How to Rework Starcraft II

[Nissa]

I'm so getting huge flak for this post.

Okay. In as succinct a way as possible, here's what I think the problems are, and how I'd fix them.

WoL

1) Jim is way too much of a super hero. In fact, all the protagonists are. When everyone's meeting up for the final battle in Into the Void it just feels like Wonder Woman called up the rest of the Justice League to go fight a really wimpy version of Darkseid or something. So I'd probably fix that. What saved Raynor from being boring/stale in the original StarCraft (and Brood War) is that he was used pretty sparingly, and when he was used he wasn't sickeningly successful at everything (in fact he failed a lot and made plenty of mistakes). I'm not sure WoL allows for that, but basically I think if Metzen had actually been writing the game and wasn't getting stonewalled by his team we'd have seen a much more dynamic Raynor character.

Agreed. Also, It felt artificial that Mengsk was so hateful against him. Surely Mengsk's real wrath would have been directed against Kerri, not Jim. Nor am I convinced that Mengsk could make everyone dislike Jim enough to turn him into a criminal, especially since anyone who met Jim would instantly know it's wrong. Antagonizing Raynor reveals Mengsk as a liar, backfiring on him.

2) WoL in general is just so... soft. There's some fun plot lines but most of the subplots are pretty weak. Nothing really feels impactful enough and everything being so anthology based and not building on itself is pretty weak. Too many one-off planets. Also a lot of the plotting which was actually interesting just didn't get enough build-up/pay off. Tychus is interesting, but he really doesn't do much of anything outside of telling Raynor about artifacts and piloting the Odin. The whole revelation that he's working for Mengsk is revealed right at the beginning pretty much, and then doesn't come into play at all until the last cutscene.

Tychus really should have been just a flavor character -- someone to bring the original Starcraft feel, but not have a major impact on the plot. Nor should he have been killed. To me, Tychus felt like the only competent character in the entire trilogy. He had a distinct personality, a great voice actor, and some of the funniest lines. But they screwed it all up by giving him an obtuse plot.

3) Valerian is boring. For one of the big new selling points of the campaign Valerian is just SO dull. It seems like they were trying to make him ambiguous or mysterious but he just isn't. He's just... absurdly vague. It feels like he's trying to hide something, but in actuality isn't really hiding anything. So... I'd just write him better probably. Maybe have him actually be up to something. Maybe a plot which spans multiple games.

That's why I was always so insulted by the notion that "Mengsk's story has been told." Arcturus had a history with Raynor and Kerri, and thus his story is tied with theirs. Valerian feels like a statement by Blizzard that all older people are boring so they have to be "updated" into young people. It's funny, though, because if you read the Dark Templar trilogy, Valerian has the exact same arc: mysterious, possible shadow of his father in the first one, completely and obviously good in the second, and mere function of the plot in the third.

4) This one's the big one. The main dramatic thrust. Through out the story, the big question is... is Raynor actually going to go through on his promise to kill Kerrigan? It's not expressly stated but there's a lot of scenes referencing it and showcasing this fact. Then... they reveal the prophecy and the whole choice is pretty much taken out of Raynor's hands. If you kill Kerrigan; you ensure the end of all existence. So Raynor basically has no choice and the whole subplot is ruined.

5) For that matter, the existence of a prophecy and Zeratul's whole subplot is just absolutely atrocious. Prophecies are lazy, lazy writing and they take all the agency and authenticity out of a character's choices and decisions and they become nothing more than roles playing out a preordained storyline. And that's especially evident in this. Zeratul is also massively uninteresting after the first mission (while I hate the cutscene, I actually like that first cave mission as Zeratul, it's really fun).

6) And then the Overmind/Tassadar thing. I like the idea of going back to commune with the Overmind to find out something about the Xel'Naga, but the specifics are pretty bad. And I really didn't need to see Tassadar again.

WoL is just so patronizing.

I liked the concept of having memory crystal missions. While the plot of them was stupid, the idea of having Protoss missions to play in the Terran campaign is a fun idea and a good distraction.

The less said about Tassadar, the better.

But unlike Heart, it actually kind of knows what it is. Heart is just a mess.

1) It's just so... lukewarm. It's pretty much the exact same plot as Queen of Blades but stretched to be twice as long stuffed full of nonsense with a way more narrow focus and a really bipolar protagonist who can't make up her mind about what her personality is, who she is, and what she wants. Brood War Kerrigan was decisive, direct, knew what she wanted, and knew how to get it.

