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Greetings, I'd like to discuss something that I found rather jarring in WoL's campaign and it was the whole killing the Tal'darim thing. I think this makes Raynor sort of a murderer after all.
The facts are:
> The only reason he did it was money. The artifacts and terrazim gas were of no importance to Raynor other than as merchandise for Tosh and the Moebius Foundation. Only until the last char mission did they turn out to be important, but that doesn't justify the original intent and decision.
> The artifacts and terrazim gas were the Tal'darim's stuff. Just because you want/need someone else's stuff doesn't justify stealing and killing just so you can get what you want (money, in this case).
> Instead of using diplomacy, Raynor first meets them once his army is deployed and already engaged in the whole stealing business. Even if diplomacy wouldn't work, that doesn't justify armed conflict since, again, it's THEIR stuff.
> The Tal'darim are depicted as ok to kill because they are fanatics. In the first mission briefing where you fight them Tychus says "don't get teary-eyed because they are not your regular Protoss pals, they are fanatics" thus implying "these Protoss are ok to kill, it's open season on them". Which is bullshit, because if someone's not directly attacking you, you have no reason to open fire on them just because you don't like them.
In conclusion, meeting the owners of something with an army and slaughtering them if they refuse to give you what you want is a pretty heinous act.
Blizzard should have written this part much better, because the overall theme puts a lot of effort in painting Raynor as some sort of idealistic, flawless hero and infallible good man (even the choices you make change the past so you end up right), but these missions introduce a lot of cognitive dissonance by trying to sweep under the rug this murderous spree.
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Here's why I don't have a problem with it:
1. Raynor isn't a saint. He's murdered before to get what he wants. He's part of a terrorist organization whose main goal (outside of the storyline of WoL) is to depose of the current, legitimate ruler of the Dominion.
2. The Tal'darim aren't completely innocent, either. If I remember correctly, they're a splinter group from the Aiur Protoss who don't want unification with the Dark Templar. Since Raynor was (and perhaps still is, due to his friendship with Zeratul) a friend to the Dark Templar and the Aiur refugees, it's natural that he'd have been the enemy of the Tal-darim simply by his past associations without "stealing" from them.
3. At the end of the day, why should the rules of ownership and etiquette apply to an alien race? What if the planet had been held by the Zerg? What if the Zerg decided they "owned" the planet and didn't want to let the Terrans take the terrazine? Would you have expected Raynor to negotiate with them? How come you're not up in arms about Raynor stealing minerals for Tosh from areas clearly "owned" by the Zerg on Redstone?
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@1: I don't have a problem with Raynor not being a saint, but with the hypocrisy of the game trying to convince me so at every single damn turn. WoL tries hard in every mission, cinematic, dramatic scene and overblown music composition to tell you what to think about the characters.
Contrast with the original SC if you will, which narrates things pretty much matter of fact and doesn't try to sell you any ideas.
@2: I think this is the main problem, this way of thinking that it's ok to wrong other people if you don't like them or any number of excuses such as "well, they aren't really using their land/stuff well" (original US settlers regarding native americans) or "they weren't so innocent after all" (colonial nations justifying their slaughter and oppression by citing crimes committed by previous regime).
Even in this case where they have supposedly committed crimes against other Protoss (and this is never exposed in WoL), no one's asking Raynor to, of all things, use the bluntest of instruments (war) to make things "better".
@3: Doesn't apply, the Zerg are an evil race against which everyone's currently at war. The Zerg are not really even sentient, and even if they were, their past slaughters and current goals of annihilation does justify declaring open season on them.
Also, the rules of ownership and etiquette apply between every sentient race, not just humans. Otherwise you would have un-ending war.
Anyways, Blizzard should have come up with a real reason to fight Protoss other than "I like money!!!". This weakens their characterization even more.
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It's Raynor's Raiders. Raiders steal things. You attack the raiders - you die.
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SC1 and SC2 are completely different games. You don't have a choice over Raynor's actions in SC1, but you do have a limited amount of choice in his actions in SC2. He's definitely supposed to be a good guy, but I don't think that you can read into it more than that.
I think this is the main problem, this way of thinking that if you don't like someone it's ok to wrong them.
Doesn't apply, the Zerg are an evil race against which everyone's currently at war. The Zerg are not really even sentient, and even if they were, their past slaughters and current goals of annihilation does make it open season on them.
You don't see the logical disconnect here? Raynor doesn't agree with the Tal'darim on a very basic level -- the Tal'darim want his Dark Templar friends dead and anybody who associates with them. It's not some friendly ideological dispute -- they're enemies! The Tal'darim are evil in Raynor's opinion. But it's not okay to wrong somebody because you don't agree with them (e.g., because you think they're evil) ...
And then we have the Zerg who want to achieve perfection through infesting all other races and incorporating them into the swarm. Raynor and the Zerg are enemies! The Zerg are evil in Raynor's opinion. But it's not okay to wrong somebody because you don't agree with them (e.g., because you think they're evil) ...
I guess it all comes down to sentience for you. Is the Queen of Blades sentient? Was the overmind sentient? You'd have to agree that they are, in as much as humans or Protoss are. Since Zerg share consciousness, wouldn't that mean that every Zerg in contact with Kerrigan is sentient (or at least an extension of her sentience)?
Also, the rules of ownership and etiquette apply between every sentient race, not just humans.
You're splitting hairs, here. There's no definite proof that the Zerg can't be considered sentient. Furthermore, it's rather arbitrary to say that it's only wrong to do evil things against sentient creatures (you're also basically saying that animal cruelty [non-sentient creatures] isn't morally wrong if this is your argument). Finally, I'd refute your claim that rules of ownership and etiquette are universal in the Starcraft universe (or beyond):
1. Even WITHIN human cultures, they aren't. For example, native Americans for long periods of time had no comparable concept of land ownership that immigrant Europeans had. Another example: slavery -- for some cultures it was okay to own ANOTHER HUMAN BEING as property for much of our history, and it wasn't abolished universally at the same time either.
2. In the Starcraft universe, the Protoss glassed Mar Sara and Chau Sara simply because of the threat of Zerg infestation without caring or considering that the planets had been claimed and colonized by Terrans for decades. They simply didn't respect Terran claims of ownership (or etiquette, considering they killed all the Terrans on the surface to eradicate the Zerg as well).
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Morals don't count when you're the "good guy."
Yes, the irony is both recognized and intended.
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I agree with OP. I do feel it is very out of character for Jim Raynor for me. As I see it, Blizzard seems to "fix" the unnaturalness by making his new character change explainable away by references that we never experienced in previous materials. They should have continued on his character from Brood War and make us experience his character development.
It feels unnatural of Raynor when he decided to make enemies of the Tal`darim who were minding their business guarding the artifaces in a snap decision after just only a little talk with them rather than trying to negotiate a little longer. Previously, he would be the type that crack jokes but still respect his peers and understand when not to in a serious situation. The change to his SC2 character just projects out his lacking in principles to me which contradicts with the honourable thief/robber (who became a sheriff) they were trying to portray as.
In other words, this is Jim Raynor only in name with a new character. Hmm.. now that I think about it, it would have been better(and maybe perfect) if it was Valerian Mengsk(original plan?) and they'd just modify some missions and portrayals a bit. Blizzard should patch this retcon. It makes much better sense considering what I read about him in the books. To me.
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I can see where you're coming from Ghostunit, but i agree with Toxigen because you're not applying the same rules to everyone, in your point of view it's ok to take from the zerg because they don't think for themselves, they don't know any better. In anycase, if your going to protect 1 person, you have to protect all of them. Basis of American society today, everyone has the same rights (or so we like to hope....)
On October 09 2010 04:14 Toxigen wrote:
3. At the end of the day, why should the rules of ownership and etiquette apply to an alien race? What if the planet had been held by the Zerg? What if the Zerg decided they "owned" the planet and didn't want to let the Terrans take the terrazine? Would you have expected Raynor to negotiate with them? How come you're not up in arms about Raynor stealing minerals for Tosh from areas clearly "owned" by the Zerg on Redstone?
Also Pat 965 had another good point. They are Raynor's Raiders. They are pirates/terrorists. They take shit for their own gain.
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Sometime to achieve the greater goal, certain sacrifice has to be made. Sure, Raynor did a lot of morally dubious stuff but he definitely think that it is worth it for the greater 'good'/goal. This kind of things make the game more realistic than the normal black and white good guy/bad guy stuff 
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The Taldar'im are a fanatical protoss tribe that were under the control of the hybrid/dark voice. you learn about this during Zeratul's liberation of the 3 prophets...
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Which doesn`t mean anything.
This is not about whether it was objectively ok to attack them, but about Jim Raynors character.
For Jim Raynor, the only motivation to attack the Taldarim in the first place was just money. He wanted to steal the artifact from them, because he would be paid for it. Since i generally don`t read books-to-games, because they usually suck, i don`t know whether he has any backstory with them that makes them his enemy. Unless this is the cause, that is a bit out of character.
Raynor is known to be a friend of non-insane protoss, and generally accept them as a different kind of people instead of "strange aliens". Also, Raynor is not known for running around and stealing stuff from random people. He is more or less depicted as a Robin Hood type of character, who steals from evil people to support good people. And now he randomly attacks some guys because they have an artifact he wants. Of course, if he has some backstory with them, this might be different, but from what you see in game, it felt pretty strage to see him do this.
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1. Raynor isn't saint.He's not considered to be a "good guy" because he doesn't do anything bad. If it was so, he would be some kind of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi or something like that. He wouldn't fight against anyone (forget about Zerg - what about all the Dominion troops he killed?) - instead he would spread word of love, peace and equality...
2. It's not that he's stealing the artifacts "just for money". Let me remind you that there was a zerg invasion going on - an unspeakable thread. Almost a certain annihilation.
To have at least a bit of chance of surviving it (and we talk about survival of the mankind) he had to build up a decent military force. And to do it he needed money! It doesn't turn stealing into something moral, but what choice did he get?
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On October 09 2010 06:04 NastyMarine wrote:
The Taldar'im are a fanatical protoss tribe that were under the control of the hybrid/dark voice. you learn about this during Zeratul's liberation of the 3 prophets...
This answers your question's man! and I think that if you read the novels those tal'darim guys are evil drug addicts that can't be rehabilitated.
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You all got it wrong, Raynor only attacked the Tal'darim because they possess weapons of mass destruction.
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Well, but killing people because you want their stuff is one of the most universally ethically wrong things. And in the face of a very grim zerg invasion, is the ideal choice really to make additional enemies?
While Raynor might not be a saint, he is still pictured as a person with an intact moral compass, who should realize that killing people and stealing from their remains is not a very good thing to do. However, in the campaign, he doesn`t even seem to think about it a second time, he has no moral with it. And this seems really out of character. I mean, in the campaign, every decision of Raynors turns out to be the right one anyways, which is pretty strange anyways.
Also, it does not matter whether or not they ARE evil. The relevant fact is whether Raynor KNOWS that they are evil, or just goes there, kills them, and is lucky that they turn out evil afterwards. This is just to make the player feel that it is ethically no problem that he killed those guys, since they are evil. But the player is not an entity within the system, so his knowledge is not relevant. The point is that inside the system, Raynor made the decision to attack the Taldarim, kill them, and steal their sacred relicts.
To my knowledge, he has at that point no information about those guys except that they have an artifact, and that he will get money if he delivers that artifact. He needs money to buy weapons to fight evil zerg. But that is not a justification to kill random people and take their money, as he surely knows. Which is exactly what he does there, unless i am missing some piece of information here.
