New Prelude Comic

[Sheliek]

Speaking of HotS' ending, Kerrigan should've killed Mengsk the second she saw the artifact popping out, srsly. Like he's obviously up to something when he's chilling with his cigar, makes it blatantly obvious 1:15 in, she has exactly 16 seconds while the artifact comes out to just saunter over and cut his head off. If I'd've done it, he'd have a squad of marines keeping her busy once she caught onto what was up. They hold fire, banter, Kerrigan gets all murdery, artifact, drama. That would've made Mengsk cunning (he admittedly is for keeping that around, alongside the Odin, psi destroyer and 'executing' Raynor, even if it all failed), and make Kerrigan not look stupid.

Instead, we got two whole endings of damsel-in-distress, each more contrived than the last!

Ah well.

[The_Blade]

Speaking of HotS' ending, Kerrigan should've killed Mengsk the second she saw the artifact popping out, srsly. Like he's obviously up to something when he's chilling with his cigar, makes it blatantly obvious 1:15 in, she has exactly 16 seconds while the artifact comes out to just saunter over and cut his head off. If I'd've done it, he'd have a squad of marines keeping her busy once she caught onto what was up. They hold fire, banter, Kerrigan gets all murdery, artifact, drama. That would've made Mengsk cunning (he admittedly is for keeping that around, alongside the Odin, psi destroyer and 'executing' Raynor, even if it all failed), and make Kerrigan not look stupid.

Instead, we got two whole endings of damsel-in-distress, each more contrived than the last!

Ah well.

You could argue the very same thing about the BW plot. Kerrigan should have killed Mengsk back when the UED fell. Yet, again, she seems to underestimate every single enemy once she beats them.

She has no idea what power feels like in contrast to true vulnerability, therefore the two seem like the same thing to her. Both have been in her life A LOT. Her problem, IMO, is that she takes power for granted and therefore feels powerless all the time. This was true when she was human. This was true when she was TQOB. Still true after not being infested and after becoming primal.

Kerrigan is not reliable in power. She is one of the strongest characters in the SC universe, but she feels no merit, responsibility, or strength from being powerful. The only way she feels that way is by crushing her opponents, because this "proves" she is not the victim. However, if she can't think of herself as the victim, how can she have the foresight to see coming threats?

I can honestly see Zagara overruling her once she becomes smart enough.

[Sheliek]

That's pretty much one of the reasons I think Kerrigan is one of the best written characters in the series still, in light of HotS. It's subtle, though. I was in the 'HotS sucked and Kerrigan was horrible' camp until I watched a playthrough of Mass Recall and WoO. Can copy-paste my off-the-cuff thoughts, since it's pertinent?

EDIT: Screw it. Small text because don't wanna make a huge wall o' text.

Okay, so I was watching a playthrough of WoO while working on a thing (but that's not important right now), and I noticed something. Kerrigan was an αsshole in HotS, a lot of us agree on this (some don't, but you might change your mind after this). But then I thought about something from way back in StarCraft I: Episode II. I'll post the entire line here.

'I have been unable to access the totality of my latent powers, and as such, I would like to infiltrate a Terran science vessel and uncover the secrets of their abandoned Ghost projects. If I can learn more about their mental conditioning, I can undo the damage their tinkering scientists have done to my mind.'

That's from Amerigo, mission 5. Now, Kerrigan was resocialized by the Confederacy. This was mentioned in several different official stories. But before she was resocialized, they really messed with her head. And of course, resocializing is basically artificially turning someone into a docile, violent sociopath that follows orders well.

What if Kerrigan didn't actually completely undo it on the Amerigo? The psychological brain-scrambling that made her both incredibly violent but also incredibly docile. She just removed the parts, probably intentionally only those ones, that made her subservient and easy to order around. But she was the Queen of Blades: why we should undo the parts that made her more ruthless? Couple that with zergification...

Skip forward to Heart of the Swarm. Kerrigan is mostly human again. That means the hyper-aggressive zerg parts are mostly gone, and of course she'd already undone the subservient aspects of resocialization. But she never did undo the violence-amplifying parts, did she? We've all observe that Kerrigan is a lot more calm around Raynor in HotS, and a lot of us say that she's an inconsistent, poorly written psycho character because of it.

Except, she's actually NOT poorly written. She's subtle in her literal insanity. Compare uninfested, calm-around-Raynor Kerrigan with calm-around-Raynor-BEFORE-being-infested Kerrigan. It's completely different. She sounds on-edge even when they're alone. She's talking through gritted teeth even when most comfortable in the game.

Now compare how she acts around Raynor in Brood War, but take out the amplified aggression caused by being fully infested. She acts exactly the same in Brood War in HotS, but less roid-ragey. Raynor was literally keeping her sane, and Blizzard wrote her that way on purpose.

In WoO, even now that she's redeemed in the eyes of the Raiders (or at least Raynor, Horner and Valerian), now that she's away from Raynor, the one thing keeping her sane is out of the picture. And listen to how she reacts to Zeratul showing up. 'Oh hey, former evil monster who I helped redeem, can we rescue some of our troops and copy some files?' "No, get in my way and you die.'

tl;dr, Kerrigan was written like a psychotic loon on purpose in HotS, because she's still partially brain-scrambled thanks to the Confederates. Blizzard wrote her mental issues so subtley that we thought they just failed really, really hard at writing Kerrigan.

Rest of thread for other thoughts.

