annoying girly dragon that tries to force herself onto Spyro was probably a means of appealing to that aspect. And rather than have Spyro reject Elora, who people like, it was easier to introduce a love interest that was made to fail instead.

The simplest answer could be that it was a major oversight and they couldn’t work her into the plot. Elora is essentially ruler of Avalar, at the very least the only person there with any sense. The Professor is smart, but he’s a bit of a scatterbrain and lacking focus. Hunter is… well he’s Hunter, the less said on that the less I’ll have to insult him. So Hunter can show up to be the screw-up sidekick but Elora can’t play Bianca’s role and Ember fills the anti-romance angle that they don’t want to tease anyway. It was easier to just not use her and claim she’s in Avalar if anyone even bothered to ask.

So why wasn’t she in Legends? Hunter was in Legends, Sparxs was in Legends! What prevented Elora from showing up at all? Perhaps it was to cut down on fantastical creatures elements. Most of the denizens of the Legends timeline are anthropomorphic animals. Elora probably didn’t fit the aesthetic and by the time Hunter shows up the Trilogy is wrapping up. He also takes over Elora’s traditional role, given that he’s more competent here. And the typical expository mentor role is inhabited by older dragons as well. Lastly Cynder plays the role of love interest and its likely the creative team did not want to do a love triangle period. Also probably why there’s no Ember here either, although that’s probably because no one liked her.

The most likely reason for all of it though is fairly simple, as we keep coming back to. It wasn’t just that Elora’s role was filled, but it’s because they couldn’t figure out a new one for her to take. She was actually going to be playable in a Handheld game, but that part of it ended up getting scrapped for time. It wasn’t until Crash Team Bash that the very prospect of Elora being a playable and fighting was ever explored again. Elora was essentially stuck in a box because no one wanted to expand her role. And the only other thing they probably could’ve done would’ve regressed her, turning her into a damsel in distress for Spyro to rescue. While the trope hadn’t been completely eradicated yet, the early 2000s and subsequent years saw the rapid decline of “Distressed Damsels” as a story element. For good and ill, this meant Elora didn’t get the chance to find a different role and all the ones she could fill as is were suddenly taken.

It’s honestly a shame, because it feels like it would’ve been really easy to make Elora more than just an NPC. There were opportunities, but no one really took them until recently. So Elora missed out on being a bigger part of this franchise, purely because she wasn’t offered the chance she probably deserved. Much like Cynder getting locked out of the story going forward feels like a looming prospect for her fans now. Elora’s revival as a mainstay in the franchise was cemented by Reignited and the response to her redesign. Will it be Cynder’s turn any time soon?

This is also all another unfortunate reason for the rivalry. Taking it all in, Elora barely had any time with Spyro. Two games, and one of those is only by technicality because she shows up when the main conflict is over. While there certainly was chemistry and relationship building, compared to Cynder it was minor. There was a whole story arc involving Cynder redeeming herself and conquering her fears and confessing to Spyro as the world potentially ended. But Elora gets to come back because her game got a remaster and suddenly her cozy romance trumps that deep whirlwind love story?

Cynder in that respect does not deserve to be forgotten anymore than Elora. And if that means shoving her into the new game, whenever it comes up, as a love triangle option, so be it! That’s the mindset that seems to be at work here in the end. A desire for both girls to get their due, with the dragon they chose, even if he’s a singular variant from a singular timeline.

Let’s then consider, how does this love triangle manifest within the fanon and why does it even have to be this way to begin with?

Black Dragon vs Forest Faun

Depictions of Spyro’s life with either of his love interests is both similar and different. Both rely heavily on being cute, loving and adoring one another. The key difference is in the tone. Cynder and Spyro have always had a mutual hurt/comfort vibe, both needing one another for the support they bring the other. Elora and Spyro? It’s a dating your best tomboy friend scenario, a clear mutual friendship of two buddies. The ship isn’t devoid of drama, but it isn’t fed off of it. It’s not the same romance if you switch the Spyros because they don’t need what the other love interest offers.

We won’t even bring Ember into it, since her existence as the annoying one-sided crush chasing girl doesn’t offer much in the way of interesting dynamics. So let’s just focus on what each pairing brings to the table on its own. Rest assured, we’ll spare you some of the more “graphic” elements of the fandom, analyzing that won’t get us anywhere.

Elora and Spyro as depicted go on a lot of cozy romantic engagements. Sometimes with Spyro more grown up so it doesn’t feel like we’re watching two kids get together. Spyro is often depicted like one of the older dragons from this timeline, standing on two feet with articles of clothing signifying his adult identity. Mostly utilizing a red scarf I find because it goes good with purple. A lot of depictions of Elora in these scenarios have her mostly the same, perhaps a different hair style or wearing a crown to better signify her position as leader of Avalar. But even here, regardless of content, these get togethers between the two are fairly atypical dating material. They’re dancing, looking up at the stars, snuggling beside a lake or in a field or valley of flowers. Picturesque romantic postcards I’d call it.

Some people would probably call this Vanilla. But that’s not fair as it denotes a level of averageness to the content. I’d call it what it is, functional. A healthy, aspiring relationship between two people who love each other, regardless of their extreme differences is not exactly a BAD thing. I imagine a lot of people would kill for that sort of love. That level of closeness. Elora and Spyro aren’t together because they NEED each other, they genuinely WANT to be together, because they enjoy each other. That’s why it resonates, it is… once again… comfortable! A warm blanket feeling, because Spyro is a chill hero and Elora is perfectly chill right back. They get each other.

Cynder and Spyro get each other too, but because they share their pain and trauma with one another. And instead of destroying each other, it made them stronger. Both have brought the other back from the brink, pulled them away from their darkness, more than once! Both never stopped believing in each other even when they didn’t believe in themselves. The most poignant moment of their entire relationship happens when Cynder has fallen to evil once more and is attacking Spyro. He does nothing to defend himself.

Cynder: Fight back! Fight Back! Why won’t you fight back!? Spyro: Because you’ve left me nothing to fight for.

This confession instantly brings Cynder back to her senses, standing by his side in the final fight to say “There’s always something.” That is a sort of deep love that you can’t walk back. It was inevitable that she’d say she loved him after that.

As a result, Spyro and Cynder’s content, mostly set post-game itself, is about both of them coming to terms with their trauma and learning to just be happy with one another. The war is over, the battle one, they can be together now, supporting the other whenever they feel weak or helpless. Their relationship is one of a deeper bond, forged through an epic quest. One they didn’t always share together, but inevitably walked along all the same. It just presents so much more juicy stuff to work with for a lot of people who like seeing hurt and broken people fix each other. Isn’t that what love is meant to do?

So their relationship has a lot of snuggling and touching as well, but it feels more intimate. Clearly they were friends, but through different circumstances. It’s the draw of their dynamic, as redeemers of one another, Spyro of Cynder’s past, Cynder of Spyro’s legacy as a purple dragon.

But if Cyder is to go forward this can’t exactly be the same. The dynamic is lost because Spyro’s Insomniac Timeline, continued in Reignited, is NOT a world that supports this high stakes epic romantic shared healing journey. The edges are sanded down, the trauma non-existent. Not great destiny, no forces conspiring to turn our heroes to evil. How does Cynder fit in when the core of her dynamic with Spyro is forced to be altered?

It’s possible for Cynder to be a bad girl that turns good and tries to prove she’s redeemable, but we’ve already had that story, Bianca. She was bad, she flipped back to good when she saw what she was doing was wrong, and she just became a more boring Elora that was dating Hunter. Cynder would be treading familiar ground. Her reintroduction could be interesting, but it would feel samey. And even if done properly, why would the more chillax, happier, less troubled by epic destiny and temptation to his darker nature, be interested in this version of Cynder romantically? She doesn’t seem his type.

There would have to be a lot of rejiggering to make it work and prevent her from ruining her personality. You don’t want Cynder to CHASE Spyro, that would make her like Ember. Cynder and Spyro fell in love through shared experience, not competition. It would probably be better off for everyone if Cynder had a different sort of dynamic with Spyro overall. Something along the lines of Princess Luna from from My Little Pony learning to understand fun again after her tragic turn to evil. Less about recovering from trauma, and more learning how to let go of her past and chill. The end result is probably never going to be like Legends, but it’s worth a try if only to allow her to stick around in future titles.

So in the end, even if Cynder did show up, maybe it would be better if they just made her less of a romantic rival and just another friend Spyro has to help teach how to loosen up. Anything more dire and it just doesn’t fit the world we see in the Reignited Trilogy. Honestly, if people WANT the dynamic they claim to crave from the Legends Trilogy, they should be asking Toys for Bob to remaster that next, rather than try to recreate the same circumstances in an environment that doesn’t support it.

Of course… there’s always MY way.

Why Don’t We All Just F##K Each Other?

Yes, I’m reiterating this solution again. Why not just let this be the default in our minds? If we absolutely must have only one Spyro, then its easier to just enable the Purple Dragon to BE like a dragon. Why can’t he just be ambiguously dating both girls with their shared consent? One could do that without making it too explicit. I admit, the solution is unorthodox, but dragons would likely not be held down by one perspective mate. They are generally seen as hoarding creatures, Spyro himself loves collecting Gems, probably has several giant piles of the stuff by now. Why not hoard other things too? Not as possessions so much as mutual partners? It would work! No one loses, everyone wins!

Well, more or less. We still face the ultimate problem that Cynder original dynamic doesn’t fit here in the Reignited Trilogy. We will never get the same thing that draws people to the Legends Trilogy. So even in this scenario, we don’t exactly get everything we want.

Ships Passing in the Night

The truth is one can’t really solve shipping, even when the obvious answer is presented. Elora exists in one universe, Cynder another. There are two Spyros, each can have one. Perhaps if the Legends Trilogy is remastered this point will become even more moot as both timelines will have their modern day comebacks. That is a longshot though. The rights to the Legends series are a tangled mess, even if Cynder might not be. Toys for Bob has the games that were made under the Insomniac Team. They can’t exactly just do the same thing they did for it with Legends. Especially when those games were a mixed bag critically and the demand for them is relatively niche.

But that won’t stop the rivalry, because it’s deeper than just who gets to be with Spyro, it’s how people will be able to experience future games with Spyro. It’s about the direction the series intends to take and the fear of some things we love being left behind. You can’t really fix that scenario in any sense, even with the perfect solution already presented.

I think I’ve made it obvious I mostly stand with the idea that both ships work in their own way. Both are valid choices narratively. Both present different opportunities. Cynder for deep enriching storylines. Elora for a chance to take opportunities her character was denied. I can’t fault either aspiration and frankly I love both of these characters a lot. And I don’t think I’m alone, because I’m not the only one who realizes this sort of thing. Sure, there are plenty of pieces of fan content with Cynder and Elora going at it for Spyro’s affections. But the drama is low key and more than a few people don’t actively seek to defame the other character.

It’s why I mostly call it a rivalry instead of a war. The Shippers ultimately know neither side can win because there’s nothing to really lose. Not as long as the two characters remain in opposite continuities. So that’s where it will remain ultimately. Even if another game comes out because the dynamic that made people enjoy Spyro and Cynder being together won’t be the same. And it wouldn’t be fair to cast Elora aside again just as she’s gotten a second chance.

Perhaps we can learn something from this. Maybe not just turn every love triangle into a big ol’ F--kpile, but at the very least that we can be satisfied in the reality that not everything is win-lose. Sometimes, there’s not even a thing to win. No one is losing anything, because those games remain, the memories remain, and what they meant to us can carry on. Not every rivalry has to dominate the other. Sometimes, they just need their space.

#Spyro the Dragon #elora the faun #cynder the dragon #legend of spyro #insominac #toys for bob #spyro reignited trilogy #video games #shipping #All Fan Art is the property of their respective owners #I really had to search for stuff that was below PG-13 if you must know.

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rjmhereunderprotest · 1 year ago

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The Kerrigan Dilema: The Challenges of Writing from a Monster’s Perspective

I’ve always been a lover of the monster side of any story. Not just the sympathetic ones mind you, but all kinds of monsters. I know it’s cliché to say you identified with the monster in a horror movie, but for me it’s been very true for a long time. It started when I gave voices in my head to the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and has continued to the present day where I’ve probably given Godzilla more personality in my headcanon than Toho wants him to have.

There is just something about the monster that appeals to me, regardless of how sapient they are. It’s not the same as thinking the villain is the best character. I don’t always sympathize with villains, but I do sympathize with monsters more often than not. Preferably the more reptilian-like the more likely I’ll find a reason to side with them. I think it has to do with my empathy for creatures that cannot voice their own side or simply view matters differently. I look at the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” and I see a link to our past who has harmed no one outside his territory and only desires love and respect. I look at dinosaurs in the finale to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, watch them struggle and suffocate, and am overcome with relief when they are allowed to escape. I see the dragon in any given fantasy story and I ask why it has to be slayed for merely abiding by its nature?

Perhaps it’s my sympathy for animals, maybe it’s connected to things more personal to me that I’ll probably get into later. Whatever the reason, the concept of the monster character is intriguing to me, captivating even. And I’m honestly disappointed how little it is often given the perspective it deserves. The monster generally remains the obstacle to be defeated or destroyed in any story, it is rarely the hero of the work. When the monster is allowed to be the hero it is sometimes compromised by it simply being so humanized that it might as well be a human. There are very few true monster centric narratives in this vein. Nature POV Narratives where an inhuman creature or animal is allowed to be themselves.

For the life of me though, I cannot understand why video games have rarely taken the opportunity up themselves. I have longed for a chance to play a true dragon video game in the modern era for a long time. I’ll even settle for a Dragon Rider game, but the few I’ve played have been underwhelming. I’m starting to get trickles of kaiju games where I can play as the kaiju, “Dawn of the Monsters” being a superb example. One of the best monster games where I am very clearly a vicious killing machine is “ManEater”, the game where you get to play a killer shark ala Jaws. Games like Evolve died on the vine while a few isometric horror games are trying to fill its void. But they’re all multiplayer and I’ve always leaned more towards single player games.

The point is, the list of truly great games that allow you to be the monster is rather low. Not many people have honestly tried to replicate the “Rampage” formula sadly. And every dinosaur game that doesn’t stick you in the shoes of a human that hunts them is basically just a simulator where you’re less monster chowing on people and more realistic animal. And while those games certainly have a place, allowing people to experience animals as what they truly are, I still feel bereft of my boyhood dinosaur fantasy that allows me to be the velociraptor from Jurassic Park. Something that was only allowed in the SEGA Genesis Jurassic Park game and never really again.

I’ve never understood why people haven’t tried to present the typical video game story in reverse. Allowing you to be the fire-breathing monster who battles the fabled hero. Games in general are usually supposed to evoke some kind of progressive power fantasy. Growing as a dragon or dinosaur in ability and power would fill that niche. “ManEater” did it perfectly well, as did “Dawn of the Monsters” itself. It’s probably because of our innate human nature to fear the monster honestly, to want it to be conquered. And sympathizing with it or placing ourselves in its claws so to speak is antithetical to that. It’s just easier to attach ourselves to and humanize… well, a human protagonist. Or at least humanoid one.

There is, however, one genre of games that enables this a bit more. The realm of Strategy Games, which usually have campaigns that feature fairly non-human factions depending on their setting. Some are evil, some are good, some are a mix, but generally all of them allow you to inhabit a less human role and more alien mind set. And if there is one franchise that has zeroed in on doing just that, it is “Starcraft”, most specifically with its vicious alien race faction, the Zerg. Xenomorph Homages on the outside, but far more strange and bizarre in a wider context. The Zerg are generally the primary antagonists of the first Starcraft game and it’s expansion, Brood War. As a result of their terrifying conceptual design and unique mode of gameplay, the Zerg have become iconic in their own right as a dominant monstrous faction.

While their self-proclaimed leader, the Overmind, and its Cerebrates held sway as the face of the Zerg for the first game, they were both soon overshadowed by the REAL star of the campaign, Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades. Sarah was a Terran Ghost Operative, but after being betrayed by her leader, Arcturus Mengsk and captured by the Zerg, she was mutated into a monstrous psionic being. Half human, half zerg, Sarah became a vicious, conniving and brutal servant of the Overmind. That was until it died at the hands of the heroes at the end of the first game. When she returned in the Brood War expansion, there was a brief moment where it seemed like Sarah had been freed from the Overmind’s influence and had turned over a new leaf. She was now helping our heroes to resist the brutal imperial dictatorship of an expeditionary force from the United Earth Directorate. And while her methods were still brutal, she still appeared to be back on the good guy side.

She wasn’t, she was decieving all her allies. Luring them into a sense of false security before utterly compromising them and decimating their forces. The UED were driven from the system, but many Protoss and Terran inhabitants of the Korpulu Sector were massacred. Including Fenix, the beloved fan-favorite Dragoon Hero and friend to Sarah’s one time love interest, James Raynor. In response, Raynor promised to kill her someday, while Sarah mocked Fenix’s death before letting him and her other enemies slink off to lick their wounds. Kerrigan left her enemies weakened but alive, the message sent. The Zerg were hers and she’d be waiting in the dark of space for them to test her dominance once again.

That was how Brood War ended, with Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, victorious. A monstrous villain ending that left fans reeling. The Zerg cemented as the dominant force of the Starcraft universe, even if they didn’t kill everyone off at the end of the story. It’s fairly easy of course to write a monster centric campaign like the Zerg from the position of the villain though. Brood War is a good example of writing a villain winning and showing the perspective of a monster faction with relatively simplistic depictions.

Why is Kerrigan doing this? Why are any of the Zerg doing this? Simple, they’re just evil. They’re voracious, murderous, little better than rabid animals who spread and kill and rip apart their enemies because they can. And they’re all controlled by basically a mutated psionic commando who has gone mad with power. It’s simple, but it works as a story and people can easily accept it. Kerrigan is a monster, the Zerg are evil. There is no way to really say otherwise.

And Blizzard never challenged that clear obvious reading. Mostly because for several years, Starcraft remained pretty much on the backburner of Blizzard’s many projects. Warcraft became their primary franchise, mainly through the MMO they launched, World of Warcraft. Meanwhile, Starcraft floundered in forgotten obscurity, a low priority, even as fans clamored for a sequel.

Eventually, it arrived. Although not all at once. Due to the game ballooning in size and scope, Blizzard opted to essentially split one game into three. The result was that each “Starcraft 2” Campaign was turned into a separate expansion. “Wings of Liberty” would hit first, reuniting fans with Jim Raynor, as he led a rebellion against Arcturus Mengsk and his Terran Dominion, while trying to deal with a resurgent Zerg Invasion led by Kerrigan herself. Jim’s presumption as to why she was back, “She’s come to finish the job.”

For most of “Wings of Liberty”, that assumption appears correct. As Kerrigan is still a cackling, genocidal maniac who seems to have even adopted a fatalistic doomsday mindset. Apparently she suspects the return of a long forgotten evil that even she fears her Zerg cannot stop. Heavy foreshadowing no doubt. Made more clear by the return of Zeratul, the Dark Templar Protoss hero from the original game. He too has terrible visions of this evil and he warns Jim that the only person who can stop it… is Kerrigan.

Fans consider “Wings of Liberty” a fairly good game in general, but there is one hang up for many. That being Raynor’s Vengeful Declaration he will kill the Queen of Blades for all she’s done being seeimingly forgotten. In its place is a new mission, one he’s given by Mengsk’s son and prodded further by Zeratul’s prophecies. He’s going to save Sarah, not kill her. Fans were perturbed, feeling rather annoyed that Jim would so easily go back on his vow of revenge given what had happened to Fenix. Although the general consensus appeared to be that fans really didn’t like the prospect of letting Sarah off easy for everything she had done by saving her from her infection.

One can argue about the trope of putting down former love interests because they’ve gone evil or been horribly mutated or whatever have you. It’s been a major point of contension and subject of debate about how often it seems in fiction that the hero has to kill their female love interest. A prime example is the first film version of the Dark Pheonix Saga, where Wolverine has to kill Jean. Kerrigan’s situation is somewhat similar, only Jim is being offered an out so he doesn’t have to kill her.

While this topic hits on a lot of subjects that are important to discuss, (abuse, victimization, blaming victims for the harm done to them, etc.) they are probably best saved for a different essay. Right now, it’s just important to understand this mindset going in. People were very skeptical about the idea of giving Kerrigan an easy out redemption and it sorta soured them on the campaign, despite it being overall enjoyable.

For my part, I felt, given that Sarah’s infection had clearly altered her personality and mind, it was worth trying to cure her over outright killing her. And even if Raynor had once promised to end her, it had been several years since that initial declaration. Tempers had likely cooled and it was clear Jim was in a vulnerable regretful state of mind at the start of the campaign.

While the addition of Zeratul declaring that they need Kerrigan to defeat a worse threat feels a bit like its being shoved into the story to justify enabling this change of mindset for Raynor further, it still fulfills its function. As far back as Brood War, there were indications there was more at work than just Kerrigan’s ambitions and that it would probably require more than any one faction’s forces to defeat it. So in my opinion, it just made sense as set up to the eventual final confrontation with this great coming darkness that had been long gestating within the story.

Regardless, I was willing to give the next chapter of the story, “Heart of the Swarm”, a chance to tell the story it was aiming for. At the time I enjoyed it as it was a whole different playstyle to adjust to and an intriguing story that drew me further into the characters and lore of the Starcraft Universe. However, even I had to acknowledge some of the problems encountered while playing it narrative wise.

Upon watching a good deal of the campaign on YouTube in an attempt to revisit it some, I was struck a lot by those problems again. Those issues stemming from the challenges of depicting a race of monsters like the Zerg and, instead of making them outright villains, attempting to give them more depth and nuance while still retaining what they are. And frankly, it was clear it was a hard assignment for Blizzard to pull off.

So here I am to confront the challenges head-on in hopes of better learning from both Blizzard’s mistakes and successes in writing the Zerg with this new direction in mind, Kerrigan especially. “Heart of the Swarm” probably best represents why it’s so hard to make a monster in a video game, or really in any medium, a hero. As well as probably a good explanation as to why, despite those challenges, I think it’s an admirable narrative perspective to attempt regardless. One I wish more game developers and story-tellers in general tried to attempt more often.

So let’s discuss Sarah Kerrigan and her Zerg, where we will try and figure out if her swarm of monsterous alien bugs can ever truly be considered heroic. Or if monsters are better left off just being villains.

Vengeance Shall be Mine

I think it’s important to set up Sarah’s mindset for this chapter of the story, because it presents both the promise and crux of the issue overall. Sarah is very dead set on revenge from the word go in “Heart of the Swarm.” Revenge against Arcturus Mengsk, the one guy in all of Starcraft no one will EVER defend because he is just objectively evil and the worst.

Let’s keep this in mind going forward, Mengsk is the reason everything went wrong for a lot of people. He set up Psi-Emmiters around New Gettysburg on Tarsonis to destroy the Confederacy homeworld, using Sarah to do it. The results of which killed millions of innocent Terrans. He then left Sarah to die, because she had voiced criticism of the plan and Mengsk needed to tie up any loose ends. As a direct result, Raynor split from Mengsk and started a resistance group, Raynor’s Raiders, Mengsk formed the Terran Dominion to fill the power vaccum, and Kerrigan was mutated into the Queen of Blades who would then go on to kill millions more lives and destroy many more worlds.

At the end of “Wings of Liberty”, Jim Raynor has seemingly cured Kerrigan of her Zerg infection and killed his former friend, Tycus Findley, to protect her. Tycus was actually a sleeper agent for Mengsk, forced to carry out Sarah’s assassination, lest a killswitch implanted into the power armor he was trapped inside be triggered.Tycus didn’t seem to want to betray Raynor in the end, but he had no real choice and Raynor, ultimately, didn’t either.

When we catch up with Sarah and Jim, they are with Mengsk’s son, Valerian Mengsk, who is assisting the Raiders in evaluating Sarah’s condition. By this point, Sarah is fed up with being here and wants to leave because she has bigger fish to fry. Mainly Mengsk and taking everything into account it makes sense why. Arcturus is responsible for a ton of suffering and one can’t really argue that he doesn’t deserves the payback coming to him.

For Sarah though it is a very singular focus and Raynor is the one who seems to be willing to just run off with her outright. Telling her to forget Mengsk. The reasoning seems to be the same for why she’s here doing these tests. There is concern she might slip off the wagon and become the Queen of Blades again. Her desire for revenge might actually facilitate this return as it seems almost animalistic in its simplistic viewpoint.

When she talks about killing Mengsk, both now and later in the story, it feels less and less like a desire for justice and more out of pure personal rage. A vendetta that is no doubt understandable, even sympathetic given what she suffered, but still selfish. Mengsk betrayed her and as a result turned her into something horrible. She lost years of her life, became a hated monster and, seemingly at the forefront in her mind, denied her a future with Jim.

That seems to be the driving force for Sarah, the anger she feels at being separated from Jim. In all honesty, while the romantic moments between the two in the prior game before her transformation were sparse, it was clear there was a genuine shared attraction. Jim clearly seeing her as a person and not just a weapon, like everyone else had apparently treated her, no doubt endeared him to her. The fact that Jim risked everything to bring her back has only solidified that it seems.

Without that wider context in mind though, Sarah’s motivation feels rather lacking and simplistic. In the prior game, Raynor as a human had more complex emotions surrounding his choices and actions. There were a lot of factors pushing him to make the final decision to save Sarah. Not just his feelings for her, or Zeratul’s vision, but also the fact he was trying to lead a rebellion and more importantly find a greater sense of purpose instead of drowning himself in beer after beer. Raynor needed to find hope again and that story is universal. Saving Sarah and thus stopping her mad rampage without killing her, like she’s the Dark Phoenix, is his redemption for failing her.

Sarah’s goals are highly insular in contrast, she’s already fitting a more monster motivation angle even now. How do I survive? Kill the thing threatening me. What matters to me? This person I care about. Kerrigan’s thoughts revolve around her hatred for Mengsk and her desire to be with Jim. That’s at the very least how she starts out and frankly she doesn’t really move the needle too much. There is very little struggle in Kerrigan’s mind concerning what needs to be done. Mengsk must die and she must be with Jim. Her desire to get out of her containment, out of the lab, is motivated more out of the hope of being with Jim and killing Mengsk than it is with anything else.

Sure, she wants to teach Valerian a lesson about thinking he can use her to control the Zerg and does so effectively. But she very clearly takes a little pleasure in sicking her Zerglings on the sublevel of the lab and destroying his robots. She doesn’t kill anyone of course, but she still makes her point. “You can’t control the Zerg and you can’t control ME.” So Valerian might as well stop trying, let her out and let her pursue what she wants rather than remain an obstacle. She can leave anytime she wants, as she deftly demonstrates. She’s being polite by not doing so.

Monster goals follow this sort of logic, a personal primal motivation and a refusal to be confined by artificial means. These are the motivating factors for many monsters, whether hero or villain. They’re animalistic drives, far simpler in their context, more direct thinking than complex. We can see it in many a creature feature.

Godzilla isn’t stupid, he just has a very particular goal in mind and will smash through any obstacle in his way to do it. Whether it is a building or an army. Same as Kong, the shark from Jaws, the Xenomorph, the Predator or any variety of movie monsters you can name. Kerrigan’s closest cinematic equivalent is probably Jason Voorhees, a slasher villain who is basically a monstrous entity with no real greater goal than revenge for what happened to his mother and himself. There are key differences, rational thinking, the ability to talk, the overall goal in both scope and motivation, but the parallels are there.

So even saved, Sarah still seems to be thinking like her old self or at least like a Zerg. Find the enemy, kill the enemy, protect only what interests you, refuse confinement. She might have justifiable reasons to feel that way, but it can be fairly alienating if your lead character comes across as fairly selfish and single-minded.

The concerns of her slipping back into her old persona aren’t unfounded either. When Arcturus Mengsk’s forces attack the facility Kerrigan is in, it becomes clear that the Dominion Marines have been instructed with pretty much killing everyone in there if it means taking down Kerrigan. This sorta justifies Sarah’s position, that Mengsk won’t let her live and he needs be taken down. Given the lengths he went to kill her, it’s naïve to assume he’d just give up honestly.

Implanting Tycus within Raynor’s Raiders simply to kill Kerrigan was rather insane. He had the potential to destroy the Rebels from the inside, but there was never any indication that Mengsk used this to his advantage in “Wings of Liberty.” Tycus was just there to be in the right place at the right time to kill Sarah and Arcturus was willing to let Raynor disrupt his empire to maintain Tycus’ cover the whole time. Mengsk will even potentially kill his own son if it means destroying Kerrigan. This is emphasized by the fact the Dominion Fleet keeps shooting the Hyperion, despite Valerian being aboard, because Kerrigan is also aboard. Even Valerian knows this, saying his father will “sacrifice any piece on the board to take the queen.”

At the same time however, Sarah has her own one-track mindset. When she first gets aboard the Hyperion she has been separated from Jim during the escape from the facility. Instantly upon seeing him, she psychically attacks Valerian. She blames him for leaving Jim behind, it’s only that very Dominion Fleet firing on them that even gets her to stop. She makes it very clear despite pleas to the contrary, there is no US as far as Sarah is concerned. The Raiders aren’t her allies, Jim is and she won’t leave without him.

This all denotes that Sarah is acting very much still like her old persona. While she may not remember what she did as the Queen of Blades, she isn’t really that far off from being her again. Her motivations may have changed, but she’s not truly back to her old self. The trauma and length of time as the Queen has clearly altered that.

With the Hyperion unable to stay, Kerrigan leaves for a nearby planet’s surface, hoping to wait for Jim there. Instead she finds a Dominion Outpost and a massive orbital gun. She needs it gone or else Raynor will be blown out of the sky. She can’t do it alone, so she connects to the nearby Zerg colony and its Swarm Queen. These are new units for the game, created by Kerrigan herself to replace the Cerebrates of the Overmind. They now oversee the larger Swarm for her as lieutenants.

This Swarm Queen, Naktul, dutifully obeys Sarah’s commands and assists her in destroying the Dominion Forces on the planet as well as taking out the gun. While successful, Sarah realizes that she’s slipping back into her Queen of Blades persona. She’s even starting to talk like them, separating herself from the other Terrans. With this knowledge, Kerrigan retreats to her dropship and tries to sort things out. It’s very clear that without Raynor’s support structure, she is very quickly slipping back into darkness inside her. A fact that she freely admits to. She keeps trying to contact Jim, but he’s not answering her. She’s alone, save for a single Zergling that snuck aboard creeping up to her. It doesn’t seem to be all that threatening to her, even as she points a gun at it.

Then she gets the news that Raynor has seemingly been captured and executed. Mengsk then comes on next, celebrating Jim’s death as Sarah breaks down in the dropship, unable to cope with the fact that Jim has died and she couldn’t save him. All while Mengsk gloats at the prospect of his absolute victoty and unopposed rule.

"Proud Dominion citizens, at long last our nightmare is over. The lawless terrorist James Raynor is dead. With his death comes a new era of peace. The protoss have retreated from our Dominion, and the zerg threat has been removed. Their Swarm is shattered and leaderless. Soon we will eradicate every last zerg on Char. In short, we have won.”