It just feels like a really strange decision
"Hm, so Zerg are invading all of the dominionspace. Also, Mengsk is still ruling the dominion, and i do not like him at all. So, what should i do? Ah, lets attack some protoss on some random world, because i want their money!"
Those guys are pretty much only there so that the campaign is not only TvT and TvZ. At least that is the feel one gets here.
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I think Raynor is sort of the Chaotic Good alignment while the Tal'darim are sort of the Lawful Evil alignment. Raynor is of course by no means a saint but he's on the side of "good" so to speak, evil being The Dark Voice that wants to burn the whole galaxy. In other words, as far as Raynor is concerned, the end justifies the means. He'll do anything he has to do to save the galaxy.
Notice how he killed one of his oldest best friends just to save Kerrigan, and even though he's supposed to have feelings for her, I think the main reason he did it was because of what Zeratul told him that she has to survive.
I really don't see a problem with Raynor having to fight and kill the Tal'darim in order to progress with his missions. He's no saint as it's been said in this thread several times but he's on the side of good so far in the story.
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On October 09 2010 07:36 Simberto wrote:
The relevant fact is whether Raynor KNOWS that they are evil, or just goes there, kills them, and is lucky that they turn out evil afterwards.
This is really the only thing that really matters. Raynor knows the Zerg are evil, so he has no problem killing them pretty indiscriminately. What about the Tal'darim? It's a little bit more vague. Tychus tells Raynor not to worry about fighting them -- they aren't his usual Protoss buddies. This doesn't necessarily mean that this is Raynor's introduction to the Tal'darim, if anything it only indicates that Tychus doesn't know exactly how much Raynor knows or doesn't know about the Protoss (which should be considerable if you remember how much time he spent with them in the Brood War).
To my knowledge, he has at that point no information about those guys except that they have an artifact, and that he will get money if he delivers that artifact. He needs money to buy weapons to fight evil zerg. But that is not a justification to kill random people and take their money, as he surely knows. Which is exactly what he does there, unless i am missing some piece of information here.
Again, it's possible he already knows who the Tal'darim are. Remember, ever since he went looking for Kerrigan on Char in SC1 up until the death of Fenix in BW, he pretty much was hanging out with Protoss non-stop. All through Tassadar and Zeratul on Char. All the way through the Zerg invasion and fighting the Conclave on Aiur. He was even part of the exodus to Shakuras (but stayed on the Aiur side of the gate to shut it down, where the Tal'darim subsequently develop).
Also, in the Terrazine mission, the Protoss throw the first punch when Raynor (reasonably) says all he wants is the terrazine and then he'll leave. Why should Raynor respect some random, fringe-group Protoss' claim to anything? They weren't willing to listen to reason or negotiate.
If you're talking about the mission to retrieve the artifact, isn't he racing to acquire it before Kerrigan takes it from the Protoss? Wouldn't that still count towards the greater goal of stopping Kerrigan's domination of the Koprulu sector if it meant stepping on some Protoss toes along the way?
But if Raynor didn't know who the Tal'darim were and didn't care, is he no longer a "good" guy?
Why is it wrong for a Terran to take what he wants from Protoss he doesn't know? I mean, he's friends with Zeratul, Artanis and Fenix -- he wouldn't betray his friends. But some random Protoss guy? Screw you, buddy -- I don't even know you! Why does Raynor have to be this paragon of virtue and justice? I mean, you can choose to betray Tosh if you want. You can choose to help the Protoss eradicate the infected colonists. Both those choices are pretty questionable. The difference is that I don't see these actions conflicting with Raynor's character in any other part of SC2.
If anything, the campaign portrays Raynor as a tired, broken-down, has-been drunk who can't stop the cycle of vengeance he's embroiled in. He hates the Queen of Blades for killing the woman he loved (Sarah Kerrigan) and his best friend (Fenix), but then still can't bring himself to try and stop her because of the fleeting chance he could save Sarah. He hates Mengsk more for betraying Kerrigan (and making her what she is now) in his grab for power than he hates Mengsk for currently being a dictator. I mean -- he'd rather make a deal with Valerian to solidify his position in the Dominion as heir and save Kerrigan than finish off the Mengsks' rule of the Dominion. I'd still call him a "good" guy -- despite his failures and character flaws, he still generally tries to help people (read: Terrans) and do what's right (in his eyes).
However, he's not a saint. In a fair world, with Kerrigan weakened, she deserved to die (let's disregard the prophecy for the moment -- they might already have put it in jeopardy by killing the Queen of Blades by bringing Sarah back). She was partly responsible for the deaths of millions, perhaps billions. He didn't necessarily have to kill Tychus to save her, but his (selfish) love for her was way more important than Tychus' life in his estimation -- he didn't even hesitate.
If anything, Matt Horner is the "white knight" that everybody in this thread is wishing that Jim Raynor was. But I think that's entirely intentional. Jim Raynor isn't trying to be a hero and probably doesn't want to be. He's not out to bring justice and order to the universe. He's out to kill Arcturus and save Sarah Kerrigan (or kill her as the Queen of Blades) and pretty much doesn't care about anything else.
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Baa?21242 Posts
Hey man, the overmind died saving all of you nerds, lay off the Zerg. >: (
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Why would people complain about Raynors morals? He didn't mind using the psi emitters for Arcturus against the confederate outpost.
As for the Tal'Darim...
He did try to reason with them on the terrazine mission. And it's optional, so you don't have to do it.
You don't attack the Tal'Darim for the artifacts. They attack you first, and this is after Jim confirmed that the Zerg want the artifacts. That one time on Mar Sara may have been luck, but twice in a row is hardly a cooincidence
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I also was a bit disturbed while playing this, but it fits Raynor, who seems pretty much like a pragmatist. I would have liked to see more consequences for doing it though. Sure you get your money but all subsequent missions have extra enemy protoss, for example. The way it was written was kind of lame, trying to justify it morally.
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On October 09 2010 04:04 ghostunit wrote:
Which is bullshit, because if someone's not directly attacking you, you have no reason to open fire on them just because you don't like them.
Tell that to Phantom players
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Consider Raynor's overall goal, liberating humanity while helping protect it against the Zerg. What he did to the Tal'darim might be considered unjust without context. However, Raynor needs that money to do his job. Perhaps he considers his own goals for humanity to be more important than an offshoot faction of Protoss whom he can safely cross without offending the larger Protoss society.
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In my opinion you are avoiding that Raynor of the SCII just can't act the same role of SC and BW ´cause in the Starcraft Universe he is a person, a person that fighted in all the SC and BW war, he helped Mengks to get the control over Terran groups and was betrayed, he lost the woman he was starting to love, he lost many prottos friends like Tassadar and Fenix, he was forced to fight Kerrigan many times, he was betrayed by Kerrigan and the woman he loved killed his friends, was arrested for destroing a treathing alien species, was jailed by the confederation etc. Just don´t wait for the hairless joking guy riding a vulture, remember why he is a mercenary now, and his mind is filled with revenge and pain. obiously the character must take another direction and show the sequels of his life....
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Yeah. 2 rebellions, multiple friends killed and betrayed, and a couple of great wars tends to wear down ones sense of humor and knocks the wind out of your sails just a bit. Fenix was not mentioned in WoL by name, but I feel like his influence is still visible on Raynor. Remeber, about the only times during BW in which you see Raynor lighten up a bit was around Fenix, and in WoL it was around Tychus.
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On October 09 2010 06:53 Asx32 wrote:
1. Raynor isn't saint.He's not considered to be a "good guy" because he doesn't do anything bad. If it was so, he would be some kind of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi or something like that. He wouldn't fight against anyone (forget about Zerg - what about all the Dominion troops he killed?) - instead he would spread word of love, peace and equality...
2. It's not that he's stealing the artifacts "just for money". Let me remind you that there was a zerg invasion going on - an unspeakable thread. Almost a certain annihilation.
To have at least a bit of chance of surviving it (and we talk about survival of the mankind) he had to build up a decent military force. And to do it he needed money! It doesn't turn stealing into something moral, but what choice did he get?
I find the idea flawed that Jaynor would not be represented as a good guy. He is. He is trying to oppose the Dominion, that are, throughout the campaign, represented as inherently evil. This is noticed in many of their actions, often leaving refugees behind to be killed off by the zerg, or through the raised opinions of civilians, often stating that Raynor "helped" or "saved" them from the Dominion's oppression. Instead of giving Raynor a more reflected character, he is more or less molded to be one-sided: as the good guy.
Furthermore, saint =/= good guy. Let's see... how many orcs are being killed in Lord of the Rings in total? My problem does not necessarily lie so much in Raynor's character, but Blizzard's poor storywriting. They moved the story from being at least somewhat dimensional into becoming less so. This caused a disconnect in how characters and the different races are represented. There is also a huge issue in WoL's narration, because the narration occurs through Raynor's interaction with others, but we never get to know what he thinks of things himself, except through his dialogue with others. This makes it impossible for us to know what he truly thinks, and it's just a poor choice of narration, since we are basically Raynor. It's thus told from a first person perspective, except there's no first person to talk about. Think of shows like Dexter, except we never get to know anything of what Dexter thinks when he is not talking.
I am not a huge fan of the campaign in terms of lore, because I find that it a) simplifies the war against the zerg a lot more than it should, b) somehow managed to make Raynor's interaction with Kerrigan completely uninteresting and her appearances are rather cheesy and gimicky, trying to make her fit into some kind of antagonistic role although we never quite understand why.
It is possible to raise a lot of valid questions about the zerg that does not necessarily paint them as evil. I don't see how the next expansion is going to pull this off at all, since the races have become increasingly archetype'd, with terran generally being the good guys, protoss neutral and zerg evil. Even the background music itself fits this, so the terran theme is called Heaven's Devils, which kind of neatly describes Jim Raynor in two words. Not quite anti-heroic (he sure ain't no Spawn, Lestat or Spike), but still the hero, whereas the zerg music itself is called The Hive, meant to represent the zerg's single-minded character. k
And maybe I'm just tired of science fiction and fantasy failing over and over again of not falling into the good vs evil dichotomy, but it's boring and poor storywriting, and to me, this has lead to some serious detrimental character flaws of Raynor and Kerrigan, making both less believable. I find it seriously wrong when a side-character like Tychus feels more realistic than Raynor. Tychus may not be the brightest person around, and he his motives can often be questioned, but at least he is consistent.
Imagine now for example, regarding the particular issue the OP is raising, that we'd get to hear a voice-over narration from Raynor describing his feelings to us regarding the Tal'darim and the missions revolving them. This would make it a lot easier for the players to understand and sympathize with Raynor's actions, but for some reason Blizzard did not do this, and such major narration flaws really killed the lore in the campaign for me. I just can't care less anymore.
/rant
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I think this makes Raynor sort of a murderer after all.
If you don't want to "kill" people, don't play starcraft/video games.
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aren't they pretty much mercs? if someone stands in the way of our goal, they're gonna get rocked. if they're crazy mofos, all the better. if you wanna be a pacifist, you can always skip the missions that contradict your morals. i don't think the game will be very fun though...
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I don't even understand the EXISTENCE of Tal'darim.
They are Protoss fanatics and outcasts. OK.
Now explain to me why they have dark templar, colossus and mothership.
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
On October 10 2010 05:57 dukethegold wrote:
I don't even understand the EXISTENCE of Tal'darim.