2) Mengsk is a lame villain. Mengsk was better as the amoral side character. An unpredictable element. Having him... I guess team up with Narud to make hybrid and whatnot just made him feel way too out of his element and made him a really one dimensional antagonist. He's just a slimy bastard. I don't wanna keep making comparisons to Brood War but that game knew to deal with him early because it knew that he just didn't have the legs to be a major antagonist for too long (also Brood War liked to change things up more dramatically and quicker than SC2 does).

3) Just... the supporting cast is a mixed bag ranging from cool/funny (Abathur) to what the hell were they thinking (Izsha) to please stop talking and get off my screen now (Dehaka). Could have been a lot stronger, and there probably could have been a much wider mix of different races involved. Again in... um... some other games, you got to see the different factions interacting with one another and there was more of a layer of complexity to things, where you got to see different perspectives. In all three of these products you're playing as a superhero with a slightly different flavour than the other superheroes who is fighting the EVIL Dominion, or the EVIL Tal'darim or the EVIL Amon and his Hybrids or the EVIL Renegade Zerg. That's pretty much universally what your enemies are. It just gets a little monotonous. Even if they tried to break up the mission structure (which I thought they did a crummy job at anyway).

4) The continuing issue with the Kerrigan plot, and just her whole interaction with Raynor feels so... artificial. They weren't even that chummy in Rebel Yell. Now, after she's slaughtered billions of people and killed friends he's cared about he's totally okay with running away with her and cracking wise? I get that they wanted to tell a romance story but it's lathered on pretty thick and not that well told. It also completely removes any culpability on Kerrigan's part as the Queen of the Zerg and then pretty much lets her have her cake and eat it too. Same with Zeratul and in LotV, Artanis, these people are just totally forgiving of Kerrigan for literally no reason other than a prophecy said they had to. It's infuriating.

Maybe it was a failed attempt to secure the female audience. Or maybe they wanted to be reductionist and reduce the complex Kerri/Jim relationship into simple romance.

I am so sad Mengsk didn't win at the end.

Honestly I have issues with it, but Legacy of the Void is at least a tightly told story and is about something substantial. It doesn't have a heavy handed plot, it doesn't have insultingly bad dialogue or situations. It doesn't boil everything down to a prophecy or a single love story or even a single character (the protagonist is Artanis, and I don't really love him, but I don't dislike him either). Characters have to give things up, characters die (kind of stupidly, but they're people we actually care about and not one-dimensional villains). The new characters and the supporting cast are excellent, and they're not all just nice people that get along with our superhero protagonist. I REALLY don't like how Zeratul dies and it's really melodramatic, but it is pretty well done. I just wish he'd done something in SC2 that I actually cared about and thought was cool. Even the ending is pretty good. It still has some of the issues of WoL/HotS (mainly just... way too much filler, and way too much 'here's an interesting but ultimately pointless concept' like with the Primal Zerg.)

Here's where we disagree. LotV was pretty insulting to the Protoss, reducing them from a unique culture of their own to a far too simplistic "traditional vs modern" conflict. By curbstomping the Khala, they not only destroyed a major unique aspect of Protoss culture, but eliminated the Brood War emphasis on dark and light working together to insure that the Protoss survive. As bad as HotS was, it's so detached from real Starcraft that it's far easier to ignore and laugh at. Because LotV ruined concepts that I loved and permanently changed the status quo of the Protoss, I have no choice but to pay attention to its horrid, insulting character and world destruction.

In short, LotV is a nuke dropped squarely on the Protoss. LotV did to the Protoss what WoL and HotS did to Zeratul.

For a lot of these, I think the only really way to 'fix' them was to really just take more time with the storytelling and just... let it flow a little better.

The way to fix these is to:
1. not destroy the Khala.
2. make the Protoss angry at Zeratul, and show Zeratul suffering real consequences for his actions.
3. eliminate the robot plot.
4. have the Spear of Adun built between the wars, not as some old artifact they randomly decided to use now rather than sooner.
5. somehow arrange conflict between Terran and Protoss.
6. fix up WoL and HotS so that the choices made in those games (mainly in terms of characterization) strengthen rather than weaken the background LotV had to pull from.