[ragnarok]

Speaking of HotS' ending, Kerrigan should've killed Mengsk the second she saw the artifact popping out, srsly. Like he's obviously up to something when he's chilling with his cigar, makes it blatantly obvious 1:15 in, she has exactly 16 seconds while the artifact comes out to just saunter over and cut his head off. If I'd've done it, he'd have a squad of marines keeping her busy once she caught onto what was up. They hold fire, banter, Kerrigan gets all murdery, artifact, drama. That would've made Mengsk cunning (he admittedly is for keeping that around, alongside the Odin, psi destroyer and 'executing' Raynor, even if it all failed), and make Kerrigan not look stupid.

Instead, we got two whole endings of damsel-in-distress, each more contrived than the last!

Ah well.

It was a shame for that. She didn't anticipate the artifact, and I could understand why. After all, Narud wasn't REALLY loyal to him, so Kerrigan expected Narud to betray Mengsk. Probably would have happened if she didn't attack Skygeirr and all that.

- - - Updated - - -

You could argue the very same thing about the BW plot. Kerrigan should have killed Mengsk back when the UED fell. Yet, again, she seems to underestimate every single enemy once she beats them.

She has no idea what power feels like in contrast to true vulnerability, therefore the two seem like the same thing to her. Both have been in her life A LOT. Her problem, IMO, is that she takes power for granted and therefore feels powerless all the time. This was true when she was human. This was true when she was TQOB. Still true after not being infested and after becoming primal.

Kerrigan is not reliable in power. She is one of the strongest characters in the SC universe, but she feels no merit, responsibility, or strength from being powerful. The only way she feels that way is by crushing her opponents, because this "proves" she is not the victim. However, if she can't think of herself as the victim, how can she have the foresight to see coming threats?

I can honestly see Zagara overruling her once she becomes smart enough.

The main problem here is she lacks the ability to see the suffering she caused without Raynor's presence. After all, only on the Moros did she finally try to distance herself from the crimes, and only THERE did we finally get to see she was finally starting to see she went too far.

[Turalyon]

In full agreement with Blade's assessment there. Kerrigan's character makes a whole lot of sense if you view her as a victim of lifetime abuse. It's funny that even though I don't like how she treats my beloved Zerg or the overblown bluster she carries herself off with, she is the most interesting (dare I say my most favourite?) character because of that nuance. She reminds me of the Ur-Quan in Star Control 2 where there's this similar "sympathy for the devil" being evoked.

[ragnarok]

In full agreement with Blade's assessment there. Kerrigan's character makes a whole lot of sense if you view her as a victim of lifetime abuse. It's funny that even though I don't like how she treats my beloved Zerg or the overblown bluster she carries herself off with, she is the most interesting (dare I say my most favourite?) character because of that nuance. She reminds me of the Ur-Quan in Star Control 2 where there's this similar "sympathy for the devil" being evoked.

Actually Turalyon, a LOT of my friends have said the same time when it comes to the abuse factor. Blizzard took this concept to an extreme scale, but the concept is nothing new.

As we all know, the way you're raised determines your values, along with how you view the outside world. Except for the first 8 years of her life, Kerrigan never really had a life at all, since she was dragged kicking and screaming into the Confederate ghost program.

The problem here is that we all know humanity is capable of great things, but also terrible things. The latter is just a small part of the picture, but this is not something known to us when we're very young, and have experienced very little.

Therefore, if all you're exposed to is the absolute WORST humanity has to offer, then by all means you're going to view humanity as greedy, corrupt, and unworthy to survive. THIS was the mentality (for the most part) that Kerrigan had when Tarsonis happened.

The whole betrayal from Mengsk set her off because she had trusted the guy for years. Hell, if you had read the Queen of Blades book, when she and Raynor met up again on Char, she had asked Raynor if Mengsk was just too late in coming back to save her or something from New Gettysburg. This proved that even after the infestation, she still wasn't convinced (at that moment) that Mengsk betrayed her.

[The_Blade]

Oh I had forgotten about the confederate conditioning! Thanks, Muspelli. That is a great point.

I've always considered Kerrigan to be one of the most solid characters. I had my doubts during SC2; but out of everyone else, she is the most consistent.

Had everyone else been developed in a similar way, all kinds of theories about Kerrigan would have spawned. The problem with character analysis in SC2 is the lack of continuity between character relationships. Raynor breaks the storyline a lot. Relating such a bipolar character to anybody else breaks all reference points for logic.

[ragnarok]

Oh I had forgotten about the confederate conditioning! Thanks, Muspelli. That is a great point.

I've always considered Kerrigan to be one of the most solid characters. I had my doubts during SC2; but out of everyone else, she is the most consistent.

Had everyone else been developed in a similar way, all kinds of theories about Kerrigan would have spawned. The problem with character analysis in SC2 is the lack of continuity between character relationships. Raynor breaks the storyline a lot. Relating such a bipolar character to anybody else breaks all reference points for logic.

How is she consistent? At some points you don't see her show the slightest remorse for the killing, other times she does. And the game didn't exactly explain....

[Sheliek]

The only times she shows remorse for killing is when Raynor is present or brought up. How is that inconsistent? It is 100% consistent. You know things don't have to be spelled out to be true or likely, right?

[ragnarok]

The only times she shows remorse for killing is when Raynor is present or brought up. How is that inconsistent? It is 100% consistent. You know things don't have to be spelled out to be true or likely, right?

Actually she did also for Lassara's death. That being said however, I always did wonder if she simply made that up or not. We'll see by LotV.