They are Protoss fanatics and outcasts. OK.
Now explain to me why they have dark templar, colossus and mothership.
its just bad, lazy writing by blizzard. they needed a protoss faction raynor needed to fight so they just whipped one up and just put 'fanatic' sticker on them.
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On October 10 2010 05:57 dukethegold wrote:
I don't even understand the EXISTENCE of Tal'darim.
They are Protoss fanatics and outcasts. OK.
Now explain to me why they have dark templar, colossus and mothership.
I never saw them having any Dark Templar. In fact the only Dark Templar they had were their prisoners in Maw of the Void.
Mothership and Colossus make perfect sense. Read more about the Tal'darim. Why would it not make sense for them to posses those units?
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So, after the mission Breakout:
Raynor:
"You'll see that better future, Matt."
*looks at Tosh*
"But it ain't for the likes of us."
After Safe Haven:
Raynor:
"I been down that road before, Tychus. I took my shot at a normal life a long time ago. Ain't no going back now."
Tychus:
"Huh. Couple of badasses like us ain't cut out for the quiet life anyway. Yes sir, destiny's got us pegged for something way bigger."
Raynor isn't supposed to be a morally spotless character. He's not the white knight - though he may have good intentions, his goals are biased by his personal motives and his methods for accomplishing those goals are limited by his resources. Though Raynor may want a better future, he recognizes that dirty work is necessary to reach that: he's a gritty, scrappy character that will do whatever it takes to get the job done (the type of person who is completely out of place in a "Better Tomorrow").
So, with the Tal'darim, we know that Raynor needs both allies and funds - and he can't waste a lot of time getting them. In both possible meeting places with the Tal'darim (either The Dig or Welcome to the Jungle), the first words are threats from the Tal'darim. Y'gotta love that diplomatic start. Immediately afterwards, the Tal'darim follow up on their threats with an assault. Raynor doesn't really have too many options here: He can (1) pursue his initial goals, please Tosh/Moebius, and get paid; (2) renege on his deals with Tosh/Moebius and leave, losing potential allies, funds, and time; or (3) withdraw and try diplomacy with the Tal'darim (which would waste time and then indubitably fail, given Blizzard's characterization of the faction ... and then diplomatic failure would lead back to either (1) or (2)).
And yeah, the morally upright person would likely try to negotiate and then leave the Tal'darim be. But that's not Raynor - he needs to get the job done.
EDIT: If any of you have seen Serenity, Raynor is analogous to The Operative. Though, Blizzard has Raynor shooting for a supposedly feasible better future, while Joss Whedon has The Operative trying to create an impossible perfect future.
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I think they failed to communicate that.
A few lines of the diplomatic chatter that fails, Raynor trying to reason why this is so very, very important to them and then simply getting cut off and then going "fuck it, this is too important, let's roll"
It's one of the many percs why the story didn't come together quite as it could.
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On October 09 2010 04:04 ghostunit wrote:
because the overall theme puts a lot of effort in painting Raynor as some sort of idealistic, flawless hero and infallible good man It's probably just me, but I don't get that vibe at all. Raynor is quite tunnel-visioned, and assumes who's not with him stands against what's good and right in the universe. In many ways he reminds of another Mengsk in the making.
There are many other situations when he and his forces kill innocent people who are just doing their service. He assumes such folks are the bad guys, because they don't revolt against Mengsk, but his own reasons to revolt are primarily personal, and thus not applicable to everyone else. He's blinded by his determination against his enemy, to the point of assuming whoever sides with him deserves doom.
However, I think this is a good character decision. Just pointing out that Raynor is far from perfect, and not all fans of the game necessarily view him entirely positively.
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On October 10 2010 06:48 xinxy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2010 05:57 dukethegold wrote:
I don't even understand the EXISTENCE of Tal'darim.
They are Protoss fanatics and outcasts. OK.
Now explain to me why they have dark templar, colossus and mothership. I never saw them having any Dark Templar. In fact the only Dark Templar they had were their prisoners in Maw of the Void. Mothership and Colossus make perfect sense. Read more about the Tal'darim. Why would it not make sense for them to posses those units?
You do realize that Stalkers are piloted by dark templars, correct?
Colossus and Mothership are reactivated technology that the Protoss left behind and recently reactivated. How does it make sense that "fanatics" who are "not associated" with the main Protoss faction have those things?
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On October 10 2010 04:29 Lea wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2010 06:53 Asx32 wrote:
1. Raynor isn't saint.He's not considered to be a "good guy" because he doesn't do anything bad. If it was so, he would be some kind of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi or something like that. He wouldn't fight against anyone (forget about Zerg - what about all the Dominion troops he killed?) - instead he would spread word of love, peace and equality...
2. It's not that he's stealing the artifacts "just for money". Let me remind you that there was a zerg invasion going on - an unspeakable thread. Almost a certain annihilation.
To have at least a bit of chance of surviving it (and we talk about survival of the mankind) he had to build up a decent military force. And to do it he needed money! It doesn't turn stealing into something moral, but what choice did he get? I find the idea flawed that Jaynor would not be represented as a good guy. He is. He is trying to oppose the Dominion, that are, throughout the campaign, represented as inherently evil. This is noticed in many of their actions, often leaving refugees behind to be killed off by the zerg, or through the raised opinions of civilians, often stating that Raynor "helped" or "saved" them from the Dominion's oppression. Instead of giving Raynor a more reflected character, he is more or less molded to be one-sided: as the good guy. Furthermore, saint =/= good guy. Let's see... how many orcs are being killed in Lord of the Rings in total? My problem does not necessarily lie so much in Raynor's character, but Blizzard's poor storywriting. They moved the story from being at least somewhat dimensional into becoming less so. This caused a disconnect in how characters and the different races are represented. There is also a huge issue in WoL's narration, because the narration occurs through Raynor's interaction with others, but we never get to know what he thinks of things himself, except through his dialogue with others. This makes it impossible for us to know what he truly thinks, and it's just a poor choice of narration, since we are basically Raynor. It's thus told from a first person perspective, except there's no first person to talk about. Think of shows like Dexter, except we never get to know anything of what Dexter thinks when he is not talking. I am not a huge fan of the campaign in terms of lore, because I find that it a) simplifies the war against the zerg a lot more than it should, b) somehow managed to make Raynor's interaction with Kerrigan completely uninteresting and her appearances are rather cheesy and gimicky, trying to make her fit into some kind of antagonistic role although we never quite understand why. It is possible to raise a lot of valid questions about the zerg that does not necessarily paint them as evil. I don't see how the next expansion is going to pull this off at all, since the races have become increasingly archetype'd, with terran generally being the good guys, protoss neutral and zerg evil. Even the background music itself fits this, so the terran theme is called Heaven's Devils, which kind of neatly describes Jim Raynor in two words. Not quite anti-heroic (he sure ain't no Spawn, Lestat or Spike), but still the hero, whereas the zerg music itself is called The Hive, meant to represent the zerg's single-minded character. k And maybe I'm just tired of science fiction and fantasy failing over and over again of not falling into the good vs evil dichotomy, but it's boring and poor storywriting, and to me, this has lead to some serious detrimental character flaws of Raynor and Kerrigan, making both less believable. I find it seriously wrong when a side-character like Tychus feels more realistic than Raynor. Tychus may not be the brightest person around, and he his motives can often be questioned, but at least he is consistent. Imagine now for example, regarding the particular issue the OP is raising, that we'd get to hear a voice-over narration from Raynor describing his feelings to us regarding the Tal'darim and the missions revolving them. This would make it a lot easier for the players to understand and sympathize with Raynor's actions, but for some reason Blizzard did not do this, and such major narration flaws really killed the lore in the campaign for me. I just can't care less anymore. /rant
Explain how general Warfield and Valarian fit into your image of the dominions inherent evil. Blatantly ignoring these two is a weakness imo.
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On October 10 2010 09:01 dukethegold wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2010 06:48 xinxy wrote:On October 10 2010 05:57 dukethegold wrote:
I don't even understand the EXISTENCE of Tal'darim.
They are Protoss fanatics and outcasts. OK.
Now explain to me why they have dark templar, colossus and mothership. I never saw them having any Dark Templar. In fact the only Dark Templar they had were their prisoners in Maw of the Void. Mothership and Colossus make perfect sense. Read more about the Tal'darim. Why would it not make sense for them to posses those units? You do realize that Stalkers are piloted by dark templars, correct? Colossus and Mothership are reactivated technology that the Protoss left behind and recently reactivated. How does it make sense that "fanatics" who are "not associated" with the main Protoss faction have those things?
Sidenote, I never really liked the concept of dark templars in stalkers. Dark templars were supposed to be an isolated, dying out people with ninja skills. You shouldn't be able to warp in thousands of them!
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I agree that Raynor showed a lack of ethics in attacking the Tal'darim with poor justification, and that his decision made the campaign slightly worse than it could have been. If we were the Tal'darim, we would certainly be pissed at his actions.
However, perhaps Raynor's two-sided moral character was a commentary on the nature of war and the tendency for people to give up ethical thinking in times of crisis, adding a bit of realistic bitterness into the story.
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Think about it realisiticly man, I'll use a real world example, Muslims, most are just like the average folk who happen to practice a different faith, slaughter these people would be desicable, but think of the extremeists that caused 9/11, are they the same type of people....................... no, you would want those bastards to pay for what they did, and the regular muslims should remain the same. just like the Tal'darim and the regular toss, It's an extremeist group like Al qaeda.
very different things
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On October 09 2010 04:14 Toxigen wrote:
Here's why I don't have a problem with it:
1. Raynor isn't a saint. He's murdered before to get what he wants. He's part of a terrorist organization whose main goal (outside of the storyline of WoL) is to depose of the current, legitimate ruler of the Dominion.
2. The Tal'darim aren't completely innocent, either. If I remember correctly, they're a splinter group from the Aiur Protoss who don't want unification with the Dark Templar. Since Raynor was (and perhaps still is, due to his friendship with Zeratul) a friend to the Dark Templar and the Aiur refugees, it's natural that he'd have been the enemy of the Tal-darim simply by his past associations without "stealing" from them.
3. At the end of the day, why should the rules of ownership and etiquette apply to an alien race? What if the planet had been held by the Zerg? What if the Zerg decided they "owned" the planet and didn't want to let the Terrans take the terrazine? Would you have expected Raynor to negotiate with them? How come you're not up in arms about Raynor stealing minerals for Tosh from areas clearly "owned" by the Zerg on Redstone?
I know this is the lore. But funny how we can see Stalkers and Void Ray in the Taldarim Army when they hate Dark Templars.
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i cried and stopped playing the campaign after i saw how the Tal'darim were being treated. it made me lose all my faith in humanity and im so ashamed to be a human.
oh shit... wat do u mean its only a video game???
edit : but yeah... blizzard storyline writing not so impressive in this game
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Does anyone remember the Zeratul missions at all!? Zeratul clearly states via the first engagement with a rogue Taldarim Stalker. Zeratul was taken back at what the Stalker said. I forget what it was exactly but it had to do with the Purification or Cleansing of other Protoss factions whom of which were against the dark voice/hybri. This particular mission this tribe was responsible for gaurding and allowing the Hybrid to drain the 3 prophet's energy to get stronger. Does anyone play the game? rofl!
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Explain how general Warfield and Valarian fit into your image of the dominions inherent evil. Blatantly ignoring these two is a weakness imo.
