Will the QOB return?

[Laurentian]

Turalyon I think we should also mention the rather disturbing possibility that her deinfestation and reinfestation may be part of the Overmind and/or Kerrigan's plan to defeat the DV by removing the DV's influence from Kerrigan. This twist would be rather convoluted. And Stupid.

Personally I can't say that reinfestation is a particularily satisfactory end to a storyline involing Kerrigan's restored humanity. I mean what was the point? As a way to make Kerrigan "good" it isn't satisfactory either since it involves a Deus ex machinae rather than proper character development and is rather convoluted and illogical. I mean was this the only way to make her not evil?

It also seems rather lazy. They couldn't think of a proper story for Kerrigan so they just depowered her so she can take control of the swarm. Again. Also apparently Kerrigan is mad at Mengsk for turning her into zerg. So she responds to this by...turning herself back into zerg?

I see that Demolition Squid thinks that Kerrigan will pretty much remain a human with zerg tentacle hair (I wonder if we will actually get an explanation in HOTS as to why her scalp is the only thing that the Artifact's blast can't touch.). Kerrigan's corruption points in HOTS appear to imply reinfestation of some sort. This would avoid the problems of reinfestation but I don't think it would be satisfactory either since this means that the zerg would be run by an even less Zerg-like Kerrigan! And it still renders WOL kinda pointless since deinfesting her won't prevent her leading the swarm which I'm sure was the point of deinfesting her.

The only real way to avoid this I think would be to either kill her off or have Kerrigan and Raynor have a happy ending. However the latter wouldn't be GRIMDARK enough though. Not to mention the way it was done would make it look rather silly. Oh and both would require something else ruling the swarm (that leaked ending suggested that Kerrigan would be a life coach or something to the zerg which would still be a position of some authority).

The whole Kerrigan storyline has become a mess. I get the feeling the writing staff really didn't have a consistent idea of what story they were writing and just mashed together all of their ideas without any concern as to whether it made sense or not. I mean we have Metzen proclaiming that the "heart" of the story is Raynor and Kerrigan yet he apparently says that the writers don't care for romance and want to blow stuff up. Rather inconsistent no?

[DemolitionSquid]

Turalyon I think we should also mention the rather disturbing possibility that her deinfestation and reinfestation may be part of the Overmind and/or Kerrigan's plan to defeat the DV by removing the DV's influence from Kerrigan. This twist would be rather convoluted. And Stupid.

Personally I can't say that reinfestation is a particularily satisfactory end to a storyline involing Kerrigan's restored humanity. I mean what was the point? As a way to make Kerrigan "good" it isn't satisfactory either since it involves a Deus ex machinae rather than proper character development and is rather convoluted and illogical. I mean was this the only way to make her not evil?

It also seems rather lazy. They couldn't think of a proper story for Kerrigan so they just depowered her so she can take control of the swarm. Again. Also apparently Kerrigan is mad at Mengsk for turning her into zerg. So she responds to this by...turning herself back into zerg?

I see that Demolition Squid thinks that Kerrigan will pretty much remain a human with zerg tentacle hair (I wonder if we will actually get an explanation in HOTS as to why her scalp is the only thing that the Artifact's blast can't touch.). Kerrigan's corruption points in HOTS appear to imply reinfestation of some sort. This would avoid the problems of reinfestation but I don't think it would be satisfactory either since this means that the zerg would be run by an even less Zerg-like Kerrigan! And it still renders WOL kinda pointless since deinfesting her won't prevent her leading the swarm which I'm sure was the point of deinfesting her.

The only real way to avoid this I think would be to either kill her off or have Kerrigan and Raynor have a happy ending. However the latter wouldn't be GRIMDARK enough though. Not to mention the way it was done would make it look rather silly. Oh and both would require something else ruling the swarm (that leaked ending suggested that Kerrigan would be a life coach or something to the zerg which would still be a position of some authority).

The whole Kerrigan storyline has become a mess. I get the feeling the writing staff really didn't have a consistent idea of what story they were writing and just mashed together all of their ideas without any concern as to whether it made sense or not. I mean we have Metzen proclaiming that the "heart" of the story is Raynor and Kerrigan yet he apparently says that the writers don't care for romance and want to blow stuff up. Rather inconsistent no?

For clarity, I think its possible Kerrigan might be able to become fully Zerg again, physically. What I was saying is she won't become "evil" and "insane" again. She's on Raynor's side now.

[Aldrius]

If so, the greatest thing that was ever achieved in story development throughout WoL has been removed, thereby making WoL utterly pointless!

And this is a... bad thing?

Like. Personally I honestly don't care at all if they undo that plot development. I really don't. I thought it was a horribly pretentious huge waste of time and ruined Kerrigan's character.

