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First off, this contains massive spoilers for anyone who as not played the campaign all the way through, so if you haven't, you should probably close this tab now!
I have been reading several threads where people complain about the change in Jim's attitude toward Kerrigan between BW and WoL. The basic issue is that in BW, Jim tells Kerrigan "I'll see you dead for this, Kerrigan" (in reference to her betraying and killing Fenix, heres a link to the dialog: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Raynor#cite_note-22). But in WoL, Jim spends a lot of time reminiscing about Kerrigan and then ends up saving her (even killing one of his oldest friends to do so).
Many people have said that this is a direct clash and that it waters down the plot, makes it feel like a soap opera, "pussyfies" SC, etc. I can see both sides of this argument, and honestly am not sure where I stand. Please share your thoughts in this thread; I am very curious to see what people think. To give you some things to think about, I will present both arguments as I see them:
Argument against WoL ending:
In SC1 and BW, we see Jim meet Sarah Kerrigan, develop feelings for her, and then see her betrayed by Mengsk and (apparently) killed by the Zerg. When it is revealed that Kerrigan was not killed, but instead faces a fate worse then death as a corrupted, twisted agent of the overmind, we see Jim struggle to come to terms with her new self.
BW continues this emotional roller coaster as we see her freed from the Overminds control and comes to Jim and Zeratul as an ally against a common foe. Just as Jim is starting to trust her again, she betrays him and murders his friend Fenix. This is a very well done and detailed plot line, which shows depth and character growth as Jim must make impossible decisions and face hard realities.
Now WoL comes along and the hardened, bitter Jim we knew from BW seems to be replaced with a helpless romantic, clinging to the memory of Sarah. When he learns that there is the chance to save Kerrigan and return her to human form, he risks the lives of his entire crew to do so (and, by proxy, the freedom of the entire sector, since if he is the only one who seems to be able to stage an effective resistance to Mengsk).
All those hard choices are gone, he takes the easy choice, it works, and they all live happily ever after. <sarcasm>Yay!</sarcasm>
Argument in favor of WoL ending:
Jim has been left an emotional wreck after the events of BW. Loosing Kerrigan only to see her transformed into the Queen of Blades, then being given a sliver of hope that she can be saved, only to be betrayed has left him a bitter, twister man. He lives only to avenge Sarah and destroy the dominion. The Queen of Blades and her Zerg army have been dormant for years. After all that time it becomes easy to forget the atrocities which the Queen of Blades has committed; to forget the twisted, evil person she has become. Sitting alone at night, staring at the photograph of her, he starts to wonder if maybe, just maybe, Sarah is still in there, somewhere. He knows it is a false hope, he reminds himself of her betrayal on Korhal. But still, the spark grows.
When he learns that the Xel'Naga artifact may have the ability to bring Sarah back to him, this spark erupts into an inferno; hope springs forth. If he can save Sarah, he can bring closure to a huge part of his life. Remember, ever since the end of the Terran campaign in SC1 he has been fighting to bring down Mengsk; not because he was an evil dictator (the dominion was just as bad and Jim wasn't a freedom fighter then), but because he believes that if he kills Mengsk, he will have avenged Sarah's death and will reach closure that way.
If he saves Sarah, he is still honoring his promise to kill Kerrigan and avenge the death of Fenix, in a way. By saving Sarah, he will destroy the Queen of Blades. It was the Queen of Blades that betrayed him on Korhal and killed billions of people, not Sarah. In another thread I make the connection between Kerrigan and the narrator in Fight Club. Kerrigan is the physical being. The Queen of Blades and Sarah Kerrigan are two separate people, who both exist in the same body. Destroying the body is only one way to kill the Queen of Blades. Using the powers from the artifact is another; an exorcism of sorts, if you will.
If you have gotten this far after reading my essay of a post, then cudos to you. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
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I read it, but have no opinion.. I can see points in both sides and I seriously have no idea to which one I agree the most. I still feel Kerrigan isn't fully saved and she'll turn evil again in the new expansion.
Time will tell 
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On October 15 2010 03:03 Misca wrote:I read it, but have no opinion.. I can see points in both sides and I seriously have no idea to which one I agree the most. I still feel Kerrigan isn't fully saved and she'll turn evil again in the new expansion. Time will tell
I am very interested to see what she is like in the new expansion. Obviously they need some way for the Zerg to still be a powerful force, but without the Queen of Blades, the Zerg would be leaderless and would run rogue. It is also interesting to note that in the final cinematic, Kerrigan has mostly reverted to human form (human skin instead of a carapace, no wings, etc), but she still has the crazy spine hair... I have no idea what this implies, but we should see some very interesting things occur in the next expansion. Perhaps we will see a saved Sarah Kerrigan who still has control of the Swarm and uses it for good?
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
Duran for new zerg leader - epic surprise - cough cough
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im pretty sure that if the noble spirit of fenix could choose between killing kerrigan in revenge thereby dooming the galaxy forever and saving her human bit so she could save the rest of them, he would choose the latter.