Valerian mensk is not a good person. He will do what he wants to do because he has the founds and the influence and the power to do so. ;P
As for General Warfield. He just appears to be a better man than general Duke. This guy will not bat an eye killing civillians if he was ordered to do so, just because he outwardly appears to be a more mannered guy does not mean he would not. YOU DO NOT BECOME general In the dominion army by being kind to children and disobeying direct commands. Though blizzard are not beyond retardation. This campain has proven such at multiple occasions.
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In some of the later chapters you have to go through those shield killing things... The taldarim CAPTURED and imprisoned other protoss. Also the taldarim attack you first on the terrazine mission even though you're taking there magic gas. They probably knew what the artifacts did and still didn't give them up to the obviously good cause. As far as I'm concerned this isn't the part of the story where it doesn't makes Jim out to be a flawless hero.
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On October 10 2010 14:11 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +Explain how general Warfield and Valarian fit into your image of the dominions inherent evil. Blatantly ignoring these two is a weakness imo. Valerian mensk is not a good person. He will do what he wants to do because he has the founds and the influence and the power to do so. ;P As for General Warfield. He just appears to be a better man than general Duke. This guy will not bat an eye killing civillians if he was ordered to do so, just because he outwardly appears to be a more mannered guy does not mean he would not. YOU DO NOT BECOME general In the dominion army by being kind to children and disobeying direct commands. Though blizzard are not beyond retardation. This campain has proven such at multiple occasions.
There is nothing in WoL to indicate that Warfield is a bad guy. There is nothing in the game suggesting he ever worked for Arcturus. He was referred to as the hero of torrace and was brought out of retirement by Valarian.
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On October 10 2010 13:59 NastyMarine wrote:
Does anyone remember the Zeratul missions at all!? Zeratul clearly states via the first engagement with a rogue Taldarim Stalker. Zeratul was taken back at what the Stalker said. I forget what it was exactly but it had to do with the Purification or Cleansing of other Protoss factions whom of which were against the dark voice/hybri. This particular mission this tribe was responsible for gaurding and allowing the Hybrid to drain the 3 prophet's energy to get stronger. Does anyone play the game? rofl!
If you killed a person for money and later found out he's a terrorist, does it make you less guilty?
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Unknown to Raynor, other than Tychus' word, these protoss were not affiliated with Tassadar, Zeratul, or Artanis. Thus, for Raynor, his morals are not disgraceful nor questionable. From his perspective, he's already down in a ditch and willing to do anything to get his crew, and himself back into a rhythm.
Why is morality such a big discussion on completing a goal that we all know Jim would go to great lengths to achieve (which is bringing back Kerrigan)? That is including killing unidentified Protoss Warbands standing between his fight against Mengsk, his journey to save the human population in the sector from zerg invasion and/or saving his old girl even if only indirectly (like harvesting gas to use against mengsk etc; even if he was unaware of the specters).
This discussion is based on whether or not killing was justified based on Raynor being a protagonist which is idiocy, because we already know how brutal the starcraft world/lore is... to troll my post bc my opinion is different based on me actually knowing the lore is fuckin stupid.
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On October 09 2010 04:58 MangoTango wrote:
Morals don't count when you're the "good guy."
Yes, the irony is both recognized and intended.
Such a major downturn. 
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On October 09 2010 07:14 101TFP wrote:
You all got it wrong, Raynor only attacked the Tal'darim because they possess weapons of mass destruction.
haha, this is genius
for all of those who don't get it:
+ Show Spoiler +refers to bush attacking iraq
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heres why i dont have a problem with it.
its a game
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On October 09 2010 04:04 ghostunit wrote:
> The only reason he did it was money. The artifacts and terrazim gas were of no importance to Raynor other than as merchandise for Tosh and the Moebius Foundation. Only until the last char mission did they turn out to be important, but that doesn't justify the original intent and decision.
Funding a rebellion aint for the faint-hearted.
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See, Raynor has a moral code. He won't kill innocents, and he won't attack unarmed people.
His moral code has no room in it for "sacred gas" or "sacred artifacts". As far as he is concerned, anyone opposed to him taking gas because of random spiritual mumbo-jumbo doesn't have an opinion worth considering past "can I get away with it without these nutjobs actually hurting me?".
He's a space redneck. That's a perfectly reasonable position for a space redneck to hold, even one that's pretty morally upright.
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Seemed like a desperate way to work the artifacts into the storyline. You have to take it from somewhere... guess it has to be the protoss. Make them crazy, 90% of folks won't ask about why they're killing toss.
Yeah it drove me batty too.
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I don't see these things as dubious morals, just another example of "After the fact, the hero's actions are right". Wings of Liberty is infested with this nonsense. It's shitty story telling, and shallow.
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On October 10 2010 21:12 D-Lite wrote:
heres why i dont have a problem with it.
its a game
Heres why I have a problem with you.
you're a tool.
just because its a game doesnt mean blizzard should be so goddamn lazy when it comes to the story, especially given the masterpiece that was the SC1 campaign
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Actually I had a hard feeling also when going through that mission, and postponed playing it as long as I could.
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On October 09 2010 04:04 ghostunit wrote:
The only reason he did it was money /.../ terrazim gas were of no importance to Raynor other than as merchandise
Steal a valuable commotidy, not available anywhere else from a bunch of religious fanatics, now where on earth might Blizzard have gotten this idea from.
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On October 11 2010 05:34 HopLight wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2010 04:04 ghostunit wrote:
The only reason he did it was money /.../ terrazim gas were of no importance to Raynor other than as merchandise Steal a valuable commotidy, not available anywhere else from a bunch of religious fanatics, now where on earth might Blizzard have gotten this idea from.
It would be interesting storytelling twist if Blizzard actually turned Raynor into the bad guy... The Protoss campaing are the last, and maybe you will play as the Tel'darim.
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On October 11 2010 03:40 VonLego wrote:
Seemed like a desperate way to work the artifacts into the storyline. You have to take it from somewhere... guess it has to be the protoss. Make them crazy, 90% of folks won't ask about why they're killing toss.
Yeah it drove me batty too.
The Tal'Darim are fanatics. Tychus said so. Fanatic has connotations of stuff like the Taliban and world trade centre.
90% of people are smarter than you.
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On October 11 2010 09:04 Billy_ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2010 03:40 VonLego wrote:
Seemed like a desperate way to work the artifacts into the storyline. You have to take it from somewhere... guess it has to be the protoss. Make them crazy, 90% of folks won't ask about why they're killing toss.
Yeah it drove me batty too. The Tal'Darim are fanatics. Tychus said so. Fanatic has connotations of stuff like the Taliban and world trade centre. 90% of people are smarter than you.
You are being sarcastic, right? My detector is broken or something, please clarify
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We know early on that the Tal'darim are considered to be somewhat crazier than the average Protoss. Jim is a friend of the Dark Templars as a result of all the time spent fighting with Zeratul in the previous games. The final artifact mission should be enough evidence to conclude that the Tal'Darim are hostile towards the DT, and suddenly it becomes a bit clearer as to why Jim doesn't feel too bad about killing the extremists.
The only mission versus the Tal'Darim Iwhich I had a problem with was the terrazine gas mission, which was because at the time I had no clues as to why Jim would risk making enemies with them for cash. But then I fought them again in the next mission while competing with the Zerg to get the second artifact piece, so I thought to myself that the terrazine mission didn't change anything in the overall scheme of the plot.
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You guys present long arguments about Raynor having to do what he has to do, but..
"All I ever wanted was for folks to live free."
That's supposed to be the defining quote for Raynor. Murdering Protoss for items he doesn't necessarily need doesn't quite jive with that.
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On October 11 2010 15:44 .Aar wrote:
You guys present long arguments about Raynor having to do what he has to do, but..
"All I ever wanted was for folks to live free."
That's supposed to be the defining quote for Raynor. Murdering Protoss for items he doesn't necessarily need doesn't quite jive with that.
Religious fanatics aren't "folks".
And taking some gas and leaving isn't impinging on anyone's freedoms.
Again, Raynor is a redneck. His notion of "freedom" means "not forced to do what you don't want to do by the gummint". He has no capacity for culturally sensitive, diplomatic nuance, and he doesn't care about alien religious taboos anymore than Burt Reynolds characters care for speed limits.
He's Jim Raynor, not Jean-Luc Picard.
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I guess the concensus is that
SC2 Raynor = Redneck Cowboy
Redneck Cowboys = dumb, culturally insensitive, and amoral
Funny, I never thought of SC1 Raynor in such a negative light. I guess a lot can change in 12 years!
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On October 11 2010 16:31 strongwind wrote:
I guess the concensus is that
SC2 Raynor = Redneck Cowboy
Redneck Cowboys = dumb, culturally insensitive, and amoral
Funny, I never thought of SC1 Raynor in such a negative light. I guess a lot can change in 12 years!
But Raynor isn't amoral. He's very morally upright about some things (hurting innocents, breaking his word). Other things, not so much.
Me, personally, I wouldn't give two shits about what the Tal'darim consider sacred. It's gas. I want it. Take your prophecies and shove em. Just because you have a belief doesn't mean I have to respect it above all else.
It's not like he broke into their houses and stole their furniture and now their children have nowhere to sleep. He went to a planet and took a little bit of natural resources. He didn't stripmine the place - there's no rational reason for the Tal'darim to object. And the artifacts weren't even made by the Tal'darim, they belong to the Xel'naga.
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Your missing the point that the story writers just watched the whole firefly series prior to making the plot. The amount of similarities including music is a bit over the top.
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Man, so people don't actually question the morality of killing a bunch of people to get at natural resources they possess, with the simple second-hand justification of 'oh they're just fanatics' being enough reason to waive any rights they may have had?
It is raiding and piracy of a group of people who have done you no wrong and you have no reason to expect will in the future, for what amounts to petty cash. Whether this is IC for Raynor or not, I cannot see this as being morally upright in the slightest, and is in fact a pretty brutal, murderous things to do.
The moral dissonance comes from the story literally bending over backwards to show Raynor in the best possible way, and we're supposed to accept this as an okay thing to do!
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It's amazing how the character Jim Raynor is able to spawn an entire ethics debate! It doesn't even end there! We've got people bringing up slavery, animal rights, Terrorists and insulting "redneck cowboys" as a whole! Truly amazing.
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On October 11 2010 17:54 PhoenixM1 wrote:
It's amazing how the character Jim Raynor is able to spawn an entire ethics debate! It doesn't even end there! We've got people bringing up slavery, animal rights, Terrorists and insulting "redneck cowboys" as a whole! Truly amazing.
I agree.
Well, he was alright with attacking Korhal to get some dirt on Mengsk. The news cast indicated that a lot of innocent people died that day.
And he didn't mind either betraying Tosh who was nothing but helpful. Or releasing thousands of potentially murderers, rapists, drug dealers and other criminal scum. And don't give me that shit about the game validating your choice with Matts "we did the right thing" conversation, there is NO WAY that they could be sure that everyone on the manifest were not an immoral terrorist or thug. New Folsom could have had a hundered Tycheses for every politcal prisoner.
He also cooperated with Arcturus to lure the Zerg onto the confederate outpost in SCI. Can't remember if they had innocents or not, but it just seems like Jim was only in it because of gratitude for breaking him out of jail. If he had a reason to hate the confederates so much I didn't see it, and he was just one man in an already large army.
But that's okay, educate me please.