And all this time, the zergling stays at Sarah’s side, offering her the only support she has left to lean on it seems, her Swarm. With Raynor dead and the Protoss backing off to deal with their own problems, Sarah is all that remains to potentially challenge Mengsk and defeat him. Despite whatever reservations she had, the one person who believed, supported and trusted her is gone. With no one else, of course she returns to the Zerg and the only people that she has left. She embraces the monster within and the power it holds.

It’s obvious the scene is meant to make us side with and agree with Kerrigan’s decision to simply go full Zerg. After all, we like Jim and the prospect of him being dead at Mengsk’s hands is not going to sit well with us. We’d likely want revenge just as much as Sarah does and frankly, whatever reservations one might have about Kerrigan right now, the scene IS effective. Partially because of the high quality cinematics, the voice acting, and the direction. But generally I think it has to come back to Mengsk. His gloating, his self-assurance that he has won, that he’s the hero of humanity while Sarah mourns the loss of the one person she ever truly loved. Who wouldn’t agree with her in this moment that retaking the mantle of Queen of Blades is her best and only option?

This is the monster mindset, the subversion of the typical storyline. No longer is the human knight the savior of humanity, but a villain that needs to be destroyed. Because it has taken something from the monster, something that it felt it deserved or earned. Something that belonged to it alone. In his efforts to be the conquering hero, Mengsk has incured the wrath of a force greater than himself, more primal and ancient. This is what the Zerg represent, the scorned and wronged dragon who will burn the castle to the ground as punishment for the kingdom’s arrogance.

When we played as Raynor, we inhabited very human concepts of conflict. “Wings of Liberty” had us fighting for ideals like freedom, justice, hope among others. Kerrigan and her Swarm are now fighting in this moment for survival and retribution, distinctly more primal concepts. You can’t really spin these in good ways, there’s always a negative association with something so innately thematically insular. We might agree with Sarah, but her actions aren’t really for the greater good, they’re for herself. And that inherently makes her struggle and us connecting with her an uphill battle. Because, as we’ve established by now, she’s no longer really human anymore. Maybe in appearence she is, but not in mindset.

Summon the Swarm

At this point the game opens up to give you more choice in which missions you do, but unlike the previous game you will be locked onto that set pack of missions on which ever planet you decide to pick. Whether you go to Char or Kaldir, you’ll remain there until every mission there is completed. It’s again showing more a direct single minded nature with the Zerg and Kerrigan, they’ll keep fighting until they’ve claimed all territory as their own and every threat eliminated, or they die. So even the mission structure of the game is based around a more monster-oriented mindset.

Whichever planet you pick, you end up finding a vacant Zerg Leviathan, essentially a biological spaceship, that Sarah quickly seizes control of. It’s here we meet Izsha, a strange Zerg creature that acts as Kerrigan’s advisor and eventually Abathur, an even stranger Zerg creature who is basically an alien mad scientist obsessed with constantly evolving the Zerg.

Like “Wings of Liberty” these are the first two NPC characters you can interact with in your hub aboard the Leviathan between missions. However, while some may occupy similar positions to previous characters, Izsha is basically Sarah’s Matt Horner and Abathur is essentially Swann, that is where the similarities end.

And this holds true for all of Kerrigan’s lieutenants within her Swarm, which this section will discuss in detail. Although it might not be terribly long because of one specific problem they all have.

They are all incredibly flat static characters. And this isn’t a flaw, it’s by design.

Izsha is probably the greatest offender. She has no real personality, she’s basically an emotionless bug creature with no real opinions or thoughts of her own. She essentially exists as another extension of Sarah, functionally keeping her updated on incoming threats and providing her intel before and during missions. She is functionally just a palette swap replacement of the Adjutant that’s been talking to you for a while. Sometimes Izsha will ask questions, she might make a seemingly snide or rye comment here and there, but ultimately it reads like she just doesn’t understand the wider context of Kerrigan’s thoughts and statements.

She’s a lot like Data from Star Trek: TNG in this regard, but Izsha doesn’t want to be more human nor does she really want to understand how to be human. In fact, she doesn’t really have any desires, as she’s a creation of Kerrigan’s meant to hold all her relevant thoughts and plans. Like the Cerebrates of past Starcraft games, but with no real control over the Swarm. She simply wishes to know how best she can serve her queen. She is devotely loyal, to a fault and never once seems to doubt this.

The closest she gets is after the end of a particular mission where Sarah won’t speak with anyone and she shows concern for that. As soon as that’s over though, Izsha never brings it up again and Sarah never really confides in Izsha in any case. All she’s there to do is sift through additional plans and stray thoughts that might be relevant to the Swarm’s survival. Metatextually, this serves the purpose of giving Kerrigan someone to talk to aboard the Leviathan before more show up later.

However, she’s not a friend or even a confidant, she’s basically a sounding board for Sarah to mouth off to. Even that has its limits. Whenever Izsha’s questions hit too close to home for Sarah, particularly where it may raise some doubts, fears or problems with Kerrigan’s motivations and goals, that is when she silences her creepy advisor. Sarah snaps at Izsha to drop the subject and Izsha does so without another word. Her deference to Kerrigan’s commands and refusal to ever challenge her on anything make Izsha functionally a beta to Kerrigan’s alpha. She is in no position to make demands, her council is only needed up to a point and barely at all. She is purely a subordinate lackey, not a friend or comrade.

Abathur is at least a bit more interesting, as his character doesn’t speak nearly as monotone and has far more personality to it even if he’s ultimately just as flat as Izsha narratively. Abathur exists purely to evolve the swarm, toiling away in the Leviathan’s Evolution Pit crafting new upgrades for your various units. His nightmarish visage, gruff but direct voice and matter of fact sentence structure basically makes him seem like a less friendly, more sinister version of Mordin Solus from the Mass Effect games. They’re both mad scientists to a degree, so the comparison is apt.

However, Abathur has even fewer moral scruples and hang ups than Mordin ever did. He is not above killing living test subjects he deems failures. He will rip off limbs, he we tear through skin, break bones, lacerate organs, pull out brains, and ultimately eviscerate his experiments to achieve his ends. Those ends always being make the Swarm Stronger, more adaptable, more evolved. And if a few experiments die or are tossed aside, oh well. Just how it goes.

Kerrigan finds his rather brutal form of enforced natural selection rather displeasing, mainly because she thinks Abathur is familiar to her. Not long after meeting and conversing with him, Sarah learns the truth. Abathur isn’t a new creation of the Zerg like Izsha or her Swarm Queens. He was the one who put her in the crysallis that turned her into the Queen of Blades in the first place.

While he clearly didn’t have many options, given that the Overmind likely made him do it regardless of anything else, Abathur is unapologetic. In fact he’s proud of his work and a bit disappointed that Sarah undid it all. Not mad, just confused as to why she didn’t appreciate what he did for her. Naturally, Kerrigan is not happy with this knowledge and only restrains herself from killing Abathur outright because she understands she needs him. Mengsk is still the person who got her captured and while he’s probably more directly responsible, Abathur again had no real choice in the matter. For his part though, Abathur just doesn’t understand Sarah’s anger.

To be honest, he doesn’t understand many human emotions, seeing them as distractions to his work. It’s really all he lives for, his one prime function as set forth by the Overmind. However, while a lot of his experiments are done for the Swarm, he’s fundamentally useless without someone to oversee and guide his work. When the Overmind died, Abathur wandered feral through the tunnels of Char, until he was given purpose again through Kerrigan’s hivemind connection.

As far as Abathur is concerned, you’re not a Zerg unless someone is controlling you, you’re just another animal otherwise. This suggests that the Zerg as a species requires a leader, a controller, to be whole and functional. Even if it is ultimately to fulfill Kerrigan’s revenge, that’s purpose enough. A Zerg without purpose is just an animal and not a sapient cognitive being. To backslide along the evolutionary path is unacceptable to Abathur. So he follows Sarah, not because he has no choice, but because she offers purpose ultimately. If Sarah were to die and someone else gave him sufficient purpose, he would follow them instead.

For Abathur, the Swarm and the Evolution of it is everything, but it only works if someone else is making the decisions and calling the shots on how to direct his focus and work. That’s what gives it purpose. Which is his primary mechanic and position within the game. Abathur is the one who directs the Evolution Missions, various little side quests that unlock throughout the game that enable you to unlock more abilities for your Zerg units in battle. However, you can only pick one of two options each mission, for balancing purposes within the campaign mostly, but in-universe its because the strains will cancel each other out otherwise. As a result, you probably spend the more time with Abathur over the course of the game than anyone else and get to know the Zerg most through him.

Abathur’s obsession with evolution and his position within the Swarm gives a greater insight into how the Zerg function as a species. Essentially, besides his belief that the hivemind gives them purpose, he functionally doesn’t understand anything beyond evolutionary terms and the constant struggle for survival.

To him, the cruelty and brutal lifestyle of the Zerg is natural and simply a net positive. So long as the Swarm evolves, it endures and improves repeatedly. He doesn’t believe in perfection, because that would require stagnation. Perfection in his mind is unobtainable, always out of reach. It is a goal to strive towards, but never truly attain. There is no end state to the Zerg in this sense. No final form, no pinnacle apex adaptation, simply a constant push to survive whatever the universe might throw at you. He thus treats every experiment as vital to that continued plan of survival.

As for the other races in their way, simply bio-matter and he finds them loathsomely inefficient, Terrans especially. He even remarks on how Sarah has been “infected” with more Terran bio-matter upon her return. It’s not so much racism, as he sees human functionality woefully inadequate towards his standards of survival. Conflict with the other factions is seemingly inevitable in his mind as well, in order to keep chasing the efficiency and unobtainable perfection. While he’ll never reach it, stagnation is unaffordable, making the Swarm stronger requires it to be tested constantly. To him, the Zerg as a society is one long ongoing experiment. It’s nothing personal when the Zerg attack and assimilate a Terran colony, it’s just science.

In these terms, Abathur probably presents the first real substantial motivation for the Zerg. To evolve and seek conflict in order to do so. Their choice of conflict, however, depends on who is in charge and is entirely dependent on their whims. As long as Kerrigan holds sway over them all through her hivemind connection, they will obey. Abathur will follow her so long as she maintains the conflict neccessary for his experiments to continue. Purpose is dervied for the Zerg by a single master who controls them. Their motivations are tied to them. If Kerrigan wants revenge on Mengsk, Abathur will help her do so. For without Kerrigan he has no purpose, no drive, no means to carry on what he is.

Clearly Abathur and Sarah have different priorities. In Sarah’s case, she does terrible things because she believes she has to in order to get to her end goal. The ends justify the means. Abathur doesn’t really care about the ends, there is no end. The means aren’t important either. All that matters is evolving and improving. Morality isn’t important to Abathur, let alone the Zerg at large, it barely figures into their thought process. It might with Sarah, but not them. And without her, they have no will or drive of their own beyond basic instinct. This is important to remember for later.

For now, the thing to take away from this is that as monsters, the Zerg’s understanding of themselves runs purely on basic innate understanding of controlling their own evolution to best survive, thrive and continue to do so. If it requires other species to be consumed to achieve that, then they will. This is just how nature is. The Zerg in this sense are nature and so long as the Zerg survive, it matters little who doesn’t. Again, just like Kerrigan’s need for revenge, the basic motivations of the Zerg as innately self-serving it seems.

Speaking of Self-Serving, that brings us to the next member of Kerrigan’s crew, Zagara. A Swarm Queen that has decided she can lead the Swarm better than Kerrigan and has taken over her old roost on Char. She’s now fighting a desperate and losing battle against General Warfield who the player helped conquer Char to begin with in “Wings of Liberty.”

After a direct confrontation that sees Kerrigan out hatch Baneling eggs and nearly literally roll over her forces with them, Zagara submits. There’s no sense in dying here, Zagara seemingly knows she can’t beat Kerrigan at this point and promises to serve her as a loyal lieutenant. Kerrigan accepts, but she decides that Zagara needs to be more than just the average Swarm Queen. She needs to evolve, to understand, to be taught.

Zagara probably has the most personality of any of Kerrigan’s followers. Not depth of character, she’s hardly any better than Abathur there, but she certainly has a better grasp on emotions than he does. Abathur doesn’t really get angry, there’s a moment where he seems jealous over another faction of Zerg for how they “stole” his evolutionary designs, but it passes fairly soon. Zagara has more emotional range, even if it fluctuates between various shades of scheming, derisive commentary and bloodlusting battlerage.

Zagara also actually has the closest thing to an arc character wise, but only because Kerrigan imposes it on her as she needs what is clearly going to be one of her chief battlefield lieutenants to actually think. She determines she can’t treat them like pawns, not entirely. They need to be independent enough to be able to do things without her direct involvement.

When she first comes aboard the Leviathan, Zagara does not seem to understand much in terms of overall strategy. She functions on very basic Zerg instinct, if slightly more advanced. Build up a lot of soldiers, make your numbers big enough to absorb any hits, rush the enemy and overwhelm them through sheer numerical advantage. Quantity over quality, essentially she’s stuck using Zerg Rush as her only real trick. Emphasized in how she’s tried to defeat Warfield by constantly attacking him head-on over and over, and failing every time. But insistent that THIS time it will work.

That won’t do for Kerrigan. Zagara, as she claims, needs vision. Besides sending her to Abathur to increase her intelligence capacity, enabling her to better strategize and understand various tactical concepts, Kerrigan speaks to Zagara one on one, to try and see how she’s improving. Not that she doesn’t just understand the concepts, but can learn from them. In this sense, Kerrigan tries to lead by example, more than just show of force or strength of will. She is directly trying to pass on knowledge to Zagara to make her better.

Strangely enough, despite fitting the motif of a Starscream character in near everyway, Zagara is grateful for this opportunity. She irks at going under the knife so often, but she sees the benefits. She then reasons at one point that she’s strong enough to actually challenge Kerrigan. However, she declines, she does intend to lead the Swarm, but not until she has learned everything from Kerrigan that is worth learning. Specifically, vision and what it means.

In Kerrigan’s terms, as she explains to Zagara, vision means seeing beyond the most obvious. Looking at a different angle, taking in the whole picture and beyond it. She does this with Warfield, by thinking around his various strategies, rather than just trying to outmuscle him through numbers or power alone. Zagara watches as Kerrigan takes apart her enemies, piece by piece, instead of going directly for the killing blow. And the Swarm Queen sees the value in this form of patience easily, as Sarah accomplishes what she failed to do.

Throughout the game, Zagara and Kerrigan’s conversations continue much in this way. Zagara will put forth a very blunt direct attitude as to how the Zerg deal with things. She presumes superiority and power are inherent to their species, that nothing can crush them. While Kerrigan continues to warn her of how confidence can lead to arrogance and that learning from your enemies is as important as defeating them. I think of them as master and student in this regard, Kerrigan teaching Zagara how to be like the Queen of Blades, but free of the same traps. Zagara is taught to see beyond the limited view of the Swarm’s biological instinct and think for herself instead. Not so much in a selfish way, but in a grander idea than pure survival.

As she grows more intelligent though, Zagara gains a sense of curiosity, a desire to understand. She continues to ask questions to Kerrigan, about the various races they encounter, the places they visit and why things are the way they are. Zagara doesn’t understand all of it and everything is filtered through her Zerg mindset, but her desire to know is self-evident. More than just lusting for the blood of her enemies, although that never really goes away, Zagara does start to form a sense of empathy this way, more than Abathur ever could.

For example, she comes to view the Terrans with pity more than just enemies or fuel to evolve the swarm. They have no hivemind, no direction, no purpose given to them. They’re lost in her mind, confused and bereft of function. That they’re all so alone in the end, without the comfort of other likeminded individuals within the Swarm. She wishes to help them in the end… by killing them and assimilating them into the Swarm. Yes, it’s very alien morality logic, but she is a monster. Her values are inherently different from ours, the fact she can form any sense of empathy is a remarkable change for her.

Zagara’s loyalty to Kerrigan develops into true admiration in time, but she can never fully understand her queen though. While Kerrigan is Zerg, she’s still very much human with human concerns. Some of the things Sarah does Zagara cannot truly grasp because they are so alien to her. When Kerrigan briefly teams up with some old Terran friends, which we will talk about later, Zagara thinks it has to be because she’s tricking them. This is a long term goal, a plan of some sort, like the Queen of Blades of old. It’s not though and Kerrigan remarks that Zagara will not understand why she is doing this. No matter how hard she tries.

But Zagara wants to understand, she wants to know. She doesn’t want to become more human, but she does want to understand them and comprehend vision. If only as a means of surviving and thriving at first, but eventually to become truly worthy of being the leader of the Swarm. In this sense, Zagara comes the closest to truly transcending from pure monster to actual monster hero within the confines of ”Heart of the Swarm’s” story.

She is still beholden to Kerrigan’s whims, her morality is fairly warped and alien, she works on survival instinct and filters everything through those instincts, but she wants more. She is not nearly so self-serving in the end as she could be and her efforts start to lead her to a more aspirational desire. It’s not anything truely heroic or idealistic yet, but Zagara wants to grow and move beyond what the Zerg are as vicious bloodthirsty monsters. She’ll never be human, she doesn’t want to be, but her sincere curiosity and growing sense of empathy is far closer to a heroic template than any of the other Lieutenants in the swarm we’ve discussed thus far.

This brings us to Dehaka, a different kind of Zerg with a different personal creed. For the most part, a lot of the Zerg we’ve talked about have determined their worth in becoming more powerful in one way or another. Abathur believes in power through evolution, Zagara revolves around power through strength and later the mind, Kerrigan sees power as a means to an end more than anything. Dehaka doesn’t care about power. He only cares about change.

As discussed, Abathur looks at Evolution’s power as striving towards an ideal. While he can never reach perfection, he’ll keep moving towards it all the same. He finds purpose in trying to obtain a goal, targeting evolution and making it work to his specific calibrations. Dehaka prefers to not focus too much on the power acquired, he just prefers to change. He prefers to alter himself as a means of survival, but never as a means of gaining power. Collecting “Essence” as he says is how he improves himself and stays alive. But he never seeks direct power or control, as he views it as a trap.

This attitude comes from his origins, Dehaka is not a normal Zerg, he’s a Primal Zerg. Born on Zerus, the planet where the Zerg truly originated, Dehaka had a very different upbringing. The Primal Zerg have no hivemind, they run on pack mentality. The strongest rules and weaker bend the knee and serve. Dehaka has a pack because he is strong, but he’s unlike other Primal Pack leaders who are self-assured in their status to the point of arrogance. A Primal Pack Leader generally beats their chest, tries to kill other pack leaders who are strong themselves, seize their territory and become more powerful. They either die in the attempt or succeed.

Dehaka does not do that, he sees the accumulation of power as simply a means of getting a target on your back. He’s nowhere near the same level as other pack leaders on Zerus, he doesn’t care. He’d rather NOT become someone else’s dinner. He prefers to flow. He’ll collect essence, he’ll evolve, he’ll change, he’ll grow stronger, but he will not challenge. He will join with those he feels are strongest and lend himself to their efforts. This is how he survives, through pragmatic evolution, not via a directive towards more power as Abathur feels.

As a result, conflict is to be avoided in Dehaka’s mind. A lust for power for it’s own sake only makes you easier to destroy in the end because someone will just see it as something they want to take from you. He doesn’t even try to obtain the psionic connection most normal Zerg have, preferring to rely on his own inherent evolved abilities rather than truly join the Swarm in every aspect. Something Kerrigan allows because she herself sees the inherent advantage of using a Zerg that doesn’t have something most Zerg have that has been used against them.

The Hivemind is a great strength for the Zerg, enabling them to move and act as one unit with the same directive and goal. Dehaka not having one should be seen as a weakness, but as we find later in the game it is a trump card that Kerrigan has in her arsenal. It’s something that forces a change within the Zerg, to accept something outside their direct control, an independent ally and operator. One that will act in their interest but not be a slave to it.

Dehaka himself follows Kerrigan, not out of instinct or a desire for purpose or even because he submits to her. He follows her because where she goes new essence can be found. Dehaka describes his “loyalty” to Kerrigan fairly simply. He is not a rock or a wind, he will not stand against nor fight against Kerrigan. He will flow with her, like a river. Despite being a primitive dinosaur, in both looks and mindset, Dehaka is actually fairly intelligent in this respect. Not a slave to Zerg instincts but upholding them all the same.

He’s the one lieutenant that can disagree with Kerrigan because she holds no psionic power over his mind. He is the leader of a separate pack, not a tied to Kerrigan’s mission in anyway. He is here for his own purposes but will assist Kerrigan in a mutual partnership. Sarah recognizes and accepts this, although she constantly wonders if Dehaka will abandon her for someone stronger. Dehaka admits he would, but he doesn’t think anyone is stronger than her. He’s certainly not impressed with Terran technology, believing evolution will enable him a way around such things. For him, change is constant and neccessary. To stand still is to die. Dehaka is therefore always moving, going where the essence takes him, but never becoming obsessed with the power it grants.

In this sense, Dehaka is more of a true force of nature than even the Zerg are. He is not beholden to any illusions of power that his abilities give him. The essence grants him power, but he knows that it can also make him a target should he abuse it. He prefer the balancing act rather than forcing the change and sees no real goal beyond survival. Adapting to the change, moving with it, rather than making it what you desire, is preferable. And without a psi-connection, he remains free of Kerrigan’s true hold unlike the rest of her subordinates.

Does this make Dehaka more heroic because of his free-will? Does his willingness to help Kerrigan of his own volition make him more selfless? Yes and no. Dehaka has free will and will do what he feels is neccessary to survive. He will assist others in their plans to forward his own aims. In this sense he has more aspirational values and is not beholden entirely to self-interest. If he was, he’d be no better than the power drunk pack leaders he avoids becoming.

However, he’s still very much a monster. He’s not arrogant and he lacks any true malice, he’s even fairly intelligent. But his goals are ultimately self-serving even when he’s serving others. While he has an interesting take on Zerg philosophy, he is still very much driven by primal instinct. Being, well, a primal zerg this probably should not be surprising. He is essentially a big killer dinosaur after all, you probably shouldn’t expect any greater level of nuance beyond his pack mentality and desire to improve himself through the collection of essence. He is the Zerg in their natural state, but he’s still very much Zerg.

Perhaps then we need someone more like Kerrigan, who actually has a semi-understanding of heroic values built in. It takes a while to find him, but we do come across one lieutenant that shares more in common with Kerrigan than anyone else. An old friend, or in Kerrigan’s case, an old enemy.

Alexei Stukov, once a commander within the UED Expeditionary Force, betrayed by an infested Terran operative who called himself Duran. The truth of Duran is a discussion for later, but for now, Stukov’s death was not all it appeared to be. He was resurrected and turned into an infested Terran, now more Zerg than human. Kerrigan even notes the similarities in their backstory. And while Stukov is himself calling on Sarah’s aid now to get revenge on the people who did this to him, his reasoning is not entirely self-serving as he knows the greater stakes at hand. While he has lost his humanity, he is not completely bereft of what once made him human. And that is probably his best asset in regards to his status as a potential heroic monster.

When Stukov was human, his position within the UED was one of tempered professionalism and reasonable authority. He might have been antagonistic towards a lot of the characters we loved in the Korpulu sector, but he seemed to talk the most sense. When that one mission forced us to kill him, everyone already knew it felt like a mistake. But we had no real choice but to go along with it. Seeing him again is a bit of obvious fan service, but it’s a chance for him to be on the right side for once, and in this case he very much is.

Stukov hates what has been done to him, but he still intends to use his new power against those who tortured and turned him into the monster he is now. He reaches out to Kerrigan to help him achieve these ends, knowing he can’t do it on his own. Like Sarah he has recognized the need to form allies out of those who are probably less than savory and embrace what he ultimately is by aligning with the Zerg outright. However, he doesn’t try to take control of the Swarm, nor does he seem to have an delusions of grandeur concerning this partnership.

Stukov is still clearly out for revenge, but he also recognizes the greater evil at play within the facility he is asking Kerrigan’s help with destroying. For it is producing a threat that endangers more than just him or even the Zerg. Taking it down is about avenging the wrongs done to him, but it’s also about making sure it cannot continue further. In this sense Stukov is not running on total animal instinct. He is thinking in terms of the greater whole beyond his own personal gain. And this is true especially concerning his interactions with Kerrigan.

Iszha, Dehaka, Zagara and Abathur can’t really offer proper council to their queen. They can present other perspectives, even ask prying questions, but Kerrigan doesn’t really allow them to question her. Stukov may not question Sarah’s motives much either, probably because he doesn’t really have much of a greater moral high ground, but he does routinely warn her of potential risks with her plans. As a result, his conversations are a lot less one-sided in this regard. They’re almost equals, or they at least respect one another enough that Kerrigan will defer to his advice as often as Stukov will give it.

Despite his mutation into a Zerg, Stukov has retained his humanity better than Kerrigan ever did. He’s of course not much better concerning his methods, as he primarily turns humans into Infested Terrans to bolster his forces. However, he mostly chooses who he infects and for the most part its people who are themselves doing worse things. This doesn’t really make him a hero, but Stukov is under no delusions about what and who he is, unlike the old Queen of Blades was. You can tell he regrets a lot of the decisions he made that led to this path, he even mourns the death of his friend Gerard DuGalle. Despite the fact Kerrigan killed him, he doesn’t seem to hold any ill-will towards her. In general, Stukov seems to have accepted that he is a monster now and is mainly concerned in trying to make the most of it.

The question ultimately is, how much of Stukov’s motivation is purely out of a desire for revenge or truly altruistic? It’s hard to say, even Stukov doesn’t seem to know. However his apparent concern for Kerrigan’s life and state of mind goes a bit beyond self-interest and it certainly has nothing to do with her control of the swarm. While Stukov needs Kerrigan to get his revenge, his lack of animosity towards her suggests he’s not really being forced to make this choice. Yes, he doesn’t have many options, but he never tries to assert his dominance and doesn’t really try to make any deal towards his advantage alone. Unlike the other Lieutenants, Stukov has no truly selfish ambition beyond getting back at the people who wronged him. He also understands that there is more going on here than what immediately benefits himself.

The final piece to understanding Stukov in “Heart of the Swarm” is how his mission chain ends. With things concluded more or less, his revenge achieved and the place that mutated him in ruins, Stukov makes the assumption that he has now outlived his usefulness. Knowing Kerrigan is used to cleaning up loose ends at this point, he fully expects her to turn on him. It’s clear he suspected this would happen from the moment he reached out to her and he still asked for her help. His lack of self-preservation is uncharacteristic of the Zerg, who are about survival above all else. He knows that the threat he’s facing is too great and that his life matters little in the grand scheme of stopping it. Maybe he’s that desperate for revenge, but it honestly seems like he’s accepted this outcome if it means ending a dangerous foe who threatens all life.

Sarah, however, has changed greatly over her journey at this point. She is nothing like the old Queen of Blades now and accepts Stukov into her swarm with open arms. Although she will let him leave if he so desires. With no real other prospects and no greater purpose, Stukov chooses to stay, not as a minion or exactly a friend, but clearly the closest thing Kerrigan has to an equal aboard her Leviathan. And as Kerrigan’s designs shift away from her personal vendetta and towards a more all encompassing threat to the races of the galaxy at large, she offers Stukov a part in thos designs. Noting that the odds are likely against them and they will probably die, Kerrigan states it’s better to fight for something than lay down and die. Which Stukov readily agrees with.

Taking all of this into account, Stukov is the closest to a heroic monster among Kerrigan’s lieutenants. While his morals may not be an absolute, he does have values beyond pure instinct or survival and is willing to lay down his life for them. He is willing to forgive former enemies, with little advantage to himself. He is, for all intents and purposes, the most human of Sarah’s companions. Perhaps the closest to actually being a friend of hers among the swarm, at least at this point. And it is ultimately through him that Kerrigan finally finds a greater purpose beyond her selfish desire for revenge that could potentially make her a hero as well. He is not perfect, his methods are still monstrous and it’s hard to judge how truly noble he is in the pursuit of his goals, but he fits the hero category better than most of the other lieutenants, if only by default.

However, this brings up the issue of how heroic a monster can truly be. Stukov is the exception among the lieutenants because, like Sarah, he used to be human, and none of the other Zerg Leaders ever were. Does this mean a monster can only be a hero if they have some already existing human values? Does that undercut their monstrous nature if their sense of morality is more in line with humanity’s and not something more alien? Because those questions are ultimately a part of the wider issue here. The more human a monster is, the more in line with our sense of right and wrong they are. It’s the difference between survival instinct and intentional altruism. How much of what the Zerg do is because they wish to act on it or because either their instinct or someone else, like Sarah, is controlling them?

“Heart of the Swarm” is fairly invested in asking this question over and over again, seeking an answer. Is Kerrigan more monster than human? Is her position and function as the leader of the Zerg enable her to be anything other than a force of destruction? Can she be seen a redeemed, heroic figureor is she doomed to forever be the monster as a result of her nature? Given what she does over the course of the campaign, that question is very hard to answer definitively. Which is why we need to discuss what Kerrigan does as she returns to her old title and ask if she has truly changed.

New Reasons to be Afraid

As stated before, once players have cleared the initial prologue stages, the game opens up and allows you to pick which missions you go on. But you’re locked on a single mission set once you pick it. This choice is perhaps done to retain narrative flow, it also makes more sense for the Zerg. Why would they leave a planet if they have not yet secured it? However, both worlds you can travel to initially inevitably force you to confront the problems of trying to make Kerrigan a hero. Namely, she’s killing people who do not really deserve it. And that is emphasized with the two primary antagonist characters for the initial missions, General Warfield and Lassara.

Most players seem to go to Kaldir first, as it allows them to unlock the Hydralisk early. However, it honestly makes more sense that Kerrigan would go to Char first, as the news about the impending extermination of all Zerg there, as well as its familiarity and importance to the Swarm, would draw Kerrigan towards it. This also seems to be the canon of the actual story, for whatever that is worth. So we’re starting with Warfield first in our discussion.

Warfield is technically not presented entirely sympathetically during these missions. He’s still loyal to the Dominion and ultimately Mengsk. He’s very open in his intentions and desire to essentially wipe out the Zerg entirely on Char and he is fairly open in his disdain for Kerrigan. He’s more of a traditional opponent, so technically we shouldn’t be too concerned with killing him.

Or we would be, if we did not know him. After all, we fought alongside Warfield in “Wings of Liberty” and while he wasn’t exactly a friend, we earned his respect and admiration. His personality was also endearing, as while he was working for the Dominion, he showed true courage, resilence and cared about his men. He didn’t fight from the safety of a ship in orbit, nor did he place himself above his lesser ranked soldiers. He fought with them and for them. He had come out of retirement in fact to help fight back the Swarm when the Queen of Blades returned. He even forced the medics to cut off his damaged arm and replace it with a cybernetic prosthetic, just so he could return to active duty and fight beside his men again. He might work for a bad government, but he’s clearly not like Mengsk. And because of his actions, Raynor was able to save to Sarah in the first. In a way, Kerrigan owes her life, her freedom from the toxic personality of the Queen of Blades, to Warfield.

And now she’s come to kill him. Regardless of any of his other traits, Warfield is still a Dominion General, he’s still loyal to Mengsk and Kerrigan doesn’t really care beyond that. He’s in the way of her revenge, he intends to destroy her Swarm. That means he’s a threat and the animalistic nature of the Zerg means that there can be no negotiation or diplomacy here. Kill or be killed, that’s all that matters.

