#ideas on how to rework him to be a more appealing and in-tune-with-previous-games character

[deconstructivesurgery]

i would love to hear your Five Points of Vaughn Contention actually

HELL YEAH HERE WE GO

Vaughn was my second favourite character in TFTBL and I am Pissed on his behalf for what happened to him in 3 for several reasons. Precisely 5. Which I have decided to present in order of importance to me personally. Putting this under a read-more for everyone's sake.

Number one: The like, naked man thing. Hygeine. You name it.

Listen. I have no problem with the idea that after living on Pandora for an extended period of time would make him visibly more disheveled/rugged- I mean, even over the span of TFTBL we clearly see him progress from clean-cut accountant to like. Pandoran enthusiast. I also don't have a problem with the idea of his appearance getting a bit wilder post-the deaths of the Children of Helios. Obviously that could have caused him to lose a lot of stability and organization in his life, and wandering Pandora alone could lead to him getting overall sandier and less composed than before- but are we actually taking the funny "oh he took his shirt off in the desert before" scene and deciding that he's decided to spend his time hanging around in nothing but dirty underwear? Because... it's funny? It's just another part of the "Vaughn is a belligerent idiot who can't take care of himself" schtick that 3 forced onto him in the name of ignoring genuine character development for snark, and I hate it.

Which leads me into my second point: The whole "I love Pandora now and I'm soaking up the thrills" thing never should have led into Vaughn idolizing bandits. It doesn't fit his motivations for getting attached to Pandoran life in the first place or his previous actions.

Vaughn in TFTBL liked the adrenaline of doing something risky and wild for once in his life, and encountering a new and thrilling environment- but that doesn't translate to "heehoo bandit appealing". He liked the thrill of fighting for his life, not the thrill of... banditry? He was pumped up by the chaos of Pandora, but he still *cared* about other people and wasn't thrilled about violence or happy to be brawling with other people- hell, he organized a pacifistic group of survivors. Why the hell would he idolize bandits? You know, the people who are KNOWN for dying horribly out in the desert and killing people for shits and giggles?

Sure, he's excited about working with Fiona and Sasha, who he refers to as "grifters" at one point- but working with "grifters" isn't that different from working with... you know, his literal friends from Hyperion who are also grifters, just of the corporate variety? There's an element of moral bankruptcy slightly present in him- in ALL of the Hyperion employee characters we see in-game- but his brand of dubious isn't violent bandit, it's more "you could talk me into a bank heist for the thrills". I don't buy the translation of "overall well-meaning guy with a kick for adventure and risk and a little bit of chaos" to "kicking around in the dust with whatever scumbags I can find who act like frat boys".

Again. I understand that watching the Children of Helios' pacifism plan fail, leading to their deaths, could have led to him becoming more militant. My problem lies in the way that this was written. Why did they go the course of "oh yeah the people he essentially led and tried to take care of post-Helios fall all died, surely he'd immediately begin fawning over the type of people responsible for their deaths like an asshole" and not "sure yes he'd probably be forced to give up his pacifism but we're going to take this seriously and maybe explore the idea of a character who tried and failed to make a good, fun, risky-but-not-cruel life for himself on Pandora and failed". I would've preferred it if they played the angle of his risk-taking behaviour and Pandoran survivalism taking on a new aspect: maybe something akin to vigilante behaviour or... literally anything else. Joining the Crimson Raiders because if he's going to be in a constant brawl, it might as well be on the side of someone he vaguely knows to not be brutal and evil, instead of crawling to them after getting kicked out by bandits. In general, I hate the way that they barely had him react to the Children of Helios' deaths without so much more than a "oh yeah haha they had laser pointers- shitty idea, they died but I'm fine now". He... went to the trouble of trying to help and lead those people even though they were strange and prone to idolizing Rhys. You want to tell me he was heartless enough to barely care beyond a "whoopsie" joke about them? When he's clearly a character that cares enough about his friends- notably even one who possibly lied about/was in cahoots with Handsome Jack- to the point of arranging a risky ass scheme to rescue them?

Anyways. This is already long as hell but points number three and four: Vaughn was never incompetent, just prone to risk-taking behaviour- and goofiness doesn't have to equal stupidity or a lack of any actual substance. Two things 3's writers clearly didn't understand.

Yeah, Vaughn was the butt of the joke a lot in TFTBL, but being the comedic relief didn't also prevent him from having like- an actual productive character arc culminating in him becoming a confident man capable of leadership and not stumbling over his feet as much in a strange new world. His funny "bro" behaviour and newfound love for chaos weren't his primary character flaws, or the things dragging him down/making him incompetent and irritating, they were some of the catalysts for his development into someone capable of enduring Pandora for long periods of time. There was a balance between him getting dunked on for giggles, and acknowledged as a character who was actually important to both the other characters in the game and to the overarching story.

And yeah, alright- he did things like "try to have a pacifistic society on Pandora, ye planet of war" and "try to rescue a friend with the use of laser pointers"- but those worked. Risky choices, yeah, but not belligerently stupid ones. Vaughn was smart enough as an accountant to divert funds and fuck with him and Rhys' access to things, he has lines in TFTBL where despite his nervousness and mounting excitement he acknowledges risks like desert dehydration, demonstrating at least some variety of survival competence- he just wasn't stupid! He really wasn't! They made him stupid because they thought it was funny, and all they accomplished was making him annoying.

And finally, point five: Irony poisoning and everything else aside. Why did they decide to split Vaughn and Rhys up in such an anti-climactic way? I mean, this feeds into a way larger issue I have with BL3's segment featuring TFTBL characters (If we can have an entire segment about what Rhys is up to, can we PLEASE interact with Fiona in some way, or at least get an explanation/exploration of where her and Sasha went post-TFTBL???) I could understand the TFTBL gang splitting up post-game. Sasha wants to travel and explore, Fiona has expressed a clear interest in becoming a VH herself- a pursuit that takes a lot of travel and which would put her under the radar to her friends, and Vaughn prefers to stay on Pandora whereas Rhys obviously fucks off to Promethea to rebuild Atlas. But you're telling me none of them even try to stay in contact? You're telling me Rhys and Vaughn had a falling out? Over WHAT? If you're going to write it in at least make it believable, because the way things were left in TFTBL I would've been shocked to see them not still being the closest members of the original group post-game. They both made new lives for themselves, yeah, but if anyone was going to keep in touch regularly- it would be them? Why aren't they working together to some degree? Vaughn was very technologically literate in the past, are we acting like him adapting to Pandora suddenly means he's never going to use the ECHOnet or other tech to establish long-distance connections or accomplish things again? He seemed to like being tech-savvy, please. Why did we split everyone up in the shittiest way possible with minimal coherent explanation? WAUGH.