The main reason why SC was better than SC2 is tension. There was a lot to be tense about in the first game: first the Protoss attack humans, Confederates are using their citizens for Zerg experiments, Mengsk turns out to be evil, Kerrigan is abducted, Kerrigan is Zerg, Zerg invade Aiur, Protoss have factional strife, Aiur is lost, the UED shows up, Kerrigan curbstomps everyone, and by the time people figure out that the Zerg is the real enemy, the hybrids show up.

In SC2, the tension is shot in favor of action movie/romance/cheap scifi cliches. SC2 needed more interpersonal/interfactional conflict, as well as to be less focused around a protagonist. It would have been far better if we didn't have to follow Raynor/Kerri/Artanis in their respective games, and we could have seen more of the conflicts going on around them. That way the plot would feel less boxed-in.

[DarthYam]

Except Mengsk was ALWAYS a monster. By doing what he did to Tarsonis he did literally the same damn thing they did to Korhal. He says "I will rule this sector or see it burn." for fucks sake. Mengsk was ALWAYS a power hungry monster who was willing to commit atrocities to get what he wanted. He crossed the moral event horizon MANY Times over hence why I cheered when Kerrigan killed him. He's just not bothering to hide his monstrous nature anymore. I think people are over romanticizing his "complexity."

Turalyon suggested merging the Overmind and Tassadar; I would have had that their souls merged, creating a new Xel'Naga. This "Tassamind" is what guides Zeratul to Kerrigan needing to be alive and warning him about the apocalypse coming.

And if anything Brood War STARTED a lot of the cliches that WOL had. The UED appeared out of nowhere rather than focusing on the immediate aftermath of the conflict was one thing, the pyramid was pretty much the keystone with even LESS foreshadowing and usage

[Gradius]

3. eliminate the robot plot.

The most interesting arc in SC2 that might not actually be insulting to fans of sci-fi? No. :P

4. have the Spear of Adun built between the wars, not as some old artifact they randomly decided to use now rather than sooner.

Why would they build something as giant and resource intensive as an arkship after having their civilization nearly vaporized instead of just building more ships/weapons?

The UED appeared out of nowhere rather than focusing on the immediate aftermath of the conflict was one thing

How is that a cliche/problem? Vanilla SC1's conflict had nothing to wrap up. The only loose thread was Kerrigan, which is what BW was all about.

the pyramid was pretty much the keystone with even LESS foreshadowing and usage

If by "less foreshadowing and usage" you mean hamfistedly shoehorned into the entire trilogy to serve every function imaginable, instead of having a clearly defined and unique purpose like any of SC1's plot devices, then sure. I don't think I've seen a lazier plot device than "the artifact" in any single piece of fiction I've ever read.

[DarthYam]

The most interesting arc in SC2 that might not actually be insulting to fans of sci-fi? No. :P


Why would they build something as giant and resource intensive as an arkship after having their civilization nearly vaporized instead of just building more ships/weapons?


How is that a cliche/problem? Vanilla SC1's conflict had nothing to wrap up. The only loose thread was Kerrigan, which is what BW was all about.


If by "less foreshadowing and usage" you mean hamfistedly shoehorned into the entire trilogy to serve every function imaginable, instead of having a clearly defined and unique purpose like any of SC1's plot devices, then sure. I don't think I've seen a lazier plot device than "the artifact" in any single piece of fiction I've ever read.

Arkship: Contingency Plan: They might loose their next homeworld so building an escape plan that can hold their civilization if things go balls up makes sense. It's basically a noah's arc except it holds the entire civilization rather than just two of every animal.

Except that the UED wasn't really neccissary. Mengsk would have been a much better bad guy, using his increased power to try and destroy the other alien races. The Protoss could have been focused on trying to rebuild Aiur and build ties with their brethren (the ending of SC1 implies they won, but at a heavy price.) The UED have a lot of plot holes (like how they were able to spy for centuries, how they learned what was going on so quickly, how they got the fleet and knew about the second overmind etc.) Kerrigan the complicated anti hero would have worked much better and we could have a bitter end; Kerrigan gets her revenge on Mengsk but humanity is thrown into chaos.....just as Duran and his hybrids prepare to make their move.

The pyramid in brood war was VERY similar to the artifact in that both were zerg killing weapons; except that the pyramid involves a lot of silliness about going to char (which the protoss have supposedly never gone too) and vanishes from the story after the first time it's used up until the legacy of the void campaign. The Artifact is slowly built up over the WOL campaign and at least one of the other purposes (being used to revive Amon) actually worked as a major "oh fuck" moment in that it's a major double edged sword.