All the same, for people who played “Wings of Liberty” their actions in “Heart of the Swarm” effectively undo a lot of the work from the previous campaign. You saved these Dominion Soldiers before, they helped you. Now you’re killing them all. This was easy to stomach when the point of the Zerg was them being evil, not so easy when you’re supposed to be the good guy in this campaign. If not the good guy than at least sympathetic.

If Kerrigan has any thoughts on Warfield and his soldiers that isn’t directly seeing them as a threat to her Swarm and an obstacle to her revenge, she does not share them. Partially because her minions do not care about those nuances ultimately, mostly because she has to play the role it seems. The Zerg will not respect her or follow her if she shows weakness or empathy. So she hides whatever thoughts she might have that may betray those compassionate human aspects.

For most of the missions on Char, Kerrigan systematically dismantles the Dominion operation. Taking out Warfield’s many containment and offensive capabilities. Warfield rants and raves about the inevitable destruction of the Swarm. Kerrigan simply shrugs the threats off, mingling better tactics with the Swarm’s numerical advantage to achieve victory. Before long, Warfield is lying wounded, a steel beam through his chest, as surviving Dominion soldiers try to flee to shuttles off world.

Even now, all Warfield cares about is getting them out. So when Sarah arrives, he tries to plead with her to let them go, citing that they’re no threat to her. Kerrigan doesn’t seem to respond, enraging Warfield as it seems she’s going to let her Zerg kill his men. Warfield at this point calls her a traitor, to both humanity and the memory of Jim Raynor. The use of his name is enough for Sarah to just outright finish Warfield off. But after the rage passes… Kerrigan calls of the Swarm and lets the Dominion survivors go. She decides to show compassion, more than the old Queen of Blades ever did. She doesn’t gloat over Warfield, she doesn’t cackle, she doesn’t even seem proud of her victory here.

Mostly Kerrigan just seems rather resigned to the reality that she’s just Zerg now, that she’s a monster. It seems she only let the Dominion soldiers go, perhaps, as a way to prove to herself she is still a little human. Revenge, however, still matters more. But she won’t kill everyone off out of cruelty, she can stop herself, she can decide when enough is enough. She might be a monster, but she does not have to be a villain as well. It’s a moment that shows Kerrigan isn’t the same as she was when she was previously infested.

But while Warfield might be easier to justify as an enemy, especially given that he still works for the Dominion, and Kerrigan’s bit of mercy softens the blow somewhat, this isn’t the case for Lassara. A Protoss scientist, not even a warrior, that Kerrigan essentially dooms to a terrible fate alongside all of her people on Kaldir. More so than even Warfield, what happens to Lassara is far less easy to justify, which even Kerrigan admits. As a result, it is a lot less easy to still see Sarah’s actions as heroic while taking the entirety of Kaldir into account.

When Kerrigan arrives on Kaldir, it to try to get another Swarm Queen that controls a great deal of Zerg to submit to her. However, she’s already dead and the Protoss are on Kaldir in force. As soon as they see Kerrigan though, they are very quick to decide its time to pack up and leave. They’re not trying to fight Kerrigan for most of the campaign on the planet, they’re just trying to get away.

Kerrigan knows that this is just so they can warn the Golden Armada, the main bulk of the Protoss military force. If they learn of her return at this stage of things, the Zerg Swarm broken and Kerrigan herself still not strong enough, the Protoss will destroy her. With revenge on her mind, Sarah can’t afford to fight another war against the Protoss to defeat her real enemy, Mengsk. So she makes the call that the Protoss on Kaldir must be exterminated to the last before they can warn of the Golden Armada.

This where Lassara comes in, she’s captured at the end of the first mission on Kaldir and forcibly held on the Leviathan where she reveals that these Protoss are not primarily warriors. They are simply colonists, searching for a place to live. Something Kerrigan forced upon them on when she helped the Overmind essentially conquer their homeworld of Aiur. She tells Kerrigan very bluntly that her people are colonists, scientists, civilians… and she’s killing them. Sarah doesn’t sound very sorry where she offers her rather weak response to this charge. That the Protoss have slaughtered countless Zerg themselves. This is just about survival, nothing personal.

Except, the Zerg are largely mindless without a leader, as even the various Zerg among Sarah’s circle of advisors have admitted. Overall, many Zerg are but feral animals, who will attack and kill whatever catches their attention. Killing them is not really the same as killing free-thinking sapient beings, especially when the Zerg have been traditionally the aggressor in every conflict. This isn’t a war between typical competing ideologies or cultures. The Zerg go to a planet and murder everything in sight and all the Protoss do is trying to contain and stop them when they do. Sarah’s accusation of the Protoss’ kill count to her own is not comparable in the slightest. It’s essentially a poor attempt at whataboutism by both-siding the issue. When you’re one of the chief reasons the Protoss are in the bad place they are, that takes away any semblance of moral high ground.

Kerrigan acts like she has no choice, even as Lassara tells her she could just leave. Flee Kaldir long before the Golden Armada even arrives. Perhaps even letting them leave would convince the Protoss that she is not interested in fighting them or has changed. She could try talking to the Protoss Colonists, telling them she is not a threat and simply desires revenge against someone else entirely unrelated to them. She does none of this, doesn’t even think of diplomacy, not even a token attempt at dialogue. She sees a threat, the Protoss, and attacks, like a scared animal. Except she can actually reason, she is capable of doing so, but falls back on basic pure survival instincts.

This is a by product of the game losing features. Lassara was supposed to be another advisor, a conscience among the many other Zerg who all obediently defer to her power. Lassara in this could be the only member of the Leviathan who could actually challenge Kerrigan’s actions. Perhaps even make her take different paths during certain missions. However, this was taken out, along with a lot of other ideas for the game, to streamline it. Otherwise, it would not have come out on time.

Sometimes you do need to do this with any creative endeavor as not all ideas pan out the way want. But losing Lassara as a legitimate advisor, and not a hostage, completely ruins the best chance for Kerrigan to be truly challenged directly on her Leviathan. To really have someone to discern the line between Zerg and human, between the monster and the hero. Without Lassara acting as the angel on Sarah’s shoulder there is no voice that criticizes her more extreme actions.

It’s a loss to the story and as a result makes it harder to understand Sarah’s ultimate motivations, making her seem more cruel and heartless than the game wants her to appear. If Kerrigan was supposed to be a straight up villain, this wouldn’t matter, just like the last game. But remember, Heart of the Swarm is depicting Kerrigan as a hero still, even if she is flawed. We’re meant to want her to succeed, but on Kaldir she’s behaving more like the old Queen of Blades than at any other point in the story.

On Char she let the Dominion soldiers go, the Protoss Colonists don’t get that luxury. The fate of Lassara is worse. Kerrigan infects her with a parasite, allows one of the only Protoss ships that escaped to detect her. They beam her back onto their ship… and moments later Lassara dies as the parasite Kerrigan infected her with bursts out of her. It then proceeds to grow into a Swarm Queen that massacres the last of the Protoss survivors of Kaldir.

Sarah remarks how she thinks Lassara was very brave and admirable. But its very moot, she still killed her in a way that was incredibly unecessary. It is remarkable cruel and aids in the completion of a massacre that Sarah did not seemingly need to commit. At this point, her excuses ring hollow and it is incredibly hard to justify any of these actions.

In one way, it sort of makes more sense for Kerrigan to start on Kaldir in this way. By allowing her to make up for this senseless act of mass murder by actually allowing the Dominion soldiers a chance to survive. It denotes a degree of character growth and change. But even still, that hardly makes up for the fact she still does this horribly cruel thing to a group of people who have done nothing to her to deserve this. Mengsk is the enemy we want to see Sarah get revenge on, not a bunch of Protoss who have probably suffered enough because of her.

Is there honestly anyway Sarah at this point can be redeemed now? The excuse before was her mind was corrupted by the Zerg. That’s gone now, every action she takes is of her own mind, will and personal decision making. She doesn’t get to use the evil personality card to get out of this one. It would seem at this point, the idea that a monster could still be a hero is completely off the table.

Is there still hope for Sarah Kerrigan to be redeemed? Maybe, but it requires change.

Evolve. Transform. Transcend.

Before long, Kerrigan will be visited by Zeratul. While he is no ally, he is not her enemy, a distinction he sorta forces on her when he reveals that he has found the birthplace of the Zerg. The planet Zerus, located far outside the Korpulu sector, is their true homeworld, although they are now unrecognizable to the Zerg that remain there. These are the Primals we discussed before and its clear moment one of landing they are happy to see their spaceward bug brethren return. They respond in an animalistic fashion, treating Kerrigan’s Zerg like a threat to their territory and packs.

The reaction is not unprecedented, as we find out when we accomplish our first mission on the planet and awaken an Ancient Primal known as Zurvan. The creature is intelligent and informs Kerrigan that what she knows as Zerg were taken from Zerus a long time ago by a being known as Amon. He altered the Zerg, changed them into what they are and corrupted them with something of his own design, the Hivemind. No Primal has this, they remain individuals. They are all still as hungry for power and evolution as any Zerg, however. And through this, Zurvan has something he can give Kerrigan.

Leading her to the first spawning pool, Kerrigan is able to undergo and tremendous change, reverting back to her classic Queen of Blades form, but different. She’s more powerful now and, more importantly, no longer corrupted by Amon’s designs. While Sarah was never controlled by him, she did feel his influence and dark presence guiding her actions. Amon was dead before she was turned, allowing her a degree of freedom when the Overmind died no doubt. Now however she is completely free of Amon’s taint, as her transformation within the Primal Spawning Pool has essentially purified her Zerg strain. Everything she lost as a result of Raynor expunging the Zerg Persona has been regained, but now has more in common with the Primal Zerg. The Hivemind remains of course, but now it is her own it seems, along with all her new powers.

Of course, in testing these powers by defeating the other ancient pack leaders and taking their essence for herself, Zurvan turns on her. Declaring that one of them must consume the other and become something greater, the way of all Zerg. Kerrigan of course wins, her power doubling even more as a result and a contingent of Primals under Dehakka now follow her.

Zerus is more than just a means of Kerrigan unlocking more powers on her personal skill tree though, or permanently altering her sprite and rendering for the rest of the game. It also shows a different faction and side to the Zerg. That in a way, they are victims. The Zerg were never meant to harm anyone but perhaps each other. For most of their existence on Zerus, all they did was kill and consume each other, evolving constantly as they did. Then Amon arrived and in a clear bit of colonization, forcibly assimilated the species in his grand design. He corrupted them and turned them into a menace that would go on to harm the wider galaxy. Perpetuating a chain of abusive forced assimilation that tracks all the way to Sarah Kerrigan herself.

We might be quick to suggest Sarah is doing the same as Amon to a degree now. She has come to this planet and enforced her will on it. However, one could also make the claim this is the Zerg finally getting in touch with their true nature, what they used to be and were. Sarah does not forcibly pluck and change the Primal Zerg, if anything she plays by their rules as soon as she lands. They’re brutal rules, dependent on survival of the fittest but they are THEIR rules. The Primals might not be the most complex faction of Zerg out there, but their culture is wholly separate from the Zerg and their drive to conquer. Primals have a desire to evolve more than anything, conquering is secondary and not as big a drive for them. They desire change first and foremost.

While Sarah is willing to go along with this, purely for her revenge, it is apparent the message she keeps learning as she participates in Zerus’ trials. She has a choice, evolve or die, to remain stagnant is death. This doesn’t only hold true for her body but also her mentality. A strict focus on her revenge and nothing else will simply make her like the old Queen of Blades, which she herself is forced to acknowledge was weaker as a result of this. That version of her did not really think for herself, as she was being influenced by a corruption tainting her mind. Now if she wishes to truly change, she must stop thinking in terms of revenge only.

However, this evolution facilitates, essentially, undoing Raynor’s work. This isn’t new in Starcraft. Many campaigns can seemingly undo the progress of your prior work. Resulting in the previous set of missions to feel hollow and pointless. Like you didn’t accomplish anything. Seeing Sarah freed of her Zerg bits suddenly deciding to regrow them hits a bit hard. You sacrificed a lot in “Wings of Liberty” to save her and now she’s gone right on back to the Zerg. Sure, she’s not corrupted anymore, she’s more powerful and obviously they were always going to bring back her classic Zergified look because it’s goddamn iconic and we can’t lose that, but it still hurts.

At the very least, Sarah has changed in some aspect. She has learned what the Zerg used to be and in a sense can be again if they embrace a more individualistic culture. The Hivemind will remain, but Kerrigan holds sway now and is free from all the corrupting influence of the entity that colonized them. They won’t ever stop being the swarm, its too engrained in them now, but they are less compelled by the whims of a terrible, powerful god that desires them only as a weapon. Now, like Sarah, they can potentially choose their own path. But Mengsk still must die first before anything beyond that can be accomplished.

At least now, Sarah has a sense of the bigger picture, the greater role the Zerg must play in things. It is not complete though, she only knows that the Zerg were not always what they are now. That there is a path forward for them and that the Swarm itself must evolve if it is to survive. That means it cannot be slave to conquest or obsession. It must change or die, like the primals believe so fervently. The question, what to change into? An answer is soon provided.

Born of the Void

Mengsk at this point contacts Kerrigan, revealing what we all likely suspected. Raynor is alive, being used as a final contingency plan against Sarah’s revenge. If she tries to move on Korhal, he’ll kill him. While the swarm is returning to her and she is growing stronger herself, Sarah cannot hope to invade Korhal just yet knowing that Jim will die as a result. The old Queen of Blades wouldn’t have cared, but Sarah no longer possesses her cold unfeeling malice. It’s a weakness Mengsk thinks he can exploit. That and the fact Sarah has altered herself back to her infested form which Arcturus knows Jim would hate to see as much as Sarah suspects he would.

Simultaneously relieved to know Jim is alive, but also paralyzed by the fact he is beyond her reach, Kerrigan has to rethink her strategy for Korhal. Freeing Jim is one thing, but compromising its strength also takes precedent. This is where Stukov comes in, revealing the location of a secret Dominion Lab that is breeding Hybrid Zerg/Protoss creatures. Mengsk controlling Hybrid can’t be allowed to stand, so its best to destroy these.

However, over the course of systematically wiping out the lab, Sarah learns there is far more to this fight than just her desire for revenge. By the time she is through with the station and its leader, Dr. Narud, she learns the horrible truth… Amon is alive and it is possible her reversion to human assisted in giving him new life. Amon presents a catastrophic threat to the Zerg and galaxy at large. She can’t let him go unchallenged.

The existence of Amon gives Kerrigan a goal beyond her own petty grievances, even if its about personal survival more lives are at stake beyond just the Zerg. The knowledge that, unless she uses her power against him, Amon will likely retake the Swarm and use it to its original, terrible purpose is unacceptable. She’s seen what the Zerg used to be, what they could be, she’s been purified of the corruption that clouded her mind and has seen the change taking hold of the Zerg as a result of her lessons.

After she is incapacitated following her defeat of Narud, Zagara has the opportunity to take the Swarm, but doesn’t. She heals her instead, insisting she has more to learn. If Zagara can understand the value of knowledge before personal gain, the rest of the Zerg have a chance as well. This isn’t to say the Zerg are suddenly heroic, their primary goal reminds survival, but their capacity to change is self-evident and has taken precedence over the conquest side of their nature. Maybe not completely, but enough that is can foster loyalty in a species that prides itself on its brutality.

Later on, Kerrigan also acknowledges that fighting Amon may be fruitless, even suicidal. That’s there’s simply no way the Zerg, even with Sarah as powerful as she is now, can probably stop him. Her reason for choosing to do so anyway is because the only other alternative is to lay down and die. She has abandoned any semblance of survival over all at this point or even revenge. Amon is a threat to more than just her and seeing the bigger picture at last has finally gotten through to her. However, Mengsk still must die, not just for what he’s done but because he is a part of Amon’s plan. He cannot be allowed to live.

However, to take out Mengsk, Jim Raynor must be freed and that means a reunion that Kerrigan is not looking forward to. She contacts the Hyperion to help her find Raynor and after a bit of a misadventure she accomplishes this task, tracking Jim to a prison ship that is constantly on the move save for when it needs supplies. This is when Sarah moves and begin taking the ship apart from the inside out. It’s here where Mengsk shows his truly evil side, as he decides to destory the ship, along with his many loyal soldiers, calling them heroes as he sacrifices their lives for himself. Very Zerg-like behavior from a so-called protector of humanity.

Kerrigan of course stops the self-destruct and finds Jim. He is not happy to see her in her current form. He recalls Fenix and the many lives of others she’s ended, how he sacrificed everything to bring her back, and now she’s essentially spat in his face. For what it is worth, Sarah doesn’t really offer much in the way of excuses, only that she accepts that he is beyond angry with her. She even gives him a gun and lets him point it at her head. If he wants to kill the Queen of Blades like he promised so long ago, he should do it now.

Jim does not though, he merely fires off into the wall and walks away. Kerrigan has saved the man she loved, but at the same time lost him. Jim simply can’t accept that there was any good reason to throw away her humanity again and this time be completely willing to do so. It just doesn’t fly with him, there’s always another way. For Sarah, there never was. He was always the one who thought things could be better, that they could try to find a different solution. Kerrigan generally accepted that they couldn’t always choose the good option. It was why she went along with the plan that would see an entire planet consumed and herself captured by the Zerg.

As a result, Jim leaves Sarah, unwilling to speak to her further, while Kerrigan looks out at the cold vacuum of space, accepting that she has quite possibly lost the man she loved forever. Revenge has it prices and this was the biggest one of them all. Perhaps in a small way, it would’ve been better for Jim to be dead. At least for Sarah anyway. That would mean she’d never have think about how he’d feel about her choices. Now, she can’t pretend for even a second that he’d feel differently. He just flat out told her his thoughts, he feels betrayed. And Kerrigan honestly can’t blame him for feeling like that. Because she kinda did.

If these is one aspect of Sarah Kerrigan that can be granted to her as a heroic sentiment, it’s her willingness to accept a loss, a failure and the rejection of her choices by others. Many villains would rant or find excuses or blame it on someone else or something else. Sarah accepts that all her choices did this, that she’s the one to blame and she’s the one who has to live with herself for the rest of her life knowing she broke the heart of the only man she ever loved. A reality that very well could mean he will never be able to be with her ever again.

But at least he’s alive’s and that is better than when he was dead. So she’ll swallow her pride, accept her failure, be grateful the hard part is over, and move on to finishing what she started. The end of Arcturus Mengsk.

Trapped like a Rat in a Cage

So the final campaign commences as the Zerg Swarm blots out the skies of Korhal. Kerrigan is ready to finish what she started and get her revenge. However, her human allies have made only one request. Kerrigan tells them of her forthcoming assault in the hopes that Valerian will be able to prevent further chaos in the aftermath. To do that, he wants her to land her forces outside the city instead of on top of it.

This will lead to fewer civilian causalities, but it will make fighting into the city that much harder. Kerrigan accepts though, possibly noting how Valerian isn’t seeking to use the chaos to his advantage like his father once did. He’s instead asking for restraint from Kerrigan, who has no reason to give it to him, so he can help save lives and give innocents time to evacuate. She accepts this, amazingly. Sarah is showing the ability to empathize and reason, to not place all those on Korhal as part of her revenge.

All the same, the planet is still well defended and lives will be lost no matter what Kerrigan does to restrain herself. Mengsk doesn’t care even a remote bit, as he calls on every able bodied citizen to return to Korhal to defend it. Or more accurately, himself, as he knows Sarah is really only after him. He has no choice, it’s either fight Kerrigan to the death here or surrender. Mengsk is many things, but he does not cower in the face of his end. Mostly because he has plenty of other people to die for him, but generally because he refuses to admit he can be defeated.

Kerrigan’s tactics for the assault are much different, as despite numbers being on her side, she seeks to preserve her units and swarms’ numbers for as long as possible. She could just use brute force tactics, but that means getting thousands of zerg and innocent people killed. So she opts for more surgical landfall. Where she sends massive bio-launchers to the surface and uses them to take out the planet’s orbital defenses so the rest of the swarm can get through. In the process, she opens the way for her other lieutenants to storm into and secure the landing zone.

Kerrigan’s opening mission is to protect the lives of her forces, even as she sacrifices many to get planetside. There is a limit to how many Bio-Launchers she can send down, implying that she can’t expend more resources than necessary. The whole of the swarm is hers, but she’s opted for a strategy that is about preserving lives. She could just send everyone right in the capital from on high and obliterate it, but this enables far more Zerg to survive what would be a needless slaughter while also not catching innocents in the crossfire.

Meanwhile Mengsk’s true colors continue to shine through. He drops experimental nuclear warheads on his own troops to stop rampaging Ultralisks in an evolution mission and continues to push his experiments on Zerg in the middle of the siege. Despite knowing how dangerous this is given what happened to his last batch of guinea pigs. Mengsk clearly doesn’t care for the lives under his command, which he really should since he doesn’t have infinite numbers like Kerrigan does.

It’s a sharp contrast between the usual set up in these sorts of stories. The monsters besieging the humans are more directed in their targets. They swarm but do not sacrifice needlessly. Kerrigan cares about the lives of her forces more than the Terrans seem to, or at least their leader. The Zerg rage a less catastrophic war that emphasizes calculation and tactics. While Mengsk throws lives away in a last stand that is more about preserving himself than anyone else. There’s no illusion of glory here, Mengsk isn’t doing to save the Dominion, he’s doing it for himself alone.

But despite this, the game doesn’t exactly let Kerrigan off easily, not even here. Regardless of her discretion, she still is ultimately leading this war out of a desire for revenge. Raynor is alive, sure, but Mengsk is still the reason she became what she is and that is still the clear reason behind this assault. As Mengsk will point out himself as he confronts Kerrigan through a message. He calls her out for her motivations, how many thousands are dead now because of her vengeance quest. Kerrigan doesn’t have much of an answer for his claims, simply pointing out that he made this all possible. Mengsk is adamant, that for all the terrible things he’s done, he did them to protect humanity from monsters like her.

I guess he’s ignoring that he’s part of the reason monsters like Kerrigan exist.

To be honest though, he still has a point and Kerrigan is not denying anything he’s saying about what is motivating her and what she is. Sarah’s goals aren’t much more noble than Mengsk, but he has the excuse that he’s earnestly deluded himself into the role of savior. Kerrigan doesn’t have such luxury it seems, she’s accepted she’s the monster and is done apologizing or rationalizing it. She is holding back her nature, yes, but it doesn’t really absolve her of the wrong she has done to get here, nor the deaths she’s causing even now. Mengsk might have brought this on himself, but Sarah is still the instrument leading this march on his palace.

Perhaps that is the point though, the acceptance on Kerrigan’s part that she is, in all respects, the monster of this story. She’s not the hero, she’s not the good guy, she’s not the shining knight here to slay the mad king. She’s just the angry wronged creature of the land that just so happens to be pointed towards the right target for once. And woe to those in her way. Does that make her better or worse? Mengsk is still making excuses for himself, even if he truly believes them, they are still excuses for terrible crimes. Kerrigan has no such delusions, no such absolution on her part. She knows what she’s here for, she knows she won’t be called a hero after this, and she’s fine with that.

Does knowing you’re the monster of the story make you more heroic if you are still doing monstrous things? Even if it is against someone who is probably just as bad if not worse than you? Where’s the line? Who gets to write the final line of the story and determine which roles belong to who? While Heart of the Swarm seems to ask this question at this point, the debate is quickly done away with, as Mengsk activates his secret weapon, a psi-disruptor that intends to break the swarm’s hivemind and turn it against them, killing any Zerg caught in its range.

But Kerrigan planned for this. The Zerg is no longer so singular in its makeup, the swarm no longer so stringent along genetic lines. Dehaka is the much needed diversity the Zerg have lacked. The Primal Zerg have no such psi-connection, and thus are immune from the disruptor. Through a series of lighting commando raids and full frontal assaults on the orbital platform where the disruptor resides, Kerrigan and Dehaka bring ruin to Mengsk’s final defense against the invasion.

In this instant, Kerrigan embraces the outsiders of her swarm, the ones that aren’t truly a part of it, to assist her in this critical hour. The old Kerrigan would’ve used Dehaka and tossed him aside when he was no longer needed, but Dehaka remains loyal and so does Sarah to her Primal lieutenant. Kerrigan has done what so few monsters can do, embrace something it cannot truly control to help it. The Primal Zerg only follow Kerrigan because of her strength and power, they are not connected to her in any other way. Pawns that cannot be controlled should be a liability to the Queen of Blades. But not so here.

And this won’t be the last time Kerrigan accepts outside assistance, as her final push to Mengsk begins.

You Turned us ALL into Monsters

As Kerrigan prepares for her final assault on Mengsk, her lieutenants all have their own takes on thing. Izsha is only considerate of what matters to the Swarm, Dehaka is content with collecting essence, Zagara has fully embraced Kerrigan’s vision, Stukov is prepared to continue the fight against Amon after Mengsk is dead and Abathur has decreed that Kerrigan’s achievements are the greatest among the Swarm. When Sarah points out, acknowledging once more, that all of this is about her revenge, Abathur’s reply is succinct and consistent with his philosophy. The Swarm’s purpose changes with its leader, as long as it is fulfilling that purpose, that is what matters.

Kerrigan herself gives the greatest thought to what happens after this, even if she dies. She’s shattered Mengsk’s power structure. He won’t recover from this, even if he breaks the Swarm and her. What the Terrans do after his death or the death of this new Queen of Blades will best determine their future. And while that might not matter to the Swarm itself, Sarah clearly gives more thought to it. And, as Abathur has pointed out, if it matters to Kerrigan, it matters to the Swarm at large. As pointed out when the time for the battle comes and Valerian once more requests Kerrigan avoid civilian sectors. Doing so would put her assault at risk, as Mengsk would clearly see her pattern and exploit it. But she accepts the conditions, even though Valerian has no power to enforce them.

This is significant in terms that Kerrigan is fully anticipating she very well might die here and doing so would doom the Swarm later in its fight against Amon. Making this last battle all the harder is not conducive to either her revenge or her set path against the real villain of this story. But it is the right thing to do, the heroic thing to do and she decides to head down that path. Kerrigan has accepted she is a monster by this point, but she can choose what kind of monster she wants to be.

Mengsk’s last stand at the steps of his palace throws everything at the player. Every special weapon variant, every veteran unit, everything in the Terran Arsenal that Mengsk has left. And as powerful as Kerrigan is, the defenses arrayed against her are intimidating. But not long into the battle, someone else enters the fray. Jim Raynor, flying in with the Hyperion to destroy and take over a Dominion to Kerrigan’s flank. He’s come to help finish this with Sarah.

It was hinted at that Jim had seen that, despite her change, despite what she had done in the name of revenge, Sarah was not the same Queen of Blades he swore to kill so long ago. That Kerrigan is dead and while his Sarah is not truly back, perhaps she never could be, a part of her remains. Jim has also sworn to take Arcturus Mengsk down, and on the eve of the tyrant’s end, he won’t miss out on taking part in ending his regime. Raynor’s Raiders formed to take down the oppression of Mengsk and his government, it makes sense they would be here now even if their allies in this assault are Zerg.

Many players might question how quickly Jim comes around on this, but it’s very clear he was conflicted about helping Kerrigan until she made it clear she was not going to be indiscriminate in her ire. This is just about Mengsk, and while that’s not perfect, for Raynor it has always been about Arcturus in the end. He’s the one who caused Kerrigan’s death and rebirth into the Swarm. He’s as much to blame as anyone for what happened. I wouldn’t expect Raynor to sit out on taking down Arcturus at last. That would be far more out of character.

It also of course introduces a wrinkle into the final fight. While it’s nice to have Raynor here, Kerrigan can’t let anything happen to him. So she also needs to protect his base while pushing her assault. It drains some of Mengsk’s resources clearly to have to divert to attack Raynor, but it also distracts Kerrigan. So it makes the mission just a bit harder as a result. However, this again speaks to the duality of Kerrigan’s nature itself. She is risking her life and her revenge to save Raynor and his fellow Raiders. It’s mostly out of a selfish desire, but it is against her monstrous instincts ultimately as her need to protect Jim is clearly an emotional one rather than an instinctual one.

Jim isn’t the only one helping out of course, the whole Swarm is here. Simply destroying the defenses to the Imperial Sector will enable Kerrigan’s lieutenants to send their forces in and back up her assaults on the many Dominion bases that line the streets up to the palace proper. It shows the sense of unity and camaraderie built up among this new Swarm. Still tied to Kerrigan’s will, but still independent enough that their choice to be here is largely their own. As Abathur has pointed out, Kerrigan gives the Swarm purpose and they are ultimately willing to follow to the bitter end, achieving victory for her and themselves.

Strangely enough, because of Kerrigan’s actions and Raynor’s presence here, the Swarm itself has ultimately changed in its goals. Even if they won’t acknowledge it, the Zerg are essentially liberators for once. They are ending the reign of a mad tyrant, freeing his subjects from his oppression, all with the backing of a proper freedom fighting force in the form of the Raiders. With each street cleared of Dominion Forces, Korhal grows closer to abolishing the true monster in all of this. While Mengsk continues to rant, rave, demand Raynor’s head, and insist that he is the savior of humanity as his empire crumbles around him.

Combining her assaults between Raynor’s and her own forces that she helps break through into the city, Kerrigan can easily annihilate much of what’s left of the Dominion in her path. Occasionally taking moments out of the assault to defend Jim’s own forces and the Hyperion itself. Before long, the path of the palace is clear and only the final elite forces of Korhal stand in her way.

It’s interesting to note, that because of his actions here and Kerrigan protecting him, Jim has become an unofficial part of her Swarm. Wholly independent of course, but no less aligned with its interests. Raynor’s Raiders can be see pusing up with the Zerg, united in the same cause of taking Mengsk down. As times goes on and Jim builds up his units, we’ll see the full might of the Raiders alongside that of the Zerg. Kerrigan remains the focal point of the battle, but Raynor is clearly as important to this assault in the form of his support. Finally, at last, they are together in purpose… if only for now.

As you approach the final gate to the palace, decimating its defenses, Mengsk sends everything he had at Kerrigan in the form of drop pods to the surface. But between the mass of Zerg and Raynor’s own freedom fighters pushing up from behind, they are not much of a match for the Swarm. Once the gates fall, Kerrigan strides into the Palace itself, taking the fight to Mengsk directly as the Swarm holds outside. She cuts through what’s left of his bodyguard and then finally corners him in his office.

This is where Mengsk plays his final trump card, the Xelnaga Relic he had taken from Char and reassembled here. Knowing Kerrigan herself would come for him and that this artifact was his best bet at defeating her. It completely debilitates Kerrigan, forcing her to the ground in pain upon its activation. After coming so far, it almost seems like Sarah will die here at Mengsk’s hands.

If not for Raynor coming in to punch out Arcturus and take his hand off the activation button, of course. Because Raynor IS the hero of this story, that much isn't in doubt.

With the Xelnaga Artifact neutralized for now, Kerrigan is allowed to attack Mengsk with her full fury and she does not hold back. At last, with nothing left to use against her, Arcturus admits the truth, that HE turned Kerrigan into this monster. But Sarah disagrees, stating “You turned us ALL into Monsters,” before finally killing him.