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On October 11 2010 18:04 Billy_ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2010 17:54 PhoenixM1 wrote:
It's amazing how the character Jim Raynor is able to spawn an entire ethics debate! It doesn't even end there! We've got people bringing up slavery, animal rights, Terrorists and insulting "redneck cowboys" as a whole! Truly amazing. I agree. Well, he was alright with attacking Korhal to get some dirt on Mengsk. The news cast indicated that a lot of innocent people died that day. And he didn't mind either betraying Tosh who was nothing but helpful. Or releasing thousands of potentially murderers, rapists, drug dealers and other criminal scum. And don't give me that shit about the game validating your choice with Matts "we did the right thing" conversation, there is NO WAY that they could be sure that everyone on the manifest were not an immoral terrorist or thug. New Folsom could have had a hundered Tycheses for every politcal prisoner. He also cooperated with Arcturus to lure the Zerg onto the confederate outpost in SCI. Can't remember if they had innocents or not, but it just seems like Jim was only in it because of gratitude for breaking him out of jail. If he had a reason to hate the confederates so much I didn't see it, and he was just one man in an already large army. But that's okay, educate me please.
Your post makes sense just fine. All except the end quote there. To whom are you are you talking to? You quoted what I said but that certainly couldn't have been directed at me because nothing you said was in any way a rebuttal to what I said. So who is it exactly that is planning on educating you?
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On October 11 2010 17:48 Tracil wrote:
Man, so people don't actually question the morality of killing a bunch of people to get at natural resources they possess, with the simple second-hand justification of 'oh they're just fanatics' being enough reason to waive any rights they may have had?
The hell are you talking about?
Raynor told them "we're just here to get some gas, we're not looking for trouble". The Tal'darim attacked them, not for taking a small amount of natural resources, but for sacrilege.
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If I remember right every mission with getting the artifacts Jim Raynor gets attacked first.
The mission where the zerg are invading and trying to get the artifact cant even be put to a moral standard because the toss were losing badly and if jim didnt take it the zerg would have.
and lets not forget what happened on haven.
Although i guess haven wasnt the tal darim, but it demonstrates how well the protoss negotiate.
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On October 10 2010 05:02 hellokitty[hk] wrote:If you don't want to "kill" people, don't play starcraft/video games.
I find this too funny that hello kitty just told this guy to bugger off 
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On October 10 2010 13:45 yrag89 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2010 04:14 Toxigen wrote:
Here's why I don't have a problem with it:
1. Raynor isn't a saint. He's murdered before to get what he wants. He's part of a terrorist organization whose main goal (outside of the storyline of WoL) is to depose of the current, legitimate ruler of the Dominion.
2. The Tal'darim aren't completely innocent, either. If I remember correctly, they're a splinter group from the Aiur Protoss who don't want unification with the Dark Templar. Since Raynor was (and perhaps still is, due to his friendship with Zeratul) a friend to the Dark Templar and the Aiur refugees, it's natural that he'd have been the enemy of the Tal-darim simply by his past associations without "stealing" from them.
3. At the end of the day, why should the rules of ownership and etiquette apply to an alien race? What if the planet had been held by the Zerg? What if the Zerg decided they "owned" the planet and didn't want to let the Terrans take the terrazine? Would you have expected Raynor to negotiate with them? How come you're not up in arms about Raynor stealing minerals for Tosh from areas clearly "owned" by the Zerg on Redstone? I know this is the lore. But funny how we can see Stalkers and Void Ray in the Taldarim Army when they hate Dark Templars.
I personally hated this part of it too, because even the campaign is even complicit with it -- when you're doing that first Smash and Grab mission, the mission even advises you to "watch how the marauders handle those stalkers" or some garbage.
Would it really have been that hard to have old-school dragoons designs for those couple of missions, Blizzard? Were void rays really necessary when you already went old school with the scouts in Welcome to the Jungle? Lazy, lazy, lazy ... no other explanation.
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On October 11 2010 15:44 .Aar wrote:
You guys present long arguments about Raynor having to do what he has to do, but..
"All I ever wanted was for folks to live free."
That's supposed to be the defining quote for Raynor. Murdering Protoss for items he doesn't necessarily need doesn't quite jive with that.
Protoss aren't "folks." They obviously don't count.
If anything, Raynor is less a murderer and more a species-ist (not really racist, I guess).
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I'd rather shoot the Taldarim guys than only play TvZ throughout the whole campaign.
Seriously, people seem to ignore that the whole premise of SC or any RTS for that matter is armed conflict aka war.
Thats why the stories of most RTS games are quite phoney - the reasons why two factions shoot at each other are not limitless. After a few missions they all sound lame and made up. Replay BW and you will probably find similarities.
I actually didn't care about Raynor being all FU whoever stands in my way. The hair implant took away a lot of his white knight-cred I guess.
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As was said before:
The Taldarim have artifacts the zerg swarm is after. It is quite elaborated that the Protoss who are not the Dark Templar die like flies to them. That is from smash&grab onward always the case.
The Terrazin business however was kinda mean. On the other hand they shot first.
The notion that they´re fanatics was to imply they won´t negotiate.
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On October 11 2010 18:04 Billy_ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2010 17:54 PhoenixM1 wrote:
It's amazing how the character Jim Raynor is able to spawn an entire ethics debate! It doesn't even end there! We've got people bringing up slavery, animal rights, Terrorists and insulting "redneck cowboys" as a whole! Truly amazing. I agree. Well, he was alright with attacking Korhal to get some dirt on Mengsk. The news cast indicated that a lot of innocent people died that day. And he didn't mind either betraying Tosh who was nothing but helpful. Or releasing thousands of potentially murderers, rapists, drug dealers and other criminal scum. And don't give me that shit about the game validating your choice with Matts "we did the right thing" conversation, there is NO WAY that they could be sure that everyone on the manifest were not an immoral terrorist or thug. New Folsom could have had a hundered Tycheses for every politcal prisoner. He also cooperated with Arcturus to lure the Zerg onto the confederate outpost in SCI. Can't remember if they had innocents or not, but it just seems like Jim was only in it because of gratitude for breaking him out of jail. If he had a reason to hate the confederates so much I didn't see it, and he was just one man in an already large army. But that's okay, educate me please.
The game makes it a right choice regardless of what you choose. If you release the people in new folsom they are all good guys. if you betray tosh his ghosts are all bad guys. as for sc1, he cooperated because there was no other choice but he did not morally agree, it caused a divide between them.
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Oi, guys.
Don't you find it RIDICULOUS that Raynor would sacrifice his raider boys for some artifact raid against some Protoss who never lifted a finger against Raynor for some CASH?
I mean, it's not only the Protoss who are losing their lives over the entire affair, Raynor is sending his own boys out there to death for some MONEY!
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I'm surprised no one has pointed out Raynor's past. He's a criminal.. a robber and most likely a murderer, given that his partner in crime was put away for life on the same crimes. He's going to be morally ambiguous at best - obviously willing to circumvent his ideals to get what he wants.
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On October 12 2010 13:16 dukethegold wrote:
Oi, guys.
Don't you find it RIDICULOUS that Raynor would sacrifice his raider boys for some artifact raid against some Protoss who never lifted a finger against Raynor for some CASH?
I mean, it's not only the Protoss who are losing their lives over the entire affair, Raynor is sending his own boys out there to death for some MONEY!
if you actually played SCII you'd know that the first artifact piece was for money. By the time you get to the second, it should have been obvious to anyone that the Zerg also wanted the artifact. When the Zerg attacked the Tal'Darim for the artifact, it was clear which side was going to win, and it's also clear that anything that the Zerg wants is never a good thing for the protoss or terrans.
Why does any of this even require more explanation than the game provided?
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On October 12 2010 13:24 Billy_ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2010 13:16 dukethegold wrote:
Oi, guys.
Don't you find it RIDICULOUS that Raynor would sacrifice his raider boys for some artifact raid against some Protoss who never lifted a finger against Raynor for some CASH?
I mean, it's not only the Protoss who are losing their lives over the entire affair, Raynor is sending his own boys out there to death for some MONEY! if you actually played SCII you'd know that the first artifact piece was for money. By the time you get to the second, it should have been obvious to anyone that the Zerg also wanted the artifact. When the Zerg attacked the Tal'Darim for the artifact, it was clear which side was going to win, and it's also clear that anything that the Zerg wants is never a good thing for the protoss or terrans. Why does any of this even require more explanation than the game provided?
What are you talking about? I finished the game on brutal, just letting you know.
First of all, Raynor was collecting those artifacts for CASH. It wasn't for anti-Zerg campaign. In fact, Raynor NEVER even considered going against the Zerg until Mengsk Junior showed up in his red cape almighty dress, offered a way to restore Raynor's ex-girlfriend and half of Dominion's fleet for cannon fodding.
If YOU paid any attention to the campaign at all, it was plain obvious that Raynor's central campaign is the so called "anti-Mengsk, revolution for freedom" tagline. Raynor couldn't wait to get rid of the artifacts and call it a day.
Bottom line, Raynor isn't a hero, but a selfish anti-hero.
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Bottom line, Raynor isn't a hero, but a selfish anti-hero.
I agree.
But Kerrigan wanted the artifacts, and Jim knew it. All of the cinematics and script in that line of missions were related to her in some way. It's just the zerg are too powerful for jim to really consider fighting against. Only reason he succeeds with the artifacts is that kerrigan is multitasking te hell out of her zerg and so Jim is only against a very small percentage at any given time.
I'm mentioning all of this because your earlier post looked very biased.
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United Arab Emirates333 Posts
So glad to see a post about this, i was actually thinking about this and always got annoyed by the fact that im killing these protoss.
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Why didn't you get annoyed that the Tal'Darim were too selfish to give them away so that they'd assist in taking down the most powerful being alive?
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Eh, the Tal'darim in my mind are just a cop-out to provide Protoss opponents who it is acceptable to some players to kill. Raynor's not a "saint" as people keep saying but he doesn't seem to be written as a character who puts money or even reinforcements to his forces over lives lost. What I've garnered of his past service and criminal history seems to follow this track, outside influences notwithstanding. He fought in the damn battle/entire war of Aiur...
Only after either knowing the artifacts power regarding Xel'Naga creations or their war with the mainstream Protoss (Dalreim or something), would he have moral reason to kill them/take the artifact from them. But then their deaths don't seem to be written as unfortunate consequences of dangerous times, they're just "bad protoss" from the get go. Sloppy writing sums up their existance, that's all there is to it, really. tl:dr Agree with the OP
Plus, regarding referencing the books, the character in the any books can be expected to different to character in game, who was explicitly made to be the player avatar and a) hence not have a set characterisation and b) appeal to the wider audience of the game than the books.
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Sloppy writing sums up their existance, that's all there is to it, really. tl:dr Agree with the OP
It's sloppy if you judge WoL on it's own merits.
You say that you've played SCI? Then you might have noticed that all of the protoss tribes were generally welcoming to other tribes that followed the Khala, which was a thing they got from the conclave which had died on Auir. The Tal'Darim are what you get when there is no Khala to unite them, but don't you find it curious that they're so fanatical about their stuff, and yet they take the Dark Templar as prisoners rather than kill them on sight? Would Aldaris have allowed them to live as prisoners?
The Tal'Darim are interesting enough, but you can't expect the terran campaign to describe them in much depth. From what little I can put together, I think that they have potential to become interesting.
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Jim raynor is a liar, like all freedom fighters he will get dirty to get the job done. Then forget it ever happened later.
I would much prefer if he had Tychus' attitude. Tychus was a boss.
