Tychus Findlay in HOTS

[pure.Wasted]

(MULTIPLE CHOICE POLL, TICK OFF ALL OPTIONS THAT YOU'RE OK WITH)

Dead or Alive? Alive or Infested?

As early as during WOL's development Blizzard wasn't sure that losing Tychus was the right thing to do (cinematic behind-the-scenes DVDs). Now at BlizzCon Metzen admits there's still intracompany friction about the decision.

Where does the voting public stand? Should Tychus become a shining beacon of anti-comic book deathiness, or do you want to see him back? And if so, in what form?


For me personally, Tychus is that rare example where I really would be OK with pretty much every single answer. On the one hand, I do want death to be meaningful, so not bringing back a character they've explicitly said is dead... can't be bad. On the other hand, the circumstances of his death made very little sense, and if Blizzard chose to bring him back as a Terran and explain that 'The Showdown' was orchestrated to fool Mengsk Sr., I'd be OK with forgetting that silly epilogue ever happened. On the other hand, ... Zerg Tychus. I can't even begin to imagine it, but I know in my heart of hearts it would be ridiculously awesome. Maybe I'll be persuaded for only one side in this thread so I won't vote quite yet...

As far as I'm concerned, he's interesting enough a character to have a lot more to contribute to the SC universe, and he's got a kick-ass voice actor who makes him absolutely delicious. So I am leaning toward keeping him alive in some form.

[sandwich_bird]

They made the choice to kill him so I want them to stick with that choice.

I assume that he was shot in the head (where else could Jim shoot a guy in a marine suit and do significant damage with the gun he had?) so it would be stupid for him to still be alive.

It would also make no sense for him to get infested since Kerrigan was the only one who would have been able to issue the order to infest him. In any case, I assume that the artifact destroyed every pure zerg cells in its area of effect (how else would it uninfest Kerrigan? Magic lol?) so without any pure zerg cells to infest Tychus dead body, I don't see how this could work...

The only way I wouldn't mind seeing him ''come back'' is through hallucinations.

[hyde]

He shot him in the head presumably.
Then left his sorry ass in a Zerg hive.
Kerrigan went became uninfested.
Zerg out of control.
Who knows what could've happened with that corpse?

This is Metzen/Blizzard we're talking about. They don't have the slightest regards to killing or ret-conning things. So long as things occur in vague cinematics, anything could fly with Tychus.

I mean look at WarCraft 4.
Prologue : Buncha WoW players tried to kill Arthas, failed. Magically someone came in with the Ashbringer and smashed Frostmourne. Arthas died. Oh and there's some dragon lich king dude now.

[Quirel]

"Doesn't anybody stay dead these days?"

-Arthas

I liked Tychus. I genuinely liked him. But he made his choice, Jimmy made his, and I think the StarCraft Universe has had enough people returning from the dead for now.

For now, let's just concentrate on the main characters "who are still alive". Flesh them out, see how they react to the Doomy Dooms of Doom advancing upon them all.

[pure.Wasted]

I assume that he was shot in the head (where else could Jim shoot a guy in a marine suit and do significant damage with the gun he had?) so it would be stupid for him to still be alive.

If the scene had been staged to fool Mengsk into thinking that Tychus was going through with the plan (and that Jim had no idea about Tychus's true agenda), he might not have had to shoot Tychus anywhere (or if he did, Tychus might have been, somehow, perfectly prepared for it).

It's going out on a bit of a limb to guess that all this planning was being done by Jim and Tychus behind the scenes and we never had any idea... but, honestly, it's still a lot more sensible than 1) Jim being selfish enough to kill the man he owes his freedom to for a CHANCE to be with some girl he likes and 2) Tychus being stupid enough to think that Jim wouldn't do anything about him saying "Oh by the way I gotta kill your girlfriend now." Let alone the fact that Jim knew explicitly that Tychus was hardwired in a death trap suit and... never even offered his help? Right, that totally sounds like our "last honest man in the universe" morally upstanding cowboy Raynor.

I'd have a lot less trouble buying that there's just a few scenes we didn't get to see.

[Bisso]

i don't see why having people being upset about the death of a character (even the devs) makes the choice a bad one. It's all good to be upset against the turns of events in a game.

not that I wouldnt be happy to see that ol' Tychus on his legs in HotS. But "he is dead for good" option is perfectly fine.

[pure.Wasted]

i don't see why having people being upset about the death of a character (even the devs) makes the choice a bad one. It's all good to be upset against the turns of events in a game.

That's a great point, and I agree. Just because we liked a character doesn't mean he shouldn't die. The questions to ask ourselves become, "is there anything left for this character to explore that he didn't get a chance to?" Essentially, are there REASONS from a story-telling perspective to keep him alive?

It's an open question, and the benefits of keeping him "alive" are definitely very different if "alive" means ALIVE, or if it means infested.

[Cotcan]

We don't know if Tychus is died. We assume so when we heard the shot, and Jim walks out with Kerrigan. I mean all we heard was the gun shot, we never really saw him get shot. We just assumed he was killed. It is possible that Blizzard could pull a fast one on us, and bring him back. For all we know he could be zerg, or just severely wounded. I think all the choices in the poll are possible. It all depends on what Blizzard want's to do with him.

[TheEconomist]

I think the StarCraft Universe has had enough people returning from the dead for now.

Nonsense! I won't be happy with Blizzard until every person who has died in the universe has been revived. Yes, even that lone Marine you sent into the Zerg hive against 100s of Zerg during the second mission when you were nubbling just learning to play the game.

[pure.Wasted]

We don't know if Tychus is died. We assume so when we heard the shot, and Jim walks out with Kerrigan.

Would that this were true. Unfortunately when you finish the SP campaign and click on the SP button, an epilogue comes up that says explicitly that Tychus is dead. I'd be perfectly willing to forgive and forget, however.

An after-thought epilogue, stupid as it were to write, shouldn't hold Blizz's hands behind their back.