It’s an acknowledgement of a terrible truth. That all the terrible things Arcturus had done had forced everyone involved here, Raynor included, to do terrible things, compromise valuable principles, just to take him down. Kerrigan has accepted what she is at this point, Mengsk dies refusing to believe he’s a monster himself.

But despite being a monster, acknowledging she is one, Kerrigan’s bloodlust is sated. She is not consumed by her hatred and finally ends her campaign against the Dominion. The Swarm will leave Korhal now, in its entirety. No occupation, no more spreading the creep, no consumption and mass slaughter of Terrans. Sarah’s goals are ended here and she will not continue butchering people when it is no longer necessary.

However, this ultimately means one final sacrifice, Jim. Kerrigan had said there can be no her and Raynor while Mengsk lived. But the truth is, they can’t be together even then. The Zerg need a leader to keep them in check and to fight Amon. More importantly, even if her actions ended a tyrant, she is still the monster that Terrans fear, and rightfully so. None of this has undone that. So she says goodbye to the only man she’s ever loved, leaving Raynor to pick up the pieces of the revolution he started and she helped complete. Where she goes now, Jim cannot follow, yet again.

Sarah gives up a life with the man she loves in this moment, understanding she is needed elsewhere and that it wouldn’t help anyone if she stuck around on Korhal. So she does the selfless thing in this moment, perhaps the most selfless she’s done in the entire game. Something no monster would be capable of. Letting go of something she so desperately wants, even more than revenge.

The question is though… is that enough to redeem her?

I Am The Swarm

At the end of the campaign, Sarah has renounced everything, her humanity, her identity, even the man she loves. All in the name of fighting a greater evil, for a purpose even higher than her own revenge. She no longer considers herself truly human. But she is no longer the villain either. She is still a monster, but is she a heroic one? It’s hard to say and I don’t even think Sarah herself would try to claim she is a hero. Not even at the end of the Starcraft II storyline where she admits that nothing will really make her hands clean. Her atonement is ultimately Amon’s destruction, to make all the lives she ruined count for something in the end.

As a narrative, the idea of turning Sarah Kerrigan from the Queen Bitch of the Universe into its savior is rocky. Even when the story acknowledges its pitfalls, it never does much to correct to them. Kerrigan still does horrible things in her pursuit of revenge and does little in her attempt to absolve or justify her actions. Perhaps that isn’t the point though as in the end, Kerrigan doesn’t seek absolution or a justification for her actions. She merely accepts her role as the monsters, but chooses how to act it out.

There were likely ways to better fix the issues that arise as a result of the story choices made in Heart of the Swarm. Giving Kerrigan other options besides killing the Protoss for example, or enabling players to make choices at certain points in the campaign to steer her arc in their direction. Another option, more missions in certain sections of the story that would show a more heroic side to Kerrigan or at least the Zerg. Perhaps even just better arcs for her lieutenants would be enough, letting her call her out on her bullshit or for her to better defend her decisions.

However, any of those choices could’ve easily made the Zerg less than what they were and what fans expect of them. The more you change a monster into a hero, the less they are what people love about monsters. An obstacle, a force of nature, a nightmare to conquer, confront or acknowledge, any number of allegories or metaphors is lost the moment a monster becomes more of a hero.

A clear example of this Godzilla, who started out as allegory for Japan’s darkest fears and national trauma, but just as quickly turned into a kid friendly superhero defender of Japan. Many have derided this change, many others have tried to defend it, but quite a few of them miss the point of that change. Godzilla was not entirely popular outside his singular appearence as a metaphor for the atomic bomb. In order to survive, he had to change. And he changed excessively over the years, from villain, to hero, back to villain, to anti-hero, then villain and hero at the same time. Godzilla survived into the modern day and cultural relevance by never remaining stagnant. He represents whatever the filmmaker in the moments wants him to. From atomic destruction, to Kaiju Superhero Wrestler. Then from Rage Incarnate, to angry but protective father. From a satirical stand-in for Ecological Disaster to a Defender of the Natural World before back to being a metaphor for the trauma of war. Godzilla has survived by evolving, just like the Zerg.

I monsters are meant to represent our fears, and our fears change over time, so must they. The Zerg are the ultimate expression of this. They evolve to fit the needs of whoever is in charge of them. To remain stagnant is extinction. So they change, they become what is needed to survive. As does Kerrigan ultimately. She starts as a loyal friend and love interest to a hero, before being corrupted into the weapon of a malevolent creature by betrayal. She then becomes the greatest monster in history, before her humanity is returned to her by said hero. But then, she takes up the mantle of the monster once more, but this time of her own accord for her own goals and not the corrupted mission of another. At the end of it she is neither fully monster nor fully hero, but somewhere between.

The challenge of writing any monster it seems is finding that balance, between how they evolve with each subsequent return to them. Kerrigan is never absolved of her actions, but she is never full condemned by them either. A monster can be both a source of fear and a form of liberation. Kerrigan proves this. The question is ultimately how you walk the line between hero and monster. If we can learn from what Heart of the Swarm attempted to accomplish here, perhaps all our monsters can evolve themselves.

And they need too. Not just because monsters exist to tell us how to defeat evil, but also how to empathize with what creates them, what fashions them, what drives them. A monster can be many things. A source of one’s nightmares as well as an expression of one’s inner self. The truth of Kerrigan’s final words to Mengsk can be felt in this. In someways, we are all monsters. How we write ours into being on the page is an expression of how we deal with the monster in life.

It’s something I’ve struggled with myself. How do I look at the darker aspects or myself, the things I’m not happy with. How do I reconcile this with who I want to be? Am I doomed? Am I able to overcome my limitations? Am I a good person in the end? There isn’t an easy answer and I suppose that’s why I like “Heart of the Swarm”, because it admits self-actualization is not easy. That sometimes there’s no way to fully absolve one self. And that the best you can do is own up to your failings and try to choose the best path open to you.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, let it be this. Kerrigan recognized the monster inside and ultimately embraced it, but in the end, she was not consumed by its power. She owned what she was. Accepting the monster made her a better person. Maybe not a hero, not fully, but ultimately it was the change she needed. We all have a choice in the end, how selfless and selfish we wish to be. It’s up to you to walk the line between both your way. And perhaps understanding what the monster wants, like Kerrigan, can help you find your path through it.

#Video Games #Monsters #StarCraft II #Heart of the Swarm #Sarah Kerrigan #Queen of Blades #Zerg #Jim Raynor #Essay #Sorry there's just a ton of text in some spots #but Tumblr is stupid about picture limits.

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rjmhereunderprotest · 1 year ago

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There's No Power Greater than X: Rebuilding My Xbox Library

This wasn't the post I intended to come back with, but it's a recent enough experience of my that I felt like documenting. I'm still working on something else that's more substantial but I just feel like talking about this.

Recently, I've been trying to write more Text Let's Plays as a means of keeping myself writing, creatively active and enabling to use my love of gaming to do so. I'd be remiss if I also didn't say I was inspired by a good friend of mine who writes hilarious recreations of his playthroughs. Mostly horror games, he subjects himself to that a lot.

I decided to do the same and my latest choice was to return to my golden age of console game playing. Namely the Original Xbox where I started more regularly playing video games and buying them outright. The reason was simple enough, I played "Halo: Combat Evolved" and I've gotten every Xbox ever since. I've wanted an excuse to revisit the console and this was it. I thought it would be a simple enough process, but it turned out to be... much more complicated.

So this is my short, as possible, look into what started as wanting to replay an old game I loved and share it with my friends online, into a sudden nostalgia trip that reconnected me with some old gaming memories and a desire to rebuild what was once forgotten, my Original Xbox Library.

Dragoons Improvise

I think it's best to start with what game I chose to highlight for the Text LP that started all this, MechAssault.

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One year post its launch, Xbox got an upgrade, Xbox Live which would change online gaming forever, for better and... well, a lot of worse if the screaming racist Twelve-Year-Olds on "Call Of Duty" are any indication. MechAssault was among the first games to be heavily advertised as compatible with the service.

I've never cared about multiplayer to any major extent. I don't have good experience playing with complete strangers online. I'm just not good with social interaction in general and competitive play brings out the worst in me. So, it's just never been something I've been able to stick with. MechAssault appealed to me for only one reason, giant freaking robots! I was casually aware of the BattleTech universe but it was so impenetrable on PC, MechAssault promised an easier way to play around in these cool walking tanks and I had a lot of fun with the game when it first came out.

My choice to play MechAssault for the text Let's Play was easy enough on this grounds, I could even do its sequel right after. But I quickly ran into some complications. First and foremost, I can't play MechAssault on any modern console.

Here's the rub, MechAssault was successful in pushing units, and so was its sequel to a moderate degree, but not enough to continue the franchise. Despite owning the IP and studio in charge of it, Microsoft never released a third game in the MechAssault series for consoles or PC. And even though the game was an Xbox Exclusive, its never been made backwards compatible. Its sequel is, but only for the Xbox 360. So even that has complications.

For some people this is a problem, because they probably chucked the old Xbox out the door a long time ago. Not me, I've of course kept mine. Well, I've kept the replacement I got when the original Xbox we got suffered some sort of power surge that caused its output port for the power cable to melt. After that, the thing just never worked again and any attempt to turn it on makes it start smelling of burning rubber and plastic. Not ideal. Suffice to say, I'm glad I still have the replacement Xbox that has held up much better over the years.

So I have the console I need to play MechAssault, what I don't have is a TV that's really compatible with it. The Original Xbox uses a different AV Input than most modern TVs, known as a composite, something that took me a lot of time to figure out actually. It's entirely different from Component wires and of substantially lower quality.

Here's where the real problem kicks in. While I CAN make the Xbox's composite cords work on a modern Flatscreen, as all I need to do is plug the yellow input into the green component output, that forces me to unplug the Xbox 360's component cords. Which is a pain in the ass to do for my TV, not to mention awkward. I attempted to see if I could finagle things a little. I got myself a composite cord switch box, thinking I could make the issue less of a hassle and maybe even re-hook up my old Playstation 2 console in the process, since it also has a composite cord.

Yeah that didn't work, the switch box is fine... but it doesn't read being plugged into the the green component output so great. There's also another problem associated with the composite cord in general, it needed to be reset constantly. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be able to properly register that the green component output is compatible with the yellow composite input. It goes to a blue screen as if the connection has been lost. Replugging it in returns the video, but again, this is a hassle I don't care to deal with constantly.

However, I can at least play the Original Xbox Console so I can still do the Text LP while I wait to figure out a solution to these problems, right? All I had to do was put the MechAssault Game Disc in when I was ready to start my Text LP and we'd be off to the races. Now I hadn't played MechAssault during the time I was waiting because I wanted to come back into the game with fresh eyes, no prior playthrough, no figuring out the controls again, just as blind as I can make it. Surely this is not a recipe for disaster!

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The game won't start. It will not start. I can put it in a dozen different times, close and reclose the disc tray, clean the thing off so there is no fingerprints or whatever. The disc will not play. I try out several other games at this point, concerned this is a console problem. Nope, they all work. They more often than not require me to pull the damn Yellow Video cord out and place back in, but the games all work! After a lot of trial and error and consulting threads online, almost ripping open the old Xbox and even contemplating getting a new one, I come to the very simple obvious conclusion. It's the MechAssault disc! It's borked! Something is wrong with it!

The nearest I can tell, upon closer examination, the inner part of the disc, near the hole, has some damage on it. Damage that is not consistent with other games in my collection. It's been scratched off or something. At some point the game was damaged to an irreparable degree. It can't be played because it can't be read. You cannot believe how absolutely devastating this was.

So where do I go from here? Simple, I take advice from one of the Characters of the MechAssault game itself though. Because the game opens with you crash landing, losing a ton of your mechs and being stuck behind enemy lines with no back up, the first thing your commanding officer tells you is to suck it up, "Dragoons Improvise." And that's what I decide to do.

I find out there is a way to upgrade your Original Xbox, and even your Playstation 2, to Component Compatible cables. You can also make both consoles and the Xbox 360 HD Port compatible, but those ports are being used by other consoles right now so, that's not a viable option at the moment. The point is, I can make all three of these older consoles work with my flatscreen. All I need to do is get some compatible cables for them and I find plenty online for decent prices.

The next step is a decent switch box, and thankfully there are a ton I can use. I'm hopeful it will be more successful this go around at least, the last time I tried something like this the HDMI switcher wasn't compatible with either of my Nintendo Mini Consoles. This one is more analog though and its dealing with component cables, so no digital screw ups. It's also a bit more high end than that one was, so I was more confident it would work especially after checking reviews for the thing.

I pass the time waiting for the items to arrive playing the one Xbox Game that doesn't seem to be affected by the blue screen issue that requires me to unplug and replug the Yellow Video Input from the green component outlet.

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"Heroes of the Pacific" is one of many World War 2 Air Combat games that exist in the ether. It is... average in many respects. It hosts a decent list of planes, but its mechanics aren't the best and frankly "Secret Weapons Over Normandy", which released two years prior, is superior to it in everyway. From the gaming mechanics, the upgrade system for the planes, the plethora of aircraft you can pick and especially the voice acting. HotP has some of the most phoned in voice acting ever, let me tell you. But its at least functional and I managed to beat all of its levels on the highest difficulty setting while playing the thing again. So I feel like I've more than proven my capability in powering through a frankly just okay by even its era's standards.

Once my items arrived, I hooked everything up, switching out cords and fixing up the various systems, a lot of tedious stuff frankly. The end result was excellent though. The switch box worked perfectly. No blue screen when starting up games, no black and white picture, no loss of sound, all the problems I encountered just trying to get the various wires and outputs to work with each other were gone. And now, all my older consoles were hooked up to the same component connection. Everything seemed good to go.

I am now only waiting on one thing, my replacement copy of MechAssault. Which is not as hard to come across as I fear it will be. Sure, it's not on Amazon at a decent price or at all like I hoped... but it is on EBay, in a Platinum case in fact. I'm wary though, I haven't used EBay in a long time. I tried selling stuff there and rarely got any takers. And you're mostly dealing with third party people miles away and not directly with the company itself. It can be a crapshoot. However, I have little choice.

The MechAssault game does arrive though, a little later than I hoped it would, but it does show up and it does work, confirming that my console wasn't at fault. However, this experience sorta sparked something in my mind. I replaced my damaged copy of a game I loved relatively easily and for less than what most games cost today. And in the time waiting for the new copy to come, I was looking more and more into the Original Xbox's library, remembering a bunch of games I had used to play but only ever rented, if at all.

And I thought to myself, why don't I have these games? A lot of them I either enjoyed or were up my alley! Was I still so caught up on renting back in the day I didn't consider just... owning the damn thing?

It wouldn't be the first time I bought an older game for the Original Xbox online long after they stopped making them. In response to my revulsion at what had been done to the Wolfenstein games by Bethesda, destroying the lore of the series and ruining the character of the greatest Nazi-Killing Hero that ever lived, BJ Blakowicz, I had wanted to replay my favorite game of the series, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. But my desktop had given up the ghost and and my laptop is not suitable for gaming off of steam. So I looked to find the console port of the same game and realized it worked on the Xbox 360! Awesome! I could play my favorite game again!

I never considered I could probably find more old games that I loved. I had recently gotten "The Simpsons Game" for the Xbox 360 on Amazon, but the prices on EBay tend to be little less harmful to my wallet. So... why not fill out my library a little while I'm at all this? Watching a bunch of old commercials for the Xbox's life cycle of games sorta convinced me to at least give it a shot. So I started to assemble a list of games I was interested in reconnecting with. A project I called "Rebuilding the Library" concerning all the old games that I felt were missing.

Target Rich Environment

The thing about EBay is that you can find almost anything you want... and that's the problem sometimes. You really have to sort out which things are worth going after in the end and which, honestly are just wastes of your time. Not to mention some thing might not be what you're after and you should really pay attention to what the descriptions and titles say.

Let's just say that a lot of people were selling game cases without the games inside them. Or they were just selling manuals, or they were just selling the game sans all of that. You'd think that last one means you're getting a bargain, nope. Sometimes they can cost just as much as a complete in box entry, at least when you factor in shipping.

That's also what kept me off EBay so much. The sellers can sometimes SEEM like they're giving you a great deal, but their shipping costs can run into insane amounts. I find it hard to believe at times that shipping can honestly cost more than the game you're shipping itself.

Let's be fair, a lot of these people aren't Amazon, they don't have the option to ship for low prices and still make a profit. I just sometimes wonder about the justification for the shipping prices at times. Especially if they offer little benefits for how much they're asking.

Which, I sometimes ended up ignoring through my own ignorance which might have made some of these headaches a little less of one. A number of the sellers offer tracking for your items if you pay more in shipping. I did not see this on my first go around with a lot of these. So I was kinda left in the lurch for a number of them just hoping they'd show up. Most of them did. I probably could've avoided one of problems I encountered had I been more thoughtful about tracking.

I don't think I would've paid more for tracking for most of the items in the end though. I might have just decided to go to Amazon if that was the case as they tend to provide tracking when one of the third-party sellers leaves the shipping up to one of their resource centers. EBay is for when you're trying to get a decent enough bargain after all. That's the whole point of the auction system, which I wasn't using for this to be clear.

I decided early on to not get anything outside of Canada if I could help it. By the end of things I think I ordered something every single province. So I can definitively say my collection is the accumulation of every corner of the Great White North.

However, I quickly decided to be picky about which games I ultimately got. There were some I intended to get from the outset, but others I eventually decided weren't worth the expenditure. These usually fell into a few categories that got them excluded.

First: Too Expensive, at least two of these games were simply asking too much even for me and I found them ultimately in a cheap capacity on steam. As much as I would've wanted to have "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" on Xbox, I was able to get it for dirt cheap on steam and it probably works better there anyway. The other is... well it's a bit more adult I think and I don't think I just want that hanging out in the open. Besides the PC version isn't censored.

Second: I already have it on Playstation 2, this is redundant. That's what got Scarface kicked off the list. While I was okay with getting a game I already had on the computer, getting it for a console that, as I explained, I now had access to again as a result of my other purchases, seemed completely pointless. The same was true of another game that I do have for the PC that is simply not good enough on the console anyway.

Third: They're just not well reviewed or interesting. That's what got Predator: Concrete Jungle kicked at least. As much as I love the idea of playing the Predator in any aspect, I remembered too much of not being impressed with the game to buy into it this go around. It also was too expensive. Shadow Ops: Red Mercury just ended up feeling too mediocre to bother with.

Fourth: It belonged to a Genre I wasn't into. Every sport game got knocked off the list more or less as a result. Even the iconic DOA Volleyball game. If I want softcore porn of those characters, I have the internet. I can get that for free.

Fifth: They're available on Xbox's digital store front and there's no sense in wasting money on something I can probably get for cheap and with easier access to later one.

In the end I was looking mainly for inexpensive titles that were iconic, had cult acclaim, I had played before but did not own or at least seemed interesting to me regardless of anything else. Now there was an ultimate to exception to this basic rule of thumb concerning price, but that was only because it was apparent after a while I had no choice. A few of them also came from Amazon when I found them at a more affordable price.

In any case, with my reasoning for what didn't end up in getting picked up I think it's time to get to the point of all this. Keep in mind, a lot of these are of the shooter variety, but they're not all the as atypical as you might think. And even still, I like to think I got a wide range of titles all the same. So let us take a look.

The Haul

Yeah, it's a fair amount. 27 titles, maybe that sounds like a lot, but I got some of these for a bit of a steal honestly. A good number of these have always been on my radar in one form or another. It's just I finally got around to reacquiring them. If you want call some of these impulse buys, I won't dispute it, but they are more or less games I felt I missed or had missed out on. Each of them is a little piece of the history of the Xbox and Gaming overall. So, let's look over them in no particular order.

"Whacked!" was one of two games on my list from the start. One of the first games Xbox used to promote the Live Service. A party game centered around a twisted cartoon world's game show with contestants who centered their personalities around the seven deadly sins. The game is probably most known for Lucy, the lovely lady in blue on the cover who runs around most of the game naked save for censorship bars over her private bits. Yeah she's not in that outfit you see for very long.

Oddly enough though I didn't pick her as my main, my favorite character is a little off to her lower right, Eugene, the green penguin/duck with the goggles and trapper hat. He's a Canadian, he's my favorite color and he's a total nerd. It's like he was made for me. He also represents the Sin of Envy, constantly coveting what others have and secretly hating those who belittle him. Hmm, perhaps I should reconsider why I feel he's so relatable then.

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As you can see in this audition tape that doubled as one of the game's trailers, this game relies heavily on madcap Looney Tunes humor. It's emphasized in a ton of the commercials that would play between rounds of the game show as well as other cutscenes where the characters interact. Whacked!'s gameplay isn't terrible though, it's rather varied from simple death matches to collecting stars, king of the hill and even dodgeball. However, it wasn't well advertised. I only probably ran into it because stuff like this was what I was drawn to. The concept of a Looney Tunes-like world that was centered towards older audiences just intrigued me... oh yeah and Lucy was hot so that's probably what got me to at least rent it out. But I actually enjoyed the humor and the game enough to keep playing it back in the day. It's still popular enough in some circles and it's even backwards compatible with the 360, but it's still a cult hit.

This was the second game that got on my radar. Bloodwake is boat combat based action title. Similar to something like Twisted Metal, but on the water and there's a more involved storyline besides a demolition derby of death. You play as a pirate in a South China Sea-like setting where you are trying to get revenge on the man who sunk your previous ship. No spoilers, but it's your brother because that's how these games go. I played this way back in the day as it was part of the second wave of titles released post the Xbox's launch. It was different and fun to play. I guess it just didn't get the numbers needed for a sequel, if any were planned. But the game showed the power of the Xbox for the time as its water effects were a standout in the graphical department. I got this because it was one of the best early experiences I had with the Xbox that wasn't centered around Halo.

It's a racing game, I'm not big on racing games. I didn't get it for the cars. Hell I didn't even really want this game in general. But I had no choice. I had to get this game in order to buy...

Jet Set Radio Future, in a era where Skateboarding was king on video game consoles, this game dared to focus on rollerblading... and graffiti... and jamming tunes! While I am not the best at extreme sports games, I had enough good memories of briefly playing the demo and a big enough desire to own this damn thing at last that I decided to finally fork in. I would've gotten it on Xbox 360's marketplace... if it hadn't technically been delisted from there. Actually, I think it was the original title anyway, not this game which is its sequel. So... yeah, it is what it is. Hopefully this game isn't too different from some other extreme sports games I played back in the day, but at least now I own it so if the itch to commit vandalism against corporate cops and their tanks hits me, it's right there.

Grand Theft Auto's original console outings always had a problem for me in one area, targeting. I could never make its lock-on system feel comfortable back in the day. When IV came out with a more traditional aiming system, it was far easier to get into. I think, however, I will be able to better adjust this go around. The real reason I got this double pack though is simple enough. Yes, I could get the remaster. Yes they've probably fixed it since its terrible launch. I don't care though, they took out some songs and I want the full V-Rock list when I'm riding around Vice City, plain and simple. Of course this brings us to a bit of a detour.

Well I can't just get these two games and not pick up San Andreas! That makes no sense. I could've gotten the Original Xbox version as well and even played it on my Xbox One. But it just would've downloaded the 360 version anyway from what I hear. So, this is cutting out the middle man in my eyes. Either way, no cuts to the radio's choice of songs. That's alright with me.

These two are the most expensive games on the list by far. Godzilla's fighting games were some of the best kaiju brawling one could find on any console. Destroy All Monsters Melee actually is from the states as I could not find it being sold in Canada anywhere. This thing is just that expensive and that coveted. The box is damaged so that's probably why they cut down the price just a little. As a major Godzilla fan, I was determined to finally own these and given I was already spending a good deal by this point, I just stopped caring and gave in. Whatever. I can finally beat down Gigan as Rodan, that's a win in my book.

By the by, did you know that ATARI logo is sort of a lie? Infrogrames bought the Atari license back in the day. Then they changed their name to Atari! They're still in business today even. But these games have been out of print forever, explaining their high price tag. There's just not many people willing to sell them at this point.

I probably could've gotten the sorta remake/sequel for the 360, two games for the price of one, but everyone only cares about Butcher Bay anyway. Starring Vin Diesel himself as everyone's favorite see in the dark career criminal, Riddick has to escape the absolute worst prison in existence. Playing this game was an experience back in the day in brutality. First person melee fighting is always tricky to pull off, but this game accomplished it. It also helped that it was fairly competent stealth game. I just generally like sneaking up on people neck snap them.

My connection with the game runs deeper than my initial playthrough. You see, the people who made Butcher Bay, some of them went on to found another studio entirely. The studio that made the terrible Wolfenstein reboots. In fact, I recognized their handiwork in the Concentration Camp level. To the point I felt like the game was less Wolfenstein and more just a reskin of this game. Down to the overly flowerly in-game narration. Which is fine for Riddick, just not for Blazkowicz. I think that's why I got the game, to remind myself of when I didn't have bad memories of this sort of playstyle.

I have a lot of 007 games. I just really like me some fun spy action and no one does it better than Bond in my opinion. From Russia With Love was the game that harkened back to classic era of the franchise, with Sean Connery himself! The game even has a jetpack to fly around in! None of the newer games gave you a jetpack! This one had been in my Amazon Wishlist for a while, I just finally decided I had an excuse to get it.

Another Rockstar game, but based on a cult classic film this time. I could've sworn I had this for the Playstation, but it's not on there in any of my memory cards. I might have deleted it or maybe I only ever rented it. I don't know, I could just be mistaken. This one caused me some trouble getting though. The first buyer from Amazon gave me the entirely wrong game! I had to return it to get my money back, which was a pain in the ass to do because of a garbage ass courier service. However, I think it worked it out. This copy came from a nice person off EBay who was trying to pay off some vet bills. That kinda made me happy to know I had helped someone out in the end.

I have the Evil Dead game for modern consoles, but I've always wanted/preferred the single player experience. These two games are highly different from each other in play style, but all I knew was that I wanted to finally play as Ash and kill Deadites without having to do it with other people. As a major fan of the Evil Dead franchise, I couldn't ignore these titles anymore than the Godzilla ones at the end of the day.

This was Free Radical's other less successful game IP besides Timesplitters. Second Sight had you play as amnesiac who wakes up in a research center of some kind with a lot of people want to kill him and psychic powers as his only real defense. It's not their typical run and gun shooter you expect from Free Radical, it's certainly more original. Sadly the game didn't sell well, shame too. You know there was a short period of time when psychic powers were all the rage in gaming mechanics. It looked like it would be the next big thing too.

Now this was a creepy as hell game. You play as a prisoner on death row who unfortunately arrives on the day a hellmouth just opens up under the prison. There's all these crazy cool monsters that are based off of various executions and ways people can die in prison. And there's a morality system that determines what ending you get that reveals how guilty you actually are. It was an awesomely scary game and I'm glad to own it again.

I have a huge affinity towards the Weird West subgenre. Just something about the mix of setting and tropes associated with it works wonders. And getting to fight vampires and other monsters in the wild west is a friggin awesome concept they should honestly do more of. I have no idea why I missed out on playing this game when I enjoyed the demo well enough. Especially knowing this was the start of High Moon Studios, the guys who made my favorite Transformers games. Although hearing it from them, that was sorta the problem. No one wanted to invest in Darkwatch, even after it reviewed well and sold decently. Before you knew it, Activision buys up High Moon, forces them to work on franchise only IPs, the original founders leave and soon after they produce Deadpool, they're all shoved into the CoD mines! Honestly, I'm noticing a pattern with a lot of these games at this point, are you?

Brute Force is a squad-based shooter where you can switch between four characters with unique abilities that are suitable for a variety of encounters and enemies you run into while playing. But the truth is, I played it because it had a crocodile man and I wanted to play as the crocodile man and that's really all that anyone cared about in the end I think. It has a crocodile man.

Mace Griffin is an ex-Space Ranger who was framed for a crime he didn't commit, was dishonorably discharged, imprisoned and when he came out all he could do was find Bounty Hunting work. The game is all about you clearing his name. For me I just felt it was cheap enough to get and, well, I like bounty hunter games. It's a cool enough concept to overcome some average scores. I think it will be fun enough for me at the very least.

I remember when conspiracy theory nonsense was just that, nonsense. Alien abductions and Area 51 used to be quaint little silly things to use in sci-fi. Now conspiracy nuts are considerably more racist and insanely dangerous. Maybe they always were. Area 51 was another of Midway's arcade games they translated to consoles. It used to be a lightgun on-rails shooter about aliens attacking the infamous secret military base. Now it's an FPS about that, but starring David Duchovny. That's right, Fox Mulder himself! I've never been into alien conspiracy garbage, but at least not I can laugh at the concept of Mulder fighting aliens on a fake Moon soundstage. Oh don't worry, we still went to the moon, but what we found there was too terrifying for any human eyes to see so we just faked the broadcast instead. OOOOOoOOOooHhhhhH! Spooky! See? It's dumb but at least it's not bigoted!

I have the two other games in the series, I bought this for completionism sake. We never got to see the end of this series, the proper end, with Bastogne and heading into Germany and all that. Instead Gearbox dumped all their money into Borderlands, left Aliens out to dry and impotently tried to save Duke Nukem. Thanks Randy. Thanks a ton. Oh well, at least now I have every entry in a once promising franchise.

The top-down squad-based strategic stealth game for PCs, becomes the action-stealth FPS game for consoles. I'll sum up why I have this succinctly enough. I enjoy taking down Fascists in video games, simple as that. Let me shoot at Nazis and I'm golden more or less. Not all the time, you need to at least make it fun and good, but killing Nazis is a good baseline.

I actually have this for the PC, but again my Desktop died so this is basically once again trying to play the game again more easily. I know people have a lot of thoughts about depicting this historical event, but for me I just try to view it as game depicting said historical event. No more, no less. It's best not to try and take your politics from video games. Especially when they don't have the time to examine all the complex context surrounding the mission gone wrong in question.

Speaking of controversial sources, Tom Clancy! Look, the guy wrote books to appease a very certain demographic, everyone right of center specifically, but there's no deny that his game studio didn't put out great hits. The Ghost Recon series is one of those and collecting the entire series as it started on consoles was a major goal for me as I've been a fan of the series for a long time. You have your standard locales for our titular Special Forces to visit, Russia, Cuba, North Korea, Kazakhstan, all the good hotspots for bad guys wanting to destroy America. If you want an action thriller movie to play around in, Ghost Recon is always your go to. And with these guys, I now basically have them all.

On the other side of the spectrum, Rainbow Six 3. Ghost Recon deals with special operations behind enemy lines. Rainbow is all about reactive counter-terrorism in mostly urban environments and indoors. Where things are more tense, closer and personal. They're very good tactical squad-based games. I've never been into Rainbow Six as much as Ghost Recon, but it's one of the central pillars of the Tom Clancy gaming library, next to Splinter Cell as the third column. So yeah, I picked it up because I already have all the Splinter Cells for the Xbox, might as well not leave Rainbow out of things.

Retro-active Final Thoughts

This all started because I just wanted to play one game, but then I guess I realized I wanted to play a lot of games. Games I had missed out on or just plain missed. I haven't had my Original Xbox hooked up in years and I guess prospect of being able to more regularly play it now just hit me hard enough to shake loose whatever else was holding me back from collecting these old favorites and curiosities.