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Alot of people are saying that "It's supposed to be morally complex, Raynor's supposed to be willing to do anything to get the job done", etc. etc. And I'd be 100% okay with this if we even had the slightest mention of immorality in the campaign. Really, it just seems kind of silly to me that they don't even include two quick lines to amend this whole issue.
Horner: So, you shanked them Tal'darim for money, huh? Kinda low.
Raynor: yeah but I don't give a fuck
problem solved. Instead we just get the whole RAYNOR IS THE SAINT AND PATRON GOD OF MERCY AND JUSTICE AND FREEDOM despite the selfish bullshit he pulls through 75% of the campaign.
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^ exactly my point as OP.
Compare with the original Starcraft, which doesn't try to "sell you" anything story and character-wise. One's not bashed over the head with melodramatic cutscenes, speeches or music (which abound in SC2), one's not told what one should think about the characters or what they do, it's left up to the viewer.
In the original Starcraft, characters just do things both good and evil (and ambiguous of course) for all sorts of reasons and the story moves along, kinda like in real life. But I guess the producers have decided we're not smart enough to think anymore or something.
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this is absolutely ridiculous. jim raynor is an old, run down, alcoholic dog. his character is very much multi-faceted and typical anti-hero material. he's not good, he's not evil, he's just like you and me - selfish. there are a lot of interesting parts of the WoL-campaign where he reflects and wrestles with his guilt and feelings of responsibility. most of the time, he'll do what's right, but he sure as hell won't if it doesn't suit him well enough. he'll always do what has to be done, though.
i think everything in the campaign fits in well with the previous game. it's different, yes, it's much more theatrical and hollywoodesqe, but honestly, what did you expect? i think it's very fortunate that the producers didn't bother to elaborate extensively on what ever motivated every little decision that the characters made or why whatever happened. as for the morals of the protagonist, they even let us make some decisions through the story to make him what ever we wanted him to be. he's still an old, run down, alcoholic dog, though. no escaping that, i'm afraid. brilliant move on blizzards part, making him so flawed, so human. yep, i said it.
you don't have to think anything about the game, it's entirely up to you how, why, when and where you want to play it. if your hero has to be perfect, then you should really learn to appreciate reality instead of trying to get as far away from it as possible. you bought the game, right? so blizzard probably isn't trying to sell you something else right now. they are probably trying to tell you something. their product was a great experience in my opinion, maybe not really worth all that, but still, relatively awesome.
those of you whining about their hero possibly smoking some innocent protoss should stop thinking about raynor and go back to their matt horner worshipping antics.
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Read the books, Jim Raynor robs trains etc in the past before WoL, this is business as usual for him.
"Following the war, Raynor and Findlay became outlaws, conducting a series of heists over the years all across the Koprulu Sector. One of their most regular targets was the Shale Express, hitting it at least a dozen times. Not even the deployment of outriders could stop them"
Starcraft Wiki.
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On October 13 2010 00:39 Kyandid wrote:
Alot of people are saying that "It's supposed to be morally complex, Raynor's supposed to be willing to do anything to get the job done", etc. etc. And I'd be 100% okay with this if we even had the slightest mention of immorality in the campaign. Really, it just seems kind of silly to me that they don't even include two quick lines to amend this whole issue.
Horner: So, you shanked them Tal'darim for money, huh? Kinda low.
Raynor: yeah but I don't give a fuck
problem solved. Instead we just get the whole RAYNOR IS THE SAINT AND PATRON GOD OF MERCY AND JUSTICE AND FREEDOM despite the selfish bullshit he pulls through 75% of the campaign.
He does say this after siding with Tosh.
Matt Horner says that they released every brilliant mind (scientist, philosopher, politician) that opposed Mengk and was locked up because of it. Now they have supporters of FREEDOM AND CIVIL RIGHTS for the new society they establish once the Dominion is brought down. This is a rebuttal for those saying Raynor is selfish or antagonistic for wanting to depose a "legitimate" ruler (dictator) of the current Dominion. Seriously, the news reports with Donny and his eventually breakdown should have made this obvious, but people here actually defend Mengsk. Trollololol?
Then, Tosh calls Matt naive and says something like there will always be someone to replace Mengsk.
Raynor neither denies this or acknowledges it (but I think the over-dramatization and silence implies Raynor knows Tosh is right) but he puts a hand on Matt's shoulder and says, "You'll see that better future, Matt." Then he looks at Tosh, who has basically previously said both he and Raynor are murderers who will do whatever it takes to get revenge/what they want, and Raynor says, "But it ain't for the likes of us."
There you go, rebuttals for like 90% of the arguments here complaining about this or that and nitpicking or just flat out making ridiculous claims about the writing. Don't assume you've come up with some great unanswerable question that proves why the writers are terrible just because you don't understand the entirety of the campaign. Not that I'm claiming that I myself do.
Raynor: Most days... I don't even know what I'm doin' anymore. Just chasing my damn tail.
Horner: No. We've followed your lead from the start. It's your sense of justice that's kept us on this road.
Raynor: Matt, my interest in justice burned out a long time ago. I've spent my whole life fighting; I've killed, I've ordered good men to their deaths - and for what? Finishing this thing with Mengsk... it's all I have left. It's guys like you that'll build something better after all the smoke clears.
Horner: That's because you gave us something to believe in, sir. I'll never give up the fight. That's a promise.
This explains Raynor "sending his boys to their deaths" on certain missions for "just some gas and artifacts." Do people really sign up for a terrorist raiding party and expect not to put their lives at risk? Also outright refutes, rather than being a mere rebuttal, all the people saying Raynor is a hypocrite due to being obsessed with his personal views on justice, etc straight from Blizzard's writing team.
Yeah, that Raynor sure is a damn white-knight-templar hypocrite alright! Should complain about Horner, if anyone.
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I never really took to Raynor as a character personally, he was casted as some kind of pragmatic anti-hero but i never could get a real feel for his character. A problem is the decisions you can make during the campaign and the difference in character from SC1.
If you go the pragmatic route or whatever you should call it and side with Tosh and kill the infested settlers i feel the the character becomes more belivable. But i still struggle with some things, like what is his actual motive to save Kerrigan? Is it because of his feelings for her? Love? Guilt? Because she is the only hope for victory?
And the feel i got from the wole Tal'darim was that is was a pure cop-out to be able to fight some Protoss nothing else. And i just cried inside when it turns out that the artifacts he had been collecting to earn some cash on the side turns out to be the one thing in the whole galaxy that can magicly save Kerrigan. But that is a bit OT.
In the end i suppose Raynors choices and morals could be explained, but it just does not click or feel right when i play the campaign.
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But i still struggle with some things, like what is his actual motive to save Kerrigan? Is it because of his feelings for her? Love? Guilt? Because she is the only hope for victory?
Huh? Of course he would want to save her. Everyone that ever played the original campaign would, too, no matter what she did in the expansion. We loved her.
But that's just one more problem I have with WoL - I always tought that Raynor should more actively try to save her, or failing that, kill her (which still sort of saves her from the infested life).
He should have followed on the Stukov deinfestation; or the psi-disruptors neutralizing the Overmind's influence; or the possibility that her "soul" is immortal much like the cerebretes or like the Overmind or like some Protoss and can be reborn after the death of her body - maybe in a zerg cocoon like her first rebirth, a human cloned body, an artificial intelligence memory chip, a protoss dragoon form or just a spirit in the Khala or whatever; he should have insisted on assistance from the protoss in coming up with some variants and experiments; he should have researched as much as he could about the Xel'naga and their artifacts with the hope, however slim, that they might be able to help; he should have fucking done ANYTHING, not just go get drunk in a bar.
The fact that there was a solution to her deinfestation, but that solution was discovered and practically forced on him by, of all people, Mengsk's son absolutely makes me rage at the lazy retard that Raynor turned out to be. I hate him now.
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i felt like a rebel stealing those artifacts
blizzard mission accomplished?
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I think the apparent contradiction in Raynor's professed 'liberal' (in the classical sense) rhetoric and his violent action is actually good writing, because people do this all the time. Contradictions are inherent in the human experience and particularly in power politics.
Revolutionaries always cloak themselves in the highest of values, but often after victory they find themselves behaving similar to those who preceded them, or being ostracized from other states for challenging the mutually benefit international state system too directly. Mengsk is a fairly good example of this - an ambitious upper class person who used the weakness of one state to seize and centralize power for himself. He used his resources and appealing liberal rhetoric to create a well organized, centrally controlled group which served as the basis for his new state. Raynor apparently opposes that state, but I think more so he opposes Mengsk for what he did to Kerrigan.
How would Raynor be different now if Mengsk had protected Kerrigan and Raynor and found a place for both of them in his new government? I don't think we can be so sure that Raynor would still be fighting so "folks can live free," and he might instead have constructed a new rationalization for why the Dominion's work is actually good and much better than the Confederacy.
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On October 09 2010 07:14 101TFP wrote:
You all got it wrong, Raynor only attacked the Tal'darim because they possess weapons of mass destruction.
Have to quote it.
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On November 06 2010 07:25 Multi_passa wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2010 07:14 101TFP wrote:
You all got it wrong, Raynor only attacked the Tal'darim because they possess weapons of mass destruction. Have to quote it.
OMG I just realized how epic this post was. Thanks.
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On October 09 2010 07:14 101TFP wrote:
You all got it wrong, Raynor only attacked the Tal'darim because they possess weapons of mass destruction.
and totally not because of the taldarims gas reserves
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War is about causes and resources. No room for morality.
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On October 11 2010 03:23 kojinshugi wrote:
See, Raynor has a moral code. He won't kill innocents, and he won't attack unarmed people.
His moral code has no room in it for "sacred gas" or "sacred artifacts". As far as he is concerned, anyone opposed to him taking gas because of random spiritual mumbo-jumbo doesn't have an opinion worth considering past "can I get away with it without these nutjobs actually hurting me?".
He's a space redneck. That's a perfectly reasonable position for a space redneck to hold, even one that's pretty morally upright.
*Cut to the entire prophesy plot*
OWAIT-
There's a bunch of magical hunks of metal apparently have enough spiritual mumbo jumbo juice in them to save his GF-that-wasn't-really-his-GF-until-blizzard-wanted-the-most-sappy-and-retarded-character-interaction-possible and can also blast apart unlimited amounts of zerg. Not to mention the whole prophesy is kind of just thrown into the plot to add a greater enemy than the zerg, and there's a lot better and more creative ways to toss in new enemies. Remember the UED? If he really did think half the crap the protoss are saying is bull then the writers should have indicated so. Then the whole "do I kill kerrigan or do I not" issue might not have been totally moot.
What if Tosh instead of needing sacred plot juice wanted the khala? You know, the hunk of crystal that is responsible for all protoss society? I am pretty sure Raynor knows enough about the protoss that he realizes objects that are considered 'sacred' are probably considered as such for a reason. The Tal'darim state that they have had the gas for a time far longer than the terrans have travelled among the stars. This either indicates that:
a)The Tal'darim have been around for a very long time and because they are nuts they decide to all of a sudden worship some useless gas, which I don't think is how it worked, because otherwise there would simply HAVE to be some indication of their existance in SC1 (EG the council/aldaris mentioning them to be outcasts or whatever). This is not really possible unless Blizzard really has the most douchey writers ever.
or
b)The Tal'darim were recently formed and just happened to take possession of that planet from whatever the 'good' protoss faction is now (you know, the one with artanis, selendis, zeratul, etc). Protoss have had that gas for a long time and must have played a significant role in their race's development as a whole for the gas to be considered sacred. This seems like the far more logical option. If this is so, then the Tal'darim were 100% justified in attempting to protect the gas with their lives. If the 'goodguy' protis faction were there they would have had the exact same response to this human taking away part of who the protoss are in the same way the khala is.