[Turalyon]

...her deinfestation and reinfestation may be part of the Overmind and/or Kerrigan's plan to defeat the DV by removing the DV's influence from Kerrigan. This twist would be rather convoluted. And Stupid.

If the deinfestation of Kerrigan in SC2 really is to remove the DV influence, this would be disturbingly reminiscent of the situation when Kerrigan was 'freed' from the Overmind's influence when it died.

As much as there are problems with BW story, it did sell the concept of a 'free' Kerrigan quite well, I think. To have it be reduced to "oh, she was still really under the influence of some bigger bad but now she's really free (until SC3 reveals an even bigger bad controlling the big bad....) after the deinfestation in SC2" is a very unsatisfying and cheap plot device.

Personally I can't say that reinfestation is a particularily satisfactory end to a storyline involing Kerrigan's restored humanity. I mean what was the point? As a way to make Kerrigan "good" it isn't satisfactory either since it involves a Deus ex machinae rather than proper character development and is rather convoluted and illogical. I mean was this the only way to make her not evil?

It also seems rather lazy. They couldn't think of a proper story for Kerrigan so they just depowered her so she can take control of the swarm. Again. Also apparently Kerrigan is mad at Mengsk for turning her into zerg. So she responds to this by...turning herself back into zerg?

I agree with most of this. If the whole process of deinfesting Kerrigan was to just make her 'good' again, it does sound gimmicky and all-too convenient/easy. The idea of Kerrigan turning good and/or being deinfested is actually a good development because Kerrigan's character would be at a stand-still and become quickly stale if she just stayed the same as she was in BW and all-throughout SC2. How they did this to Kerrigan, however, is the issue I have. I know it was hard to write this 'change of heart' but anything else would've been better than the cheapness of a convenient plot device (read: artifact).

And it still renders WOL kinda pointless since deinfesting her won't prevent her leading the swarm which I'm sure was the point of deinfesting her.

Although I liked it better when Kerrigan was just a 'regular' person with psionic potential who was later supercharged through her introduction into the Swarm, I'm not entirely sure the idea of deinfestating Kerrigan is specifically to depower her. SC2 and all other non-game related sources seem to now indicate that Kerrigan is the most uber psionic being of all time and that she'd still be uber without the infestation.

This is troublesome in that it heavily suggests that infestation is just a mere plot-device that makes 'good' people into 'bad' people (or perhaps 'human' to 'inhuman'). The obvious flow on from that is that deinfestation would also mean turning 'bad' (inhuman) into 'good' (human) and I strongly suspect that this is the major reason for Kerrigan's deinfestation.

Either way, the story of SC2 is quickly becoming one of obvious plot contrivance begetting another and another. Re-infesting Kerrigan again without proper justification would just be another one of those.

I mean we have Metzen proclaiming that the "heart" of the story is Raynor and Kerrigan yet he apparently says that the writers don't care for romance and want to blow stuff up. Rather inconsistent no?

I wonder what James Phinney (the other guy who created the SC story/universe along with Metzen) has to say about this.

For clarity, I think its possible Kerrigan might be able to become fully Zerg again, physically. What I was saying is she won't become "evil" and "insane" again. She's on Raynor's side now.

I can't wait for the BS they'll come up with to explain exactly how this happens to work out. I can see it now: "It just does, Ok!?"

And this is a... bad thing?

Like. Personally I honestly don't care at all if they undo that plot development. I really don't. I thought it was a horribly pretentious huge waste of time and ruined Kerrigan's character.

It would be bad in terms of continuity and in terms of treating SC2 as a whole. I don't like how WoL's story turned out either, but they need to salvage what they can from WoL and work with what they have left. If they just ignore and/or cancel what was achieved in WoL, there'd be resentment from the people who liked WoL's story and give credence to the cynic's notion (unfortunately, one that I hold and wish to be proven wrong on) that SC2 was not really a trilogy to begin to with. How can there be three parts to the story when the first part has been nullified to the point of non-existence, pointlessness and worse, a waste of time, in its second part and/or third part?

[Laurentian]

If the deinfestation of Kerrigan in SC2 really is to remove the DV influence, this would be disturbingly reminiscent of the situation when Kerrigan was 'freed' from the Overmind's influence when it died.

I was thinking more that this means that the overmind's plan to "free" Kerrigan didn't just involve it committing suicide but also two other variables that it had no control over. These being the artifact freeing her by deinfesting her and her deciding to be reinfested in a way that would somehow make her free of the DV since her original infestation by the overmind couldn't do it for some reason. Sounds kind of silly I would say.

