#or if not that then arpeggio neyla and contessa as the higher ups with rajan dimitri and jean bison lower. based on their role in the gang.

[ebonysquib]

Keeping Up With the Klaww Gang: who would be who? I need to know

AW SHIT 😭😂

I don’t know shit about keeping up with the Kardashians so this is just vibes and the very limited knowledge I have

Arpeggio (or the Contessa) as Kris (The Momager) and Jean Bison as Kaitlyn Jenner (fuck you. *transes your Jean Bison*) simply because them being an old married couple is practically canon and i think it'd be funniest. also out of all the members Jean and Arpeggio seem to be the oldest? or at least may have seniority? (or i just think that cuz they are like the last two members we face) just these three are the mom and dad most likely okay.

Rajan, Dimitri, and Neyla as the main three kardashian sisters, Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney. I don't really have any reasons for it except they are the last three of the klaww gang left.

this is the dumbest thing ive ever had to think about thank you. yall can feel free to add on or make corrections since my knowledge is very limited in regards to the kardashians.

[inspector-montoya-fox]

i’m currently away but i wanted to briefly discuss how some of the villains’ lairs/ interiors & exteriors contribute to their story and character. this is an aspect that has really evolved throughout the series: in Sly 1, the villains’ branding was absolutely horrific, each of them quite literally living inside replicas of themselves or decorating with stuff associated to their species. like Miss Clockwerk being quirky and building a huge tower of himself in the volcano as if it isn’t supposed to be a “secret” lair. or Muggshot taking over an entire city and filling it up with every possible symbol associated to dogs. bones? yeap. leashes? he’s got you covered. fire hydrants? fuck it. let’s just build a colossal fucking fire hydrant on the casino’s roof.

Sly 2′s villains retained some of this wackiness, like Rajan’s ancestral palace imitating an elephant, but there was much more to it. some were more straightforward like Arpeggio’s blimp flying higher than he ever could achieve with his wings, or Jean Bison’s rustic, log cabins being surrounded by sawing machinery showing how he is stuck in the past. Rajan’s ballroom matches the image he is so desperately trying to project: regal, successful, an international tycoon who loves to spend his money on his guests and his parties. after the Clockwerk wings are stolen and he migrates to the jungle however, his true self is revealed: brutal, unhinged, unpredictable. the jungle lair can also be described as such.

the most notable example however is the Contessa. in Jailbreak, the prison reflects her impenetrable mind and how clever a strategist she is. i think, apart from Neyla, she’s Sly 2′s most fierce villain and this is presented through the symbol of her prison, a thief’s worst nightmare. in comparison, after Interpol drops her and the odds are stacked against her, the re-education tower mirrors this by being an isolated and slender building. the Contessa’s on her own now and everyone else is catching up to her.

i’m probably gonna make a part 2 for this post because Sly 3 has lots to unpack in relation to this topic, but i really want to discuss the Black Baron’s castle. when i reblogged my analysis of gender in Flight of Fancy, i added this via the tags:

i mean i pretty much cover most of what i want to say here^ but to summarise even further: the episode’s major theme is masculinity being portrayed as a shallow mask for femininity because the latter is generally stigmatised and this is even reflected in Penelope’s lab being positioned behind the castle. the castle is synonymous with the Black Baron (strong, fortified, grand and superior), whereas the lab/hangar embodies Penelope and her facade (hidden, sneaky, blinded + overtaken by the Baron’s persona).

what i didn’t include in these tags however is that Sly is the one who scaled the castle but Bentley is the one who infiltrated the lab/hangar. the awkward switch from Sly to Bentley during the mission serves to foreshadow how Sly is the one who Penelope had a crush on but Bentley is the one who ultimately won her heart. Penelope’s crush on Sly is superficial, based on looks and nothing deeper (just like the Baron’s persona); but Bentley entering the metaphorical heart of the lair shows how he is the one Penelope is meant to be with and how only he can truly reach and understand her.

furthermore, the castle and its defenses come off as very cheap and plastic: there are hooks and poles for Sly to use everywhere and the catapult is just conveniently sitting at the top? it’s as if Penelope had a castle checklist and just wanted to make it look this way without it having the essence of one (like the Contessa’s estate for example). this reflects the Baron’s persona, whereas the lab which is highly guarded with advanced technology, is more true to the real Penelope.

so yea ! apologies if this reads out as rushed, i really wanna add to this post but these were the main points i wanted to get out first

[inspector-montoya-fox]

#13 - Menace from the North, eh!