In conclusion, the Tal'darim were actually protecting the gas not because they are nuts but because they wish to protect an object important to their entire race.
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Blizzard has a long and illustrious history of making you fight someone/some group of people because "they went crazy". That's it. They're just crazy fanatics, get to it hero!
Anyone who has played WoW or kept up with WoW lore knows exactly what I'm talking about.
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There's a bunch of magical hunks of metal apparently have enough spiritual mumbo jumbo juice in them to save his GF-that-wasn't-really-his-GF-until-blizzard-wanted-the-most-sappy-and-retarded-character-interaction-possible and can also blast apart unlimited amounts of zerg. Not to mention the whole prophesy is kind of just thrown into the plot to add a greater enemy than the zerg, and there's a lot better and more creative ways to toss in new enemies. Remember the UED? If he really did think half the crap the protoss are saying is bull then the writers should have indicated so. Then the whole "do I kill kerrigan or do I not" issue might not have been totally moot.
You're making an awfully big deal out of plot devices. Are you saying that the WoL plot would be improved by using more sci-fi elements and less fantasy? Would it really be so much better if WoL ended by hitting her with some kind of a serum like the UED did to the overmind and not some magical rocks? Would the original have been better without all of it's fantasy elements like the overminds holy rock and temple? Whats it matter if Blizzards latest cardboard cut out greater evil is prophisised when it currently appears to be serving in the precise same role of the UED and the legion which is to give Blizzard an excuse to churn out a sequel?
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This reminds me of the Drama the Deathknight quests on WoW started up.
For those of you who don't know, in said quests you slaughter innocents, and even kill one of your best friends.
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Jim Raynor only defends when he is being attacked by the Taldarim.
YES it is wrong to steal...but if you are a robber stealing from some guys house is it ok for the owner of the house to try to kill you? and if he did that wouldn't you try to defend?
Raynor needed the artifacts to create a good world, he just wanted to grab the artifacts and get the fuck out of there. The Taldarim tries to kill Raynor...Raynor defends.
Nothing wrong with that.
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I think Raynor was acting for the "greater good" when he attacked the Tal'darim. By making money by fighting them and taking their stuff Raynor can fight more against Mengsk. I am sure Mengsk has/will kill more Protoss than Raynor, so ultimately Raynor is helping save Protoss.
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@Humga and @undyinglight
Please read the original post, looks like you didn't.
Anyways,
YES it is wrong to steal...but if you are a robber stealing from some guys house is it ok for the owner of the house to try to kill you? and if he did that wouldn't you try to defend?
Yeah, it's like you suddenly found someone in your house who's armed to the teeth (just picture this in your house, would you not shoot someone who breaks into your family house carrying an assault rifle?).
So anyways, you actually tell him first to get the fuck out of your house but he replies "sure, just let me take some of your stuff and make some room here so that my also armed-to-the-teeth buddies can also stay while I steal from you, k?".
Yeah, that's totally like a recipe for peaceful diplomatic discussion and not at all for armed retaliation.
Besides, think about it the other way. If some alien species did that in a game to humans, the game would be all about the human heroes defending against the evil, greedy alien robbers.
I think Raynor was acting for the "greater good" when he attacked the Tal'darim. By making money by fighting them and taking their stuff Raynor can fight more against Mengsk. I am sure Mengsk has/will kill more Protoss than Raynor, so ultimately Raynor is helping save Protoss.
Mental gymnastics. Also, Mengsk and the Protoss have never cared for each other, at all. Also, if Raynor cared about Protoss lives, he would have tried some sort of diplomacy first, other than dropping in with a whole army all of a sudden. As said above, you can't have a discussion with someone who suddenly shows up inside your house bearing a shotgun.
The only exchange possible becomes "get the fuck out of my house or I shoot you".
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On November 06 2010 20:24 Seam wrote:
This reminds me of the Drama the Deathknight quests on WoW started up.
For those of you who don't know, in said quests you slaughter innocents, and even kill one of your best friends.
Wow, that's almost as if Death Knights were some kind of anti-paladins. oh wait
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Agreed on your point, its a huge plot hole as Raynor is supposed to be the good guy, the righteous guy, the one who does no harm, yet he easily killed them off without questions asked.
I think its a mistake on the part of Blizzard and they've proven they've made numerous mistakes in making the whole story.
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Topics still going? I might be inclined to agree with the OP if the game hadn't presented us with a pair of morally questionable scenarios. A lot of the choices came with moral and practical incentives for and against said choice.
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On October 09 2010 04:04 ghostunit wrote:
Greetings, I'd like to discuss something that I found rather jarring in WoL's campaign and it was the whole killing the Tal'darim thing. I think this makes Raynor sort of a murderer after all.
The facts are:
> The only reason he did it was money. The artifacts and terrazim gas were of no importance to Raynor other than as merchandise for Tosh and the Moebius Foundation. Only until the last char mission did they turn out to be important, but that doesn't justify the original intent and decision.
> The artifacts and terrazim gas were the Tal'darim's stuff. Just because you want/need someone else's stuff doesn't justify stealing and killing just so you can get what you want (money, in this case).
> Instead of using diplomacy, Raynor first meets them once his army is deployed and already engaged in the whole stealing business. Even if diplomacy wouldn't work, that doesn't justify armed conflict since, again, it's THEIR stuff.
> The Tal'darim are depicted as ok to kill because they are fanatics. In the first mission briefing where you fight them Tychus says "don't get teary-eyed because they are not your regular Protoss pals, they are fanatics" thus implying "these Protoss are ok to kill, it's open season on them". Which is bullshit, because if someone's not directly attacking you, you have no reason to open fire on them just because you don't like them.
In conclusion, meeting the owners of something with an army and slaughtering them if they refuse to give you what you want is a pretty heinous act.
Blizzard should have written this part much better, because the overall theme puts a lot of effort in painting Raynor as some sort of idealistic, flawless hero and infallible good man (even the choices you make change the past so you end up right), but these missions introduce a lot of cognitive dissonance by trying to sweep under the rug this murderous spree.
Are you an anarchist? Because only anarchists can use the non-aggression argument without contradicting themselves.
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On November 06 2010 14:18 Hinanawi wrote:
Blizzard has a long and illustrious history of making you fight someone/some group of people because "they went crazy". That's it. They're just crazy fanatics, get to it hero!
Anyone who has played WoW or kept up with WoW lore knows exactly what I'm talking about.
This can only be highlighted.
Whenever convenient and especially in WoW, Blizzard has justified killing people or fractions because they have become "insane", "corrupted", "twisted" - or in this case, "fanatic".
However, most of the time the slaughter was for some kind of greater good - usually protecting someone from the raging minions of the insanecorruptedtwistedfanatic overlord. The Taldarim may be fanatics of some kind, but it's not exactly like they're threatenin the future of the universe. They just sit there with their artifacts and Jimmy murders them for money.
Yet another example for the atrocious WoL storytelling.
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On November 12 2010 21:11 Shockk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 14:18 Hinanawi wrote:
Blizzard has a long and illustrious history of making you fight someone/some group of people because "they went crazy". That's it. They're just crazy fanatics, get to it hero!
Anyone who has played WoW or kept up with WoW lore knows exactly what I'm talking about. This can only be highlighted. Whenever convenient and especially in WoW, Blizzard has justified killing people or fractions because they have become "insane", "corrupted", "twisted" - or in this case, "fanatic". However, most of the time the slaughter was for some kind of greater good - usually protecting someone from the raging minions of the insanecorruptedtwistedfanatic overlord. The Taldarim may be fanatics of some kind, but it's not exactly like they're threatenin the future of the universe. They just sit there with their artifacts and Jimmy murders them for money. Yet another example for the atrocious WoL storytelling.
To both of you Blizzard is a masterful storyteller, there stories are some of the greatest in existence. You shouldn't call a storyline bad just because you can't understand the drive of one of the characters. Raynor did what he did because he needed to get the Artifacts for money to fight Mengsk.
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Except the tal'darim are good guys. they're protecting the artifacts because they'll bring back/empower the hybrids/do something bad.
That whole wiping the zerg from a planet thing is probably just a secondary ability.
How do I know? Because Dr. Narud is the leader of the moebius foundation which wants to collect them all. And we all know who Dr. Narud is.
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On November 06 2010 10:23 Hesmyrr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 07:25 Multi_passa wrote:On October 09 2010 07:14 101TFP wrote:
You all got it wrong, Raynor only attacked the Tal'darim because they possess weapons of mass destruction. Have to quote it. OMG I just realized how epic this post was. Thanks.
Hahahahahaha :D
Aye and a year later Kerrigan says "If I was Raynor, I had found the weapons" (I hope anyone remembers this great quote in it's original :D)
Well, I've no problem with Raynor beeing not a flawless hero, but this really goes pretty much against any reasoning, nice opening post. Well, if they had sticked to this kind of character - cruel and smashing anything in his way regardless of any kind of ethics - I wouldn't have any problem with this issue. But as other points and actions he makes totally go the other way, this Tal'darim issue just is totally inconsistent about his character.
One Example:
In Save Haven story, he either tries to do the morally justified thing and to do everything to keep the settlers alive or he assists wiping them out but under huge qualms and also only to do the right thing for the sake of the universe and other humans. He acts altruistic either way an action fitting to egoistic/qualmless character would be totally ignoring what's happening and turn tail.
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Raynor's not a 'good' character. If I recall correctly, he didn't even think that genocide on Tarsonis was a particularly terrible idea. It was a good plan - right up until Mengsk marooned his retcon-girlfriend there.
Given that, killing people, err Protoss because he wants to pawn their stuff can't be a big stretch for him.
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Essentially it's a somewhat grating plot hole that's a result of blizzard feeling that the protoss need to play a role in a story whose premise doesn't involve them at all. Otherwise, why are they in the game?
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On November 13 2010 22:01 Yukidasu wrote:
Essentially it's a somewhat grating plot hole that's a result of blizzard feeling that the protoss need to play a role in a story whose premise doesn't involve them at all. Otherwise, why are they in the game?
Legacy is about tribal diplomacy according to the old wiki link. Zeratul is the Protoss protagonist. The Tal'darim don't like the Dark Templars very much, and they also worship the mysterious Xel'Naga. So yes, they're kind of a hint for things to come. But I guess the main thing that they did was provide a narrative framework for fun missions and for somewhere to shove all of the Kerrigan related cinematics and dialogue which had come with each artifact piece.
I guess that the purpose of the Tal'Darim from WoL could be retroactively fleshed out more fully in the Protoss expansion where it belongs? We already know a little bit about them from the Terran only campaign. They're crazy worshippers who huff terrazine, and are disloyal to the Dark Templars. If we weren't going to fight Tal'Darim for it then how would it have gone? The zerg wanted it for themselves or to destroy them. If the Dominion had them, then why would they need Jim at all? The Protoss have a history with mystical magical rock since the original Zerg campaign, so yeah...
I guess you can chalk it up to Blizzard artificially extended the single player game. It's a common practice that certain developers (Hello Bioware) do in excess.
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On November 13 2010 18:54 undyinglight wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 21:11 Shockk wrote:On November 06 2010 14:18 Hinanawi wrote:
Blizzard has a long and illustrious history of making you fight someone/some group of people because "they went crazy". That's it. They're just crazy fanatics, get to it hero!
