How to Rework Starcraft II

[Turalyon]

^ This is all well and good, but none of this is ever felt at any level by the audience. We're only just told about his backstory through someone else blurting out exposition. Amon himself only just blusters about and taunts whenever he deigns to speak.

As to how he should've been portrayed, well, there's an easy answer to that. Just look at the previous antagonists in Sc. They all had their own campaigns to flesh them out/give them a voice and POV. Amon never has this luxuryt and that's why he seems so generic.

[DarthYam]

^ This is all well and good, but none of this is ever felt at any level by the audience. We're only just told about his backstory through someone else blurting out exposition. Amon himself only just blusters about and taunts whenever he deigns to speak.

As to how he should've been portrayed, well, there's an easy answer to that. Just look at the previous antagonists in Sc. They all had their own campaigns to flesh them out/give them a voice and POV. Amon never has this luxuryt and that's why he seems so generic.

Maybe you can have the Zerg Campaign be Amon taking over the swarm? Amon did reveal some of his motivation in the final battle. Rohana linked to the guy's mind.

But that's not the point. It's how would YOU have written WOL HOTS and LOTV while keeping the key plot points (Kerrigan's redemption, Amon's rising, the fight to stop the apocalypse.) The Artifact was kinda necessary in that it broke the conditioning that suppressed Kerrigan's empathy and compassion.

I would have kept most of the basic outline of Wings. Raynor's facing the ghosts of his pasts and trying to win a war, when at the same time we see hints of a darker threat lurking in the shadows.

HOTS I would have gone with the original plan and made Kerrigan more sympathetic. In the original version she would have spared Lassara and befriended her and the others. This would have eliminated her more egregious actions and still allow her to be relatable. Kerrigan would try to be good and also try to use the swarm for good. Since they're smaller it would also force them to adapt; they have to use stealth and cunning instead of just roflstomping the enemy.

LOTV would be the final conflict against Amon; I'd keep the Kerrigan ascending, or maybe have her and Artanis merge into one being that becomes the new xel'naga. Amon is defeated and killed in such a way that his soul is basically purified and broken down to it's bare essence. He can be reincarnated as a better person with no knowledge of his past life (Like UUB in DBZ)

[ragnarok]

So the fact remains. How should Amon have been executed in the trilogy?

Well, it could have been like this:

Amon's belief in that all conflict comes from the Xel'Naga cycle isn't completely without grounds. Plenty of dictators in real life have used that same phrase that they'd bring order after centuries of chaos. I don't think Amon understood that as long as there's life, there will ALWAYS be conflict. This is likely something the other Xel'Naga didn't teach him after his ascension. Start with that.

[Turalyon]

Amon did reveal some of his motivation in the final battle. Rohana linked to the guy's mind.

This is actually part of the issue. Rohana's sole purpose in the story is to give an info dump on Amon's motivation. It's exposition for the sake of exposition.

Sc1's Overmind is the sort antagonist of the same mould that Amon is cut from in that both are sci-fi archetypes of "aliens beyond normal-human comprehension". However, the difference is we get a peek at the Overmind in its element and get a chance to understand it. Granted, whether it ultimately worked is subjective but it is mightily helpful in getting a feel of it's motivation. Without it, the Zerg are really just some big bad to be defeated like Amon is. Case in point, is that if all we had to go on in Sc1 (as in no Zerg campaing) was Zeratul's and Tassadar's assessment of the Overmind's motivation (like it is with Rohana doing this to Amon in LotV), than the Overmind would clearly not be as memorable as it was. The Overmind's portrayal is partly the reason why Zerg is my Sc favourite race lorewise.

The same can be said for the UED since whilst they were more obviously shoe-horned in as antagonists out-of-nowhere, they were made memorable through the depictions of DuGalle and Stukov.

But that's not the point. It's how would YOU have written WOL HOTS and LOTV while keeping the key plot points (Kerrigan's redemption, Amon's rising, the fight to stop the apocalypse.) The Artifact was kinda necessary in that it broke the conditioning that suppressed Kerrigan's empathy and compassion.

You didn't stipulate that restriction of keeping the key plot points at first when you asked about how Amon should have been portrayed. Even then, the key point of Kerrigan's redemption that you note is a dubious one in that it only occurs with any clarity in LotV. HotS is clearly not about Kerrigan's redemption and if it was supposed to be about that, it's terrible writing because of the mixed messages it gave.

