Beef with Storyline-The Blizzard Writing Formula - Page 3

i think it's a big mistake to say stuff like 'the zerg were evil, now they're good'. the strength of blizzard's writing is that they don't deal in easy black and white terms like that. the characters and factions are complicated. terrans aren't 'good' - they're human. there's the dominion and before that the confederacy. the zerg weren't ever 'evil', they're just zerg - a huge threat to other lifeforms, but totally feral, that'd be like calling zombies evil. zombies are brainless. the infection is extremely dangerous but you don't assign intention to it. even with kerrigan and the overmind, both were part of the zerg biological imperative to absorb other lifeforms. plus kerrigan has that human side to her, but it's the bitter vengeful parts of being human.

or like in warcraft - the forsaken aren't 'good' necessarily. they have terrible personalities and they don't like anyone else. but they've escaped the control of both the legion and arthas. they can't take on all the races of azeroth by themselves, so they make alliances, because that's the reasonable thing to do. it'd be suicide otherwise. they do this with other horde races too. trolls are still nasty creatures with surly attitudes, they worship nasty entities and they perform sacrifices. it's just that a particular tribe is trying to conform to a larger society out of respect and gratitude. same with the blood elves - they sit on the fence, force themselves to remain somewhat civilized but they still indulge in pretty evil behaviors. actually that's why i like the horde better - it has these complicated races that don't neatly fall into 'good' or 'evil'. lots of orcs still have brutal, rage-filled mentalities, but under the direction of thrall they've tried to make their society more civilized, and they continue to do so because it benefits them in the long run - the legion and the old gods are just way more dangerous so the horde and the alliance refrain from all out war, but they stay separate because they disagree and therefore they continue to make alliances with other races to keep each other in check.

or take people like illidan, or arthas. they're terrible beings now, but they're also sympathetic characters, they had tragic flaws and it led to their downfalls. and even at their lowest and most evil, they're still both at odds with the legion. and even the legion itself has its roots somewhere, supposedly sargaras was corrupted by someone, i think maybe even the dreadlords. this is what i like about blizzard's rts writing - allegiances and races are complicated, much like in the real world. there's not good and evil - just good and evil actions, and degrees of good and evil. obviously the legion is evil. but even that has its roots. in real life, the nazis were obviously evil. hitler was obviously evil. that doesn't mean germany is evil. things are complicated. in warcraft, the forsaken didn't just decide to be evil one day. they were infected and then controlled by necromancers. sylvanas took that control away and gave it back to some of the undead, creating the forsaken. they're still nasy bitter people, but they have free will, so they do reasonable things like make alliances because it's the smart thing to do. in starcraft, the zerg didn't just up and decide to be evil cos they felt like it. they're basically an infection, and an infection is evolved to spread and get stronger. you don't say a parasite is evil, it's just bad to get infected.

now kerrigan became a nasty person, but she's just wrapped up in the infection like all the other creatures in the swarm. she ACTS evil, but those 'evil' qualities are more than likely just the most well adapted to leading the swarm and infecting more organisms. also, she's extremely powerful and extremely smart - smart enough to realize that the dark voice/xelnaga/whatever are far more powerful than her. don't think it's out of character at all for her to decide everyone is doomed. seems perfectly in line with her personality. doesn't mean she won't fight back to her dying breath. also you have to take into account the possibility that she was playing mind games with zeratul. saying that 'we're all doomed', basically, in that situation, seemed designed to rattle zeratul, whether she meant it or not (i'm thinking she meant it but i digress.)

i do think there's some plot holes - i'm not sure i like that they gave kerrigan her humanity back. seems too easy. i'll give blizzard the benefit of the doubt and see how it unfolds in the next expansion, but for now i have mixed feelings. it does seem kinda iffy that raynor wanted to bring her back so badly after saying he'd kill her. but then, he's had 4 years to sit there, in an alcoholic rut, beating himself up with guilt for what happened to her. then someone comes along and says this artifact can bring her back (a little too convenient but i'm gonna suspend belief here for a moment) so obviously he's going to take the opportunity. my biggest complaint is that it seems too easy. the big thing that's different from before is the artifact, so i'm guessing that's what made the whole invasion of char doable.

i also agree that not a lot happened in the terran part of the campaign until char. it seems like it's just setting us up for the next expansion, cos there's no sign of what happened after mengsk was ousted. the artifacts part was fine cos that all leads up to the kerrigan storyline and makes perfect sense, mengsk had everything to do with that - tychus was under orders to get the artifact using raynor's help and kill kerrigan if he got the chance. makes sense to me. the campaign seems like it has a ton of foreshadowing without it coming to fruition. like i've already said, we'll have to wait and see if it was an appropriate set-up for the rest of the story.

not told Raynor that the artifact will turn Kerrigan back, simply stating that it kills all Zerg or all lower level zerg, forcing him to come to a decision to use the artifact against his personal wishes; finding Kerrigan still alive would have then been a surprise for both the player and for Raynor, and made for a much more interesting ending interaction between all the characters. This would have conflicted with the Zeratul storyline, but I'm sure some creative writing could have worked around this.