Anyone who has played WoW or kept up with WoW lore knows exactly what I'm talking about. This can only be highlighted. Whenever convenient and especially in WoW, Blizzard has justified killing people or fractions because they have become "insane", "corrupted", "twisted" - or in this case, "fanatic". However, most of the time the slaughter was for some kind of greater good - usually protecting someone from the raging minions of the insanecorruptedtwistedfanatic overlord. The Taldarim may be fanatics of some kind, but it's not exactly like they're threatenin the future of the universe. They just sit there with their artifacts and Jimmy murders them for money. Yet another example for the atrocious WoL storytelling. To both of you Blizzard is a masterful storyteller, there stories are some of the greatest in existence. You shouldn't call a storyline bad just because you can't understand the drive of one of the characters. Raynor did what he did because he needed to get the Artifacts for money to fight Mengsk.
Blizzard's stories and plots are pretty good, considering we're talking about video games. They aren't "masterful", though. Blizzard excels at creating the right atmosphere and the mechanics to transport their story, but there are few games that truly have a "masterfully told" story (Planescape Torment comes to mind).
And I'm not calling WoL's storyline "bad". I'm calling it atrocius. And not only because of Raynor, because of everything that's been done to the oh-so promising original StarCraft setting.
But enough de-railing.
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Sorry to hear that.
To WoL's credit, it did bridge gaps in the SC1 narrative which, until now, were huge gaping plot-holes. Why did the Overmind take a physical form on Aiur where it would be vulnerable to attack? Maybe because it wanted to die. Why did it leave Kerrigan, raising whom it had made such a top priority, back on Char? Maybe because her importance was in outliving it and, eventually, bringing the Zerg back to their roots. Whether or not these things needed filling depends on who you ask.... I had assumed the Overmind simply changed the game plan once Zeratul murdered Zasz and decided that Kerrigan should deal with the DT since she wasn't a vulnerable blob of brains, so you know, I just kind of dismissed it as a change of strategy. Overminds decision to land on Auir with the knowledge that the protoss could end it's life confused me at the time, and it was even more confusing that the Zerg were steamrolling the Protoss during the Zerg campaign, but then just kind of get defeated even after Aldaris declares war on Tassadar which would most likely have ensured victory for the Zerg. Now that I've played WoL it makes sense.
Also, we really aren't clear yet on to what extent that anything is been retconned. We just got some prophetic message from a ghost, and these things are generally vague as a general rule of thumb. WoL has only scratched the surface, are you sure that calling it atrocious isn't premature? I haven't actually read the SCI manual, so I don't know how much SCII has gone against that.
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On November 14 2010 00:21 Billy_ wrote:
Sorry to hear that.
To WoL's credit, it did bridge gaps in the SC1 narrative which, until now, were huge gaping plot-holes. Why did the Overmind take a physical form on Aiur where it would be vulnerable to attack? Maybe because it wanted to die. Why did it leave Kerrigan, raising whom it had made such a top priority, back on Char? Maybe because her importance was in outliving it and, eventually, bringing the Zerg back to their roots. Whether or not these things needed filling depends on who you ask.... I had assumed the Overmind simply changed the game plan once Zeratul murdered Zasz and decided that Kerrigan should deal with the DT since she wasn't a vulnerable blob of brains, so you know, I just kind of dismissed it as a change of strategy. Overminds decision to land on Auir with the knowledge that the protoss could end it's life confused me at the time, and it was even more confusing that the Zerg were steamrolling the Protoss during the Zerg campaign, but then just kind of get defeated even after Aldaris declares war on Tassadar which would most likely have ensured victory for the Zerg. Now that I've played WoL it makes sense.
Also, we really aren't clear yet on to what extent that anything is been retconned. We just got some prophetic message from a ghost, and these things are generally vague as a general rule of thumb. WoL has only scratched the surface, are you sure that calling it atrocious isn't premature? I haven't actually read the SCI manual, so I don't know how much SCII has gone against that.
And if i say that the Overmind went to Aiur knowing the protoss there cant really kill him? Maybe because the dark templars are banished from Aiur?
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On November 14 2010 00:21 Billy_ wrote:
Sorry to hear that.
To WoL's credit, it did bridge gaps in the SC1 narrative which, until now, were huge gaping plot-holes. Why did the Overmind take a physical form on Aiur where it would be vulnerable to attack? Maybe because it wanted to die. Why did it leave Kerrigan, raising whom it had made such a top priority, back on Char? Maybe because her importance was in outliving it and, eventually, bringing the Zerg back to their roots. Whether or not these things needed filling depends on who you ask.... I had assumed the Overmind simply changed the game plan once Zeratul murdered Zasz and decided that Kerrigan should deal with the DT since she wasn't a vulnerable blob of brains, so you know, I just kind of dismissed it as a change of strategy. Overminds decision to land on Auir with the knowledge that the protoss could end it's life confused me at the time, and it was even more confusing that the Zerg were steamrolling the Protoss during the Zerg campaign, but then just kind of get defeated even after Aldaris declares war on Tassadar which would most likely have ensured victory for the Zerg. Now that I've played WoL it makes sense.
Also, we really aren't clear yet on to what extent that anything is been retconned. We just got some prophetic message from a ghost, and these things are generally vague as a general rule of thumb. WoL has only scratched the surface, are you sure that calling it atrocious isn't premature? I haven't actually read the SCI manual, so I don't know how much SCII has gone against that.
The Overmind had to go to Aiur so the Zerg could assimilate the Protoss. What, are you just going to bring the Protoss race all back to Char?
And Kerrigan specifically stayed behind to kill the remaining Protoss.
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I have a question, if the Tal'darim hate the Dark Templar... why do they use Stalkers? Stalkers are Dark Templar fused into those mechanical shells. So, why do they use Stalkers?
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Raynor is clearly the aggressor, but there are some atenuating circumstances:
*Raynor only wanted their stuff, not to exterminate the Tal'Darim
*Tal'Darim were not willing to talk, negotiate or barter. They reduced Raynor's options to 'GTFO' or 'Fight'
*Raynor did not go around slaughtering Tal'Darim, he only cut down those who openly wanted to fight him and even then he picked up and left as soon as he got what he wanted.
*Looking at the way the Tal'Darim behaved, Raynor was probably a lot more reasonable and merciful than the Tal'Darim would've been, were their roles reversed.
*Raynor was fighting for a good cause (i.e. opposing Mengsk's tyranny). The ends don't justify the means, I know, but it's a consideration.
Raynor's actions were not morally impeccable, to be sure. But it's not like he was violating some previously accepted social contract and gravely wronging the Tal'Darim- if there are no preestablished terms for dialogue and dealing with one another, then you make up the terms of engagement as you go- and the Tal'Darim weren't exactly cooperating towards a peaceful arrangement.
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On November 17 2010 09:21 Aegis Runestone wrote:
I have a question, if the Tal'darim hate the Dark Templar... why do they use Stalkers? Stalkers are Dark Templar fused into those mechanical shells. So, why do they use Stalkers?
Good point there!
Maybe they fused their own zealots...
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Canada13386 Posts
On November 18 2010 08:20 FinestHour wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2010 09:21 Aegis Runestone wrote:
I have a question, if the Tal'darim hate the Dark Templar... why do they use Stalkers? Stalkers are Dark Templar fused into those mechanical shells. So, why do they use Stalkers? Good point there! Maybe they fused their own zealots...
I think that Blizzard just simply ignored the lore on this one though hopefully they don't make the same mistake in the future. we need an SC2 red shirt guy on our side to make sure our lore doesn't get messed up either. Red shirt FTW
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On November 17 2010 09:21 Aegis Runestone wrote:
I have a question, if the Tal'darim hate the Dark Templar... why do they use Stalkers? Stalkers are Dark Templar fused into those mechanical shells. So, why do they use Stalkers?
In the book, the Tal'darim have been so brainwashed by Ulrezaj (A dark archon fused with 7 dark templar) that they themselves did not notice that they had become dark templar.
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Then why do they have immortals? Or better yet: why do they have access to all those new tecnology created in Shakuras (Void Ray, Stalker, Immortal, Warp Prism), when they never went there?
Colossi: fine.
Mothership: fine.
VR? Stalker? Immortal? Doesn't make sense, IMO.
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It is an unacceptable plothole and it has made the whole of WoL incoherent. Blizz deserve to have a horde of Zerglings unleashed upon them for this travesty, yes.
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On November 18 2010 23:48 Billy_ wrote:
It is an unacceptable plothole and it has made the whole of WoL incoherent. Blizz deserve to have a horde of Zerglings unleashed upon them for this travesty, yes.
whoop, here's Billy the fanboy coming in to defend everything about WoL. Right on time too.
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On November 18 2010 15:44 Reaper9 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2010 09:21 Aegis Runestone wrote:
I have a question, if the Tal'darim hate the Dark Templar... why do they use Stalkers? Stalkers are Dark Templar fused into those mechanical shells. So, why do they use Stalkers? In the book, the Tal'darim have been so brainwashed by Ulrezaj (A dark archon fused with 7 dark templar) that they themselves did not notice that they had become dark templar.
Ah... that makes sense. Thanks.
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On November 10 2010 03:23 ghostunit wrote:@Humga and @undyinglight Please read the original post, looks like you didn't. Anyways, Show nested quote +YES it is wrong to steal...but if you are a robber stealing from some guys house is it ok for the owner of the house to try to kill you? and if he did that wouldn't you try to defend? Yeah, it's like you suddenly found someone in your house who's armed to the teeth (just picture this in your house, would you not shoot someone who breaks into your family house carrying an assault rifle?). So anyways, you actually tell him first to get the fuck out of your house but he replies "sure, just let me take some of your stuff and make some room here so that my also armed-to-the-teeth buddies can also stay while I steal from you, k?". Yeah, that's totally like a recipe for peaceful diplomatic discussion and not at all for armed retaliation. Besides, think about it the other way. If some alien species did that in a game to humans, the game would be all about the human heroes defending against the evil, greedy alien robbers. Show nested quote +I think Raynor was acting for the "greater good" when he attacked the Tal'darim. By making money by fighting them and taking their stuff Raynor can fight more against Mengsk. I am sure Mengsk has/will kill more Protoss than Raynor, so ultimately Raynor is helping save Protoss. Mental gymnastics. Also, Mengsk and the Protoss have never cared for each other, at all. Also, if Raynor cared about Protoss lives, he would have tried some sort of diplomacy first, other than dropping in with a whole army all of a sudden. As said above, you can't have a discussion with someone who suddenly shows up inside your house bearing a shotgun. The only exchange possible becomes "get the fuck out of my house or I shoot you".
What makes you think i didn't read the original post? How would i know what to talk about if i didn't?
In regards to your opinion. I do not believe so. I think and the courts would agree with me, that killing is not the right way to deal with someone stealing.
I can totally understand why the Taldarim would try to defend the relics to the death, it's there religion. Jim Raynor however does not obviously believe in the Taldarim religion therefore when he tries to steal something and is fired upon, it is justifiable to defend himself.
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Not to intrude on this discussion,but isn't the first canonical actual meeting with the Tal'darim.The Dig.Raynor goes down to the planet,not knowing what cleared the science expedition.
There the Taldarim greet him with."More terran thieves,you will pay for youre transgressions with you're life"Im not sure,thou those are the main missions.
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EPT