The Xbox in general has been a huge part of my life and I suppose this journey was about making my library of games feel more whole. And the best part is, it's not really over. I still have to play through all these at some point and the prospect of that is exciting all the same. I know it's nostalgia fueled, but I did learn a lot about these games and the console as I looked them up. There was a lot of variety on the old Xbox. Even within a single genre. It's hard to look back to that moment of time and then to now when gaming feels so... different.

I'm not sure if this little expose has truly been as interesting or worthwhile to write as I believe it is. But I'm happy I got my thoughts down on it. And I do hope that, maybe like it did for me, it brought back some memories for you. I don't know if all of these games will hold up as well as I want them too, but it just feels nice to look forward to playing these games again all the same. And I enjoyed hunting for them, even if some aspects of it were frustrating.

Well, that's all for now. Next time I'll probably have something more substantial for you all. Until then, keep on gaming. Whatever console your passion is, I hope it's bringing you hours of fun. Who knows, maybe one day you'll step back into it like I have and discover some things you didn't know you were looking for.

#xbox #video games #retro gaming #collection #nostalgia

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rjmhereunderprotest · 2 years ago

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This is why I came to dislike Gwenpool being turned into a mutant. She was easily ignored by everyone in charge of the X-Office and Marvel itself. There are just too many mutants, too many big names, too many characters both A-list and cult favorites to ever truly focus on all of them! Gwenpool as a result has gotten lost in the crowd, literally, as her biggest X-Books appearances have ALL been cameos or background shots. It was just easier to force her into limbo by making her a mutant. "We didn't kill her off or get rid of her," Marvel can say. "She's just a mutant now! And we got plenty of popular mutants, so we don't have to use her."

Now Kamala is facing the same problem, the same threat of being lost in the crowd and forgotten. Once everyone has absorbed the initial mutant shock, she'll fade into the background amid the mass of mutants that the X-Stans care more about than her anyway. They only wanted Kamala initially because they hated the Inhumans and wanted to claim her. Now the Inhumans are all but extinct in the Marvel Universe, and no one is rushing to save them it seems.

At the very least, Kamala will have company with Gwen when she's shuffled into the background as just another mutant among their multitudes. They can share FanFics off-panel, at least until someone comes to their senses and retcons all of this stupid crap. Maybe they finally get the team-up book they deserve.

Hey, I have to have some kind of positive outlook here!

One of the many things that suck about Kamala becoming a mutant is the fact that I don't really trust most of the current regime of writers doing X books right now to write Kamala well. Though it doesn't matter who writes her cause once she's a mutant and the whole resurrection thing is done she'll get maybe 6 months to a year of focus as the hot new mutant in the club before Marvel goes back to focusing on the A list mutants they always focus on and Kamala goes back to being given nothing and this whole death/resurrection just to anger fans is just going to look even worse than it already does

#kamala khan #ms. marvel #gwenpool #gwen poole #gwendolyn poole #marvel #marvel comics #marvel mutants #x-men #this is a terrible idea #Zeb Wells and Nick Lowe are hacks!

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rjmhereunderprotest · 2 years ago

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Danny Chase is Still Dead: Why You Should Care That Death in Comics Doesn't Matter

Recent events have forced me to break my attempt at positivity for the moment to address something to a number of you. Specifically, the people who are using this line to try and soften/deride people's outrage over the leaks that have revealed the death of Ms. Marvel in a book that isn't even her own.

"It's Comic Books, she'll be back in six months to a year."

Yeah... shut up, that's exactly the fucking problem and also not the fucking point.

Death in comics being a revolving door is not a reason to calm down on one's outrage. Because it's the exact fucking problem plaguing comics. A symptom of a wider issue infecting the industry: Apathy. A lack of care. And when you use that line it's you saying "Stop caring about this, it's just a dumb disposable story." And in a world where comics struggle to sell, that's the worst message you can send. And it encourages the comic companies to keep doing this.

Death not mattering in a story is the single biggest death knell to any serious writing endeavor. Because if there are no consequences then none of this matters. If the story does not matter, there's no reason to be invested in it. The story dies because no one cares enough about it. Because the characters within become nothing more than chess pieces to move about the board and sacrifice when need be. There's no attachment, no emotion, no thought, no care, no reason. Just kill them. Kill them and do it so willy-nilly that people just shrug and don't even bother.

And when someone actually shows they care, who is outraged, who is invested, because they love comics, telling them "It will be fixed later" does NOTHING to solve the problem. It actively says you agree with the reasoning behind it, that none of these characters matter. That their stories don't matter. And that the companies in charge of both are given carte blanche to continue marching along in their abject apathetic corporate bullshit.

Death in comics is NOT a right of passage for characters, it is a desperate lazy method of trying to generate interest because you are creatively bankrupt. It has been that way for a very, very long time since Superman was killed off for no other reason than they had to delay their big marriage to Lois Lane storyline a full year because of a TV Show.

That's real! That's the truth! That's the reason "Death of Superman" exists. That's the reason we got stuck with Doomsday in the third act of BvS! Because "Lois and Clark" was on TV and they wanted to wait to do their big marriage issue to line up with the episode they got married in. They may have worked emotion into it, they may have tried to make it meaningful. Doesn't matter, it was done purely for corporate reasons.

And it's still ten times worse with Kamala Khan now. It is a bold-faced cynical attempt by a writer to boost sales in their much-maligned book. Using a character that has had 12 pages worth of appearances in 25 issues! Meaning, she probably was only put into the book to set up her death and they didn't even bother to properly utilize her.

Not to mention how clearly racist and misogynistic it is. Kill your prominent Muslim Women character of South Asian descent, at the end of AAPI Month, to forward the story of Peter Parker by giving him more fucking angst over a character he barely interacts with at all! She doesn't even get to headlight her death in her own fucking book, she gets killed in some other character's story she wasn't even involved in! At least if she died in Captain Marvel it would've fucking mattered because Carol has been on several adventures with Kamala at this point and is deeply protective of her! Even then it would still be shit, but not this level of shit!

It's degrading, to both the character and her fans. And it is such a plainly obvious attempt at creating MCU Synergy that no fan wants! No one wants her to be resurrected as a Mutant with those dumb energy powers! That is the one thing about MCU Kamala that everyone pretty much agrees is stupid. And frankly, it's kinda making me hate Krakoa more because forcing every character to become a mutant is not really helping anyone, it's only oversaturating the goddamn line that is already bloated with too many teenagers that most people can't keep track of anyway.

This is why people don't like this move, not because they think it's forever, but because it is so callously cynically meaningless! Because it is being done for lazy, creatively bankrupt reasons! Because it shows how little Marvel cares anymore! Pardon me for saying this, but this exact thing is why I have been disappointed with how Marvel has treated Gwenpool and why I've been so critical of their usage of her. And now, this apathy is infecting Ms. Marvel. Friding her without any semblance of thought for the sole purpose of corporate brand synergy and shock value collectors' sales boosts!

It's disgusting. And giving into this mentality of "She'll be back soon" does nothing but embolden this attitude. It encourages Marvel and other companies to continue being apathetic and treat characters as disposable. How long before they decide to kill off Miles Morales super casually? Or Moon Girl? Or America Chavez? Or Kate Bishop? Or, my greatest fear, Gwenpool? Fridge them for no good reason and declare retroactively that you were doing them a favor by making people miss them. An absolutely disgusting mindset that I am frankly appalled by.

And before you say anything in an attempt to placate me with the usual line "Well they'll still come back anyway, at least there's that." And that's why I decided to title this post the way I did. Echoing Lewis Lovhaug's own statement about death in comics and why he hates it when it is done so flippantly and without purpose.

Danny Chase is Still Dead.

Danny Chase was a member of the Teen Titans, he was an abrasive character that got on a lot of fans' nerves for being just what he was. A snot-nosed, arrogant little brat with superpowers who was a total asshole. The Quentin Quire of DC of his Time. He died to save Raven's home world Azarath. And despite some brief appearances as an undead zombie here and there he has remained dead. Why? Because people didn't like him alive... and no one cares enough to want to bring him back.

Not every character returns from the grave in comics. Gwen Stacey, the original one, remains dead. The original Captain Marvel remains dead. And a lot of ancillary secondary-tier characters do not get to return either. Kamala Khan has a good chance of coming back to life, but how good are your favorite hero's chances? Especially the lesser valued ones within the big two? Why? Because they don't care. And they don't care because we've stopped caring. Because they've gotten lazy and complacent and they've decided this is an easy method of doing business. It promotes sexist tropes, it promotes bad writing and it promotes a lack of creativity. Allowing to persist helps no one.

Do not buy ASM #26. Do not buy anything written by Nick Lowe or Zeb Wells. They've shown they don't care and we'd be better off telling them that we don't care for their apathy. Don't send death threats, and don't wish them ill. Don't harass or bully or dox or stalk. Be angry, be critical, tell them off for their behavior and lack of talent. But do not give them reasons to dismiss you by threatening them. And hit them where it actually hurts; their wallets. Show Marvel that you're not going to keep letting this go on. I know any compulsion I had to own any copies of the Spider-Man run where Felicia and Peter are canon has just been completely demolished. I have no interest in single or collected issues of this... thing anymore.

The fact is, Death being a revolving door is the problem with comics. We shouldn't dismiss it as just a thing, because it's bad storytelling. And Kamala Khan deserves better than this utter travesty of a situation. To be killed off so Peter Parker's man-pain can be justified. And then promptly forgotten, as he fights Doctor Octopus the very next month. To be murdered just so as to be brought back as another dime-a-dozen mutant with lame powers to promote a movie, that will probably be hurt by this story more than helped. To be fridged with the most sexist of tropes, in the most racist of ways, just for corporate brand synergy and to boost the sales of a badly written story no one even likes to begin with.

You can probably say I'm just angry because I sorta defended Zeb Wells recently and feel betrayed. Well, to be honest, I wasn't defending Wells, I was defending the ship his poor writing was damaging in the crossfire. SpiderCat wasn't worth throwing MJ under the bus and it most certainly isn't worth the death of a beloved comic book character that had no business being there.

This run will not be remembered fondly, Nick Lowe's tenure as editor of the Spider-Man books won't be remembered fondly, and Zeb Wells as its chief writer will not be remembered fondly. Their apathy and lack of care will stain their reputations forever as a result.

Anyway, hopefully, next time I'll have less negative things to say talking about something I actually like instead of hate. Bye for now.

#ms marvel #kamala khan #marvel #comics #spider-man #bad writing #fridging #Death in Comics #Danny Chase #dc comics

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rjmhereunderprotest · 2 years ago

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Addendum for my SpiderCat stuff In Lieu of Recent Events

I'm still a SpiderCat Shipper, still glad they're canon for now. Not at all happy in the slightest about what is apparently going to happen in the near future in the main Spidey Book. Really, actually, kinda horribly angry. For a number of reasons, not just the obvious ones. I'm just... really enraged. Really fucking angry right now that Marvel is pulling this shit and that Zeb Wells is responsible for this. I'm never buying a book in this run so long as he's on Spider-Man. I don't care how steamy the SpiderCat stuff gets... this is appalling. Absolutely fucking disgusting that they can do this so casually for such absolutely fucking awful reasons. I am absolutely fucking incensed by this, I really fucking am.

This changes nothing about my overall opinions, I already said I felt Wells wasn't doing a good job executing SpiderCat as canon because it was at MJ's expense. But now... fucking now he's done worse than write badly, he's written abysmally. He's locked onto the worst of tropes on several fucking bullshit signals and it's not even entirely his idea because this reeks of fucking corporate mandate! I am absolutely fucking enraged at that simple reality!

If you don't know what's going on, just take a look around here or the web at large concerning leaks and spoilers for the upcoming "The Amazing Spider-Man #26", this is going to go down as the worst Spider-Man issue in fucking years. I do not even think that the book will recover from this. And I suspect, Zeb Wells will not be at any conventions for the remainder of his tenure on the book. Possibly even beyond that. And it isn't even all his fault, but he's played a role and he's as guilty as Marvel is in pulling this crap for the frankly worst of bullshit corporate reasons utilizing the worst of fucking tropes to basically RUIN a character entirely just to match stupid shit in an upcoming movie that no one there agrees with either. No one wants that in the comics, we were angry about the possibility of that happening! And you're making it happen for the dumbest of fucking reasons!

So yeah, still love SpiderCat, still like that they're together... I now hate this run like everyone else does. So... don't ask me about it, it's the last thing I need right now. I'm just going to write a bunch of fanfiction right now... because I really, REALLY am disappointed with Marvel on a whole other level for their lack of fucking care.

#Marvel #zeb wells #Spider-Man #Black Cat #SpiderCat #Kamala Khan #Ms Marvel #Fridging #Brand Synergy #Corporate Bullshit

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rjmhereunderprotest · 2 years ago

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Evergreen Evermore

"Sometimes you do get everything you want." Beast Boy says in the opening issue of the "Technis Imperative." A miniseries advertising a fight between the Teen Titans and Justice League, was actually a story reaffirming that the Titans overall are a family. A found family of friends united in the cause of heroism. If there were ever two characters who best emphasized this element of their mythos, it's been Garfield Logan and Raven.

Beast Boy came from a broken family of fellow freaks that even he couldn't find a place in. Raven escaped a destiny thrust on her by an abusive father. And through the Titans they found their true selves, where they belonged among friends and, eventually, found each other.

Beast Boy and Raven are the most popular Teen Titans ship out there. They didn't start out that way, they didn't always love each other, but in the past few decades, that's changed real fast. These two characters found the most unlikely of romances with another, against every sort of odd placed against them. From rival ships to shifting writing teams, but now they're as cemented as Gambit and Rogue or Lois and Clark. And as a person who has been with them since the ship truly took off, it's been a journey. And want you to join me on looking back on it. This is how, if you wait long enough, sometimes... you can get everything you ever wanted.

Origins

Beast Boy and Raven met when Raven first formed the New Teen Titans, the seminal George Perez & Marv Wolfman run that kicked off the golden era/standard of the Teen Titans. Raven formed the Teen Titans to defeat her father, the Demon Lord Trigon. Through a harrowing series of events, battling the evil Hive, facing down Deathstroke, recovering from the betrayal of Terra, the Titans eventually triumphed against Raven's father.

It was a tumultuous period for the team, but for Raven and Beast Boy, it was more about personal affirmation and growth within themselves. There's very little to go on concerning romantic entanglements between the two. The most one can glean is Raven's distrust of Terra as possible jealousy, but that's a stretch. Raven was not ready for such a relationship, she fear her own emotions too much to commit to anyone. Garfield mostly tried to pester her to give in to those emotions, but he could come off as an annoying little brother more often than not.

What's important here is establishing what both were going through at the time. For Beast Boy, it was mostly about becoming comfortable in his own skin around others. For a very long time, his class clown routine was hiding a very sensitive kid, one that tried to keep himself guarded with humor. Gar was very prone to emotional reactions more than anyone as a result. It was why Terra's betrayal in "Judas Contract" hurt him so much, he truly did love her and she felt nothing for him, less than nothing, she secretly hated him.

And yet she has a statue in their hall of fame despite being a psychotic murdering monster, go figure.

Raven, however, was very guarded in that she didn't show anything. Garfield wore his heart on his sleeve, Raven kept it locked up tight, fearing what it do to those around her if she let it loose. When Raven was free of her father's influence, becoming Raven the White as I call her, she tried desperately to engage with those emotions for the first time but was clearly confused about how to react to all of them. For a time she believed she was in love with Dick Grayson, Nightwing, but she was confusing her platonic affection for a friend with romance, which she had felt before now. Raven's struggle has always been trying to connect to those emotions, trying to properly understand them for herself as much as she can for others, being an Empath. So at the time, she was not fully formed into her own sense of self, only being able to explore so late in life.

At this stage, as said before, you can only mostly see Raven and Beast Boy as siblings. However they are not devoid of connection to each other. Raven remained close with all the Titans and relied on Garfield as much as anyone, entrusting him in fact with a part of her soul self during another bout of the Evil Influence of her Daddy. However, the Wolfman/Perez era ends with Beast Boy and Raven as merely that, friends and subsequent eras saw Raven either separated from her body entirely or Beast Boy not on the Teen Titans proper anyway.

And not many people gave it a second thought honestly. Raven wasn't looking for love, Beast Boy was hung up on Terra, she was a bit older than him, he was an immature kid. The Goth and Class Clown, that's all they were in the Teen Titans' little Breakfast Club.

What changed?

Everything.

The Spark Ignites

The Teen Titans cartoon of the early 2000s was where the ball really got rolling. With DC Animation on a roll, the decision to create an anime-influenced show aimed at younger kids to compliment their ongoing made-for-older kids fair, Teen Titans catapulted the team and the characters into an entirely new era. And with it came new dynamics between everyone, Beast Boy and Raven included.

Raven became less shut off, embracing the sarcastic goth element of her archetype. Beast Boy became even more of a comic relief character, emphasizing his funny quirks and silly attitude even greater than the comics had. Raven was, of course, the greatest departure, her powers being upgraded and her relationship with the other members of the team being more reserved, closed off and restrained. Episodes around her focused on her coming out of her shell and interacting, getting to know her new friends, and accepting her emotions. Beast Boy's were generally more comedic outings, suiting his voice actor, Greg Cipes, comedic sensibilities. Not to say he didn't get serious episodes, he did, plenty. But the emphasis on both characters was obvious, they were directly opposed opposites more than ever.

And as a result they kept getting paired off, often in those episodes that allowed Beast Boy to act outside his comedic comfort zone. But outside of those, both characters became an eternal straight/funny man duo. And it was some of the best banter on the show.

Beast Boy seemed to make it his mission to make Raven crack a smile, to laugh at one of his jokes, to find him funny. Raven of course resisted, chastising his frankly childish behavior as just that. A silly distraction she couldn't afford. She could be scary at times in her responses to his antics and yet Beast Boy didn't give up, he kept trying to make a connection with her.

And this was where I came in.

Their interactions on the show were so much fun and so flirtatious coded I couldn't help but see them as romantic partners. And I sought out a community of like-minded individuals who felt the same on an online forum. There we shared our thoughts on the series, how the characters were evolving, and how much they seemed to truly care for each other even as they got on each other's nerves. And in time we sorta formed a little family of our own, as communities often do when they share common interests online. And we had a lot to be interested in because, throughout the years, Beast Boy and Raven always seemed like the highlight of any episode, even if wasn't about either of them.

To go over every moment of the series would get old fast and this would just become one of countless "proof of canon" lists. But I do feel there are specific episodes that helped cement Beast Boy and Raven as romantic interests, more so than others. "Nevermore" is one, where Beast Boy and Cyborg enter Raven's mind and discover just how guarded her emotional state is. Her emotions are in fact split into various personalities within her mindscape, compartmentalized to an extreme degree to keep them under control.

Beast Boy has felt routinely ignored and belittled by Raven since the show started and just can't seem to get her, thinking she just likes being mean to him. But that is far from the case. In fact, we learn from Happy Raven (Pictured above) that she actually DOES find Beast Boy funny. In fact, all of Raven's emotions reveal that she does actually value her friends and cares about their opinions of her, as Sad Raven seems to suggest. That she loves being a hero and saving lives, Brave Raven. But she keeps it all locked away for her own protection as well as others. A fight with Anger Raven, who has gone out of control, actually enables Beast Boy to not only reach a point of understanding with Raven but also allow her to realize she doesn't have to do all this self-care alone anymore. It's the first time both Raven and Beast Boy actually reach common ground and can confidently be viewed as friends.

"Spellbound" is a test for Raven in actually utilizing her emotions and exploring them, but realizing people can and will take advantage of her. She allows a mysterious magic user trapped in one of her books, Malchior, to teach her his knowledge. And while Raven grows happier and more accustomed to her emotions, she also starts growing apart from her friends, cutting them off more and more as she envelops herself in this new relationship. Only realizing when it's too late that Malchior is not only a Dark Magic user, but also not the wizard from the story. He's the dragon and Raven just accidentally freed him.

After the battle atop Titans Tower concludes with the miserable lying dragon locked away again, Beast Boy comes to check on Raven. He's actually been the most concerned about how she's been acting lately. And was a lot more concerned about Raven when Malchior escaped, than the others were initially.

Raven is still feeling hurt, but while the source of her change was bad, Beast Boy doesn't want her to shut down again. Yes, Raven is creepy, but that doesn't mean Beast Boy and the Titans want her to remain in her room locked away. Raven isn't as alone in things as she believes she is. And the Titans, Beast Boy in particular, are there for her. Raven exits her room and hugs Beast Boy in response. The moment is ruined by Cyborg's stankball, but Raven actually participates in the game she earlier derided in the episode. It's obviously a big moment for Raven, allowing her a chance to connect with Beast Boy and show affection and gratitude.

Raven returns the favor actually a few episodes later in "Beast Within", where Beast Boy's animal-shifting abilities suddenly become more feral when he is doused with a chemical. It makes him more violent and angry. Eventually, he turns into a werewolf creature of sorts. At first, it's feared he attacks Raven and kidnaps her, but that's not the case. A villain, Adonis, got doused with similar chemicals and became an identical-looking monster. Beast Boy defended Raven when he attacked the tower and her.

While things are cleared up, Beast Boy is clearly shaken about what was inside of him and how it came out. Raven, possibly recognizing that for once Beast Boy has more in common with her than she thought, tries to comfort him.

Reminding Beast Boy that while that thing is inside him, he controls it. More importantly, even as that monster he still protected her. Learning to control when to let it out is what makes Beast Boy a man, not a monster. He almost ruins the moment himself this time with a joke, but there's still a clear connection forged here. Beast Boy and Raven do understand one another better by this point. Moreso than ever.

That connection would be tested by more than just villains but also rivals of the ship itself. Terra's Introduction to the Series was a major roadblock for some. Unlike her comic counterpart, she was more sympathetic and likable and did not hate the Titans. Her apparent "death" being petrified always presented an out that she could return. Season 4 chose Robin to be Raven's anchor throughout the arc as she battled her demons at last in the face of Trigon's return. This was probably more because they used Slade to be Trigon's herald and Robin and him were archenemies more so than any other Titan. But the idea in many people's minds was that Robin and Raven were the theoretical endgame. Their platonic partnership reads as romantic to some.

This happens a lot honestly, people read things into moments and interactions than what is actually there. They see patterns and they recognize personal preferences. And it always leads to ship wars. BBRae vs RobRae was frankly bigger than BBT, although the latter was persistent and often times aligned with the former rival. It stayed that way for most of season 4 and even after. Frankly, it was somewhat annoying to see Robin seemingly taking over a storyline to a degree that should've been Raven's, just because his archenemy was suddenly the minion of the new one. Even weirder still was seeing a bunch of the build-up concerning Robin and Starfire's relationship put on hold for this season. All the while they tried to insist on this connection with Robin that, had largely, gone ignored until now in favor of bonding with Beast Boy.

However, it was obvious enough in hindsight that we probably had nothing to actually concern ourselves with. It was always going to be Robin and Starfire in the end, there was no doubt. They had invested too much in creating that romance subplot to just abandon it. In fact, sadly that was the actual problem for BBRae in the show, strangely enough. Every romantic possibility was secondary to RobStar in the eyes of the creative team. They didn't discourage other ships, but they didn't see the connections to the same degree others had. To them, Beast Boy and Raven were a sibling dynamic, despite the connection being far from platonic in many people's eyes. But no, Robin and Starfire were the primary romantic concern for the showrunners, they were the teen love story on the series and there was no room for a second.

As for Terra, her connection with Beast Boy was cut off entirely at the show's finale, "Things Change." Terra came back and she didn't seem to remember or want to remember her time with the Titans and Beast Boy didn't understand why she wouldn't. He kept trying to convince her to come back, but she was adamant, that wasn't her life anymore. It never would be. Beast Boy had to accept that, as the final lesson any teenager has to learn, growing up and accepting change. However, fans didn't appreciate the lesson, mostly we were just annoyed everything got cut off in a fade to white before the weird monster the Titans were fighting could be defeated.

It was frustrating, to say the least, to have to deal with the fallout of the finale. BBT shippers were resurgent for a few months, trying to fix things so Terra would be forced to return. One guy did not get the message and repeatedly kept writing stories to force things to go back to how he wanted them. He turned Beast Boy into a rip-off of a Paper Mario villain who almost destroyed reality because his Ex didn't want to get back with him. Yeah, strangely enough not many people found the depiction very sympathetic.

We had our laughs with it, but mostly I was just tired of it all. I wanted to focus on Beast Boy and Raven, but with Terra still around in the background, it always gave ammunition to the what-if scenario. That maybe she could come back.

However, the show was over, and that was beyond all of us now. We had to move forward and accept that. Thankfully, we had other content because while the TV Show's writers weren't interested in any other romance subplot but Starfire and Robin... the comics had started to come around.

Meanwhile, In Another Universe...

Geoff John's run on Teen Titans started around the same time the TV Show did and essentially recreated the same cast you saw there with a few introductions to the team from Young Justice, fresh off the appalling Graduation Day special that basically scuttled their book and the previous Teen Titans series. The run has its ups and downs, I'm not here to claim otherwise, but it is still highly regarded and loved. Especially among BBRae shippers, because it opened the door for them to be comics canon. And this is where our story REALLY begins.

John's first story was in fact about the resurrection of Raven into a new body, younger, more powerful, and in line with what was being planned out for the cartoon. The changes to her powerset and age were clearly an attempt at synergy, but the results were self-evident.

Beast Boy is actually among the first of the Titans to see Raven in her new body and as a result snaps her out of being ensnared by Brother Blood's control. She returns to her friends, the Titans, now truly reborn and free of her father's influence once and for all. While she remains guarded, dark, and goth as ever she isn't nearly as cut off from her emotions. And over the coming issues, it becomes pretty apparent she and Beast Boy were becoming much closer.

And then came issue 30 of the run and this page...

This shook every shipper in the fandom. Geoff Johns just made our ship canon, we honestly couldn't believe it. We felt like we were being listened to, specifically catered to. This was also around the time the show was ending, so the prospect that we could still continue... well it suddenly brought new life to things. From a creative staff on a show that didn't care to the comics suddenly confirming things, to say it was wild to be right there in the thick of it when it happened... it was a weird feeling.

We probably got a bit egotistical, thinking we had willed this into being by how popular the ship was on the show. Truth is Johns had already decided on this well in advance. Comic runs are planned out years ahead of publication. Johns has apparently stated he wanted a romance for young and old fans. Said young fans got Cassie Sandsmark, Wonder Girl, and Connor Kent, Superboy. As holdovers from Young Justice, the fans of which had migrated now to Teen Titans, it just made sense. And while Starfire was on the team, Dick Grayson was not, so Raven and Beast Boy became the natural fit. But at this point, a canon connection, a romantic one, had been established between the two.

However, there's further context to this story and it's not all happy. This page was taking place during a storyline that revealed the gates to the Afterlife had just been left open, allowing a lot of dead people to just come back. Raven and Beast Boy, after this kiss, manage to travel to the underworld and close it back up. Raven is somewhat guarded over the whole kiss thing, but it is confirmed they start up a romance. It is unfortunately not long-lived, because this storyline was the precursor to a much bigger event, Infinite Crisis, because Superboy Prime punching reality caused the door to crack open. Infinite Crisis was also written by Geoff Johns, and the events of that story would lead into One Year Later. That was a line-wide promotion where every comic book jumped one year into the future in-universe. And in that one year of time... Beast Boy and Raven broke up.

The reason took a while to be revealed, but essentially, Beast Boy's attempts at leading the Teen Titans put a strain on their relationship and sadly they ended things after a disastrous mission got a lot of Titans killed. Not Beast Boy's fault mind you, DC kills Teen Titans like it's going out of style. They were fighting Black Adam, it was inevitable.

For a good amount of time, Beast Boy and Raven were off the Titans and it was up in the air that their romance would ever continue considering it ended just as suddenly as it started.

Judd Winick took over a new Titans book a few years later, starring mostly the same team from the cartoon with some additions. But Beast Boy and Raven were back on the same team and that held promise for the couple. The opening storyline once again featured another plot by Trigon, or more accurately his spawn, to complete the apocalypse Raven wimped out on. Raven was understandably very disturbed by the prospect her Pops was back and Beast Boy was more than a little concerned. That storyline ended with her evil self once again being purged, but with Raven fearing her innate evilness could arise again. Beast Boy and Raven continued to interact heavily though. At one point, he even held her hair back while she was puking in a toilet. Only someone who really loves you is going to go that far for you, honestly.

Raven, however, seemed reluctant to return Beast Boy's advances, again because she feared what could happen if she allowed her emotions free reign. So it was the TV Show dynamic all over again but with a more overtly romantic tone. It was obvious Raven had unresolved feelings for Beast Boy, but was reluctant to actually give in to them. That was until issue 100 of "Teen Titans" proper though, when Raven finally confronts why she's been avoiding admitting her feelings for Gar.

A touching moment, the culmination of a whole run of comics dealing with Raven's emotional safeguards and Beast Boy trying to break through them. It took forever, but at last, they were back together. Just like we all wanted!

Too bad this was the final issue before Flashpoint happened and then the New 52 showed up! Because Dan Didio really, REALLY wanted to do that reboot and scuttle the whole damn project! So Flash almost destroys the world through time travel only to sorta save it by kinda fixing it, but actually creating a whole new continuity for everything! Thus, Erasing all this progress with Beast Boy and Raven practically overnight. You win some, you lose some. The two kissing in this final issue was basically a consolation prize. Here's your ship, losers, now enjoy our new gritty reboot! It was kind of a gut punch and the prospect of starting all over again did not feel good.

But there's a benefit to starting fresh... less baggage, a better understanding of what worked and what didn't. And while the writers and editorial weren't ready to go all in on them, Beast Boy and Raven wouldn't be kept apart forever. The question was, what would they become in this new world?

Back to Square One?

It took a long time for Beast Boy and Raven to actually find each other again in the New 52, which was frankly not a good time for any of the Titans. Starfire was written to be a sexual goldfish fantasy palling around with Jason Todd and a Trucker Hat-wearing Roy Harper. Rose Wilson had been outright reverted into a villain. The new Teen Titans team had none of the characters we were familiar with save for maybe Robin but he was Tim Drake, not Dick Grayson. And all of the teen heroes were wrapped up in the stupidity that was Harvest, a dumb-as-rocks villain with confusing motives and goals. It was a shit show that no Titans fan was into but was forced to watch.

As you can see, Garfield was now red, to tie him closer with "The Red" the mystic force counter to "The Green.' The latter controls all plant life whereas the former concerns animals, so if Beast Boy is all about animals and "The Red" is all about animals, then Beast Boy is now red. It didn't last because no one really liked it. The New 52 had an aversion to most colors that weren't edgy like black and red, even Nightwing was infected by it. Eventually they got over the phase though.

Raven herself was on Trigon's side in this continuity, because the New 52 seemed to be big on making more heroes into villains than actually doing anything interesting with the characters they owned. She mind-controlled Beast Boy in this encounter, not exactly a good start to things, but eventually, she did her proper heel-face turn and freed Gar of his mind control.

And this is where things get... weird for the ship. Because strangely enough, despite their rocky start, Beast Boy and Raven remained close. In fact, they're practically joined at the hip. In contrast to their original depiction as friends but fairly distant, they're close friends from the start in this continuity. It is clear at this point that the dynamic has shifted, the universe might be rebooted, but Raven and Beast Boy still care deeply for each other. They're not romantic, but they're basically best friends.