[DarthYam]

I'm so getting huge flak for this post.

Okay. In as succinct a way as possible, here's what I think the problems are, and how I'd fix them.

WoL

1) Jim is way too much of a super hero. In fact, all the protagonists are. When everyone's meeting up for the final battle in Into the Void it just feels like Wonder Woman called up the rest of the Justice League to go fight a really wimpy version of Darkseid or something. So I'd probably fix that. What saved Raynor from being boring/stale in the original StarCraft (and Brood War) is that he was used pretty sparingly, and when he was used he wasn't sickeningly successful at everything (in fact he failed a lot and made plenty of mistakes). I'm not sure WoL allows for that, but basically I think if Metzen had actually been writing the game and wasn't getting stonewalled by his team we'd have seen a much more dynamic Raynor character.

2) WoL in general is just so... soft. There's some fun plot lines but most of the subplots are pretty weak. Nothing really feels impactful enough and everything being so anthology based and not building on itself is pretty weak. Too many one-off planets. Also a lot of the plotting which was actually interesting just didn't get enough build-up/pay off. Tychus is interesting, but he really doesn't do much of anything outside of telling Raynor about artifacts and piloting the Odin. The whole revelation that he's working for Mengsk is revealed right at the beginning pretty much, and then doesn't come into play at all until the last cutscene.

3) Valerian is boring. For one of the big new selling points of the campaign Valerian is just SO dull. It seems like they were trying to make him ambiguous or mysterious but he just isn't. He's just... absurdly vague. It feels like he's trying to hide something, but in actuality isn't really hiding anything. So... I'd just write him better probably. Maybe have him actually be up to something. Maybe a plot which spans multiple games.

4) This one's the big one. The main dramatic thrust. Through out the story, the big question is... is Raynor actually going to go through on his promise to kill Kerrigan? It's not expressly stated but there's a lot of scenes referencing it and showcasing this fact. Then... they reveal the prophecy and the whole choice is pretty much taken out of Raynor's hands. If you kill Kerrigan; you ensure the end of all existence. So Raynor basically has no choice and the whole subplot is ruined.

5) For that matter, the existence of a prophecy and Zeratul's whole subplot is just absolutely atrocious. Prophecies are lazy, lazy writing and they take all the agency and authenticity out of a character's choices and decisions and they become nothing more than roles playing out a preordained storyline. And that's especially evident in this. Zeratul is also massively uninteresting after the first mission (while I hate the cutscene, I actually like that first cave mission as Zeratul, it's really fun).

6) And then the Overmind/Tassadar thing. I like the idea of going back to commune with the Overmind to find out something about the Xel'Naga, but the specifics are pretty bad. And I really didn't need to see Tassadar again.

WoL is just so patronizing.

But unlike Heart, it actually kind of knows what it is. Heart is just a mess.

1) It's just so... lukewarm. It's pretty much the exact same plot as Queen of Blades but stretched to be twice as long stuffed full of nonsense with a way more narrow focus and a really bipolar protagonist who can't make up her mind about what her personality is, who she is, and what she wants. Brood War Kerrigan was decisive, direct, knew what she wanted, and knew how to get it.

2) Mengsk is a lame villain. Mengsk was better as the amoral side character. An unpredictable element. Having him... I guess team up with Narud to make hybrid and whatnot just made him feel way too out of his element and made him a really one dimensional antagonist. He's just a slimy bastard. I don't wanna keep making comparisons to Brood War but that game knew to deal with him early because it knew that he just didn't have the legs to be a major antagonist for too long (also Brood War liked to change things up more dramatically and quicker than SC2 does).

3) Just... the supporting cast is a mixed bag ranging from cool/funny (Abathur) to what the hell were they thinking (Izsha) to please stop talking and get off my screen now (Dehaka). Could have been a lot stronger, and there probably could have been a much wider mix of different races involved. Again in... um... some other games, you got to see the different factions interacting with one another and there was more of a layer of complexity to things, where you got to see different perspectives. In all three of these products you're playing as a superhero with a slightly different flavour than the other superheroes who is fighting the EVIL Dominion, or the EVIL Tal'darim or the EVIL Amon and his Hybrids or the EVIL Renegade Zerg. That's pretty much universally what your enemies are. It just gets a little monotonous. Even if they tried to break up the mission structure (which I thought they did a crummy job at anyway).