Setting part 1: i mean......... whatever, right? at this point, India got 2 levels and Prague got 2 levels so i’m like ok, let’s get this over with. and i genuinely believe this and Anatomy for Disaster are the game’s two weakest episodes, despite the great conclusion. look, SP... they fucking delivered. they served absolute excellence with episodes 2-4, but it’s getting redundant and Menace from the North, eh! is just Menace from the North, meh? (please forgive me Lord). the game takes a weird environmentalist turn, which i fully appreciate but am ultimately confused by, seeing as He Who Tames The Iron Horse had absolutely nothing to do with Jean Bison’s pollution aspect. it feels weird to return to a Canadian outing after the gang had such a successful run in the previous episode, which felt like a conclusion even with the absence of a bossfight. like, SP could have easily inserted a Bison bossfight at the end of He Who Tames The Iron Horse in order to add another Klaww Gang member for an extra episode or maybe replace Menace from the North, eh! with the lost Monaco episode. it sounds like i’m bitching a lot, and i actually am. what really takes me aback every single time i play this game is that after you complete the Rajan/Contessa saga, it all becomes so anticlimactic. and i can’t comprehend why. by the end of this episode, the stakes are so high but the drive just isn’t there. and it’s not because the gang is demotivated. Sly has been having so much fun throughout the game, even with Neyla’s backstab being a huge obstacle. so getting down, dirty and serious is a much needed mood change. but i feel like i speak for all of us when i say that episodes 5-7 are overshadowed by episodes 2-4. with a few alterations to the order of the episodes and some changes to the script, i really think we could have had an awesome Contessa vs Clock-La final showdown episode and have Bison come right after Dimitri. because, honestly, Canada feels like ‘second episode’ material.

Setting part 2: i’m splitting it up because i don’t want my rant above to spoil the actual writing. the gang sticks around for another Canadian caper after some kooky stuff goes down with the environment and, mainly, the Northern Lights, which as we’ll soon find out, play a rather unexpectedly significant role in the grand scheme of things. and we’re treated to a log-chopping area, an off-the-maps secretive camp which really ups the ante, because Jean Bison is being such a jerk to nature. we’ve got deforestation, we’ve got melting ice, exploitation of wild animals, and Bison getting a raging red boner by literally destroying the environment in order to flex in the Lumberjack Games..... both the player and the gang have had enough of this dude, and i think SP used the fact that his only traits are being an angry idiot and a bigot to their advantage. instead of providing the necessary character development as they did with the Contessa and Rajan, Bison and his actions (especially his communication with the mYsTeRiOuS Arpeggio) are used as a prelude to Anatomy for Disaster. there’s not really a lot of dialogue apart from the final mission and bossfight, because the overall Klaww Gang plot begins to unravel, and particularly so by the time we find out about the lighthouse and its technological contents. in fact, if you think about it, Anatomy for Disaster starts with Clock-La’s shitshow and an info-dump at the beginning, which, if you’ve been paying enough attention to the details (i know that until i turned 12 and replayed the game as a young teen i hadn’t been paying attention to shit so it was all gasp!), is just the connecting of the dots. Menace from the North, eh! is essentially the last piece of the puzzle, before it’s all given to us in full detail by Arpeggio. i mean, apart from Dimitri serving dishes with drugs in them (i still can’t get over that at the age of 21), the rest is all things the player could pick up. and that’s this episode’s main focus. trying to prevent the inevitable under countdown, before Arpeggio’s blimp arrives to collect the Northern Lights energy. so it feels very anticlimactic and strange to put in all this effort without purpose. if you’ve played it before, you know it’s all for nothing since all the parts will be gone by the end of the episode. and it’s even more anticlimactic (although hilarious in tonal shift) to see how the gang scrambles under the pressure of preventing the Klaww Gang’s doomsday by hacking boats and having all these grandiose plans involving the lighthouse, just to then resort to taking part in the Lumberjack Games, without even a clever scheme but actually just cheating, and finally have Bison, an idiot, foil their plans by finding out where they’ve been hiding. and the bossfight is fine, but again, meh... i mean, woohoo Bentley! or whatever the fuck.