Still, the problem with Sc2 and the paucity of Amon's depiction is largely to do with the fundamental aspect that Sc2 is not really a cohesive trilogy. WoL and HotS are clearly linked what with them largely being about Terran affairs whilst LotV is off on it's own tangent being somewhat disparate in comparison to the previous two. When followed sequentially, LotV sticks out like a sore thumb because it's story can actually occur and work without having to play or have knowledge of the previous two entries. WoL and HotS don't really inform you much about the situation leading up to LotV, since the one thing that does (the artifact plot device in which the whole story hinges around) came out of nowhere anyway in WoL and was in possession of the "evil force" already (Moebius and Tal'Darim).

The only conceivable way to improve this (nothing can truly fix the shambles in how this trilogy is constructed), with the aim being to reinforce Amon depictions above all else and without giving Amon the benefit of his own campaign, is to totally shift the focus away from all the Terran affairs that dominated WoL and HotS and have the Hybrids threat be front and centre. Mengsk should've been dealt with early, possibly in WoL or very early in HotS, in order to focus on the universal threat of Amon. As it is, the trilogy when seen as a whole doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be about local and comparatively small Terran affairs or the grandiose, mystical Xel'Naga God/cycle stuff. What with two installments being about the "small stuff" (Terran) and one installment about the "big stuff" (Xel'Naga/Amon) and that the side-tracks of Zeratul's visions in WoL and the Primal Zerg in HotS seemingly being shoved in without making much sense (although the latter actually serves to move the plot mechanically at the least), it seriously makes you wonder what their priorities were when developing this "trilogy".

[DarthYam]

This is actually part of the issue. Rohana's sole purpose in the story is to give an info dump on Amon's motivation. It's exposition for the sake of exposition.

Sc1's Overmind is the sort antagonist of the same mould that Amon is cut from in that both are sci-fi archetypes of "aliens beyond normal-human comprehension". However, the difference is we get a peek at the Overmind in its element and get a chance to understand it. Granted, whether it ultimately worked is subjective but it is mightily helpful in getting a feel of it's motivation. Without it, the Zerg are really just some big bad to be defeated like Amon is. Case in point, is that if all we had to go on in Sc1 (as in no Zerg campaing) was Zeratul's and Tassadar's assessment of the Overmind's motivation (like it is with Rohana doing this to Amon in LotV), than the Overmind would clearly not be as memorable as it was. The Overmind's portrayal is partly the reason why Zerg is my Sc favourite race lorewise.

The same can be said for the UED since whilst they were more obviously shoe-horned in as antagonists out-of-nowhere, they were made memorable through the depictions of DuGalle and Stukov.



You didn't stipulate that restriction of keeping the key plot points at first when you asked about how Amon should have been portrayed. Even then, the key point of Kerrigan's redemption that you note is a dubious one in that it only occurs with any clarity in LotV. HotS is clearly not about Kerrigan's redemption and if it was supposed to be about that, it's terrible writing because of the mixed messages it gave.

Still, the problem with Sc2 and the paucity of Amon's depiction is largely to do with the fundamental aspect that Sc2 is not really a cohesive trilogy. WoL and HotS are clearly linked what with them largely being about Terran affairs whilst LotV is off on it's own tangent being somewhat disparate in comparison to the previous two. When followed sequentially, LotV sticks out like a sore thumb because it's story can actually occur and work without having to play or have knowledge of the previous two entries. WoL and HotS don't really inform you much about the situation leading up to LotV, since the one thing that does (the artifact plot device in which the whole story hinges around) came out of nowhere anyway in WoL and was in possession of the "evil force" already (Moebius and Tal'Darim).

The only conceivable way to improve this (nothing can truly fix the shambles in how this trilogy is constructed), with the aim being to reinforce Amon depictions above all else and without giving Amon the benefit of his own campaign, is to totally shift the focus away from all the Terran affairs that dominated WoL and HotS and have the Hybrids threat be front and centre. Mengsk should've been dealt with early, possibly in WoL or very early in HotS, in order to focus on the universal threat of Amon. As it is, the trilogy when seen as a whole doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be about local and comparatively small Terran affairs or the grandiose, mystical Xel'Naga God/cycle stuff. What with two installments being about the "small stuff" (Terran) and one installment about the "big stuff" (Xel'Naga/Amon) and that the side-tracks of Zeratul's visions in WoL and the Primal Zerg in HotS seemingly being shoved in without making much sense (although the latter actually serves to move the plot mechanically at the least), it seriously makes you wonder what their priorities were when developing this "trilogy".