In fact, I'd argue that they're even closer as Raven doesn't hide her feelings around Gar like she used to. Their time together, him encouraging her, caring about her, insisting she isn't alone anymore, has fostered a deep bond. Raven even LAUGHS at his jokes now... openly. They go on missions together, back each other up, he even checks in on her mid-battle! It's kinda insane to see them so in sync so early on in their relationship in this continuity... but it's there.

This continues, Raven and Beast Boy are constantly there for one another. No matter how many twists and turns towards the stupid "The New 52" and later "Rebirth" Era take, Beast Boy is there for Raven and Raven is there for Beast Boy. Saving each other's lives, coaching them through really traumatic situations, and just plain hanging out or texting. They're basically a couple already, they're just not making out, even the other characters start to take notice.

There were attempts to give Raven someone else as a boyfriend. During Damian Wayne's stint as leader of the Titans, more accurately Starfire but let's not sweat details, they tried to set her up with Kid Flash, the new one. That did not last at all, it was rejected by fans and ended around the time Heroes in Crisis basically fucked over the Flash Family in general. It was an experiment that simply did not work and felt more like an attempt to give the New Kid Flash legs because he wasn't connecting as well with the fanbase, especially with the pre-New 52 Wally back.

In fact, I barely remembered it until I started writing this little project, that's how little impact it had on me. That was the problem with a lot of "The New 52's" additions to the canon. They were made with good intentions but with no practical ideas on how to actually make them work. I don't even know if anyone is really that big of a fan of the New Wally West. This isn't to deride the character, it's just... Wally with Raven was so nothing. The precedent was Raven, way back in the Wolfman/Perez days, originally made the first Wally West think he was in love with her using her empathic abilities. This was to get him to join the Titans and it was pretty skeevy of her. Why bring that back in? The point is, it just never rang true and was quickly gone and forgotten once that run on the Titans ended.

By Titans Academy, the dynamic between Gar and Raven takes its next most logical step. With both of them becoming instructors at the school for teen heroes, their relationship basically fosters into a more paternal one, and when you're taking care of kids together...

They've stopped time in this story to have a date with each other... yeah at this point they've stopped kidding themselves. Need I remind you this is over several books, various writers, changes in editorial management, narrative directions, and a ton of events just dropping in to disrupt the ever-chaotic status quo of the DC Universe... and yet NOTHING walks this back. No one is trying to separate them as friends and attempts to stick Raven with someone else do not stick for long. The comics repeatedly insist, despite their differences, they are close and remain close no matter how strange things get.

By this point, even before they start actively dating again, they're canon... again!

How? How did this happen? Despite "The New 52" erasing several decades worth of comic book continuity and history, years separated from one another before they even met, they are basically set up as girlfriend and boyfriend in everything but name! Their dynamic might not be entirely the same, but the relationship has survived the reboot and survived every single new writer and editor and line-wide shakeup thrown at them. And the lone attempt to throw a monkey wrench in the potential romance? Promptly forgotten after being utterly rejected by fans.

The simplest explanation is obvious, the people who grew up with the TV Show in their teens are now in charge and that dynamic stuck with them. It made sense to put these two diametrically opposed characters together and see how it works. And arguably, it's probably the healthiest, most positive relationship in the entire reboot era, which has been saturated with DC screwing the pooch on a lot of popular ships since day one. (Even after Lois got back with Clark, they still kept her bitch personality. Let's not even start with how they handled Batman and Catwoman for a while.)

If it was just the comics though it wouldn't mean much but fans finally upgrading to official writers and making their ship fics real. There is more to this and for that, we have to look to a corner of the fandom that is somewhat... maligned.

Dare to be Stupid

Teen Titans Go! is a show fraught with baggage. The fandom of Teen Titans still remains somewhat split on things. It's the old cast from the original show, voicing the same characters and everything. But now they're no longer doing the serious superhero stories. Now every episode is basically one of the filler one-offs that took time off from the big seasonal arcs. Specifically, the goofy ones that Beast Boy took the lead on. Nothing is taken seriously, the characters have been Flanderized to their hyper-comedic personas, and any semblance of a seasonal arc or overarching narrative is gone in favor of episodic adventures full of silly goofball stuff.

For a time, I did not like the show. Frankly, it somewhat strained things with a good friend of mine. He hadn't been a fan of the original show, he preferred the comics. I was confused why he was so into this new clearly more childish show, but he claimed it was because it was indeed funny and because BBRae was actually canon this time.

I was not initially convinced, saying something to the effect that he was being roped in because of his shipping preferences. He took offense to that and frankly, I was wrong to do so. It wasn't fair. Thankfully it didn't ruin our friendship, mostly because I actually changed my opinion on the show when I saw a clip from its April Fool's episode's ending. In it, they all seemed to conclude their various character arcs. Gar and Raven became engaged, Cyborg planned to leave for the Justice League, Robin became Nightwing and was about to kiss Starfire... and then April Fools!

At that moment, I understood... this show does not care what I think of it. It simply does not care if I think it is stupid or juvenile or dumb. It doesn't give a single shit about my nostalgia or my demands upon it. It is perfectly happy with being itself and what itself... is a silly superhero show for children. And they are having fun making it, all of them... and I realized that hating it for being true to itself was... dumb of me. I can't make the show what I want to be because of what I want. It wouldn't be their show if that's how it went down. My problem wasn't with this show existing, it was the lack of serious superhero cartoons to balance it out, but that wasn't its fault. This team was never gonna make that show, they already made that show. In fact, when I got that show I thought I wanted when Young Justice returned, I ended up hating it because it took itself even more seriously than any superhero show should. Hating TTG! for being what it wants to be is like hating the MCU for making superheroes fun and accessible to everyone. And the last thing I want to be is like one of those MCU haters.

This segways nicely into our main question: But why here? What makes this stupid show something where BBRae can happen, but the in the more serious-minded original cartoon it's ignored despite the chemistry? Simple, it's been long enough that both the writers have realized where the REAL romantic intrigue was with the original cast... and TTG! makes it easier to come to fruition.

I don't watch the show, even if I no longer hate it. The series is just not for me. I'm not sure its style of humor, reminiscent of Spongebob and similar episodic kids' series, works with me as well as it might have back when I was a kid. I'm older now, and my humor preferences have changed. That doesn't make it not funny, it's just not something I'm particularly going to find funny. The point is, this style of humor allows Raven to be a lot less closed off. Now that everyone has shifted somewhat in personality to be more exaggerated, they are more in line with Beast Boy who has not really changed. And as a result Raven, who in the original show had a strong connection to Beast Boy, even if it was platonic, is less sheltered and closed-off. She gets involved more, she laughs more, and she does more weird insane things. It's easier for her to not take things seriously. Therefore, it's easier for her to be with Beast Boy because all the walls are already down.

Similar to what eventually happened in the New 52. The closeness, the similarities, the familiarity, the friendship, the work... it had already been finished! Not in the same sense, but in the general essence of that slow development. Strangely enough, because the show no longer took itself so seriously, Raven had even more in common with Beast Boy than ever despite retaining her differences.

Weirdly enough, it was now Robin and Starfire who became more at odds because Robin's insistence on being cool, mature, and badass has made it harder for him to see Starfire's obvious affection for him. At the same time, he's not in a place to return it despite clearly liking her. Beast Boy is not concerned with that and Raven is not nearly as against the idea as she was in the original show. When Trigon is no longer evil incarnate, but just another asshole animated dad that pops in to create a problem of the week, the dangers of Raven's "unchecked emotions" becomes just another gag.

When everything is a joke stakes don't matter and, as I pointed out, this show is actively against creating real stakes. The Titans in this series regularly fight Santa Claus... he's their biggest villain. Not Slade, Not Trigon, Santa! And from what I can gather it's mostly because he won't give them presents because they are on the naughty list for obvious reasons. None of this can be taken seriously! Raven collects Pony Plushes as a nod to Tara Strong playing Twilight Sparkle around the same time. Beast Boy spends an entire episode with Cyborg only saying the word "Waffle." This is not a series that really cares that much about anything other than having a laugh. Raven's biggest hang-up, being the anti-christ, is no longer a major issue because this series DEFIES the concept of taking anything Superhero related as seriously.

So in that context, when everything is already a joke, what's stopping her from being with Beast Boy, the biggest jokester in the group? Especially when she clearly likes having fun and making jokes as much as the rest of the group? The answer: Nothing! She can be open with her feelings and Beast Boy's immaturity isn't as big of a turn-off because she's just as immature and silly. And time and distance have proven their chemistry was more compelling, so the relationship becoming canon is easier to slot in here than anywhere!

So comics readers and kids now have two versions of this relationship that are canon. But during this push in both mediums, the tidal wave was already building... until the dam just broke completely.

Green and Purple Everywhere!

It wasn't very long until it seemed Beast Boy and Raven were everywhere as a couple. And DC wasn't just letting it happen, they actively encouraged it. Popping up in skins in Fortnite as a promotional stunt is one thing, being introduced together, as romantically involved, was essentially a stamp of approval. A statement that these characters were inexplicably linked. And it was not the only thing they were doing, they were recruiting outright shippers and fans of them into the creative process.

DC pushed a YA Graphic Novel with art by Gabriel Picolo, best known for drawing the Titans as real-world teenagers. Especially BB and Raven... together... constantly. DC at this point clearly considers that these two as a couple is a profitable arrangement. That there is simply enough love for it and engagement with it that it only makes sense to go with it and make money off of it. You do not sell a book like this if you don't think there's an audience for it. Marvel has made bank by teasing people about Peter and MJ's epic love story despite not wanting them to be officially together in the comics... for years now!

And to top it all off... they became a meme! A very ridiculous meme where Raven demands Beast Boy turn into animals for hanky panky, but a meme nonetheless. Once you get to that point the ship is firmly ingrained in pop culture.

Even when they aren't together as a couple, they are together as a dynamic. The live-action Titans show maintained the two as very close friends. While the show never went the extra mile, it was obvious that the chemistry was there and the showrunners wanted to maintain it. Keeping them as close friends and connected together in their sub-plots. The first few episodes basically have him bringing her home to his weird family, The Doom Patrol, and having dinner with them. It goes a bit south from there as I understand, but not from anything Gar does. Beast Boy is presented as Raven's anchor throughout the series an important one that keeps her sane and tethered to the people who care and value her. And apparently, that very close friendship even outlasted Dick and Kory being a thing on this show. Which ended abruptly between seasons because it feels like DC told them to do it more than anything.

I can't say why they didn't just make them romantically linked, especially given that they were becoming canon everywhere else. Perhaps the creative team wanted to show a sorely needed platonic boy-girl friendship uncomplicated by romance. Let's be honest, those are in low supply these days. However, the fact remains they kept them close and, from everything I've read and heard, they are adorable together. So even if they aren't romantic on the show they have been part of why it succeeded so much as one of its more stand-out elements among fans.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that projects that didn't make Raven and Beast Boy close friends at the very least failed more or less. The Reboot of Young Justice didn't even have Raven in it and Beast Boy was dating some princess for a while. That show never retained enough interest in fans and was canceled, again. The Teen Titans animated movies in the New 52 Verse that came out on Blu-Ray and DVD? They tried hooking Raven up with Damian Wayne and they only got together when they basically killed off the whole Animated New 52-Verse completely. Now, in the comics, Damian is dating some skeleton-make-up chick who literally stole his heart from his chest. He got better. The point is he's nowhere near to dating Raven in the comics who is depicted as much older than him by now. There is no push for them to be together. The RobinRaven ship has completely sunk to the bottom at this point.

Hell, Terra didn't even get together with Beast Boy in Young Justice's reboot, and they were doing the whole "Judas Contract" thing with her there too! How do you do "Judas Contract" without Beast Boy getting his heart ripped out by the betrayal of Terra? It's insanity!

The point is... no romance for these two sticks unless they're with each other! DC has all but given up on trying to do anything else. The collective voice of fans, inside and outside of the industry, has made it clear who their OTP is. Maybe it started off in the comics as a lark, and maybe the cartoon never was serious about it, but it doesn't matter in either case! At this point the ship is just synonymous with the Titans, maybe more so than even RobStar. DC has seemingly retired that romantic pairing from service despite the clear equally as huge love for it because they want to consolidate Dick's relationships within the Batfamily. Meaning he has to be with Barabara Gordon. Starfire can never be a part of the Batfamily in their eyes, so she can't be with Dick.

But Garfield and Raven? They have no other ties but the Titans, so here is where they remain, forever together, as their saying goes. Why bother trying to do anything else with them when it's very clear that it's the only romance the fans will ever accept? I mean you could try bringing Terra back as NOT completely evil, but why? It's like resurrecting Gwen Stacey to be with Peter again, it's the most boring choice you could make and everyone has moved on to either the Red Head or Sexy Cat Thief. There are a few who like the Blonde Fighter Ace with the power of the Sun at her fingertips, but I digress. Gushing over Carol Danvers is for another post and we're getting off-topic.

The point is, you don't break up Sue and Reed Richards to stick Sue with Namor, and Beast Boy and Raven are in a far healthier relationship than that marriage will ever be. Why ruin a good thing for something that was never meant to last in either the comics or the cartoon? Raven has been with Garfield longer than Terra EVER was, especially in this new continuity which, thanks to some more events, is basically the old continuity kinda sorta not really. There's no practical reason to break them up at this point when they've proven their longevity.

Reflection

I have to admit, I was cynical for a good portion of this stuff. I was barely paying attention to "The New 52" so a lot of the stuff I pointed out in it went unnoticed. Look it was a bad reboot, you can't completely blame me. But looking back on it all, it was clear that more and more people in the industry saw the same thing fans did. It took time for them to figure it out, plus one misstep with a Kid Flash variant that made no sense and was over with that run, but there it is. Plain to see for everyone, the heart and soul of the Titans is the fact they are family, they love each other and that love is best exemplified by Beast Boy and Raven. So much so it's the cornerstone of the upcoming Titans comic... where they've been living together for a good while now!

They're clearly banging... there's no way they aren't. I'm not sure if he's turning into a horse for it, but they're doing it. There's no room for denial here!

The creative team for the series has even stated the run revolves around this romance, and that there are big plans involving it. Excited to explore their dynamic, calling their relationship the core of the Titans as a team and a book.

It's self-evident now, this is the romance that defines this series. This is a ship reaching Evergreen Tier, on the same scale as Gambit and Rogue or Lois and Clark. You can ship Raven and Beast Boy with anyone else all you want, but it doesn't change what DC Comics has decided is the default... and this is it.

None of this is to gloat though, this hasn't been an attempt to declare victory, although it's hard not to. This is the win, but that's not nearly as important as everything else. This is the culmination of a lot of things, both as a fan and personally. It was through Beast Boy and Raven that I forged friendships with people I wouldn't trade for anything, even if they weren't canon. I've come to know so many wonderful amazing people. People who have been there for me in my bad times and laughed with me in the good, who have helped me grow immensely. And it was because of these two that I found them.

So seeing this, all of this, and taking it into account... really looking at it, it's more than the memory of a goth girl and a class clown with superpowers. It's a huge chunk of my life that, isn't just validated but... immensely emotionally impactful. I would not be the person I am today without BBRae, that's true regardless of how canon it is.

It's true what Beast Boy said, sometimes you can get everything you want. But I'm not talking about a ship, I'm talking about a family of friends, who are irreplaceable in your life. And in so many ways, that's what the Titans have always been, a family of true friends, in both the best and worst ways, but there's no denying that the best of that is Beast Boy and Raven. The truest expression of what the Titans mean to me and so many others. I won so much more than a ship, I won people who care. And that's worth more than anything in my eyes.

So thank you, Beast Boy and Raven, thank you for everything. I look forward to your future together. An evergreen horizon evermore. It was a long road, it was bumpy, it was heartbreaking at times, and even more than a little fraught with drama, but it was an amazing ride. And I can't wait to see what's around the corner next.

#beast boy #Raven #bbrae #garfield logan #rachel roth #DC Comics #Teen Titans #Shipping #Retrospective #It goes without saying that none of the fanart in this post is from me

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rjmhereunderprotest · 2 years ago

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So... Twitter just logged me out and I can't log back in. I checked, and my account isn't suspended or anything, still there, not gone. I looked into it. Seems like I'm not the only one. It's down for a lot of people, like suddenly jumped up as a problem in the last couple of minutes, but was steadily an issue for a few hours for folks now.

You see! You see why I'm here! That place is fucking disintegrating! All the Tumblr Nonsense in the world is ten times less aggravating than dealing with that!

#Twitter sucks #Fuck You Musk

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rjmhereunderprotest · 2 years ago

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I do like responding to folks when they offer their own insight, so forgive me for the reblog, but I just can't ignore this. I desire dialogue, it's just who I am.

Yes, that is a good point that reinforces my main thesis. Peter doesn't do this for everyone. But because he thinks Felicia is worth so much more than what she's doing with her life, he keeps trying. Maybe because they used to be a thing, maybe because she's not nearly as violent as the others, but besides Harry, Felicia is the one he'll chase after to set straight. That's probably why the Felicia as Mon Boss era really stung, Peter didn't do enough to fix their relationship like he would under any other circumstance. It didn't ring true for him and added to the offensive "Bitch Be Crazy" feeling the whole arc resonated with.

I didn't really bring up Peter's potential to actually be a father because that was a little outside the scope, but I generally agree with this. We've seen Peter as a father many times, it is not in dispute that he'd be any worse at it than any other parent with a difficult job.

Peter's connection with Teen Heroes was also outside the scope of this but it does bear mentioning that he's routinely tried to act as a mentor to more than a few kids who remind him of himself or have similar powers. Felicia herself has sorta been mentored in a different way, I don't see her objecting to this continuing honestly. If anything, yeah, she could be a co-mentor. I'd add I don't think she'd be opposed to raising a child with him at some point. But probably not right now as, like Dianna, I don't see Felicia wanting that sort of responsibility. Felicia as a hero, as I've said, is selfishly selfless, she would need to give herself a really good excuse to want to either have a child or raise one, even if it was with Peter.

I didn't mean to imply that Felicia and Cindy weren't friends, again Felicia's relations with other spider-people were outside my scope. I don't doubt that Silk would be supportive. She doesn't strike me as someone who would get in the way. And it seems her pheromone stuff has been reduced to a degree since her introduction. Which I am all for honestly, it got icky.

Ditto with Kaine, who is currently, somehow the sane Clone because of contrived stupid stuff that has turned Ben into as big a blithering psycho as Felicia was in her Queenpin Phase. Maybe this is the reason Zeb Wells is not being well-received. He keeps screwing over fan favorites and it feels very vindictive.

The tendency of MJ to be the worry wart in the relationship, seemingly wanting Peter to give being Spider-Man for her own sanity, is probably the main factor in why the marriage won't come back even if the deal is undone with Mephisto. That dynamic just doesn't work anymore. Even with other spider-people running around, Peter can't stop being Spider-Man, obviously, Felicia is fully supportive of that and in fact willing to tag along. Unless they give MJ powers like in Renew Your Vows, she can't do the same. So it's either return to MJ staying at home being worried or give Spider-Man a partner who understands both of his lives. And as I showed, Felicia does and has for years despite claims to the contrary.

I feel the need to also state that I do not want MJ to be fridged either. While it seems like we're headed for that, I'd rather she be in a relationship she feels stable in, especially if they can't be bothered to change how she and Peter act with each other. I have no idea what a SpiderCat wedding would be like... a legitimate one I mean. I guess technically that wedding that was a ruse to pull off a heist recently in Felicia's solo series was on the books, but it hasn't been treated as a real wedding outside of legality. Felicia probably would want her wedding to be Heist-themed though. Specifically Ocean's 11 or a film of a similar vein. The guest list would be chaotic. The honeymoon would be in Las Vegas and probably involve an actual heist as foreplay and Peter would be wondering if he made a mistake the whole time until they're back in their room.

The truth is he has... the best mistake he's ever made.

Thanks for the nice reblog, Dianna and I appreciate your comments.

Crossed Paths & Tangled Webs: Why I Ship SpiderCat

This is gonna be a controversial one through no fault of my own... but also it's all my own damn fault. A confusing contradicting statement to be sure, but when you're talking about Peter Parker and Felicia Hardy, that statement seems to ring the most true. Two people who are as perfect for each other as they are imperfect. In love through no fault of their own... and completely at fault for being so.

My poll for another ship to cover picked this... I'm more than happy to talk about it but we're dealing with volatile stuff right now. As I write this, Spider-Man and Black Cat actually ARE in a relationship with each other. Peter has recently stated that he no longer feels romantically for his long-time love-interest, Mary Jane, calling her more akin to a sister. MJ was apparently stuck in some post-apocalyptic Narnia situation where enough time passed for her to have kids with another guy. And if that wasn't enough... Mary Jane may be about to join Gwen Stacey in the fridge, if you get my meaning. As Zeb Wells is teasing the most shocking Spider-Man story since Gwen Stacey's death and the solicits for the story afterwards say Spider-Man is about to suffer a terrible loss. Felicia is on the covers of at least one of those issues. So unless it's a complete fake out and Wells is going to kill off a relationship he has stated he both prefers and spent a ton of time setting up at the expense of the preferred romance among fans... yeah it's not looking good for MJ. I mean he might kill off Aunt May again, but... well there's no guarantees in comics... ever.

This is a strange time period to be a long suffering SpiderCat shipper. I have held a torch for these two for such a long time it feels like almost second nature. I see Felicia, I want to see her with Peter. No one else, man or woman, will do. (Yes she's Bi, shut up, it's canon) Yet right now, a SpiderCat shipper is now writing the Spider-Man books and everyone seems to absolutely hate Zeb Wells' execution of it all. I've gotten what I wanted, at last, but fans are outright rejecting it. Not so much for Felicia and Peter being together mind you, as much as they're annoyed MJ is being thrown under the bus.

Which I get actually, I may have wanted this ship over Peter/MJ, but not at her expense. I don't want her DEAD or badly written. And given how Marvel has basically treated MJ and Peter over the years, it's hard to argue that these reactions are anything but justified. Even decades later, One More Day's shadow still looms large. Marvel has constantly teased and poked and prodded and snickered about the possibility of Mary Jane and Peter Parker becoming an item again. If not married, at the very least dating. But Marvel seems insistent on this point. "The Marriage was a mistake, we're never going back to it. And anything that is even remotely similar to that status quo is not allowed. Ever." The inability of Marvel's Spidey writers to craft a compelling happy marriage between Peter and MJ has been an albatross around the neck of the ship forever! Even when they did it in an ongoing, it had to be a different universe! One where the Civil War comics event wasn't a thing, so that was also a plus. And MJ had to get Spider Powers too in order to smooth over the whole thing for writers.

So, yeah, MJ's been blamed for making Spider-Books dull and kept at arms length from Peter as much as possible. Because if Spider-Man is EVER TOO HAPPY that can only spell DOOM for the character. His world must always revolve around misery. Linkara of AT4W has said it time and again, in the eyes of Marvel, Spider-Man can never be allowed to be happy.

And yet, despite all that, I still hold true to this maxim, Peter Parker and Felicia Hardy are made for each other. If I ever had an OTP, if I ever had a ship I'd die for, if there was ever any romance I was forever evergreen invested in... it was SpiderCat. Despite whatever the world says, that it can't work, that it's a bad idea, that they don't need each other, that it will never be the way Peter/MJ were once... I don't care. I reject all of that and state proudly, without shame, every time that Spider-Man and the Black Cat are and always shall be perfect for each other.

So Let's Talk about Why that is...

Usually I'm inclined to give brief synopsis points about both characters in separate sections. But Spider-Man is so well known and Black Cat so simply explained in their initial set ups it feels almost... pointless. When you can describe at least one half of the shipping dynamic with a theme song from a sixties cartoon it's hard to honestly come up with anything new or original.

So yeah, Peter Parker, nerdy wimp who gets bitten by a radioactive spider, doesn't get cancer from this, but super powers. Thinks about using these great powers to enrich his life, but after letting a criminal get away because it's "not his problem" he learns a harsh lesson about responsibility. His uncle dies at the hands of said criminal, it's all his fault, and Peter proclaims that as long as he has these powers he will use them to help people.

And as a result, Spider-Man is the hero that always gets up because he has to, he needs to. Because people, strangers and loved ones, depend on him. This comes at the cost of a great deal of things that would make him personally happy. Because if Spider-Man is about anything, it's about personal sacrifice and responsibility. It has been a running theme since his first comic and will continue until the heat death of the universe. If you know nothing else of Spider-Man, this is the most important fact about him going forward for the rest of this essay. Spider-Man is Responsibility and Self-Sacrifice Personified. Whenever he doesn't live up to either aspect of himself, bad things happen, to him, to the people he cares about and New York City at large.

On the other side of that coin, Felicia Hardy, aka the Black Cat. Infamous thief. While her origins are more fluid throughout her incarnations, her general story is pretty much the same. Felicia is a thrill seeking thief, who lives for the daredevil rush only a well-executed heist can accomplish. The Black Cat persona is that of a femme fatale thief of the highest order. There's no question that she shares more than a few similarities to Catwoman of Batman fame. Save for the fact she might possess a slight passive power that causes bad luck to her opponents.

Different character of course, but that's just to establish that it is a superpower. Felicia uses it mainly to steal whatever she wants and get away scot-free. She, in general, tries to avoid personal consequences for these actions. While her motives may vary from one story or universe to the next, ultimately her purpose in life is the same. To live for herself, for her needs and how she wants. The Black Cat persona is just that, a means to indulge in her wants and desires to the fullest extent. She is, inherently, self-serving and selfish whereas Spider-Man is selfless.

On the surface this presents a dynamic akin to oil and water. Spider-Man is an avatar of personal responsibility. The Black Cat is the personification of independent self-interest. They are such opposites, such contradictions, that they should just not work. They should be enemies... and that is how they started.

Amazing Spider-Man #194, Black Cat's first appearance where she and Spidey come to blows over her illicit activities. Felicia has contracted a crew for a job to spring her terminally ill father from prison. Spider-Man tries to stop her, only to end up buried under the rubble of the exploding prison wall. Black Cat flees the scene with a quip about crossing her path and Spidey with a bad arm post-fight. The next issue sees Spidey deduce Felicia's real identity and that Felicia only broke her father out so he could spend his dying hours with his wife and her mother. Spidey and Cat come to blows outside arguing over the merits of what she's done. However in the struggle Black Cat starts to fall off a roof into a surging river below. Spidey catches her with his bad arm, trying to stop her fall... but can't hold on as Felicia seemingly falls to her death. He tries to return to the Hardy residence, only to see Felicia's mother in grief over the death of her husband. Not wanting to add to it... Spidey leaves.

Of course, this isn't the end for Felicia, issue #204 sees the Black Cat return. She's actually been watching him it seems, taking photos of him swinging around town. They get reacquainted at the museum where Cat manages to slip away again after another fight with Spider-Man. Felicia is annoyed though that he keeps fighting her, not understanding why she's doing this. And by the next issue it's revealed, the art pieces Felicia stole were meant to symbolize what she thinks of Spidey. Namely, that she has developed a crush on him. No doubt because, despite trouncing him almost every time they've fought, she's clearly enjoyed all of it. And Spidey hasn't exactly helped in that regard as he has routinely flirted with her. He can't help it, she is hot. Felicia claims she wants to leave thieving behind, at the behest of her mother and she would like Spider-Man to help her reform. Seeing a similarity to a current situation with a girl he's instructing, and that Felicia might be suffering a bit of a mental break as a result of her father's death, he promises to get her help.

These introductory stories set the stage for Felicia and Peter's on again off again relationship for years to come. Felicia is self-servingly selfish, desiring things that aren't hers. Yet her motives are more complicated than pure greed, it is always based somewhat around her emotional state. Her need to give her father and mother some closure before she passes, her desire for Spider-Man to lead her out of a life of crime, as per her mother's wishes. She isn't evil, she has noble intent, she just goes about it in very self-centered ways. Spidey, in the meantime, is selfless to a fault. He'll keep chasing her down, he'll keep trying to set her straight, keep trying to stop her crime sprees. He is drawn to her by his selflessness and sense of responsibility to prevent her from just getting away with whatever she wants. But he does genuinely want to help her and he will not take advantage of her fragile emotional state, even if he himself is somewhat into her. Hell, the first thing he thinks about when he first sees her is that he hopes she isn't a criminal because he'd like to ask her out. He is clearly drawn to Felicia, even if it only starts out as pure infatuation, but he will not take advantage of her interest in him because he knows better than to try to exploit that for his own self-interest.

Of course it's a lie, well partially. Felicia faked being crazy to more easily escape a psychiatric hospital than a prison. But she is indeed in love with him. After her escape, she invites Spidey to a masquerade ball via a sky writer. Ultimately revealing that she lied to him about her mental breakdown in a selfish bid to escape consequences for her actions. But she wants to make up for it now, because this masquerade ball is being hosted by mafioso she stole from and says Spidey can now arrest them all! Crime is too easy she thinks, superheroing is her next thrill seeking adventure and she wants to do it with him. And despite being tricked and more than a little bribed into this, Spider-Man decides ultimately why not give it a try? If she really does want to go straight for him... isn't the responsible thing to do with her to help her out even if her motives are a tiny bit selfish?

This is how their romance starts and sets up the ultimate tug of war dynamic. Spider-Man does want Black Cat, but is wary of her desire to push him into a more selfish mindset. Black Cat actually desires Spider-Man, but can't get over her compulsive selfishness. In this story alone she has to sort of trick Spider-Man into coming to a date that's actually a mafioso party that he can break up. It's a highly manipulative plan that appeals to her selfish infatuation and Spider-Man's selfless heroism. It is a constant push and pull between them at multiple points. By all accounts, they should not work and a good deal of comics past this point go on and on about why they can't work.

I could cover the lengthy relationship between both characters throughout the 80s, Spidey was actually dating Felicia for a long time during the Black Suit days, even after he gave up the Symbiote. And for the most part this dynamic does not entirely change. Peter wants to help Black Cat be a better person before he can truly commit to her. Felicia wants to be a better person and make things work with Spider-Man, but she has a hard time wrapping her head around selfless action over selfish indulgence. It's the roadblock between them truly working as a couple. And there are a ton of moments during this time period I could talk about, but frankly, they are ALL before my time.

None of them really prove my point either, all I've done is just explain why their dynamic as a couple is riveting. It's not exactly like Batman and Catwoman's, but its of a similar vein. The key difference is Spider-Man, being who he is, isn't as opposed to the idea at first as Bruce is with Selina. Catwoman plays a lot harder to get for a lot longer than Black Cat, she also doesn't become Batman's superhero partner. Felicia and Peter by contrast are much younger though, so their reasoning is frankly more in line with their age demographic. They're just quicker to jump in than most people. The only thing holding them back is Black Cat and Spidey's diametrically opposed ideologies, even though we'll see those two viewpoints somewhat crisscross soon enough.

If you want to know however where I actually came in on this, we need to hop over to another universe. The one firmly positioned in the decade that defines the pop cultural wasteland... the 90s.

