Kerrigan why?

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Originally Posted by pure.Wasted

It works. It just has to be done right.

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Well, not specifically argueing against you, but using this as a springboard, I think you can't really do it right. Kerrigan, like Arthas, isn't the kind of Character who should find salvation in any other form then a slit throat. It cheapens them. The idea behind the two is actually pretty awesome and original literary idea applied to video games, though it is cheapened by the fact that blizzard does it twice.

They were both corrupted more or less not entirety of there own volition. Neither Arthas nor Kerrigan became who they became through a gradual corruption of a flawed personality. They cause there own damnation, yet they are not the ones responsible for it. Arthas did not chose to become a tool of the Lich King and lead armies of genocidal undead against his homeland, nor did Kerrigan chose to become infested.

However, they are also not tragic heroes. Ultimately, both of them eventually embrace there power and roles as killers and monsters, both of there own agency. The centerpiece of their stories is not their downfall, whether Arthas's arrogance and hubris, or Kerrigans ruthlessness and a "cursed" genetic fate (she is a Ghost, abducted from bith). This would cast them as tragic heroes.

Instead, the centerpiece of there tragedy is ultimately there embrace of evil. Kerrigan, freed of the overminds will, chose to slaughter and burn, while it is implicit that Arthas comes to enjoy his damnination based on his Dialogue. He clearly displays some level of free will, as shown by his arrogance and initial disdain towards other servants of the Lich King of equal rank, like Kel Thuzad. So when he commits these acts of wholesale genocide, he should be tortured, in which a redemption could be a fitting end. No, rather, he enjoys them. Or accepts them, at the least.

By redeeming them, it cheapens the centerpiece of there tragedies, that ultimately, jaded and corrupted and used by malicious, and near godlike powers, they chose evil when they had a chance, independently, to harness there own redemption. They did not.

Thus, they should not get it. Blizzard shouldn't destroy the centerpiece towards that plot.


That being said, perhaps I was argueing a slightly different point. Actually, kerrigan being partially de-infested would make a great set up for Heart of the Swarm where she struggles to regain dominance. Rather, what I was argueing against isn't the semi-irrelevent plot convention of de-infestation, which doesn't really matter, but what de-infestation represents, redemption.

Kerrigan and Arthas are not tragic in their corruption, they chose there corruption. If they do find redemption, it should only be in death (which blizzard does quite well with Arthas's death. The lines were cheesy as hell, but the overall motif didn't cheapen WoW's lore at all)

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Originally Posted by newcomplex

They were both corrupted more or less not entirety of there own volition. Neither Arthas nor Kerrigan became who they became through a gradual corruption of a flawed personality. They cause there own damnation, yet they are not the ones responsible for it. Arthas did not chose to become a tool of the Lich King and lead armies of genocidal undead against his homeland, nor did Kerrigan chose to become accepted.

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I think you're both right and wrong in your interpretation, and here's why: while Kerrigan may not have joined the Overmind of her own free will, everything from the first moment we see her to her ascension in Brood War is part of the same natural character arc -- this arc was NOT broken by her transformation into a Zerg.

Let's remove all the specifics and the sci-finess from her story. We start with a badly damaged girl in dire need of a father figure; a girl who we know has played this game before, and been badly burned by it. Through no fault of her own (she's not 'responsible' for killing Mengsk's family), Kerrigan is betrayed yet again. Here ends her adolescence and begins her maturation -- the teenage years. She's angry at the entire world, she's not in control of her powers, she makes mistake after mistake... but the key thing is that she is searching for her place in the world. She's "trying new things" as it were. And then she finds it. She knows exactly who she wants to hurt for all the past wrongs that have been done to her, she knows HOW she wants to hurt them, and nothing is going to stand in her way. This is who Sarah Kerrigan has become as a fully cognizant woman.

...but it's not who she has to be. If we replace the fantastic trappings of the story with the mundane and everyday, we end up with a character who has certainly crossed a line, but is not wholly irredeemable. Kerrigan isn't pure evil incarnate, demonstrated by her holding back from killing Raynor on MANY occasions when she could have easily done so. She's just vengeful.

Remove the need for vengeance, give her a push in the right direction, ie. someone (Raynor) who cares about her no matter what she's done, throw in some de-infestation kits for good sci-fi measure, and you've got yourself a character on the path to redemption.

Vader saw the light right before the end and no one cried foul. But we didn't know "the end" was approaching when he saw the light; all we had was him seeing the light, despite everything bad he's done. And it worked. It can work again, even without that end. You can't simply let her off the hook for everything she's done, but if you use that as a springboard for further plots and adventures, you CAN avoid certain other cliches...