4) The continuing issue with the Kerrigan plot, and just her whole interaction with Raynor feels so... artificial. They weren't even that chummy in Rebel Yell. Now, after she's slaughtered billions of people and killed friends he's cared about he's totally okay with running away with her and cracking wise? I get that they wanted to tell a romance story but it's lathered on pretty thick and not that well told. It also completely removes any culpability on Kerrigan's part as the Queen of the Zerg and then pretty much lets her have her cake and eat it too. Same with Zeratul and in LotV, Artanis, these people are just totally forgiving of Kerrigan for literally no reason other than a prophecy said they had to. It's infuriating.

Honestly I have issues with it, but Legacy of the Void is at least a tightly told story and is about something substantial. It doesn't have a heavy handed plot, it doesn't have insultingly bad dialogue or situations. It doesn't boil everything down to a prophecy or a single love story or even a single character (the protagonist is Artanis, and I don't really love him, but I don't dislike him either). Characters have to give things up, characters die (kind of stupidly, but they're people we actually care about and not one-dimensional villains). The new characters and the supporting cast are excellent, and they're not all just nice people that get along with our superhero protagonist. I REALLY don't like how Zeratul dies and it's really melodramatic, but it is pretty well done. I just wish he'd done something in SC2 that I actually cared about and thought was cool. Even the ending is pretty good. It still has some of the issues of WoL/HotS (mainly just... way too much filler, and way too much 'here's an interesting but ultimately pointless concept' like with the Primal Zerg.)

For a lot of these, I think the only really way to 'fix' them was to really just take more time with the storytelling and just... let it flow a little better.

Brood War Kerigan was the OPPOSITE of deep though. I'll just quote Hawki on the subject

1.) "The examples you're citing are examples of a developed character, but not a multi-dimensional character. A developed character has depth of character(ization). A multi-dimensional character has numerous different facets of that characterization. Kerrigan gets singular development in BW bar mission 5 and the green text, and both are irrelevant to her character. Her motives are clear, there's no regret, no looking back, her goal is simply to gain power, and even if you argue that vengeance was in her plan all along, it's only in the spotlight for one mission and never brought up again." She doesn't change, she's basically evil for the sake of it and given that she was more complicated in rebel yell (she did have noble traits) saying "oh she just chose to be evil entirely of her own will" is stupid writing.

"Except the only person she wants vengeance on is Mengsk. There's no reason for her to take vengeance against any of the other characters. Her actions against them only operate on the macro level. She takes pleasure in it, but it isn't driving her motivations. Motivations that are simple, and are based on obtaining power."

"So, on one hand, we have BW Kerrigan who sings the same tune the entire game, doesn't change as a character, and is singuarly focussed on one goal. In contrast, we have HotS Kerrigan, who's torn between morality and the need for revenge, who manages to shed the emotional burdens by the end of the game, and displays aspects of her personality that are varied. By definition, HotS Kerrigan is more multi-dimensional."

"Except BW does have it both ways, or at least tries to. Kerrigan's portrayed as this the evil bitch you describe, and gets some character development that's barely relevant. HotS Kerrigan has an unbalance of the facets described, but she still develops down those lines. Kerrigan at the end of HotS is not the same Kerrigan at the start of HotS. BW Kerrigan doesn't have that luxury of character development."

"Such as? Kerrigan as a Ghost is generally reserved, willing to follow orders, generally straight to the point in dialogue. After infestation, she becomes abrasive, defiant, and revels in the death she causes. The two characters are nothing alike. True, it could be said that infestation brought out a side of Kerrigan she suppressed, but it's a change caused by an outside force, not an internal one."

Kerrigan in BW was never impressive. Heart of the swarm has problems but Kerrigan actually EVOLVES over the story. She changes as a character and is a different person at the end.

I think people who hold Kerrigan as a great villain are looking with rose colored glasses.

[Turalyon]

LotV was pretty insulting to the Protoss, reducing them from a unique culture of their own to a far too simplistic "traditional vs modern" conflict.

As insulting as the Protoss being essentially reduced into Terrans? The only thing that's different now is their physical appearance really.

Because LotV ruined concepts that I loved and permanently changed the status quo of the Protoss

Much like how BW changed the status quo of the Protoss?