In an effort to compete with DC's Batman cartoon, Marvel fast tracked a Spider-Man show into production. While not on the same technical/narrative level as the landmark Batman: The Animated Series, Spider-Man: The Animated Series still did a tremendous job at capturing the essence of the character and is still a good series in its own. Even on a recent rewatch, I was surprised to see how well-thought out and true to form the series was. Yes, it's overuse of repeated animation and various other shortcuts was annoying, it certainly wasn't perfect, even by 90s standards, but it deserves recognition where it counts. Part of that was, in my opinion, the dynamic between Felicia and Peter Parker/Black Cat and Spider-Man. It certainly wasn't a slamdunk, I'm going to talk about where the writers fumbled it, but when it worked it worked and I think those parts where it worked so well were what cemented the idea in my head that this relationship, fraught as it was, COULD become something everlasting.

There's no hiding that Felicia's story is completely different from the comics. She actually knows Peter to begin with before she even becomes the Black Cat. They actually date for a while and despite the fact Peter is poorer than dirt, she is clearly interested in him and remains so for a good portion of season one. Peter's first kiss in the series is Felicia in fact. Even when MJ is in the picture, Peter is still torn between her and Felicia.

You might think we're dealing with a Betty and Veronica situation, but it never really materializes as such. Felicia and MJ never really meet this early and Felicia herself isn't really the rich girl stereotype. She's not particularly girlish or whinny. She doesn't really look down on anyone for their status. In fact she more often than not tries to rebel against the stereotype. She does a lot of charity work, she shows concern for the good of New York's citizens and she gives credit to those who deserve it, not just because they flatter her. She also gives Peter a lot of chances despite seemingly screwing up with her. She is reluctant at first to go out with him, but is not embarassed to be seen with him. The issue that arises is, from her perspective, Peter is never around when she gets in major trouble... but Spider-Man is. This become important later, but the thing to note is she is still close friends with Peter for a good amount of time and shows an interest in hm.

The only reason Felicia doesn't get with Peter is, again, Peter's terrible luck as a result of his responsibilities as Spider-Man. He accidentally stands Felicia up one too many times and she... ugh... ends up falling for Michael Morbius. Yes... that Morbius. No, we're not doing the meme. I only bring it up here because its one of the flaws in the show, Morbius as Felicia's love interest feels so incredibly out of place. It exists purely to prevent Felicia and Peter from getting together because nothing about it works. Morbius is hardly charming, he's somewhat of a creep, he's rude, abrasive and his petty rivalry with Peter just makes him unlikable. Its this petty bullshit rivalry, in fact, that causes Morbius' transformation into a Vampire monster in this continuity. Peter tries to claim responsibility for it because it was caused with his radioactive blood, but Morbius was an asshole and did it to himself. He's at fault and he sucks... pun not intended, not entirely. But because he's doing all this to stop a plague in his home country, and he saves Felicia this one time when Peter doesn't show, we're supposed to buy that she's smitten with him. And I do not buy it. In fact, I'd argue the show's writers didn't even buy it and were somewhat forced to do this so they wouldn't step on the iconic romance with Peter and MJ.

Morbius' subsequent flight into exile, as he basically becomes a mutant bat monster, starts an ongoing subplot with Felicia, the fact she has seemingly terrible luck with men. Early on, after Morbius has left her life, Felicia begins to develop a crush on Spider-Man, as at this point he's been there for her more than most other men in her life, saving her or her mother. Spider-Man, as a result, has become a very huge constant staple in her life, more so than any other man as far she can see. Peter, despite his messy love life, does care for Felicia, and is very quick to jump in to help her whenever she is in trouble. Partially because of his connection to her, partly because he still blames himself for Morbius' transformation. So Peter is spending a lot of time as Spider-Man with Felicia at this point, more so than MJ even who is dating Harry Osborn for a while. As far as Felicia is concerned, Spider-Man has become something akin to a knight in shining armor who is always there for her. She can't help but fall for him.

She reveals this by suddenly kissing him on the balcony, pulling up the mask half-way and everything. Peter, however, says he can't reciprocate, as much as he probably still has feelings for Felicia. He says he can't have a girlfriend though because it would put her in danger. It's bunk of course, he's still trying to be with MJ even though she's currently with Harry, but I imagine it plants an idea in Felicia's head. Regardless, for now she's crestfallen and this leads her into the arms of another man, Jason Phillips Macendale, a rich well to do playboy-type. Even still, she retains her feelings Spider-Man throughout their relationship. There is a scene at a carnival where Jason wins a stuffed Spider for her, which she remarks she finds spiders cute while he acts rather annoyed and jealous over it. Despite the fact she very clearly still wants Spidey to be with her, Felicia does agree to marry Jason when he proposes.

At the engagement party, which Peter attends with MJ as she has dumped Harry at this point, he changes into Spider-Man to spy on the Kingpin and Osborn over some business with the Hobgoblin. Annoyed he has to leave MJ to deal with this problem, he's interrupted by Felicia.

She asks if he's here to wish her good luck and Peter fumbles his words in saying as much. Which leads to this exchange:

Spidey: Do you really love this Jason Phillips guy?

Felicia: And why should you care about that? Unless you got a better offer?

Spidey: (Thoughts) This is crazy, I can't have one girlfriend as Peter Parker and another as Spider-Man! (Speaking) No, I don't... I just want you to be happy.

As Spidey swings away, Felicia mournfully says "So do I." It's a very clear statement, she's settling. Jason is rich and powerful and the person she's expected to marry due to who she is, but she's not really sure about it, or happy. Because the man she wants is currently swinging away. It's obvious that, in Felicia's eyes, she's missing something in her life that makes her happy and Spider-Man seems to be that something. Likewise, Peter, the paragon of self-responsibility, knows he can't abuse his secret identity to cheat on MJ, even though he seems very tempted to admit that he still has feelings for Felicia. But in the end, all he cares about is her happiness and if she can find it in this Jason dude, who is he to ruin that?

Well, he doesn't have to ruin it. Because we find out, shock of all shocks, Jason is the Hobgoblin and the revelation shakes Felicia to her core. The fact that this person she was dating, this man who she decided on because she couldn't have Spider-Man was a fraud, a criminal, a liar... it's a terrible thing to realize how poor your judgment is. Almost reaffirming that this was the wrong choice from the start.

Spidey of course once again comes swinging to her rescue and defeats the Hobgoblin. But Felicia has questions for her former fiancé. Jason relents that he used crime to create everything he is and get everything he has, including her. She's just another possession to him. What she deep down probably feared going into this, why her heart wasn't in this, why she wanted Spider-Man to give her a way out and save her again.

Felicia: I have to know, did you ever really love me?

Jason: I don't know. I love things about you. Your wealth, your beauty, your refinement.

Felicia: That's not love! I've experienced true love... and it's nothing like that.

And we don't get a flashback to Morbius, as this show constantly does because it's very not subtle, we don't see her talk about bat boy at all. She looks directly at Spider-Man as she says this and the camera zooms in on him as she speaks those words. This overtly informs the audience what love means in Felicia's mind. Love in Felicia's mind is being there for someone, who Spider-Man has been for a long time now. And more importantly, it's about wanting that person to be happy, which was all Spider-Man said he ever wanted. Spidey never asked anything of Felicia, he was just there for her and perhaps, in Felicia's mind, the reason he can't return it is because she can't be there in the same way. She is after all a damsel who he needs to keep saving and Spider-Man made it an issue that they can't be together because she'd be in danger.

In fact, this incident has given Felicia a complex that alludes to her future. "Every time I give my heart to someone, disaster strikes!" She sobs to Spider-Man. "I'm like a Black Cat spreading bad luck to everyone who crosses my path! Including my own."

By the next season things have taken a turn for the tragic, Mary Jane has vanished into realms unknown after mirroring Gwen Stacey's fall from a bridge into an interdimensional portal. As far as Peter knows though she's just gone, maybe forever. They can't say dead on this show, you know how it is.

This would probably leave the door back open for Felicia, but Peter is in no mental condition for another relationship right now and Felicia is smitten with Spider-Man, not Peter. Although he does wonder if she could help him with his grief as he swings over to her apartment. Not to say she doesn't care for Peter, but her heart belongs to his masked vigilante persona. In fact, so much so that she proclaims that Spider-Man is the only good thing in her life during that same visit. (Granted this is after an attack by Doctor Octopus, but the point stands) It's obvious that Felicia is now clinging to Spider-Man as one of the few constants in her life at this point, what with repeatedly being placed in danger by monsters and maniacs. The lack of control and helplessness is eating at her terribly.

However, this does lead into what we've all been waiting for, Felicia's transformation into the Black Cat and the start of the multi-episode season storyline, "Partners in Danger."

Felicia's father isn't just a cat burglar anymore. It turns out he got a peek at the formula for the Super Soldier serum back in WW2. He was almost tricked into giving it to the Nazis but managed to evade them. He was a kid at the time and was on the run for several decades. He's been in SHIELD custody for the past few years, until now when the Chameleon breaks him out only to hand him over to the Kingpin. Soon after, Doctor Octopus kidnaps Felicia and brings him to Fisk to reunite her with her father. And basically blackmail her into performing crimes for Fisk to test out the Super Soldier formula.

Yes, the Black Cat in the 90s Animated Series is basically a super soldier thief. It is suggested its not a complete process, but it grants Felicia more capability than she used to have. As the Black Cat she's now stronger, faster, more agile, versatile and has heightened senses. She's basically a mini-Captain America sans shield and a less patriotic aesthetic. Also, the Serum allows her to completely alter herself, her hair turns white and grows longer, while she also becomes more ripped and taller. This is so people won't really recognize her, an important detail for later.

While it's obvious Felicia hates being forced to go along with this to protect her father, she doesn't hate the new powers she's been granted and seeks to use them to eventually turn the tables on Fisk and save her dad. However, for the time being she gets in more than a few scrapes with Spider-Man, one of which leaves him knocked out in front of her. She considers pulling off his mask, but decides against it, preferring him to do it for her himself. She does plant a kiss though, the first of many as the Black Cat. The sequence is clear, Felicia is no longer the damsel but Spider-Man's equal and she hopes that this means things can change.

True, Felicia still gets into trouble and Spider-Man has to save her before the episode is out, but they actually do come together as partners by the end and effectively work together to defeat Fisk and save her father. Sadly, he has to return to SHIELD custody, of his own free will, to prevent the secrets he knows from ever getting out. I'd kinda like to to think they would give him a more witness protection situation than imprisonment for the guy, even if he did become a thief. It's SHIELD though, it's kinda expected they don't always do the sensible thing.

However this sets up the dynamic for the next few episodes as Black Cat and Spider-Man work together more and more. Spider-Man is reluctant at first, still mourning Mary Jane, but Black Cat manages to shake him out of that stupor. Reminding him not to close himself off in his grief. And Spidey himself remarks, as he and Black Cat work together, that he's actually having fun for once as Spider-Man. This is something to keep in mind, Black Cat actually challenges Spider-Man more often than not throughout their time together. Pushing him to remember why he does this job, stopping his pity parties cold, reminding him to not see his power as a burden that he so often does and as a gift he uses to help people. Even if she's not the same self-serving Felicia from the comics, as the Black Cat she embraces the liberated self her persona grants her. She's finally being able to do the things that her position as a rich socialite kept from her. Her stance is that Spider-Man can afford to think about what he wants and what makes him happy as much as his own responsibilities.

Frankly, it gets through to Peter. As time goes on, Spider-Man becomes more receptive to the idea that he should move on from MJ and be with Black Cat, a fellow crime fighter, on his level who can look after herself as much as him. This has been the problem Spider-Man has faced for a while, being able to protect the people he cares about despite his powers seemingly always getting in the way. In the same vein, Felicia's newfound abilities enable her to be Spidey's equal. Allowing her the opportunity to see him as a person and not just the superhero who saves her. This gives her the ability to challenge, as well as compliment him, as pointed out.

Their dynamic frankly rings more true and honest as a relationship. Even MJ never pushed Peter in the same way Black Cat pushes Spidey to be better. That's not to say MJ was a bad girlfriend, but on the show... she frankly resembled the comics version of Gwen Stacey personality wise. Black Cat may have been in love with Spider-Man, but that never stopped her from telling him off when he got something wrong. She had her own opinions and views on how this relationship worked and despite clashing with Spidey, they always seemed to be getting closer and more intimate every time she crossed his path.

That is until the goddamn Vampire comes back and ruins it all, because Felicia still has feelings for Morbius, I guess. In fact, he comes back so soon and suddenly, just as Peter is thinking of committing to Black Cat as Spider-Man, that it again feels like a mandate from on high. They're getting too close to each other, we can't have that, break them up by making Morbius a thing again. And quite frankly it feels forced because the only thing that seemingly prevents Spidey and Cat from sealing the deal is that neither of them have guessed at who the other is.

This is despite the fact that the Black Cat is obviously Felicia, given her very close relationship with Felicia's father that she doesn't even try to hide at all during her introductory episode. But Spidey has been consistently dense when it comes to secret identities, he couldn't even figure out Matt Murdock and Daredevil were the same person under similar circumstances. Using excuses THAT HE HIMSELF USES to cover his ass as Spider-Man. For being so smart, Peter is incredibly slow on the uptake when it comes to guessing Black Cat's identity despite how damn obvious it is. Not that Felicia is honestly much better, as both before and after this there are a number of clues to Spidey's true identity. Like... she kissed Peter AS Peter, she should know that mouth!

But the fact is, and this is where the forced editorial mandate thing comes in, that if they ever found out who the other was... that would be the end for any possible Peter and MJ relationship at this point. Felicia would finally realize why Peter seemed to never be around when she was in trouble, it's because he was Spider-Man. And given that Felicia's reasoning for being in love with Spider-Man is, again, the fact she feels he's always been there for her, she'd realize her most long standing intimate REAL relationship was with Peter all along! Peter in turn would realize that Felicia, the girl he first had a crush on, the one he was most conflicted about getting with before MJ vanished, a person he still has strong feelings for, is also the person who taught him to love again after MJ vanished. A friend he cares about who is now on his level and has also been there for him! There would be no way they couldn't get together at that point, or at the very least it would be very hard for Peter to decide between her and MJ from then on.

But no, the adventure with the returned Morbius leads to Felicia deciding to go with the creep Mutant Vampire and Blade to hunt other vampires and leave Spider-Man behind, just as he was about to be with her. Of course, Peter doesn't put two and two together that Cat is leaving with Morbius because as established he's an idiot when it comes to this stuff. If he was smarter, he'd have figured it out right now and probably revealed himself to her, and that would create a conflict and probably make her question this frankly boneheaded and nonsensical decision. So no, Felicia and Peter never find out each other's secret identities and she goes off with Morbius leaving Peter alone for no really good reason other than this felt like the fastest way to break them up so MJ could slide back in.

And MJ does slide back in, not long after this episode in fact and Spider-Man quickly fast tracks to proposing to her, revealing his secret identity, the works. However, Felicia isn't out of his life as MJ still keeps getting into trouble, constantly. At the wedding, Black Cat returns to make sure Peter's big day doesn't get ruined, because she does care about Peter even if she isn't with him. She does this again when MJ is seemingly kidnapped, first comforting Peter as Felicia reassuring him during a moment of hopelessness and then becoming Black Cat again to track down MJ for Peter.

And she admits aloud that she's doing this because she doesn't think she made the right call to follow Morbius and Blade, she still has feelings for Spidey, even though he's loyal and committed to MJ. Again, Felicia does not put two and two together given how gung-ho Spidey is for finding MJ. This also marks the only time MJ and the Black Cat meet, it's very quick, Peter has to answer a few obvious questions. After all that, Felicia decides to head back to Transylvania and once again Peter doesn't put two and two together that Felicia and Black Cat are back in town right at the same time. Because he's stupid like that.

What's important to note is that Felicia will drop everything for Peter, which suggests to me, on some subconscious level, she knows who Spider-Man is. And the fact she's still playing mental support coach to Peter, even outside of their secret identities, speaks volumes for their bond and connection. Even outside of the Black Cat persona and without directly knowing it, Felicia is there for Spider-Man when he needs her, just as much as he was for her.

But of course, all of this is for naught concerning Mary Jane's fate. Because... this is not Mary Jane. This hasn't been Mary Jane since she returned at the end of last season and conclusion of "Partners in Danger." Because we've been doing a random ass Clone Saga deal this whole time! This MJ, the one Peter married, shared his secrets with, probably most likely banged... wasn't his MJ. She was a clone created by Miles Warren who can use frickin water powers like Hydro Man because Hydro Man is an asshole ex who is obsessed with MJ and wanted his own version of her. But she wandered off, blah blah blah, point is her clone stability is breaking down and she's gonna evaporate. Cue one of the most gut wrenching screams in animation history.

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So yeah, Peter never got the real Mary Jane back, only to be set up for heartache all over again. One could argue he probably loved this Mary Jane more. Sure he thought she was the original, but everything he experienced with her were steps he was unwilling to take with the real one. Similar to how Felicia has been feeling conflicted, one has to imagine Peter is even more so at this point on several other levels. Not that he has much time to mourn though. Madame Web has returned after a long absence from the series and she has war for him to fight, a Secret War.

In a very loose adaptation of the original Marvel Comics Event, Spider-Man is tasked by the Beyonder to lead a team of superheroes to liberate a planet that has fallen to villains he's plucked from Earth. This becomes a bit of a crossover between pretty much every Fox Entertainment Marvel Cartoon running at the time. From X-Men to Iron Man to the Fantastic Four, not Hulk though, Hulk rights are always a problem. But even after he's picked all the heroes he can afford to recruit, like any Gamer he can't resist modding shit to give him more stuff. And of all the heroes and allies he could pick to increase his ranks... he chooses the Black Cat.

It's a fairly odd choice honestly. Spidey has worked with a lot of heroes, maybe not as extensively as the Black Cat, but he's fought beside Doctor Strange, he knows other X-Men who are on Storm's level or at least just as capable. But he picks Black Cat. He picks her despite knowing that Madame Web knows the Real Mary Jane's location and promises it as a reward if he helps her. He picks Black Cat, despite knowing she is currently with Morbius and Blade. Makes one wonder... why?

Felicia isn't happy with this herself, because she just got pulled away in the middle of a vampire slaying fight. Don't worry, they're fine. It's Blade he'll manage without her.

...

What? Oh Morbius, yeah I guess he'll survive too just by being in close proximity to Blade. Have I mentioned I hate Morbius?

Anyway, the point is Black Cat is none too happy get pulled into Spidey's adventures against her will, like he can just do that on a whim. She's kinda right to be angry at him and she is for a good portion of the episode. When Spidey explains he picked her because he needs her support and they work good as a team, Felicia rightly says that he can't just rip her away from things because he needs to hold her hand. She'll be more than willing to do so on her own, he doesn't need to ask, he just shouldn't force her. It's a surprising role reversal, with Spider-Man being a bit more selfish than usual and Black Cat outwardly demanding to know when Spider-Man is gonna grow up. A question many comics fans wonder themselves to this day.

Spider-Man's ultimate ulterior motives are a bit more obvious though when he gets pretty jealous over Captain America and Black Cat bonding over her having the super soldier serum. And it doesn't help that Cap keeps kinda outshining him constantly when he saves Felicia a few times. But to be fair, Steve Rogers does that with everyone.

After the mission that topples the Red Skull ends, Spidey does apologize for taking Felicia against her will into this war. But she's no longer angry. Taking part in a mission bigger than even vampire slaying is important, a big deal, and if there is one thing Felicia has wanted its to not be left out of a fight for something bigger than herself. Plus, she get's to do it beside the greatest hero of all time. Spidey thinks she means Cap, but she corrects him, she's talking about the Web Head. Despite not being as perfect as Captain America, Spider-Man did prove himself out there as a leader to her and she admits she wouldn't want to miss this action with him for anything. Despite not wanting to be here initially, Felicia ultimately can't get over the fact Spider-Man wanted HER here with him. And given their last meeting had him coldly rejecting her advances, it says to Felicia that Spidey still feels for her and she clearly does too. Black Cat then kisses Spider-Man... and it's the last kiss he'll ever receive in the series. That's right, Peter's first and last kisses on this show come from Felicia. How do you not expect anyone to read into that?

No matter what lame line Morbius tries to give at the end of the episode, Felicia's heart doesn't really belong to him. It is very evident, crystal clear, painfully obvious, to anyone paying attention, that Felicia and Peter, on this series at the very least, were specially connected. Maybe not at first, but Felicia became someone who could match Spider-Man, physically and mentally, in many ways. And it's undeniable that, regardless of anything else, Peter held feelings for both Felicia and her Super Thief persona. Their banter was perfect, their partnership was top notch, the chemistry was amazing. The only thing keeping them apart was a story writing mandate from on high that they could not be endgame. Even though the writers took every chance they could nab to put them together. To shove Felicia back into Peter's life, even after she went off Slaying it up with Morbius. When I rewatched the series, it became painfully obvious who the writers seemed to prefer Peter with. None of this is to knock MJ as a character, on this show or in the comics, but it's hard for me to buy that there wasn't some kind of bias towards Felicia given everything that happens in this show.

Or maybe they just wanted an excuse to keep bringing Jennifer Hale back, I don't know! But I still choose to think that someone on that writing staff wanted a different endgame. It's been known to happen, creative teams aren't immune to shipping. Avatar the Last Airbender apparently had an ongoing tug of war between the executive producers and some of the writers over whether Katara would pick Zuko or Aang. It honestly feels like something similar happened here and as a result it comes across as the best evidence in my mind that this relationship could work. And the insane reality that less than a decade after Spider-Man TAS concluded, a show that did everything to ensure Spider-Man never got with the Black Cat because Peter/MJ were too iconic to not happen... One More Day drops and Peter has barely been with MJ for more than a single run out of several writers since. Said single writer being Nick Spencer, the Hydra Cap guy! Possibly in an effort to redeem himself from being the Hydra Cap Guy.

But I digress, as one can plainly see concerning this short retrospective of the series above, the 90s Cartoon has been over for a long time. Next year, it will be thirty years old. I can point out how it could've worked in that show, but that does nothing to prove Felicia and Peter ever have a chance now. All it shows is that I have a nostalgic attachment to this pairing because of an animated series. One with a highly different set of canonical circumstances between Spidey and the Black Cat that were crafted uniquely for this show alone. Circumstances that are worlds apart from the comics.

And that's because, as loathe as I am to admit it, Peter and Felicia's relationship has always had roadblocks in every piece of media involving them before and since. And I would be remiss if I didn't address any of those before I can start proving its viability now. If I don't I'll just have to do it later anyway. We'll look at how SpiderCat appears in other works as we go through this, but we need to head back to comic book land if we're really going to lay down what's actually keeping these two apart, and it's not the very weak contrivances preventing them from figuring out the obvious like in the 90s cartoon. No, it goes deeper than that. As you can see here.

90s Felicia wanted Spidey to unmask for her, but Comics!Felicia has had a hang up about that for a long while. This is the crux, the problem, with their relationship. The thing that always comes up when SpiderCat shippers argue for it. Comics!Black Cat loves Spider-Man... not Peter Parker. And mixing the two is too much for her to bare. This is what put strain on their relationship, Felicia didn't want her fantasy ruined by knowing the man behind the mask. Peter being an ordinary guy shatters her illusions about his prowess and ability. The phrase "Anyone can wear the mask" comes to mind and as long as Peter wears it for the Black Cat that is true. Take it off and Peter's normality leaks into things.

As a result, the main problem is Felicia can't love a man like Peter, who has a normal life outside of his superheroing. Felicia doesn't want normal, she likes what she is, who she is, doesn't want to go back to it. She wants to be the Black Cat because as the Cat she can do and get whatever she wants. Peter is, again, weighed down by responsibilities. While Felicia, once again, desires her independence from everything, including responsibility. Felicia would rather Spider-Man give up being Peter and just be the hero who swept her off her feet full time. To forever chase her across the rooftops and do what they want whenever they want. She's fine if that means fighting bad guys... so long as they're not tied down to normality. But Peter can't do that, he can never do that, not as long as he has ties to his life as Peter. And that's probably why Wells is considering severing a pretty big tie to that in order to make sure SpiderCat can't be reversed so easily. Can't really blame him for that though, given how comics are in constant flux. (Remember This)

This sort of issue is constantly reinforced. In the Spider-Man 2 video game, based off the Sam Raimi sequel, The "Spidey's loss of his powers" sub-plot is replaced by Black Cat trying to seduce him away into forever crime-fighting as his relationship with Mary Jane becomes strained due to her upcoming marriage to Jonah Jameson's son. Their dynamic matches the comics pretty well... and that means Spidey eventually breaks it off with her, saying he can't abandon his real life to forever play superhero with her. He needs a balance and that means he can't see her anymore. She leaves amicably, but it's sad to see happen.

In the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows game, Black Cat is revealed to still have feelings for Spider-Man and wants to be back together with him. This is pretty bad timing given the symbiote invasion going on. As the game is using the then popular trend of multiple choice endings there is one where you can have Black Cat be with Spider-Man at the end. It requires you basically healing her after a fight with your black suit, turning her into a Venomized version of herself. You can still pick the good ending after this where you defeat the Symbiotes, but all you know for sure is that MJ and him are on quits. You only see Felicia again if you pick the bad ending where Spider-Man breaks bad fully and decides to lead a symbiote army with Felicia by his side. Further emphasizing the idea that Peter can't pick being with Felicia without abandoning everything that makes him who he is.

There's also Spectacular Spider-Man, the other beloved Spider-Man animated series. Shorter-lived, but just as impactful. Where Spidey and Black Cat seem to hit it off during the start of Peter's whole symbiote storyline. Their banter is great, the chemistry fits, Felicia and Pete seem destined to be star-crossed opposite sides of the law lovers. However, when they meet up again Felicia is breaking her father out as she usually does... but the twist this time is Felicia's father is the one who shot Uncle Ben.

Naturally this completely wrecks any goodwill concerning Black Cat and Spidey's second meeting. As from here on out he's adamant Felicia's dad is not getting out. While it turns out Dad doesn't want to leave either and he decides to sacrifice his chance at freedom to stop a mass jailbreak of supervillains, that changes little. Spider-Man does not forgive Felicia's father and Felicia blames Spider-Man for infecting her dad with sentimentality. Even knowing he took an innocent life, all Felicia sees is her dad rotting away in jail. She declares she'll never forgive Spider-Man for this and rushes off in anger. The series ended shortly thereafter and this was never resolved. Greg Weisman, the show's creator, says if it had continued the relationship would've been "fraught." And once again this is the typical line concerning the fact Felicia's selfish desires run up against Spider-Man's heroic responsibility. And letting a criminal get away, especially one that killed his Uncle, is just something he can't do.

And I could go on, there are a ton of examples of this very problematic element of the relationship. It's the thing Marvel has consistently used to explain why Peter and Felicia aren't the right fit. Any romance would require either character to make sacrifices they are incapable of. Namely Felicia's independence and Peter's Responsibilities. Marvel itself decided to set this in stone to a degree with the usual question they ask... "What If?"

"What if... Spider-Man Married the Black Cat?" is the second part of a longer What If storyline answering what would happen if Peter and MJ did not get married. (HA! After OMD, one cannot help but laugh!) And as much as that cover paints wedded bliss... it's anything but. Felicia and Peter come to blows repeatedly, unable to reconcile their differences. Their goals are far too distant from each other overall and they just can't find common ground. By the end of the issue, Felicia lies dead, Spider-Man heart broken and the grim reality that this romance could never work is cemented in stone it seems. "What Ifs" aren't definitive statements about the only possible outcomes for the Marvel universe. But they are definitive statements from Marvel itself, a decree from on high that the current continuity, for all its faults, could be so much worse and we should be happy for what we have. And while the issue is loaded with nice panels that any SpiderCat fan would adore, the end result is still plain as day. Felicia and Peter are too oil and water to ever mix. And the end result would be the destruction of one or both.

How do you overcome the dreadful reality that you ship is declared doomed forever by the very company that in some sense set it in motion? Not just because Spider-Man can never be happy, but because the Black Cat is just too toxic a girlfriend to ever truly make him happy. Everyone argued that MJ and Peter's marriage was boring but they didn't want him to get with the next best option either because they think it's non-compatible, that they're just too different and of opposing thought to ever reach common ground.

And Marvel has tried to permanently set that in stone in canon once. To forever place SpiderCat as beyond possible, to sever their connection as decades long allies... and all because of an octopus in the brain.

The image above is not that of Peter Parker fighting the Black Cat. This is Doctor Otto Octavius, piloting Peter's body after jacking his mind. This is the Superior Spider-Man, and he does not care about Peter's past infatuations. He's here to prove he's the better Spider-Man and that means apprehending all criminals. In an otherwise re-affirming storyline that proves Peter Parker is the true Superior Spider-Man, Otto failing to live up to his lofty ambitious boasts, this scene... this one bloody scene, leads to the absolute low point period for all SpiderCat Fans. I call it the "Bitch Be Crazy" Era, an offensive title for a frankly offensively disgusting sub-plot in the Spider Run post-Superior.

Peter Parker informs all his Superhero buddies that Doc Ock had taken over his body for a long time, explaining his shitty behavior for the past year or so. Most everyone's response is "Oh, yeah, that's obvious in hindsight." Not Felicia.

The tables have turned, now Felicia has broke bad, but for real. And there is no way to describe what she becomes but extremely out of character. She doesn't accept Spider-Man's explanation, she doesn't even care. She is now obsessed with becoming the next Kingpin of Crime, a murderous, merciless mob boss who pulls the strings of supervillains, all in a bid to destroy Spider-Man and all he holds dear and it's absolutely, completely, stupidly, idiotically terrible. No matter how selfish Felicia can be, this is NOT her. Felicia has never shown any desire to be a crime boss, to be feared. Her desires have always been thrill seeking, shiny things and not being told what she can and can't do. She might be violent, but she is not a cold-blooded killer. She might be cynical, but she is not this petty. Every element of this terrible subplot makes no sense unless she's absolutely lost her mind or been replaced by a Skrull.

The only fun thing in this whole mess, was that Gwenpool's first in-universe story took place during this sub-plot and she crossed paths with her. And then did this.

I guess that justifies putting a Gwenpool tag below somewhere. Win for me!

Suffice to say, no one liked this change. Everyone hated it, even more than Superior Spider-Man. People came around on that, no one liked Felicia the Big Black Cat of Crime. Dan Slott could never justify it because it made no sense that Felicia would care this much about street cred because Spider-Man beat her up. As if there isn't a single crook in New York at this point who can claim Spider-Man hasn't knocked out one of their teeth. Others tried to explain it, to give it a more sensible face. There was an explanation in the Silk comic, but it didn't really stick as something that would drive her to this extreme. Regardless, it was a dark time for SpiderCat Shipping Fandom. And it took way longer than it should've to fix it all.

But it did get fixed and that brings me the counter to ALL of this stuff that stands in Peter and Felicia's way. And that is that no matter how much things stay the same, comics always inevitably change and so do the characters in them. We like to pretend that the way we see a lot of the characters in comics now has just always been them. But no, they're not. Batman used to carry a gun in his early days, Superman didn't always fly, Captain America, a WW2 Veteran, claimed he never killed anyone for a short time, Deadpool didn't always break the 4th Wall and Starlord used to be a lot more of a straight edged serious space hero and not a rock music lovin' dancin' fool of a rogue Han Solo. Tastes change, writers change, people change... and so has Felicia.