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Well i played the broodwar campaign when i was 13 years old 9 years ago so i cant have a creditable opinion on this matter, but eventho i just want to state that the movies in wol of kerrigan left on her own fighting the zerg made me cry. This created a huge desire in me to a "happy ever after" and it was so unsure untill the very end when tychus could have easily killed sarah.. I really enjoyed the capaign of wol and im looking forward to hos and lotv
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Well... I don't think that the relationship between Jim and Sarah was that much romantic (maybe it was? I haven't seen it in original SC...).
What drives him into saving her is - IMO - mainly a sense of guilt. Jim is the knight-in-a-shiny-armor type of guy and he can't forgive himself that he didn't manage to save Kerrigan from Zerg (on Tarsonis). Seeing what she's become (after being infested) only made this sense of guilt deeper (like what Matt said: "You're not responsible of what happened to Kerrigan").
Now - 4 years after Brood War - Jim is even more wrecked.
4 years of pretty much fruitless guerrilla war against Dominion (Yeah, I bet that what he did in these recent years looked just like the first scenario of campaign) must be devastating. I bet that even if he wanted to be at least a bit angry with Kerrigan for her treachery, he's simply too tired to feel it.
What definitely remained is the memory of the Swarm's military potential. He knows that Zerg can't be defeated in a straight forward fight. That's why he made a decision of assault on Char relatively easy.
And no - Duran won't lead the Swarm  However it would be nice to finally see him again (I mean in his "Duran" form - not the Narud one )
BTW
I wonder if Kerrigan's hair have the same functionality as the Protoss ones...
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I think it was a logical move story-wise.
That was the only real development after having Kerrigan be the evil vilain in BW. Getting her killed would have been soooo anti-climatic.
Plus there has always been an underground romance between the two, and it has been a great success from Blizzard not to make it too obvious. They manage to make the feeling of their characters quite subtle. Which is a huge achievement for a video game. Compare Kerrigan / raynor relationship overall with the bullcrap scenario of Warcraft 3 and its stereotyped hero with their cheesy ridiculous love stories.
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Here is my problem with this.
There is a disconnect between WoL and SC1. [small recap] At the end of BW, you see Jim in a murderous rage over Fenix's death. He vows to see her dead. In the beginning of WoL, Jim is a reminiscent drunk that yearns to return Kerrigan to normal. He will go to great lengths not to kill her like he promised, but to save her from her Zerg self.
Inherently, there is nothing wrong with this. In BW, Jim seems utterly remorseful that he had to leave Kerrigan to her doom, which could be construed as romantic love. Jim never hints too much at this, but it is left somewhat open to interpretation. Even his promise to have her killed could be waved off as just something he says in a blind rage.
The problem? There is no good segue into his apparent transition from killing her to saving her. Why not some flashbacks? Some internal struggle between hating her guts and inwardly loving her? I mean, this is a major change for Raynor's character, so why not flesh it out some more? There are some points where they hint at this, but they are few and far between. Instead, we get to see some drunk guy staring at some photo we've never seen before, crying about some lost love that was never fully developed.
Secondly, and this might not be as noticeable, but SC2 Kerrigan is also different from her SC1 character. In SC1, Kerrigan actually relishes being the Queen of Blades. As mentioned before, Kerrigan is not some lost soul trapped inside her infested self. She is consciously aware of what she has become, and she likes it. The power had gone to her head. In SC2, when Raynor valiantly sweeps her off into the sunset, none of this is displayed. She seems happy to be back to normal. When did this transition happen? When did the queen bitch of the universe become a cute little puppy?
Third, the dialogue was horrendous. I'm sure even if they did flesh it out, it would just mean more cliches would be thrown around. Whoever's writing this dialogue should be fired and replaced. There is just no excuse for it.
So yeah, even though I personally disliked the overall plot of the whole thing (it's just way too overdone), I thought they could've made it work with much better execution.
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SC and SC:BW had to cover a lot more story in a much shorter mission time-span. This game gave us 26 (correct?) missions of just Jim Raynor. In every book I've read involving Jim Raynor, he has always been portrayed as a hopeless romantic cowboy lost in a vast space opera.
I think the reason most people are surprised by Jim's "sudden change of character" is because they didn't read any of the fiction available (sanctioned by Blizzard) and they didn't have the oppertunity to see Jim's character this is depth during SC:BW.
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On October 15 2010 06:25 strongwind wrote:Secondly, and this might not be as noticeable, but SC2 Kerrigan is also different from her SC1 character. In SC1, Kerrigan actually relishes being the Queen of Blades. As mentioned before, Kerrigan is not some lost soul trapped inside her infested self. She is consciously aware of what she has become, and she likes it. The power had gone to her head. In SC2, when Raynor valiantly sweeps her off into the sunset, none of this is displayed. She seems happy to be back to normal. When did this transition happen? When did the queen bitch of the universe become a cute little puppy?
She's faking it... Hopefully.
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Replace every scene in WoL where Raynor is staring wistfully at a picture of Kerrigan with a scene of Jimmy staring wistfully at a picture of Fenix and WoL would've had a great storyline/been actually canonically accurate to BW.