Interesting. Mengsk should have been eliminated early on. His threat was necessary during the beginning....only for Amon to surface as the true threat. But yeah I think Heart was where things really stumbled. Kerrigan's inner conflict should have been utilized more maturely and Duran and the hybrids should have been the final boss. I imagined that early on the Tal'darim and Amon's forces basically invade Korhal and destroy Mengsk; the hybrids are their investment and they need the dominion's infrastructure to keep the project moving.

Skygeirr would be a better climax; Duran is defeated and killed but the battle is not over.

[Turalyon]

^ Yeah, that is more cohesive than what we got. Funny thing about all that I've said is that I've said all of this before... even before HotS actually came out.

HotS needed to be connective tissue between WoL and LotV in order to make it a trilogy and it fails at that. In other words, it isn't a very good "middle" of the story if we want to look at the trilogy as one story, much in the same way how WoL has a very poor "middle" of it's standalone story as well. Ironically though, the narrative structure of HotS as a standalone story is much better than WoL as a standalone - it flowed and maintained focus better than WoL.

[ragnarok]

^ Yeah, that is more cohesive than what we got. Funny thing about all that I've said is that I've said all of this before... even before HotS actually came out.

HotS needed to be connective tissue between WoL and LotV in order to make it a trilogy and it fails at that. In other words, it isn't a very good "middle" of the story if we want to look at the trilogy as one story, much in the same way how WoL has a very poor "middle" of it's standalone story as well. Ironically though, the narrative structure of HotS as a standalone story is much better than WoL as a standalone - it flowed and maintained focus better than WoL.

WoL wasn't MEANT to be as focused because in HotS, Kerrigan at least had a straightforward goal in merely reuniting the swarm and dealing with Mengsk, nothing complex.

In comparison in WoL, Raynor was lost as to what he was supposed to do because he hadn't made progress against Mengsk in the last 4 years. It's not like HE knew the adjutant on Tarsonis would reveal Mengsk's war crimes and everything. With the Zerg invasion, he said it himself there's no way to stop the invasion with only a single capital ship and a handful of volunteers. Even after Media Blitz, the Raiders were still relatively weak, so Raynor was still lost as to what he was supposed to do on the invasion.

Only when Valerian told him about the artifact did this mentality change, and a straightforward goal came up.

[DarthYam]

WoL wasn't MEANT to be as focused because in HotS, Kerrigan at least had a straightforward goal in merely reuniting the swarm and dealing with Mengsk, nothing complex.

In comparison in WoL, Raynor was lost as to what he was supposed to do because he hadn't made progress against Mengsk in the last 4 years. It's not like HE knew the adjutant on Tarsonis would reveal Mengsk's war crimes and everything. With the Zerg invasion, he said it himself there's no way to stop the invasion with only a single capital ship and a handful of volunteers. Even after Media Blitz, the Raiders were still relatively weak, so Raynor was still lost as to what he was supposed to do on the invasion.

Only when Valerian told him about the artifact did this mentality change, and a straightforward goal came up.

As flawed as Her Body's Plaything was, there was a lot to like. Kerrigan was consistently portrayed as trying to achieve redemption while still being Zerg. The OCs (a trend I usually despise with a passion) actually worked as characters, and even though Amon and his crew aren't overly in it, their presence is still felt. It's like how in Mass Effect the reapers take three games but when they come DAMN do they make their impact felt.

I think that at least Amon's forces should have started to take a more direct hand in Heart; we meet the Tal'darim armies and see the hybrids; Mengsk would be a disk one final boss, at which point Duran or Ulrezaj takes over as the big bad.

[Turalyon]

WoL wasn't MEANT to be as focused

Source? I know WoL hasn't much in the way of a narrative but to say that it was actually and intentionally done that way beggars belief.

In comparison in WoL, Raynor was lost as to what he was supposed to do because he hadn't made progress against Mengsk in the last 4 years.

And yet he instantly makes up for this by "kicking his revolution into overdrive" in the very first cutscene and makes astounding progress against the Dominion from the get-go.... only for it to ultimately end up as a sidetrack... with nothing of consequence happening to the Dominion whatsoever... but the frickin' QoB is bought down low easily instead without much leadup. There's some serious whiplash going on in there.

Only when Valerian told him about the artifact did this mentality change, and a straightforward goal came up.

This occurs around the time the final third of WoL begins and it comes out of nowhere. The rest of the meandering narrative (if one can call it that) leading up to this point then just abruptly stops and gets ignored. As such, WoL has a very poor "middle" in its story, such that it's like the narrative only truly starts at the plot point quoted above (or rather, starts again but on a different tangent?) only for it to end a few missions later.

[TheEconomist]

Oh you poor, poor bastards. I will have solved world hunger before this debate is settled.

(Never.)