I really like that analysis Pure.wasted, but imo, it places too much emphasis on the idea of Kerrigan just being an angsty teen which I fundamentally disagree with. That isn't entirely the case. Despite being only 17 during the events of the Great War, she doesn't externally behave like an angsty teen in any of her interactions...with anyone. Her portrayal in the the campaign, not to mention here appearance in Liberties crusade and her own book do not give her the personality of a 17 year old.

I'm not at all disagreeing with the emotional trauma she's suffered, but she doesn't show it. It is entirely repressed. The scars are way deeper then that. She doesn't even behave visibly depressive, light heartedly flirting with Marshal Raynor and in another example, using her sexuality to shock a couple marines traveling with her (Who were making jokes at her expense, in which she takes off her mask and reveals her rather stunning beauty and the marines a re just like O.O).

Kerrigan would not have become her current self had the Overmind not infested her. It was a catalyst, a turning point, not a natural progression. This is simply from her behavior prior to this point. She isn't just vengeful, she is beyond vengeful. She could have easily just killed mengsk, but she engages in wholesale slaughter. From what we know of WoF, she deliberately orders her zerg forces to eradicate defenselss outlying colonies, which amounts to nothing but democide against the Human race. From what we have of her personal internal narratives, her though processes have one overwhelming theme: Coldness. She isn't angry she isn't pissed, she isn't angsty, she is just jaded beyond all hell.

Ultimately, her behavior does a complete 180. It is not a random 180, as she displays all her repressed angst and rage and insecurity, but it was NOT a gradual change. With Arthas, you could find a bit of an argument that he gradually changes, but with Kerrigan, it is the Infestation alone that causes this change.

It is here she differentiates from Anakin and other similar fallen heroes. Internally, she probably had the desire to just kill everyone, but she repressed them, while Anakin gradually acts along them. It is in her infestation that she is able to act on her repressed feelings, the infestation serving as a catalyst for a monumental personal change. Whether directly or just mentally, the infestation has changed how she identifies herself. For instance, she consistently tried to deny any semblance of her humanity, mentally scolding herself for such sentimentality. That is more or less how she can consciously commit genocide. Perhaps that behavior has roots in her repressed traumas, but as you can clearly see, they are inextricably linked to her Infestation. Her infestation amounted to more or less an epiphany.

In regards to the other trope, that isn't really what I mean. I mean that Kerrigan should die like Arthas, in that her redemption doesn't cause her death, it is literally her death.

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Originally Posted by newcomplex

in another example, using her sexuality to shock a couple marines traveling with her (Who were making jokes at her expense, in which she takes off her mask and reveals her rather stunning beauty and the marines a re just like O.O).

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That was Nova...

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She could have easily just killed mengsk, but she engages in wholesale slaughter.

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She wants him to suffer. She said so as much in True Colors, I think in the last mission, and thinks that at the beginning of Shadow Hunters, too.

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Originally Posted by pure.Wasted

As for Kerrigan being de-infested, I'm far from against it. Everyone's jumped on the "redemptive villains are cliche" bandwagon, but when's the last time Blizzard actually did one?

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I agree with this. And remember what Zeratul says to Raynor on the Hyperion:

Zeratul: "I've pierced the veil of the future, and beheld only oblivion. Yet, one spark of hope remains. You will hold her life in your hands, and though justice demands that she dies for her crimes, only she can save us."
Raynor: "Wait a second. You are talking about Kerrigan. It's been four years. You show up out of nowhere and --"

From their greatest enemy to their greatest hope. Could this mean they have to forgive her for everything she has done and all she has become? Raynors old feelings might come back with time, and instead of wanting to kill her, he might want to de-infest her or something in the end.

Kerrigan also showed feelings(?) for Raynor in the novel Qween of Blades, were she shared her dreams with Raynor through his dreams, showing how they could have become, or something?

Queen of Blades took place before she killed Fenix. She still (in Shadow Hunters) has some feelings for Raynor, but Raynor either has lost all feelings for her, or represses them hardcore.

I think she's too villainous to ever be redeemed. If she does get de-infested, it basically means she's going to jail.

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That was Nova...

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My bad, but either way, her behavior in the campaign doesn't betray a depressive, angsty personality. I'm not saying she isn't emotionally tortured, but she does not display it.

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She could have easily just killed mengsk, but she engages in wholesale slaughter.
She wants him to suffer. She said so as much in True Colors, I think in the last mission, and thinks that at the beginning of Shadow Hunters, too.

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Yeah, I know, this is why she kills his soldiers, but she also kills civilians, apparently, billions of them. Mengsk is totally consciousless, and the only reason he would be troubled would be the strategic value of the causalities, which were apparently very low because he doesn't make any effort to defend them. The casualities were just that, casaulaties, and Kerrigan was not troubled with civilian causalities in the billlions.

