20 years of Starcraft

[Mislagnissa]

I like to think the "spirit" that the Overmind refers to is not related to her "humanity" but to the "darkness" she has never fully embraced (as mentioned at in the manual description of the character). Afterall, she is a willing assassin under the employ of Mengsk and it takes a certain kind of mind to continue being one/to consciously kill people of ones own free will, let alone a very good one which she apparently was.



This can be construed as her having embraced the dark aspect of her true nature. The Zerg "helped" her to do that.



That's the thing - it's not a change/downgrade, but her actually being consistent. Like I said above, the Zerg freed her nature somewhat but she was still controlled by the Zerg. BW then reveals that Kerrigan, freed from all restriction and denial, is really an abhorrent monster at heart - I like to think that that's the "true nature" that the manual refers to. The events that have happened to her eventually lead to the stripping away of all the things that held her back/enslaved (the Confederacy, Mengsk and the Overmind) her true dark nature. I never saw her as a kind, good girl since that perspective is a facile and demeaning portrayal of all female characters in fiction and ignores the fact that anyone willing to continue being an assassin despite paying lip-service to morality is a portrait of a disturbed mind, not a "good/decent" person.

That is called "the ends justify the means" and it is a real belief that every single rebellion has held. That internal conflict made Kerry an interesting character with depth. QoB is a generic cartoon villain with nothing interesting going for her. You could have replaced her with a pure zerg creature and nothing would have changed.

There are many ways that QoB could have been written with depth. Instead of just turning her into a rage monster or an evil overlord (and no, that is not a consistent portrayal; numerous discussions on other forums and her wikipedia page outright states that her characterization is not consistent), all of her personality traits could have been exaggerated and she could have put her intelligence and training to the zerg's use. She could have, I don't know, believed that infesting and assimilating mankind was a genuinely good and compassionate thing to do. Her personality could have been playful and bubbly and gleefully murderous like Harley Quin. She could have been sarcastic and deadpan and make witty observations about her surroundings. Something more interesting than "grr! argh! I wanna kill! Don't question me!"

Le sigh. This argument is pointless. I find it more constructive to write my own story.

[Gradius]

You haven’t explained what’s inconsistent about it. SC2 is inconsistent. SC1 is pretty straightforward.

[Mislagnissa]

You haven’t explained what’s inconsistent about it. SC2 is inconsistent. SC1 is pretty straightforward.

I tried to explain what was inconsistent about Kerry's personality multiple times in the past, but nobody actually cares to change their mind unless they are on spacebattles where everybody ganged up on the bad writing in the entire franchise. In every game and novel where Kerry appeared, she had a completely different personality from her other appearances. Speaking solely of SC1 and BW, she is three different characters.

Human Kerry is psychologically damaged from psychosurgery and Mengsk's clearly deranged treatment of her.

In the Uprising novel, Mengsk casually murders the two other ghosts who assassinated his family right in front of Kerry while telling them they are pawns who don't remember it. Then he tells Kerry she was the third ghost and that he forgives her, but she won't be happy until she forgives herself. That is fucking insane and would not inspire loyalty in any remotely sane person.

In SC1, she constantly struggles between her compassion for humanity and the rebellion's war crimes. This becomes a point of tension between her and Mengsk, so him leaving her to die makes sense in this regard (aside from him being fucking insane).

After infestation, she becomes a completely new character. Where Kerry was calm, collected, and intelligent, QoB is nothing more than a bloodthirsty religious zealot drunk on power and easily manipulated by appealing to her base emotions. She religiously follows the zerg cause (conquer the observable universe, diameter 91 billion light years) and desires to become a better killing machine in order to better serve that cause, and responds violently whenever anyone questions her devotion or tells her she is less than perfect.