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On October 15 2010 06:51 JohannesH wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2010 06:25 strongwind wrote:Secondly, and this might not be as noticeable, but SC2 Kerrigan is also different from her SC1 character. In SC1, Kerrigan actually relishes being the Queen of Blades. As mentioned before, Kerrigan is not some lost soul trapped inside her infested self. She is consciously aware of what she has become, and she likes it. The power had gone to her head. In SC2, when Raynor valiantly sweeps her off into the sunset, none of this is displayed. She seems happy to be back to normal. When did this transition happen? When did the queen bitch of the universe become a cute little puppy? She's faking it... Hopefully.
I really, really hope this is the case. Hopefully she'll escape the Hyperion somehow.
I don't buy the "Jim hates QoB, not Sarah" argument because BW showed us that Sarah is the QoB, regardless of any outside influence (the Overmind). She already gave up her humanity, willingly.
Kerrigan has yet to answer for her crimes, and this needs to be addressed.
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On October 15 2010 09:06 .Aar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2010 06:51 JohannesH wrote:On October 15 2010 06:25 strongwind wrote:Secondly, and this might not be as noticeable, but SC2 Kerrigan is also different from her SC1 character. In SC1, Kerrigan actually relishes being the Queen of Blades. As mentioned before, Kerrigan is not some lost soul trapped inside her infested self. She is consciously aware of what she has become, and she likes it. The power had gone to her head. In SC2, when Raynor valiantly sweeps her off into the sunset, none of this is displayed. She seems happy to be back to normal. When did this transition happen? When did the queen bitch of the universe become a cute little puppy? She's faking it... Hopefully. I really, really hope this is the case. Hopefully she'll escape the Hyperion somehow. I don't buy the "Jim hates QoB, not Sarah" argument because BW showed us that Sarah is the QoB, regardless of any outside influence (the Overmind). She already gave up her humanity, willingly. Kerrigan has yet to answer for her crimes, and this needs to be addressed.
nOoOOooOoo
Objectively, in this story, Kerrigan is a victim. It's kind of obvious that the human Kerrigan wouldn't have done what the infested Kerrigan does in BW. And maybe Raynor doesn't have this shitty conception of justice that if someone does something wrong even without being himself, you have to get revenge regardless the circunstances.
People don't understand that Raynor has mixed feeling towards Kerrigan; for one time, the evolution of this scenario is not just an incoherent mess, I would even say that's the really good part about it: the ambivalance of what he thinks and feels throughout SC, BW and WoL.
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On October 15 2010 09:06 .Aar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2010 06:51 JohannesH wrote:On October 15 2010 06:25 strongwind wrote:Secondly, and this might not be as noticeable, but SC2 Kerrigan is also different from her SC1 character. In SC1, Kerrigan actually relishes being the Queen of Blades. As mentioned before, Kerrigan is not some lost soul trapped inside her infested self. She is consciously aware of what she has become, and she likes it. The power had gone to her head. In SC2, when Raynor valiantly sweeps her off into the sunset, none of this is displayed. She seems happy to be back to normal. When did this transition happen? When did the queen bitch of the universe become a cute little puppy? She's faking it... Hopefully. Stuff about Kerrigan
What is all this crap about people who can't or won't open up to the possibility that Jim simply does not blame Kerrigan for what she did after the transfiguration? DNA is a complex thing, and Jim actually knew her before she was a bitch. He wanted to bone her as soon as they met face to face, and he only changed his mind about killing her because Valarian offered the alternative solution.
In HotS I'm fairly sure that there will be very few people other than Jim, Matt and Zeratul who will give her a chance, and I'd expect Jim to be a bit concerned about the head tendrils, but that doesn't justify what would have been a cold blooded murder if he didn't stop Tychus. Remember when Jim decided that Hansen was lost to the infestation? He didn't hesitate to end her life.
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Zeratuel says to kill Kerrigan would spell the doom for them all.
Jim loved Kerrigan since he met her in the original SC, only hating what she had become and did during that time.
Jim regrets not being able to save her, and has been fighting against the very person who made her into what she is now for 4 years.
Jim is given a proposal that will not kill Kerrigan and in fact change her back into what she was.
I don't see the problem here. o_o
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You all are forgetting the part where Zeratul tells Jim through the magic crystals that the only chance against the hybrids is Kerrigan.
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On October 15 2010 18:58 Darklance wrote:
You all are forgetting the part where Zeratul tells Jim through the magic crystals that the only chance against the hybrids is Kerrigan.
But did it change anything? The fact that the prophecy missions were optional suggests that Blizzard considered it to be irrelevant to Jims character, and I think I can agree with them on that.
Sorry for this crude analogy, but I have a pet dog who I have enjoyed the companionship of for years. If I found out that it ended up getting the rabies virus which caused him to kill my best friend and I had a choice between curing him and having it executed I'd pick the former. I don't know if I'd still think of him as a friend, but killing it would be senseless if ihe's gone back into his former pacifist self.
Rabies are not all that different to the way that Kerrigan was infected. The Zerg are like a force of nature, you can't call a shark evil for biting off some poor surfers legs.
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EPT