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

Queen of Blades took place before she killed Fenix. She still (in Shadow Hunters) has some feelings for Raynor, but Raynor either has lost all feelings for her, or represses them hardcore.

I think she's too villainous to ever be redeemed. If she does get de-infested, it basically means she's going to jail.

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I wouldn't be surprised if Raynor still very much had those feelings but never showed it to his crew, regardless of his statement in True Colors. He's been drinking a lot, give the guy some time :D

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Originally Posted by newcomplex

I really like that analysis Pure.wasted, but imo, it places too much emphasis on the idea of Kerrigan just being an angsty teen which I fundamentally disagree with. That isn't entirely the case. Despite being only 17 during the events of the Great War, she doesn't externally behave like an angsty teen in any of her interactions...with anyone. Her portrayal in the the campaign, not to mention here appearance in Liberties crusade and her own book do not give her the personality of a 17 year old.

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Ack, this is a bit of a misunderstanding caused by all my vagueness. When I said that she acted as a rebellious teen, I was referring very specifically to her Overmind phase. Again, that is where she displays qualities such as brattiness (in her dealings with other Cerebrates), inability to control her powers (contacts Mengsk and Raynor without conscious desire to), immaturity (fighting with Tassadar), and a general lack of idea where she belongs (not under the Overmind's rule, certainly).

In "Rebel Yell," however, she is decidedly child-like. And that doesn't dismiss your comments about her understanding of her own sexuality and so on. That she is emotionally stunted doesn't directly translate to every other aspect of her life. In fact, it is absolutely the "norm" for psychopaths to seem completely fine, and totally mature, despite their emotional shallowness. If you've ever seen the show Dexter, that's a great example. It's not always an accurate portrayal of the way a serial killer's mind works, but it shows how someone can use information to manipulate others, without understanding that information fully themselves.

Now I'm not saying that Kerrigan pre-Overmind was a psycho, but her desperate clinginess to Mengsk, and her inability to stand up for herself in the least, shows huge lapses in self-worth.

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Kerrigan would not have become her current self had the Overmind not infested her. It was a catalyst, a turning point, not a natural progression.

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Now here's the other tricky bit, and this really IS tricky when dealing with any fantastical universe. Let's use Desmond again as our example. In Season 2 we find out that he's been marooned on the Island for a couple of years, we find out that he's been pushing a button in a Hatch to "save the entire world." Why? Because he was too scared to fight for what he wanted, the love of his life, Penelope. He was hiding. And when we find out that he really HAD BEEN saving the world all along, and that the only way to have it not get blown to smithereens is through a Heroic Sacrifice, Desmond finally does the right thing.

Would he have grown out of his cowardice without the Hatch and the button you have to push every 108 minutes, and without the threat of the world blowing up? Maybe not. But that doesn't mean that wasn't his natural character arc; SOMETHING was going to prompt him to stand up for himself, and it just happened to be this fantastic thing. We can substitute that fantastic thing -- or the one that happened to Kerrigan -- for any other, and the same thing would have happened. At least, that is what the story is trying to suggest. If we start believing the opposite, fantasy fiction as a whole is castrated. If Boromir's downfall isn't the natural conclusion of his arc, but simply the Ring's magical effect on him, why does he need to redeem himself by saving Merry and Pippin?

Should really use quotes, but I'm lazy:p. Anyway, for what it's worth:

-The corruption of Arthas is, IMO, very different from Kerrigan. Arthas became what he was because of circumstance, because he was stretched to breaking point during the Third War and was so devoted to Lordaeron that he was willing to give up anything and everything to save it-in his case, his soul. Arthas fits the archatype of tragic hero, because he went down the wrong road unintentionally and even after casting out both Mathias and Ner'zhul from his mind, embracing his nature, he still possessed regret in his last moments. Arthas could have had a Vader moment but I'm glad he didn't-I'd say the level of humanity he possessed at the end was just about right.

Kerrigan is different because her circumstance is forced on her by the zerg-unlike Arthas, who has a steady transition, Kerrigan is a human one second and effectively wakes up as a monster the next. Unlike Arthas, who possesses regret at the end, Kerrigan possesses regret at the start, yet loses it within a relatively short ammount of time. And while the subject of Raynor gives her uneasy twinges, at least up to Shadow Hunters, she was fully aware of what she was doing on her path, unlike Arthas, who was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Fitting of her nature as a zerg, Kerrigan is pretty much beyond remorse and isn't in need of a Vader moment.

Anyway, that's just me.;)

-I think the "billions" of casualties is an exageration. That's propaganda for you.

-I'd say that Raynor is over Kerrigan-haven't got any direct evidence of course, apart from True Colors but it's just a general impression. Still, Kerrigan wasn't his first love and if anything develops with Hanson, she won't be his last either.

(Though I hope she is. I'm not keen on Raynor going third/fourth time lucky).:(