I like how the story is supposedly about Kerrigan finally being in a position to do what she wants even though if she doesn't regain control of the swarm, accept the results of Mengsk's betrayal of her and do what the overmind wanted her do to (which is what she already was doing anyway) then she and the whole universe will die. This is supposedly a lot different from when she was working for Mengsk even though she was doing it of her own free will and it's not like she had any real choice either. Since it was already established that she accepted her infestation and was leading the swam of her own free will was it really necessary to show that this was her being brainwashed?

The idea of Kerrigan turning good and/or being deinfested is actually a good development because Kerrigan's character would be at a stand-still and become quickly stale if she just stayed the same as she was in BW and all-throughout SC2. How they did this to Kerrigan, however, is the issue I have.

Agreed. It appears they are telling a "turning Kerrigan human again" story and combining it with a "turning Infested Kerrigan good" story despite the fact that this combination doesn't have a lot of internal logic (Like "Tychus Findlay is a Dominion spy" "Tychus Findlay works for Valerian Mengsk" and "Tychus Findlay helps Raynor overthrow the Dominion" being combined in WOL). And they are not being told well what with the artifacts and all.

I think another reason to turn her good would be because otherwise Raynor would have to kill her (after the events of BW any alliance with her would be stupid hence her being the messiah is not enough) eliminating a popular character and race leader. The latter point is a key problem with Kerrigan as a character since she is not really zerg! I guess that is what happens when the writers bring a minor character back from the dead and turn them into a major character.

I'm not entirely sure the idea of deinfestating Kerrigan is specifically to depower her.

I meant depower in the sense that she would have to be weakened by losing control of the swarm in order to give her something to do in HOTS.

[Triceron]

Shes trying to help save the galaxy, and once its over shes not going to turn on her allies because even Blizzard wouldn't pull that card again.

Raynor- "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me... can't get fooled again"

[Turalyon]

I was thinking more that this means that the overmind's plan to "free" Kerrigan didn't just involve it committing suicide but also two other variables that it had no control over. These being the artifact freeing her by deinfesting her and her deciding to be reinfested in a way that would somehow make her free of the DV since her original infestation by the overmind couldn't do it for some reason. Sounds kind of silly I would say.

Yes, this scenario is so fortuitous on the behalf of the Overmind that it is ridiculously implausible.

Since it was already established that she accepted her infestation and was leading the swam of her own free will was it really necessary to show that this was her being brainwashed?

Not brainwashed but split-minded. Apparently, characters in Starcraft can't feel and act more than one emotion without being labelled as a completely different character...

The latter point is a key problem with Kerrigan as a character since she is not really zerg!

It would have been interesting to see how Cerebrates evolved following the Overmind's death rather than have them written out so quickly. Alas, it is not to be

[Alar]

It would have been interesting to see how Cerebrates evolved following the Overmind's death rather than have them written out so quickly. Alas, it is not to be

Who knows? They might say that lone Cerebrate survived and hid himself from Kerrigan somehow, perhaps studying the energies of the Void in order to do so. I'd like to see a Cerebrate who, while realizing he could never become an Overmind, decided to evolve beyond his limitations with a small brood of protectors.

Might be pretty cool. ;o

[Turalyon]

Who knows? They might say that lone Cerebrate survived and hid himself from Kerrigan somehow, perhaps studying the energies of the Void in order to do so. I'd like to see a Cerebrate who, while realizing he could never become an Overmind, decided to evolve beyond his limitations with a small brood of protectors.

Might be pretty cool. ;o

"The Little Cerebrate that Could" huh?

While that could definitely be interesting, at this point in time simply re-introducing cerebrates after it has been emphatically stated that there are NO MORE cerebrates would just be another one of those, how should I say it, 'scraping the bottom of the barrel'-type ideas. Not to mention, yet another major retcon.

SC2 really needs to focus less on revelations of "such-and-such" and get back to telling an engaging story.

[Laurentian]

Yes, this scenario is so fortuitous on the behalf of the Overmind that it is ridiculously implausible.

Alas it could be true what with the artifact deinfesting her being merely a side effect and all. And I think this is pretty much the only way Kerrigan getting deinfested so she can reinfested without somehow being evil will actually make any real sense.

Not brainwashed but split-minded. Apparently, characters in Starcraft can't feel and act more than one emotion without being labelled as a completely different character...

I am a bit confused by what you are trying to say here. Are you criticizing my point or the writing staff?

Your choice of words is interesting considering that many of WOL critics seem to think that Raynor and Mengsk feeling and acting on more than one emotion counts as them being retconned and such. Personally I think the problem is more in the execution of these emotional changes rather than the mere notion of having an emotion other than "badass" being a flaw.

It would have been interesting to see how Cerebrates evolved following the Overmind's death rather than have them written out so quickly. Alas, it is not to be

That's why we have broodmothers who are I guess basically cerebrates with more mobility, more independence and slightly more personality. And allows them to claim that HOTS is not a complete ripoff of BW.