Characters: let’s talk about Jean Bison and his mistreatment as a character. we first meet him at Rajan’s ball, where Bentley introduces him as a Canadian shipping baron and says that he owns half the trains in Canada. later on, during the introductory cutscene for He Who Tames The Iron Horse, we get his backstory and how he’s risen from being practically dead, frozen since his time, and back with a vengeance against the environment. in my previous #episodeproject entry i said: SP plays up Bison’s savagery and gruesome nature by spotlighting how his plans affect the environment and even going so far as to call his house ‘the lair of the beast’. this is all true but is never put into practice. like, Jean Bison is all tell and no show, y’know? even the cutscene that plays when Sly gets caught in Bison’s cabin during He Who Tames The Iron Horse’s first mission shows Bison getting angry, but hunty, that’s about it. apart from the Lumberjack Games and his bossfight, it’s all oh Bison will get angry and oh Bison will kill us with the talons. well, where is it? where’s the fucking Canadian shipping baron with a vengeance against the environment? my baby heart was legit quivering when we had to steal Rajan’s blueprints as Bentley, and the Contessa was such a grand sleazebag of a woman, like what a douchebag - and you see that, although i’m often flamboyant in my writing (!!!), the way i describe these moments with these villains is both effective and relatable, because they showed up and lived up to their descriptions. Bison was written to be a ferocious beast of a villain but never showed that. and that’s on SP. whatever... let’s talk about the gang. now, despite the gang looking seriously badass in the opening cutscene for this episode (image below), they’re actually in a pretty good headspace. they’re only missing the talons and whatever Clockwerk parts Arpeggio had before collecting all of them. so it’s only natural for them to feel a bit cocky, and that’s actually gonna be their demise. before that, i just wanna mention that almost all the missions here (as with He Who Tames The Iron Horse) are group missions: Sly and Murray infiltrate the moose club in RC Combat Club, all three of them work together in Lighthouse Break-In, Boat Hack, and Old Grizzle Face. what really stood out to me every time i played this episode, is how, at the end when they take down Bison and they rush to the battery, each member has a different way of entering it, which is a small detail but important nonetheless. this further reinforces how united the gang has become since the Contessa levels and how their bond has strengthened. now, lemme circle back to how they’re cocky. i mean, apart from Jean Bison, Menace from the North, eh! doesn’t present any immediate danger or like trouble, seeing as both Neyla and Carmelita are absent. without any interference, the gang had lots of breathing space to plan ahead, even under countdown before Arpeggio’s blimp arrived. and they kinda wasted the opportunity because, as i’ve already mentioned, the operation was an absolute train-wreck. there’s no plan b, or like something clever or whatever. and usually, the operations tend to get disrupted by third parties, such as Carmelita or Neyla, but here, it failed because it was never smart. and it’s only natural for them to fall hard (by losing all the Clockwerk parts) after feeling all cocky (maybe i’m being too harsh). and all this directly leads to some more Bentley character development.... again. look, i’m all for character development, but the turtle already faced his demons when he busted Sly and Murray out of jail. i know we got Murray vs Rajan, but i don’t know, Murray was always kinda just there throughout the game. the hippo had his ups and downs (face-off with Rajan, imprisonment, losing the van), but not a fully realised story arc. that’s why, when Sly 3 starts off with his enlightenment and return, that story arc is instantly so iconic. i could go on about how Bentley gains self-confidence after defeating Bison, but um, we’ve already done that sis.