Except Mengsk was ALWAYS a monster. By doing what he did to Tarsonis he did literally the same damn thing they did to Korhal. He says "I will rule this sector or see it burn." for fucks sake. Mengsk was ALWAYS a power hungry monster who was willing to commit atrocities to get what he wanted. He crossed the moral event horizon MANY Times over hence why I cheered when Kerrigan killed him. He's just not bothering to hide his monstrous nature anymore. I think people are over romanticizing his "complexity."

Careful, your accusation of over-romanticism regarding Mengsk can easily be countered by an accusation of you over-simplifying/generalising Mengsk as a "always a monster" just because of one scene.

Kerrigan in BW was never impressive.

I think people who hold Kerrigan as a great villain are looking with rose colored glasses.

I disagree. A character doesn't necessarily have to change in order to be compelling. BW Kerrigan is an example of someone who has been through inexplicable abuse (first through the Confeds, then Mengsk and then the Overmind) and betrayal (by someone she had trusted and looked up to - Mengsk) being finally given free reign (death of the Overmind) and having total power (through infestation). That is the source of her "evil" in BW. She is flaunting her power so that no-one will ever have a chance to abuse or control her ever again, no matter who they are and what intentions they have. She trusted Mengsk and look where that led her so she can't bring herself to trust anyone else. This change is fully understandable and makes sense even had she not been influenced by infestation/Amon. Her corruption can be interpreted as either internal, external or both. It's this ambiguity that makes BW Kerrigan a complex character.

[DarthYam]

As insulting as the Protoss being essentially reduced into Terrans? The only thing that's different now is their physical appearance really.



Much like how BW changed the status quo of the Protoss?



Careful, your accusation of over-romanticism regarding Mengsk can easily be countered by an accusation of you over-simplifying/generalising Mengsk as a "always a monster" just because of one scene.



I disagree. A character doesn't necessarily have to change in order to be compelling. BW Kerrigan is an example of someone who has been through inexplicable abuse (first through the Confeds, then Mengsk and then the Overmind) and betrayal (by someone she had trusted and looked up to - Mengsk) being finally given free reign (death of the Overmind) and having total power (through infestation). That is the source of her "evil" in BW. She is flaunting her power so that no-one will ever have a chance to abuse or control her ever again, no matter who they are and what intentions they have. She trusted Mengsk and look where that led her so she can't bring herself to trust anyone else. This change is fully understandable and makes sense even had she not been influenced by infestation/Amon. Her corruption can be interpreted as either internal, external or both. It's this ambiguity that makes BW Kerrigan a complex character.

Kerrigan just did not come across as interesting to me. She was relatively complex, but she's a comic book villain; hurting those who never wronged. The point is that the infestation helped address the change.

Someone responded on an editorial
Right at the beginning you rightfully find Kerrigan to be a complex character. Now why would a complex human, given great powers, immediately turn into a comicbook super villain? Even if we accept your claim that the mind of the being that was the Queen of Blades was not mostly the work of the Overmind and still very much the human being Sarah Kerrigan, why would she completely forsake the possibility of salvation, the hope of ever experiencing affection or love again? If she always was the psychotic being you make her out to be she wouldn't have been able to experience a connection with Jim - and even the loyalty and devotion to Mengsk, who pretty much was a father figure for her.
Now I understand the fascination with the brood war character, she certainly was a badass villain, but what I'm trying to say is that Blizzard is not far off the road here, that this is not the work of "evil new bliz" but very much attached to the sc1 storywork already. The salvation comes of course in the unlucky form of a deus ex machina plot device, yet Kerrigans transformation is absolutely believable. There she is again, the young woman that experienced deep distress on Antiga prime, facing the ethical conflict between sacrificing millions of lives and the command of her savior who (apparently) always knows whats best and cares deeply about her. That is not the reaction of a cold blooded killer."

Kerrigan just jumped to "comic book villain way to easily". Things like controlling Raszegal, mocking Zeratul, blowing up telemetros were just pointless douchebaggery. Hence the "comic book" villain

[ragnarok]

I disagree. A character doesn't necessarily have to change in order to be compelling. BW Kerrigan is an example of someone who has been through inexplicable abuse (first through the Confeds, then Mengsk and then the Overmind) and betrayal (by someone she had trusted and looked up to - Mengsk) being finally given free reign (death of the Overmind) and having total power (through infestation). That is the source of her "evil" in BW. She is flaunting her power so that no-one will ever have a chance to abuse or control her ever again, no matter who they are and what intentions they have. She trusted Mengsk and look where that led her so she can't bring herself to trust anyone else. This change is fully understandable and makes sense even had she not been influenced by infestation/Amon. Her corruption can be interpreted as either internal, external or both. It's this ambiguity that makes BW Kerrigan a complex character.

