SC3 Plot Ideas

[ragnarok]

WAIT! When Kerrigan betrayed her allies, did she like destroy Korhal and civilians there? She said to Mengsk something like, "do you really think I'd let you come into power again?"

Or was that referring to Duke, that Mengsk needs him to regain power?

A little of both. Remember what she said in the True Colors briefing: that without Duke, Mengsk would be easy to deal with. I'm willing to bet she thought Duke was necessary for Mengsk to regain military power in a way.

[Turalyon]

Not all of that is her fault entirely, you know that. The Confederate ghost program started it all, especially given that it was designed for ghost operatives to be nothing but automatons.

Yeah, it's kinda her fault because she still chose to do those things. That she treated it like a game and delighted in others suffering just makes it worse. Having a freudian excuse does not absolve her or her responsibility nor does it prevent one from still judging correctly that she is evil.

You and your mary sue BS.

It ain't BS, it's the way the story is written. It's why the story fails because the telling of it is abysmal and contrived.

[ragnarok]

Yeah, it's kinda her fault because she still chose to do those things. That she treated it like a game and delighted in others suffering just makes it worse. Having a freudian excuse does not absolve her or her responsibility nor does it prevent one from still judging correctly that she is evil.

The lack of experience makes it hard to know better. That's mainly her problem in that she couldn't see anything to humanity except when it's at its worst

[GnaReffotsirk]

Actually, I think she sees the worst possible outcome. I take it from this angle:

That she has been abused all her life, used, and discarded. This makes her so afraid of being discarded by the other races that she knows want the Zerg dead, herself included. And be used by the New overmind.

The being used by the new overmind though is obviously a lie, as the UED, having control of the Overmind, though with difficulty, was unable to get to her even a little.

This leads me to believe the Overmind created her as a free agent. Her affinity to the Overmind was not by choice at first, but as her DNA is changed, she takes on the vicious nature of the Zerg. So while she was a free agent, she was Zerg.

Aldaris spoke about her being fully infested and irredeemable. He seems right.

Her deceitful nature would come from the innate nature taken from her humanity, her murderous nature comes from the Zerg.

What I'm saying is that she couldn't have done otherwise. She's Zerg now, fully. But then at the end, she felt an emptiness. She felt tired. Maybe there is still a part of Sarrah that survives inside of Kerrigan.

[ragnarok]

Actually, I think she sees the worst possible outcome. I take it from this angle:

That she has been abused all her life, used, and discarded. This makes her so afraid of being discarded by the other races that she knows want the Zerg dead, herself included. And be used by the New overmind.

The being used by the new overmind though is obviously a lie, as the UED, having control of the Overmind, though with difficulty, was unable to get to her even a little.

This leads me to believe the Overmind created her as a free agent. Her affinity to the Overmind was not by choice at first, but as her DNA is changed, she takes on the vicious nature of the Zerg. So while she was a free agent, she was Zerg.

Aldaris spoke about her being fully infested and irredeemable. He seems right.

Her deceitful nature would come from the innate nature taken from her humanity, her murderous nature comes from the Zerg.

What I'm saying is that she couldn't have done otherwise. She's Zerg now, fully. But then at the end, she felt an emptiness. She felt tired. Maybe there is still a part of Sarrah that survives inside of Kerrigan.

I still felt that some part of her felt it simply wasn't her problem if Dominion civilians got caught in the crossfire. I'm willing to bet Raynor told Kerrigan about the events of Media Blitz and what he did there before HotS happened.

If so, perhaps Kerrigan felt that (this is before HotS of course) Mengsk be an easy target now that the population turned on him. But after he claimed victory on Char, the population just got back behind him again, which as Kerrigan saw it, meant the Dominion population consists of nothing but mindless drones who just blindly follow everything Mengsk tells them to.

[Turalyon]

The lack of experience makes it hard to know better. That's mainly her problem in that she couldn't see anything to humanity except when it's at its worst

Having an excuse/reason for evil doesn't make it not evil. Worse, after going what she's been through, saying she didn't know what she was doing was evil makes her either stupid or insane. She is clearly neither of those.

