EPTDubious morals of the Raynor/Tal'darim affair - Page 5
| Forum Index > StarCraft 2 HotS |
|
sCFade
307 Posts
| ||
|
Billy_
461 Posts
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? | ||
|
dukethegold
Canada5645 Posts
On October 12 2010 13:24 Billy_ wrote: 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. | ||
|
Billy_
461 Posts
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. | ||
|
RainWhisper
United Arab Emirates333 Posts
| ||
|
Billy_
461 Posts
| ||
|
DoIHaveToo
1 Post
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. | ||
|
Billy_
461 Posts
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. | ||
|
Paver
Australia105 Posts
I would much prefer if he had Tychus' attitude. Tychus was a boss. | ||
|
Kyandid
Canada124 Posts
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. | ||
|
ghostunit
61 Posts
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. | ||
|
meffo
Sweden109 Posts
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. | ||
|
ghostunit
61 Posts
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralDissonance related: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle0z548336167v http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralMyopia | ||
|
Ssoulle
United Kingdom149 Posts
"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. | ||
|
RayND
United States1 Post
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. | ||
|
DND_Enkil
Sweden598 Posts
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. | ||
|
georgir
Bulgaria253 Posts
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. | ||
|
megagoten
318 Posts
blizzard mission accomplished? | ||
|
hypnobean
89 Posts
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. | ||
|
Multi_passa
France8 Posts
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. | ||
| ||