That's not supposed to be surprising. After so many years of abuse, wouldn't you so similarly? That's why it made sense back then in the BW days even when Amon's influence wasn't part of the picture. She still went too far, though. Nevertheless, compared to Mengsk, ultimately in the end Kerrigan learned, whereas he remained deluded to the point of his death. The main problem was that it was too late to escape retribution.

- - - Updated - - -

If by "less foreshadowing and usage" you mean hamfistedly shoehorned into the entire trilogy to serve every function imaginable, instead of having a clearly defined and unique purpose like any of SC1's plot devices, then sure. I don't think I've seen a lazier plot device than "the artifact" in any single piece of fiction I've ever read.

The artifact was NOT a lazy plot device, Gradius. It was something the Xel'Naga used for the role of their ascension. That being said however, in the SC universe's case, the Xel'Naga got REALLY lucky because the two races happened to be in the same sector of the galaxy, and not opposite ends of the universe. I always wondered if the Xel'Naga made more than ONE Keystone, given such a possibility

[Turalyon]

She was relatively complex, but she's a comic book villain; hurting those who never wronged.

How is that an indictment? All villains hurt those who never wronged (the hero notwithstanding) not just comic book ones. Also, comic book villains can be complex so I don't know where your generalisations are going there.

The point is that the infestation helped address the change.

I never denied this. Like I said, her evil/corruption in BW can be interpreted as being mostly external (the infestation), internal (her betrayal by Mengsk and being enslaved in three different ways: unconsciously/unwillingly from the Confeds, then from her own willingness with Mengsk and then finally, willingly with the Overmind broke her mind) or an equal mix of both. I do question the weight of whether it's all wholly internal or external because there's enough ambiguity where you could argue it either way endlessly. That makes her complex.

Even if we accept your claim that the mind of the being that was the Queen of Blades was not mostly the work of the Overmind and still very much the human being Sarah Kerrigan, why would she completely forsake the possibility of salvation, the hope of ever experiencing affection or love again?

This person clearly has no idea how an abuse victims' mind works.

If she always was the psychotic being you make her out to be she wouldn't have been able to experience a connection with Jim - and even the loyalty and devotion to Mengsk, who pretty much was a father figure for her.

Nice generalisation. Being sociopathic or psychopathic does not preclude one from experiencing connections with other people. The former can feel them whilst the latter pretends.

There she is again, the young woman that experienced deep distress on Antiga prime, facing the ethical conflict between sacrificing millions of lives and the command of her savior who (apparently) always knows whats best and cares deeply about her. That is not the reaction of a cold blooded killer."

Oh, like how human Kerrigan handwrings at the morality of doing/not something but goes along with it anyway resulting in the deaths of a lot of tonne of innocent people? Psi emitters are used twice in Rebel Yell but she tacitly justifies it by shifting the responsibility of it on someone else ("Arcturus will come around. I know he will" she says at the start of New Gettysburg). If a "good" person does nothing to stop "evil", how and what good are they really?

Things like controlling Raszegal, mocking Zeratul, blowing up telemetros were just pointless douchebaggery. Hence the "comic book" villain

Controlling Raszagal and blowing up Talematros was not "pointless douchebaggery", it was done to manipulate the Protoss into doing what she wanted them to do and when. It had plot purpose. On the other hand, mocking Zeratul was pointless douchebaggery though...unless one wants to interpret that as her wanting others to "feel her pain" in a misery-loves-company sort of way since Zeratul reflects an air of nobility that she once had and lost.

[ragnarok]

This person clearly has no idea how an abuse victims' mind works.

This is something you have to experience (which I personally have). That's why I was sympathetic to Kerrigan's character, but even I felt Blizzard took this way too far in SC2. It was better in BW because she wanted control.

On the other hand, mocking Zeratul was pointless douchebaggery though...unless one wants to interpret that as her wanting others to "feel her pain" in a misery-loves-company sort of way since Zeratul reflects an air of nobility that she once had and lost.

That was more to rub further insult to him to make it seem like there's nothing he can do since she already won. Naturally this backfired on her in SC2, one of the reasons why a lot of people had wanted the ending to have her be killed by Zeratul with the whole "Raszagal sends her regards."