In BW, QoB has become a completely different character. She is calm, collected, sadistic, alternates between snarky and campy one-liners, and her ambitions have shrunk from "consume all life in the universe and become God" to "kill most of the people in K-sec and rule the ashes for the lulz". She is not smarter or a tactician, since all her manipulations only work because the plot says so while Duran and the cerebrate PC does all the work for her. The characters themselves even comment on the foolishness of helping her (no Metzen, having your characters lampshade your plot holes does not fix them).

But it doesn't matter how many arguments I make. As far as you guys are concerned, SC1 and BW is immune to criticism. I think anyone of us here could do a better job.

[ragnarok]

In BW, QoB has become a completely different character. She is calm, collected, sadistic, alternates between snarky and campy one-liners, and her ambitions have shrunk from "consume all life in the universe and become God" to "kill most of the people in K-sec and rule the ashes for the lulz". She is not smarter or a tactician, since all her manipulations only work because the plot says so while Duran and the cerebrate PC does all the work for her. The characters themselves even comment on the foolishness of helping her (no Metzen, having your characters lampshade your plot holes does not fix them).

But it doesn't matter how many arguments I make. As far as you guys are concerned, SC1 and BW is immune to criticism. I think anyone of us here could do a better job.

Didn't you feel the way she acted in BW was different because of the lack of the Overmind's influence? She was telling the truth to Artanis and Zeratul back then if the 2nd Overmind reached maturity, it'd gain control of her.

[Gradius]

We’ve been talking about how inferior BW is on these forums for 15+ years. Nobody needs convincing. That being said, the logic that the Overmind doesn’t control her anymore and she acts differently isn’t really a pressing issue whatsoever...

After infestation, she becomes a completely new character.

Well no crap, because that’s what the plot is and the whole point. This is your argument? Really? -_-

[Mislagnissa]

Didn't you feel the way she acted in BW was different because of the lack of the Overmind's influence? She was telling the truth to Artanis and Zeratul back then if the 2nd Overmind reached maturity, it'd gain control of her.

I have already tried arguing about this on numerous occasions only to be shot down every single time. The manual explicitly states that the Overmind is the personification of the instincts and drives of all zerg, so saying it controls the zerg makes about as much sense as saying you control yourself, at least prior to Metzen's retarded retcons that it was giant brain created by Amon to enslave the zerg. The SC lore is so stupid, vague and inconsistent that you can argue anything. Every time I say one thing with citations in the lore you guys say another with different citations. I am sick of it.

Starcraft could have been an awesome multimedia franchise with a rich and vivid lore that supported all sorts of interesting narratives against a backdrop of galactic war. Instead, Metzen kept carving away everything that made it interesting in favor of shlock. Now that lore is boring, stagnant and dead with no possible way to salvage it. Blizzard has no interest in future mission packs and now profits from warchests and co-op commanders. The modding community is on life support at this point because the story is so terrible few people want to waste time using the awful galaxy editor. The multiplayer and esports scene is losing out to MOBAs, with only South Korean television stations keeping it alive.

I can't ever get interested in Warhammer 40k because Starcraft 1's fascinating introduction to the zerg personalities spoiled me. The tyranids are just dumb bugs with absolutely no personality or anything interesting going for them besides being the only faction which cannot really be construed at outright evil; the DoW2 tyranid campaign was a joke. Games Workshop is only interested in the Imperium while other factions are consigned to the dust bin; they really shot themselves in the foot by introducing so many factions and being unable to adequately support them all.

So I am going to make my own Starcraft with blackjack and hookers. I know nothing about game design and I have no money to fund development, so the only thing I really can do is write a novel and hope a publisher picks it up and that it gets popular enough to support a multimedia franchise.

On the upside, life extension will probably develop within my lifetime and I will have an endless amount of time to plot my revenge against Metzen by turning the memory of him and his work into a laughingstock forever.

[ragnarok]

I have already tried arguing about this on numerous occasions only to be shot down every single time. The manual explicitly states that the Overmind is the personification of the instincts and drives of all zerg, so saying it controls the zerg makes about as much sense as saying you control yourself, at least prior to Metzen's retarded retcons that it was giant brain created by Amon to enslave the zerg. The SC lore is so stupid, vague and inconsistent that you can argue anything. Every time I say one thing with citations in the lore you guys say another with different citations. I am sick of it.