Themes: He Who Tames The Iron Horse and Menace from the North, eh! should have been one episode and i truly believe that. they could have shared the same themes. for the former, i said there’s the speed theme, and that applies here too because the gang are under pressure. the countdown lights a fire under their asses and it’s all very destructive. again, there’s an antithesis between the calm Canadian atmosphere and the chaotic energy of the missions. but it’s not just speed theme anymore, it’s more like theme of ferocity. everyone’s kinda on edge??? Old Grizzle Face is a motherfucker and we get up close and personal with the eagles, lasers destroy huge ice pieces, there’s a mammoth, the destroyed oil manes create fiery air drafts... chaos. and it all results in the disastrous events and outcome of the Lumberjack Games, which make Menace from the North, eh! the straightest episode in the game. yuck. it only makes sense for the missions to become less sneaky and more destructive as the stakes get higher and the gang is in a hurry, and that kinda embodies the pollution motif/ environment motif. it’s less of a theme and more of a motif because it’s so story-centric, but that’s the other things the comes into contrast with the calm environment. saws, the buzzing, chopped-up logs flowing down the river, tree stumps spread across: these embody the pollution and the harm Jean Bison has been doing even though it’s a forced storyline in my opinion. and finally, size theme. it’s not major, but it feels like everything’s bigger in Canada... Sly feels so puny in this episode, like especially when climbing the lighthouse. the wild animals are huge, the structures are huge, Jean Bison’s house is huge. it’s just lots and lots of nothingness. if you took absolutely nothing and enlarged it by 10 times, you’d have this episode’s hub. and this is also seen in the bossfight when tiny Bentley takes on Jean Bison. so yea.

What I Like: gliding off the lighthouse and throwing fish onto already stinky guards before Old Grizzle Face rips them to shreds. also, those cute lil catfish-lookin viruses in Bentley’s hacking! they’re so adorable.

What I Don’t Like: erm... it’s not that i don’t like this episode, but i find it kinda boring? apart from interacting with the wild animals, the missions are meh. and i hate the Lumberjack Games...

Quote: Get too close and old Grizzle Face will be eating barbecued raccoon for dinner.

[inspector-montoya-fox]

#9 - The Predator Awakes

Setting: green! like, dark, sappy, jungle green. it’s been a while since i posted my take on A Starry Eyed Encounter but, basically i theorized how that episode reflected Rajan’s low temper and his grand facade whereas The Predator Awakes shows the beast within - and boy, what a beast it is. the vines, the towering trees, the decrepit ruins: they all show how Rajan isn’t holding back anymore. after completely and utterly humiliating him at his own party, he’s ready to destroy anyone who comes in his way. the episode’s nature presents that. supporting this theory is the fact that any signs of grandeur are rotted down remnants of a forgotten time. Rajan has shed his faux majesty and thick vines have grown all over his once stable foundation. like his ancestral temple, he’s a fucking wreck. the jungle is an intricate mess. i’ve played the game i don’t even know how many times and i still don’t know my way around this level. but it’s beautiful. she’s serving some Cambodian palace, some long lost ruins of time - she’s really killing it on the runway! especially with the contrast between the stubborn lifelessness of the jungle, its aged disorganization and the motion of the rocking temple parts (that higher floor where you start Water Bug Run or the tower where Bentley hides out the operation). i would honestly go on a vacation to a place like this. the missions further establish the temple’s mysterious nature by having us explore its rooms in detail (all hidden behind trap doors, no less). Rajan’s office, that huge water room where half of the heart is being kept, and the spice grinding facility are all great examples. also, the way in which the main temple building is supposed to represent an elephant by having those huge tusks come out is genius. it’s the only structure that grabs the player’s attention because the rest blend in with the nature beautifully. even the safehouse (one of my favs) looks like a freakin’ tiger.