That she has been abused all her life, used, and discarded. This makes her so afraid of being discarded by the other races that she knows want the Zerg dead, herself included.

This is also the same reason why she seeks power. Like most of who have been abused, they'll do anything to never be in a position like that ever again. This means happily being an abuser themselves if need be.

The being used by the new overmind though is obviously a lie, as the UED, having control of the Overmind, though with difficulty, was unable to get to her even a little.

Of all things, I don't think she's lying there. She fears the potential of being controlled/used again, which is why she wants the neo Overmind destroyed. The reason it hasn't controlled her yet is because the Overmind is immature (it's also presumably why it was so easily captured by the UED with drugs?) and that she was given agency to act on her own whims in the first place.

This leads me to believe the Overmind created her as a free agent. Her affinity to the Overmind was not by choice at first, but as her DNA is changed, she takes on the vicious nature of the Zerg. So while she was a free agent, she was Zerg.

The Overmind didn't create her as a free agent because it couldn't actually control her, it wanted her perspective so that it and the cerebrates could learn from her "fierce example". The potential darkness/evil was already there in Kerrigan from the get-go, it's just that circumstances allowed it to take the fore. I find that seeing Kerrigan throughout Sc1 and BW as one continuous character who always had her own agency is much more interesting. It's especially poetic in light of her being taken by the Zerg since being pure of essence (well, according to Sc1 at any rate), there is the horrifying prospect that what we see of Kerrigan after her integration into the Swarm is actually the full expression of her pure essence.

[ragnarok]

Having an excuse/reason for evil doesn't make it not evil. Worse, after going what she's been through, saying she didn't know what she was doing was evil makes her either stupid or insane. She is clearly neither of those.

Maybe not, but this is why she still has to be held responsible for criminal neglect. Regardless, I just don't think she understood anything else.

[Nissa]

The being used by the new overmind though is obviously a lie, as the UED, having control of the Overmind, though with difficulty, was unable to get to her even a little.

Gotta back Tura on this. There's no particular reason why Kerrigan would have to lie about it controlling her. She's not a "free agent," she's just someone with a wider range of choice, much like how Zasz was the cerebrate who got to be the skeptical cerebrate. Also, the Overmind couldn't control her because it was juvenile, probably.

Her deceitful nature would come from the innate nature taken from her humanity, her murderous nature comes from the Zerg.

What I'm saying is that she couldn't have done otherwise. She's Zerg now, fully. But then at the end, she felt an emptiness. She felt tired. Maybe there is still a part of Sarrah that survives inside of Kerrigan.

Honestly, this is what I saw the whole point of BW was. Kerrigan is an evil being now, but her human motivations haven't disappeared. That's why it was clear, even before SC2, that she was going to have a "redemption story," even if that redemption was simply choosing to do something right before she got killed. Or at least she was going to be useful, one way or another.

[ragnarok]

Honestly, this is what I saw the whole point of BW was. Kerrigan is an evil being now, but her human motivations haven't disappeared. That's why it was clear, even before SC2, that she was going to have a "redemption story," even if that redemption was simply choosing to do something right before she got killed. Or at least she was going to be useful, one way or another.

Only the writers didn't know how to execute it. Many had argued in the past that if they had just let us know at the beginning of HotS than Amon had already been revived, it would have made more sense for all her actions in the game

[GnaReffotsirk]

At the end of BW, I always felt Kerrigan felt empty with all that she's done. She saved the sector from the UED, yes, but she's alone, everybody hates her.

Thinking about these things would mean she retains her humanity. This was the question posed about her, and we get the answer. But it wasn't clear given the epilogue's ominious hinting that maybe there's something else out there. There's a threat, and her struggle isn't really over.

Maybe she feels the emptiness because the struggle isn't over.

Or maybe, that this ominous feeling would become her justification for having done what she just did. This perceived threat would sustain her for now, a form of rationalization, which she can use later, if said threat turns out to be actually real, to justify to herself that all she has done was for the greater good.