The personification of the instincts and drives of all zerg is only what's true as of that moment. You're acting like because that's what it had been in the manual, it has to hold true forever. This is a reason why I don't hold as much criticism for the so-called retcons SC2 introduced.

[Gradius]

I have already tried arguing about this on numerous occasions only to be shot down every single time. The manual explicitly states that the Overmind is the personification of the instincts and drives of all zerg, so saying it controls the zerg makes about as much sense as saying you control yourself.

No, for the 90th time, this is not how it works. If it was, we wouldn’t have characters like Zasz or Daggoth.

[Mislagnissa]

No, for the 90th time, this is not how it works. If it was, we wouldn’t have characters like Zasz or Daggoth.

It creates subsidiary personalities capable of growth and change and sibling rivalry, yes, but all of them are fanatically loyal to the zerg cause (eat everything, become perfect). The Overmind serves the role of a conscience and loving father figure to them, but otherwise they seem to act with the illusion of free will.

[Turalyon]

That is called "the ends justify the means" and it is a real belief that every single rebellion has held. That internal conflict made Kerry an interesting character with depth. QoB is a generic cartoon villain with nothing interesting going for her. You could have replaced her with a pure zerg creature and nothing would have changed.

The "ends justify the means"/utilitarian mentality can be attributed to Mengsk, but not really to Kerrigan. Human Kerrigan in Sc1 was just a vapid character who's supposed bleeding heart concern for others stood out only because she happened to also be a girl. Really, she's nothing more but a naive and blind child who only paid lip-service to morality since she was murdering people by her own volition at the behest of another person without any sign of remorse. When she does voice some concern about mass-murder the first time in Sc1, she proceeds to do nothing more and allows a heinous warcrime to continue. She then deludes herself by justifying and defending the same warcrime later on despite her so-called resistance. Raynor, at the least, has the honest excuse of sticking along with the SoK only because he wants to get into that skin-tight suit of hers not because of any "assumed" higher moral cause.

To me, there was no internal conflict beyond her just trying to deny the darkness within her (and weakly at that) and that she is complicit and tacitly condones those dark actions of murder/mass-murder. I like to think that she realised her own complicity and naivete at that moment when she was abandoned at Tarsonis and facing her own mortality. Like anyone coming to dawn on the realisation that the situation they eventually find themselves in was due to their own folly and naivete, anger and rage quickly follows. Kerrigan became something else in that moment - it was just unfortunate that she didn't die then but instead was given power overwhelming by the Zerg. This would inform her continued rage in BW because now she was truly free for the first time (enslaved by the Confederacy, manipulated by Mengsk and even made to enjoy her servitude by the Overmind). All she has is resentment for being controlled all her life up to that point and now that she's free, the need to also not ever be in a position to be controlled again. Her story is of the abused becoming the abuser.

QoB is a generic cartoon villain with nothing interesting going for her.

She could have, I don't know, believed that infesting and assimilating mankind was a genuinely good and compassionate thing to do. Her personality could have been playful and bubbly and gleefully murderous like Harley Quin. She could have been sarcastic and deadpan and make witty observations about her surroundings. Something more interesting than "grr! argh! I wanna kill! Don't question me!"

If she was either of these other things, I'm sure that someone else will bemoan how "generic" and "cartoon" she was just as much as you do about the Kerrigan we did get. None of these traits are particularly interesting in and of themselves and they're really just affectations hiding some other underlying reason. Kerrigan's murderous rage is an affectation to be sure but not without underlying reason. Kerrigan is an enraged killer when "free" in BW because she was made to be a killer and abused her whole life - it's as simple as that. She's just doing all she's ever known to do but now with (dark) honesty - without delusions, denial or restrictions.