Felicia hasn't always been honest with Peter, she's tricked him into chasing her, played him to get away with a score, gotten superpowers from Kingpin in an effort to keep up with him which led to their first break up, she even dated Flash Thompson trying to make him jealous. But if one thing has been consistent, it's that Felicia can't help but cross back into Peter's life. And in the process, because she cares, even loves him, there are things she's had to accept, to admit to. And chief among them is Peter Parker is Spider-Man and Peter Parker's life is as if not more important to him than just being Spider-Man. She hasn't only loved Spider-Man for years at this point, for a long time. She loves both. and she is willing to accept both. If there is any problem, it's Peter accepting Felicia for who she is... which is a better person than even she gives herself credit for.

Spider-Man wouldn't be partnering up with Felicia so often if he didn't believe there was more to her than just a shallow thief. And the influence has affected Felicia, she's admitted as much. Maybe her shift to doing good was set off by a crush, but she owned that change and she kept pushing herself. She'll never have a strict moral compass, but she does know what the right choice is at the end of the day, what feels right. And when Spider-Man needs an ally, he can call on her as much as anyone. Spider-Man being in her life has only been a net positive for Felicia, Peter being with her has only been a net positive. And that brings us back to her time as a lame crime boss and how they fixed her. Because there's a better, deeper, actually meaningful reason for their schism besides Felicia's loss of street cred.

She forgot the man she loved and changed for.

Yep, we're factoring One More Day into this thing proper like. After an adventure with Venom and Spidey, dealing with some symbiote nonsense, Felicia is convinced to hash it out with the Wall Crawler. And she admits to him that she lost something, his face. When Spider-Man made the world forget who he was under the mask it affected Felicia too. All her memories, all the time spent with Peter post reveal, everything that she knew about the man behind the mask... it was either gone or in a fog. She can't remember all those times that Peter trusted her with who he was and it has been eating her up inside for years! And Spider-Man never thought about how that would affect her, a person he's loved, been intimate with, and at least now cares about. That was an important time in her life and it's just gone now. And it may be selfish to want all of it back and even demand it back... but she's right. Those memories were hers and Spidey took them away. And Spider-Man, being selfless as he is, can't just let that stand anymore.

Everyone says Felicia only loves Spider-Man, but that's not true. She may love the Spider... but she changed for the Man. She cherishes that time she had with that Man. And it's hard to believe that she doesn't love the Man as much as the Spider because, ultimately, they are the same person. That's the other difference between this and Bruce/Selina. Bruce Wayne is the mask for the boy who died in that alleyway, Batman is who he's been since that day. Peter and Spider-Man are the same person, it's why he can't leave either persona behind. And Felicia has long since accepted that, and that has never changed how she feels about him until she lost who he was beneath the mask. Now it's all back, the highs and lows of that tumultuous time in her life when she fell for a Spider and came to love the Man. It doesn't heal everything, but it repairs the bond that was broken so long ago and so unintentionally.

There is, however, another argument being floated around these days I have to address. That even if Felicia can accept the man beneath the mask, do either really NEED each other? I'd point to all the stuff above that shows how that's simply not true, but there's more to it than that. Love isn't always about what you need, it's just as much about what you want. And I'm not talking about a person or thing, not something material. What does Felicia want? What does Peter want?

Felicia wants to be more than what she is, always has been. She wants thrills, she wants to be her true self and I feel Spider-Man brings out those qualities more than any of her other boy or girlfriends, especially since he started her path to change and growth. She stops being selfish and reacts more selfless. His influence on her is undeniable and she knows as much as anyone. She'll never be a good girl, but she'll at least be a better one than she is without him in her life.

Peter wants to be at peace, to be happy with who he is, to not always feel burdened. Felicia has always been one of the ways he's released that burden, he's been happy with her. Sure he's been happy with others, but Felicia has met him on a level that none of them could, she's been able to be in the thick of it with him. She's been able to share the burden. She's been able to be an active participant. With her around, Peter's world as a superhero doesn't feel so lonely. And maybe, if Felicia could accept the man as much as it seems she has, so too could she accept Peter's regular life.

In Taylor Swift's song, Anti-Hero, she reflects on how exhausting for her it's been that she hasn't seemed to learn anything and keeps making the same mistakes over and over. And if you pay attention to the lyics enough, they start describing Felicia Hardy pretty well.

I should not be left to my own devices They come with prices and vices I end up in crisis (tale as old as time) I wake up screaming from dreaming One day I'll watch as you're leaving 'Cause you got tired of my scheming (For the last time)

However, just as much of it can sorta apply to Spider-Man as well. His heroic selflessness is frankly a very long depressing slog of him being unable to forgive himself for letting down Uncle Ben, placing all the blame on his shoulders and then repeating that process whenever his great power can never live up to his great responsibility.

Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism Like some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time) I wake up screaming from dreaming One day I'll watch as you're leaving And life will lose all its meaning (For the last time)

When it comes to Spider-Man and the Black Cat, a lot of the things that make them unhappy are self-inflicted. Lewis Lovhaug of "Atop the Fourth Wall" Fame has argued that the problem with Spider-Man in a lot of modern stories is that he never learns from anything. He hasn't done enough to improve himself as Spider-Man or as Peter Parker, he just keeps feeling sorry for himself that one gets in the way of the other. And frankly, the same curse has affected Felicia. Because a lot of what has prevented her from being with Spider-Man has been herself. Ultimately both will, as the song says, always look towards the bright sun of what they think they want, but never in the mirror. They'll hurt themselves, never realizing that they're the source of their own dissatisfaction with how their lives are. It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero, especially when its yourself.

Maybe Peter and Felicia don't need each other, but they do need someone to set them straight and get them to stop believing their own bullshit. To make them stare away from the sun and into the mirror. Because they are each exactly the kind of person who would do that for the other, in fact they've been doing it for as long as they've been together. Their bond is stronger than people give it credit for.

Early on in their relationship, Black Cat was badly injured and has to be rushed to a hospital. Helpless to really do anything, Peter could only stand by her bedside and hope she'd be okay again. For all his power, once more, he can't do anything but just stay with her. And actually, that's enough.

But come now, would Felicia ever do the same for Peter you ask? Well... during a recent story event, Spider-Man was badly injured and slips into a coma. But there was one person constantly by his side throughout it.

This isn't derogatory, Felicia is clearly lamenting the fact that someone so good who does everything so selflessly despite no thanks or praise, is so constantly placed into situations like this. It's unfair to her. It's why she's here now, like he was for her. And just like before...

It's Felicia who gets the first response out of him. Claim all you want that Felicia doesn't need Peter, that she's moved past him, that Peter and MJ are too perfect for each other, that the Black Cat can't ever settle down like Peter probably wants or that Peter can never really be there for Felicia in the way she wants. But I don't buy it. And stuff like this is why.

No matter how much bad luck she is, Spider-Man wants and in some ways needs the Black Cat is in his life. And no matter how much she can try and say she's over it, The Black Cat will always find a way to cross paths with her Spider.

In the recent PS4 Spider-Man game, Felicia came back after a stint of going straight to prepare for a major strike back against Hammerhead and the Maggia families. She coerces Spider-Man into another of her games where she steals $50 Million worth of stuff and forces him to chase her around the city to find it all. She leaves the loot behind though, because it was all trick to break into the police evidence lockup and snag her old gear. But she did leave Peter a cool new suit, a reference to the time when Felicia made a new black suit for Peter after giving up his symbiote. You know, so they match.

Felicia's little game comes to fruition when "The Heist" DLC comes out. Felicia strings Spidey along, pretending Hammerhead has her son, strongly implying its his. Ultimately this is revealed to have been a lie of course, another game. Because this, to Felicia, is basically the perfect date night. Spider-Man chases her, they team up, she gets what she wants and runs off into the night. In this case the entire wealth of the Maggia after double crossing Hammerhead. This gets a target on her back instantly. Spider calls her to warn her, leaving Felicia more than a little surprised.

Felicia: I just conned you and here you are trying to save me. How can you be so damn nice all the time?

Spidey: It's not about being nice, it's about doing the right thing! You have so many talents, I wish you'd use them to help someone other than yourself.

Felicia: Yeah well, you should know by now that's not how I roll.

Spidey: People can change, Felicia.

Felicia: Love you, Spider. I'll miss you.

Felicia's penthouse explodes and she appears to die. But eagle eyed players would notice the puff smoke just before the bomb goes off. The Black Cat fakes her death more than Doctor Doom uses robots. Felicia got away, scot-free, with all the money she could ever need or want. She conned Spider-Man, Hammerhead and everyone. She won hands down and can do whatever she wants from now on. No one will be looking for her. Hammerhead's plans to utilize weapons of war to take over the city isn't her problem.

And yet...

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Felicia comes back to help Spider-Man, knowing it will basically put her on the radar again given everything she's stolen. She doesn't stay, but she saves him and gives him the means to take Hammerhead down. No matter what anyone thinks of Felicia, especially herself, she is not nearly as incapable of being selfless as one thinks. And this is true of most of her incarnations. Perhaps because the Black Cat will do anything to get what she wants, even if it means turning over a new leaf for her Spider. It's how this all started after all. Selfish Selflessness, it's probably the best middle ground Peter can hope for. But at least it means he can count on her, to be selfish. And that's why she'll always be there for him. Felicia doesn't like to lose the things she has.

I think it also says a lot that many players felt that Peter and Felicia's chemistry was loads more interesting and compelling than his relationship with the estranged version of MJ Spidey has to deal with. And frankly, Felicia being in those stealth sequences would've made a million times more sense. There are some who have even speculated, with no real proof mind you, that Felicia was lying about lying about having a son. That she DOES have one, he just wasn't in danger. But of course, that's unlikely. For the same reason Peter remains hung up on Mary Jane in this game despite the fact most players seem apathetic to them getting back together. Spider-Man being a father out of wedlock is something that Marvel is not really prepared to sign off on. Just as much as they resist him being with someone other than MJ in other media, despite not wanting him to be with her in the comics.

It all seems so arbitrary to me, that they just can't be together because of the iconography of Peter and MJ. Or because she can't love the man the Spider is, which isn't true. Or Spider-Man can't change her or trust her, which also isn't true. If there has ever been a more consistent, sustainable, supportive and bonded character to Peter Parker it has been Felicia Hardy. Romantically or platonically, Felicia has dropped things to be there for Peter. And the idea that they are toxic for each other has never rung true. People can change, and this romance proves it. They just need to be given the chance to do so, and have the right person along for the ride. And the forced separation feels more arbitrary when you take into consideration, that Marvel has kept MJ and Peter apart for over a decades worth of comics and has never bit the bullet on simply just letting Felicia and Peter be together until now.

Some have claimed the new romance is out of the blue, that Spencer was setting things up to undo OMD, that Wells just pulled this off out of nowhere. Well... no. Because those scenes where Felicia brought Peter out of his coma, the re-unmasking, the re-entry into his life through a number of adventures... Spencer wrote those himself. People have confirmation bias, I'm no different, I don't claim to be. However, everyone has wanted OMD to be undone since the storyline first concluded. Marvel has played with fans' heartstrings that it will do so and it has prevented Peter from moving on because if he's not in a committed sustainable relationship, there's always hope that Mephisto's deal will be undone! And it has not helped anyone in the slightest to keep buying that horse crap.

The fact is I'm honestly sick of this "will they won't they" garbage from Marvel on undoing One More Day and I think more people should be by this point. Let me make this perfectly clear, even if they undo the deal... they're not getting remarried. Marvel simply is not interested in going down that road for Spider-Man again. Even with the new Spider-Verse movie showing Peter B. with a kid. Because the problem has never been they won't let Peter be married to MJ. The problem is they won't let Peter grow. The problem is they won't let him move on and change. They stick him in a misery spin cycle and just never let him out.

Why not just end the charade? Let Peter grow. Let Felicia grow. They both already want to. They both already desire to. And they both have already done so for the other. Felicia has been there to challenge and push him, while also protecting and supporting him. And Peter has undeniably changed Felicia as a person. She may never have the same moral compass, but she's no longer as lost as she once was. Her selfish cynicism is kept in check when it comes to Peter. And his selfless self-destruction is held back thanks to Felicia. Why deny them the chance to both be truly happy? Especially when they make each other better people. Why deny chemistry that is so perfectly balanced in its contradiction?

I don't begrudge people for preferring Mary Jane over Spider-Man. I'm more or less at peace with the reality that some pairings are just thought of as the default and nothing is really gonna change that. I prefer Rogue with Deadpool, that doesn't change the fact she'll always be with Gambit. What I wanted to stress with this isn't so much an argument to ship it so much as the ultimate reason I simply can't let these two go. For me, SpiderCat speaks on some primal level, more than wish fulfillment, but the idea of growth. That love can hold you up in your worst moments, or change you for the better. That it can make you look in the mirror and ask who do you want to be, what to you want. What is worth changing for? Felicia found her answer, a nerdy, selfless, eternally tormented wall-crawler, who should know better than to go chasing her trying to save her from herself... but does it anyway. How could she not return the favor and be there for him? It's hard to say whether he caught her in his web, or if she just loves walking across his path. What is certain is they are bonded to each other, in one way or another. And that's the only thing about either character that I don't think can ever truly change.

Well this was a long one, and probably a lot more introspective and personally relatable than I thought. I think now have a better understanding of what has always drawn me to these two. And also now think I have discovered the song that describes them both so... thanks Taylor Swift! Whatever future this rekindled romance holds in the comics, we'll see how it shakes out. But I can enjoy the ride even if some of it has been rocky. Not the first time I've had to deal with that.

If you're still here, congrats, you've made it to the end. And I hope I didn't completely bore you all with this fairly overly comprehensive look at a pairing spanning various mediums and continuities. But I like to be thorough. So I hope you can appreciate the amount of work I put into this whole thing for you all. If I ever do this again I can only hope it won't be so... all encompassing. But I make no promises.

One thing I know though, I'm probably gonna be riding and dying these two forever. The Cat and her Spider, the Self and Selfless. Beautiful in the mess they are apart and the whole they are together.

#spidercat #spider-man #black cat #marvel #felicia hardy #peter parker #spiderman x black cat #peterfel #comics #shipping

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rjmhereunderprotest · 2 years ago

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Jesus, why is she so damn pretty!? She deserves only the best!

mina ashido || BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA 6th SEASON

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rjmhereunderprotest · 2 years ago

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I'm Going to the DekuBowl!

Hey, can we just talk a bit about the fact Izuku Midoriya is basically a Harem Protagonist in a non-Harem show? Because if you ignored canon and just went entirely on AO3 alone, you'd get the impression that this is a show about a neurotic little shy boy who every girl (and sometimes boys) wants to have hot sweat make out sessions with. And sometimes they hold hands, the lewdest of all activities according to the internet.

My Hero Academia's fandom is... strange in many aspects. It freely creates dynamics out of very little, spanning entire random headcanons based on very little but the basic possible concept. To the point that said concepts are, arguably, more popular than the IP itself. Case in point and a subject for another day, the BakuSquad, where people have grouped Bakugo with a specific "friend" group based entirely around a few things, his few interactions with them and the fact they're all kinda stupider than him thus sticking him with them is funny. Like, very funny, the most funny. It could honestly be a spinoff series given the fanon canon built up around BakuSquad.

But while the BakuSquad is the most well-known fanon element of MHA, Deku the Harem Protag is the slightly saucier less acknowledged but just as present sibling. Milling in the corner, trying not to be noticed as they read their "High School DxD" Manga in peace at the family gathering. Innocent but not so innocent, born out of a desire that Izuku is an adorable, charming, affable shy boy cinnamon roll who would do anything to make his significant other happy... so why not share him?

And because I'm currently thinking about fanon perception over canon definitiveness, and the fact I noticed that Izuku is apparently Nejire's most chosen partner on AO3 over Tamaki by a not insignificant margin despite their very limited interaction I am left once more to ponder the question... why? As I have often asked myself. What makes Izuku Midoriya so special as a chosen Harem protag? Why does he have so many ships and why is it so prolific? Well, let's see for ourselves.

What Makes a Harem Protagonist?

Harem Protagonists have a general perception in media and it's not entirely untrue. A lot of Harem Animes and Mangas have very stock bland fairly generic personalities. They are built so a generally male viewer can insert themselves into that role. They are plentiful and everywhere and they are interchangeably boring. Their most common trait is that are titular "Nice Guys", with the sole admirable trait that they do not take advantage of the fact there are several women (although not always exclusively so, as reverse harems do exist along a similar dynamic) trying to get in their pants. This is because Harem Manga and Anime are primarily situational comedies and they aren't actually depicting polyamorous relationships truly. They are depicting an extended season of the Bachelor with more hijinks and less eliminations. The usual endgame involves dissolving the harem because the protagonist will pick one of the girls and that's it, she wins, game over. True harems, where the central figure and the significant other AGREE to share in a consensual polyamorous relationship are rare. Because that usually resolves any and all problems and isn't as funny.

There is humor to be found in a polyamorous relationship of course, I've seen it. But it's not the same kind you find in a typical harem comedy, where the protagonist isn't sure they want this and doesn't want to look like a pervert but they do and they end up somehow falling into the tsundere's boobs by some strange stupid accident and get slapped for it. Love Hime was the quintessential Harem Anime for this reason and it's why everyone hates it today because it's so much the atypical pattern NOW that it looks trite, cliché and bland as all hell even more so than when it was new.

Therefore these days, because there are so many Harem anime and manga stories out there, the idea of trying to stand out has become more prominent. If you want to avoid being called simple wish fulfillment, your harem protagonist has to have something many lack... namely their own goddamn brain. It's the same as the video game silent protagonist debate in many respects. Do you want your hero to be their own person or do want them to be an avatar for the audience? And a lot of the better Harem Animes and Manga have found success in the wider community because they allow their central protagonists to have a personality. It's not the only factor, but it helps in separating the wheat from the chaff.

Izuku Midoriya is special in this regard. He plays as both a self-insert but is more structurally defined than many protagonists of his kind. This is because, he's a superhero, MHA is a superhero story and superhero stories are themselves a form of power fantasy. The fantasy of I can go out and defend my community from bad people with flashy powers and cool gadgets and make a discernable difference in said community. Izuku is very much of this sort of kind of character. He is a powerless young boy who wants to be a superhero and help people. He is the prototypical self-insert. But he has a very clear, well defined personality. He's not just any nerd, he's a very specific characterized individual, with goals and aspirations of his own.

He's generous, kind, caring, lovable but also a massive worry wart. He's constantly over-thinking things. He places enormous burdens on himself. He is almost self-destructive in his desire to help people. Like literally. It's his whole damn character arc. We can insert ourselves into Izuku, but we can also see where we end and he begins. He has as many discernable flaws as he does positives. And this is probably because Kohei Horikoshi based him on a combination of the Naruto character Rock Lee's color scheme and aesthetic and Marvel's Spider-Man, specifically Miles Morales variant who inherited the Spider-Man moniker through a quirk (heh) of fate. I don't think Izuku is exactly like Miles, but he does share a number of traits with him. He also shares, as previously discussed at length, Spider-Man overwhelming propensity to damage himself for the sake of others. That's true of many Spider-Man variants honestly.

Izuku is unique among Shonen protagonists in this regard, he is not of the same self-assured caliber as a Naruto or Goku. He is not a brash hothead like Ichigo or Urumeshi. He's certainly not a goofball like Luffy from when he started out. No Izuku is the most human of all these because he begins as powerless. People like Bakugo or Shoto are usually the stars of these sorts of shows. Brash arrogant hotheads or reserved loners with dark tragic pasts. Izuku's more humble origins as just a kid who wanted to be a hero makes him the kind of character we can root for as well as empathize with. Because we'd all like to think, if we were Izuku, we'd try to do the best with what we were given.

So we can insert ourselves more easily into Izuku's character without completely erasing his personality because he has one. Izuku in this sense has all the makings of a harem protagonist, without the harem. And that brings us to the other side of this dynamic and why it's probably so prolific with Izuku himself.

Who Are the Girls in a Harem?

Let's be VERY clear here... Horikoshi might have problems capitalizing on all the characters he's created, the women especially, but there is no denying that they have had an impact all the same. In Class 1-A alone, Horikoshi has created a perfectly diverse group of personalities. You have the best friend, Ochako Uraraka, the blunt truth-sayer, Tsuyu Asui, the tomboy quasi-goth, Kyoka Jiro, the demure polite girl, Momo Yaoyorozu, the dtizy genki girl, Toru Hagakure, and my favorite, the bubbly party girl, Mina Ashido. These six alone make up a diverse enough personality range that any harem anime or manga is required to have. If the girls are all too similar then there is no conflict or clash of personalities. They're all just copy pasted from one another.

The 1-A Girls are all friends of course, as close as anyone else in Class 1-A, because Horikoshi has made them all extremely likable. They have flaws of course, they can be rude, stupid, selfish or lacking in confidence, but they are individually appealing and endearing. Which is why it is so hard to name a definitive best girl, because they're all really good people that you can see being friends with. And that diversity of personalities holds true outside of this classroom. It also holds true for the dudes as well. They all have some trait that highlights their likability. Even Bakugo... maybe not Mineta but you can't win'em all.

It's this high bar of quantity of archetypes combined with quality of their execution that makes a lot of MHA's characters well-loved. Even smaller players among the cast have their sizable fandoms. You may argue they don't get the screentime they deserve and I'll agree with you on many points, but that just feeds the Izuku Harem Phenomenon in my eyes. A diverse range of personalities that a lot of people like and think are regularly compatible with Izuku himself.

Ochako is easy, she's the best friend, the first girl Izuku talks to and meets, they're cute together if vanilla. Momo is a taller, gorgeous looking girl, who matches Izuku in her kind polite demeanor as well as intelligence. Tsu is a lot more forward and honest than Izuku is, but their early dynamic chemistry was plain enough for a lot of fans to see. Toru cheery personality contrasts nicely with Izuku's own, even if he is standoffish, which also highlights the contrast between Toru's powers and her personality alongside Midoriya's. Kyoka's a studious notetaker on par with Izuku, they both take their passions seriously and their shared desire to be heroes despite the obstacles in their way gives them added weight. And Mina Ashido has shown she has Izuku's own tendency to run into danger, her feet moving before her brain, as well as her own shared mindset of trying to resolve conflict with a smile, much like Izuku.

There is more to each of these dynamics and individually they all have sizable shipping fandoms. Each of these also says nothing of the wide assortment of characters Izuku has been shipped with, boys included, this is just a sampling to keep this thing short because we'd be here all day otherwise. All you need to know is that when people are spoiled for choices when it comes to great character potential, and they feel some of that potential is being squandered, the results are inevitable.

Rest assured, it is increasingly difficult to find solo romances of Izuku on AO3 these days. Just trying to find IzuMina stuff on its own, alone, no other pairings involved in the romantic entanglement, is an arduous process. This is because Izuku has such great dynamic chemistry with a lot of people he partners with. It's part of the reason to Shoto/Deku pairing is so big, because of their chemistry during the tournament arc and afterwards. Human beings create connections, we see patterns and we match those patterns to our personal preferences. And if people see a lot of links between certain characters, they're going to connect them. And if they like enough of the characters, if they want to see them more involved in the main story, if they honestly can't decide which pairing they prefer more... the tendency among a lot of MHA fans is to simply not choose.

Izuku is a generous, kind, caring person who is not one to take advantage of people. If anyone could handle a polyamorous relationship, in the eyes of many, Izuku could. I mean, doesn't he always say he wants to make as many people as happy as possible? And isn't that the point of polyamory anyway? To make everyone involved in it happy?

Choosing Fandom Over Canon

The Izuku Harem phenomenon is born out of an inherent prolific desire, ultimately, among the MHA fandom to substitute stated canon with their own. Let's be honest with ourselves, Shonen Anime and Manga are extremely formulaic in tone, narrative and style. My Hero Academia is no different. It was obvious from day one that Ochako and Izuku were going to be endgame and nothing anyone said was going to change that. Writers have the right to tell their stories their way. But the limitations of canon, by either writing conventions or accepted societal norms, have always come up against fanon. Getting back to the Bakusquad for a second, it is highly unlikely that fans who choose to support the friendship unit as a thing actually believe it to be a real thing in the series at this point. What they like, what they see, what attracts them to it is the possibility, the opportunity, the chance for it to be real. And they disregard canon's opposing view in favor of it because letting the chance to tell that story slip away is not acceptable.

In the same vein, Izuku being a harem protagonist is too good an opportunity for some to indulge in to let go. The chance to see Izuku try to manage a complicated relationship between several girls, or boys, or a combination of both, is simply a tantalizing proposition. Why let it go to waste and not explore the potential dynamics of Izuku with all these characters with dynamic, interesting and compelling personalities? Especially when it feels like, to many, the chances for him to connect with these fellow heroes has been neglected in favor of Shonen writing conventions.

People sometimes complain that the MCU and superhero movies in general, have gotten stale, they all feel the same, they don't do enough different, when they do it doesn't match what is expected, whatever. The ultimate problem there I find is that films don't give a person enough time or opportunity to spend with these characters. We get 90 minutes to two hours and that's it. A series gives us more, especially a manga or comic book, but there's always something we miss. Something we don't see when the character is not on screen or we skip a chunk of time or it's a minor adventure that's not covered. And while some people would tell these stories, there's always the risk that it will be labelled as filler and therefore derided as such. Even though filler isn't inherently bad.

This is where Fanon comes in, filling in gaps or providing opportunities for fans to spend more time with their beloved characters. Izuku being in a Harem enables a lot of characters to better contribute to his story and for him to contribute to theirs. And rather than pick and choose who gets the chance to have adventures with Izuku, why not just give as many characters as possible the chance? And considering that Izuku is effectively a self-insertable viewpoint as well as his own dynamic character, the resulting Harem overload of fanfiction was not completely unforeseen. I think that Izuku Midoriya's position as a fanon Harem Protag is evocative of the MHA Fandom at large. A collective decision that where the canon fall short, the fans will be there to fill things in, improve them or speak through it. Which is true of fandom in general, but MHA feels special because it doesn't read like a fixfic or vindictive, not always anyway.

It honestly reads as people seeing more opportunities in a story than canon allows. And frankly that should be supported. I don't want to make the claim that it's all good or has no downsides. But a lot of this stuff is clearly highly personal, deeply meaningful and prolific. It would be wrong to claim it's mere wish fulfillment, when its obvious that it's struck a chord. There would be so much of it out there if there wasn't something resonating with people. That Izuku could make all of these girls (or boys) happy and that they could be happy with them and things would only improve from there.

If you take anything away from this, it's that fanon should be embraced to a degree. We should celebrate the opportunity and willingness to tell stories that don't always line up with what canon says. Be willing to break free a little, to explore, to take chances with things that the source material can't or won't and always speak your truth more than anything else. And if that truth is Izuku is the kind of guy who could make a polyamorous relationship work? Go for it I say. So long as you acknowledge that it IS fanon, that is your personal view, an Alternate View of an Alternate Version of Canon, there is no harm in it.

But please, AO3, can you make it easier for me to actually, you know... find IzuMina solo fics, that would be appreciated.

#my hero acedamia #mha #mha headcanons #izuku midoriya #harem #shipping #ochako uraraka #tsuyu asui #momo yaoyozoru #toru hakagure #kyoka jiro #mina ashido #fanfiction #canon vs fanon #story conventions #Seriously #send me IzuMina content

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rjmhereunderprotest · 2 years ago

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Crossed Paths & Tangled Webs: Why I Ship SpiderCat

So Let's Talk about Why that is...

If you want to know however where I actually came in on this, we need to hop over to another universe. The one firmly positioned in the decade that defines the pop cultural wasteland... the 90s.

She asks if he's here to wish her good luck and Peter fumbles his words in saying as much. Which leads to this exchange:

Spidey: Do you really love this Jason Phillips guy?

Felicia: And why should you care about that? Unless you got a better offer?

Spidey: (Thoughts) This is crazy, I can't have one girlfriend as Peter Parker and another as Spider-Man! (Speaking) No, I don't... I just want you to be happy.

Felicia: I have to know, did you ever really love me?

Jason: I don't know. I love things about you. Your wealth, your beauty, your refinement.

Felicia: That's not love! I've experienced true love... and it's nothing like that.

However, this does lead into what we've all been waiting for, Felicia's transformation into the Black Cat and the start of the multi-episode season storyline, "Partners in Danger."

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Felicia isn't happy with this herself, because she just got pulled away in the middle of a vampire slaying fight. Don't worry, they're fine. It's Blade he'll manage without her.

...

What? Oh Morbius, yeah I guess he'll survive too just by being in close proximity to Blade. Have I mentioned I hate Morbius?

How do you overcome the dreadful reality that your ship is declared doomed forever by the very company that in some sense set it in motion? Not just because Spider-Man can never be happy, but because the Black Cat is just too toxic a girlfriend to ever truly make him happy. Everyone argued that MJ and Peter's marriage was boring but they didn't want him to get with the next best option either because they think it's non-compatible, that they're just too different and of opposing thoughts to ever reach common ground.

The only fun thing in this whole mess, was that Gwenpool's first in-universe story took place during this sub-plot and she crossed paths with her. And then did this.

I guess that justifies putting a Gwenpool tag below somewhere. Win for me!

She forgot the man she loved and changed for.

Felicia: I just conned you and here you are trying to save me. How can you be so damn nice all the time?

Spidey: It's not about being nice, it's about doing the right thing! You have so many talents, I wish you'd use them to help someone other than yourself.

Felicia: Yeah well, you should know by now that's not how I roll.

Spidey: People can change, Felicia.

Felicia: Love you, Spider. I'll miss you.

And yet...

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Some have claimed the new romance is out of the blue, that Spencer was setting things up to undo OMD, and that Wells just pulled this off out of nowhere. Well... no. Because those scenes where Felicia brought Peter out of his coma, the re-unmasking, the re-entry into his life through a number of adventures... Spencer either wrote those himself or they were written in conjunction with his run. People have confirmation bias, I'm no different, I don't claim to be. However, everyone has wanted OMD to be undone since the storyline first concluded. Marvel has played with fans' heartstrings that it will do so and it has prevented Peter from moving on because if he's not in a committed sustainable relationship, there's always hope that Mephisto's deal will be undone! And it has not helped anyone in the slightest to keep buying that horse crap.

I don't begrudge people for preferring Mary Jane being with Spider-Man. I'm more or less at peace with the reality that some pairings are just thought of as the default and nothing is really gonna change that. I prefer Rogue with Deadpool, that doesn't change the fact she'll always be with Gambit. What I wanted to stress with this isn't so much an argument to ship it so much as the ultimate reason I simply can't let these two go.

For me, SpiderCat speaks on some primal level, more than wish fulfillment, but the idea of growth. That love can hold you up in your worst moments, or change you for the better. That it can make you look in the mirror and ask, who do you want to be? What do you want? What is worth changing for? Felicia found her answer, a nerdy, selfless, eternally tormented wall-crawler, who should know better than to go chasing her trying to save her from herself... but does it anyway. How could she not return the favor and be there for him? It's hard to say whether he caught her in his web, or if she just loves walking across his path. What is certain is they are bonded to each other, in one way or another. And that's the only thing about either character that I don't think can ever truly change.

One thing I know though, I'm probably gonna be riding and dying these two forever. The Cat and her Spider, the Self and Selfless. Beautiful in the mess they are apart and the whole they are together.

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