Characters: well, cordial Rajan’s gone. he’s in full-on beast mode now, kinda like the rabid animals in Zootopia. even so, the gang manages to spook him out and he spends most of the level MIA. it’s mainly because of Bentley, who invades the tiger’s private space by drugging him and stealing his blueprints. that mission still creeps me out like hell, i can’t imagine how Bentley felt approaching someone who could carve his little heart out in a second... yikes. but even though he spends most of the level in hiding, we get some really good lines out of Rajan towards the end of the episode when he goes all thunder god. he really showed us how he’s both brain and brawn by using half the Clockwerk heart to summon lightning. his plead for higher power on the other hand, shows how he’s either deeply religious or a complete lunatic. either way, Murray takes him down and proves Rajan wrong once and for all. The Predator Awakes also sees Neyla pulling off her second backstab (her first being going behind Carmelita’s back to help Sly and the gang). ooh, that must’ve really burned. i really wanted to see the good sis go on a date with Sly in Bombay but i guess the Clockwerk parts are far more important. talk about a memorable twist - her saying ‘Happy day’ will forever be engraved on my brain. although it comes right at the end, she pulls a 180 and double-crosses both the gang and Carmelita. it’s enough to make this episode amazing. the story really takes a huge turn from this point on, as the characters we thought we knew turn out to be faux. Rajan did show his might but got bested by Murray and spent most of the level cowering inside, and Neyla showed her true colours as a true villain. also, this is the first and only appearance of those hooded treasure dealers with the raspy voices. love them!

Themes: hmmm......... maybe like revelations? how A Starry Eyed Encounter had the masks theme, but now everything’s supposedly revealed, or at least starting to make sense. there’s a sense of a greater plot at play and we’re caught right in the middle of it. Neyla backstabs the gang and shit hits the fan after that. revelations could also refer to Rajan’s “spiritual” awakening. like i said, he’s shed his faux persona and is now true, as ugly and non-regal as that is. that’s how he manages to control thunder - he ain’t holding back. this episode is so setting and character-oriented so i’m scrambling to think about the themes. there’s definitely something to be said about the Clockwerk heart and how it helped ramp up spice production. a nature theme. of course, the episode’s nature is predominant as discussed in the Setting section. but i’m also thinking about how Clockwerk’s heart gave life to the dead temple. it gave it a heart (literally) and turned it from a “corpse”, a set of delapitated ruins into a living work environment for the spice production (it’s quite interesting how Rajan got the best parts btw, like maybe he was the leader of the Klaww Gang even though Arpeggio was the criminal genius. without a heart and wings, Clockwerk would be nothing. like who wanted the talons and the fucking tail feathers? lol). the nature theme also refers to Rajan’s primal state. he’s a wild animal, a vicious feline. it’s better represented by the setting, but it supports the theme nonetheless. also, a fear theme. there’s other episodes where the gang’s confrontation of its fears is better explained and shown (mainly, the next one) but that doesn’t invalidate it here. Bentley goes from a trembling coward at the disco to pickpocketting the main baddie, Rajan is lowkey a scaredy-cat, and Sly’s biggest fear comes true - getting caught and arrested. hell, most of the missions and especially the boss fight scarred me as a kid. this is definitely a new low for the gang. lastly, a water motif and how it’s connected to the revelations theme. how water showed the truth. the temple’s first secret entrance is hiding behind the waterfall, and then water is used to flood the area and show Neyla’s true self. water also forces Rajan to end his hiding and come out, so there you have it.

What I Like: this episode is great. i’m overall happy so let’s focus on the details i like the most. Rajan’s office is amazing. something straight out of an interior design magazine. and that view, big ooff. i also particularly like the Contessa showing up at the end. like, when does that usually happen? a future villain showing up somewhere apart from their own episode(s)? lastly, having the whole hub flood is so satisfying.

What I Don’t Like: maybe how we can’t enter the main temple building. i always wanted to enter that door under that red ruby. oh and getting all the clue bottles in this level was a bitch. climbing those vines for like the 100th time is infuriating.

Quote: when Rajan says Who's "The Murray"? All I see is a fat, pathetic weakling. and Murray replies I might be big and not as smart as the other guys... but one thing I'm not... is weak!