#I think that’s the only thing that would evoke true outsider pov on what having a Jedi show up is like sometimes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rjmhereunderprotest · 7 months ago

Text

The Kerrigan Dilema: The Challenges of Writing from a Monster’s Perspective

I’ve always been a lover of the monster side of any story. Not just the sympathetic ones mind you, but all kinds of monsters. I know it’s cliché to say you identified with the monster in a horror movie, but for me it’s been very true for a long time. It started when I gave voices in my head to the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and has continued to the present day where I’ve probably given Godzilla more personality in my headcanon than Toho wants him to have.

There is just something about the monster that appeals to me, regardless of how sapient they are. It’s not the same as thinking the villain is the best character. I don’t always sympathize with villains, but I do sympathize with monsters more often than not. Preferably the more reptilian-like the more likely I’ll find a reason to side with them. I think it has to do with my empathy for creatures that cannot voice their own side or simply view matters differently. I look at the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” and I see a link to our past who has harmed no one outside his territory and only desires love and respect. I look at dinosaurs in the finale to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, watch them struggle and suffocate, and am overcome with relief when they are allowed to escape. I see the dragon in any given fantasy story and I ask why it has to be slayed for merely abiding by its nature?

Perhaps it’s my sympathy for animals, maybe it’s connected to things more personal to me that I’ll probably get into later. Whatever the reason, the concept of the monster character is intriguing to me, captivating even. And I’m honestly disappointed how little it is often given the perspective it deserves. The monster generally remains the obstacle to be defeated or destroyed in any story, it is rarely the hero of the work. When the monster is allowed to be the hero it is sometimes compromised by it simply being so humanized that it might as well be a human. There are very few true monster centric narratives in this vein. Nature POV Narratives where an inhuman creature or animal is allowed to be themselves.

For the life of me though, I cannot understand why video games have rarely taken the opportunity up themselves. I have longed for a chance to play a true dragon video game in the modern era for a long time. I’ll even settle for a Dragon Rider game, but the few I’ve played have been underwhelming. I’m starting to get trickles of kaiju games where I can play as the kaiju, “Dawn of the Monsters” being a superb example. One of the best monster games where I am very clearly a vicious killing machine is “ManEater”, the game where you get to play a killer shark ala Jaws. Games like Evolve died on the vine while a few isometric horror games are trying to fill its void. But they’re all multiplayer and I’ve always leaned more towards single player games.

The point is, the list of truly great games that allow you to be the monster is rather low. Not many people have honestly tried to replicate the “Rampage” formula sadly. And every dinosaur game that doesn’t stick you in the shoes of a human that hunts them is basically just a simulator where you’re less monster chowing on people and more realistic animal. And while those games certainly have a place, allowing people to experience animals as what they truly are, I still feel bereft of my boyhood dinosaur fantasy that allows me to be the velociraptor from Jurassic Park. Something that was only allowed in the SEGA Genesis Jurassic Park game and never really again.

I’ve never understood why people haven’t tried to present the typical video game story in reverse. Allowing you to be the fire-breathing monster who battles the fabled hero. Games in general are usually supposed to evoke some kind of progressive power fantasy. Growing as a dragon or dinosaur in ability and power would fill that niche. “ManEater” did it perfectly well, as did “Dawn of the Monsters” itself. It’s probably because of our innate human nature to fear the monster honestly, to want it to be conquered. And sympathizing with it or placing ourselves in its claws so to speak is antithetical to that. It’s just easier to attach ourselves to and humanize… well, a human protagonist. Or at least humanoid one.

There is, however, one genre of games that enables this a bit more. The realm of Strategy Games, which usually have campaigns that feature fairly non-human factions depending on their setting. Some are evil, some are good, some are a mix, but generally all of them allow you to inhabit a less human role and more alien mind set. And if there is one franchise that has zeroed in on doing just that, it is “Starcraft”, most specifically with its vicious alien race faction, the Zerg. Xenomorph Homages on the outside, but far more strange and bizarre in a wider context. The Zerg are generally the primary antagonists of the first Starcraft game and it’s expansion, Brood War. As a result of their terrifying conceptual design and unique mode of gameplay, the Zerg have become iconic in their own right as a dominant monstrous faction.

While their self-proclaimed leader, the Overmind, and its Cerebrates held sway as the face of the Zerg for the first game, they were both soon overshadowed by the REAL star of the campaign, Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades. Sarah was a Terran Ghost Operative, but after being betrayed by her leader, Arcturus Mengsk and captured by the Zerg, she was mutated into a monstrous psionic being. Half human, half zerg, Sarah became a vicious, conniving and brutal servant of the Overmind. That was until it died at the hands of the heroes at the end of the first game. When she returned in the Brood War expansion, there was a brief moment where it seemed like Sarah had been freed from the Overmind’s influence and had turned over a new leaf. She was now helping our heroes to resist the brutal imperial dictatorship of an expeditionary force from the United Earth Directorate. And while her methods were still brutal, she still appeared to be back on the good guy side.

She wasn’t, she was decieving all her allies. Luring them into a sense of false security before utterly compromising them and decimating their forces. The UED were driven from the system, but many Protoss and Terran inhabitants of the Korpulu Sector were massacred. Including Fenix, the beloved fan-favorite Dragoon Hero and friend to Sarah’s one time love interest, James Raynor. In response, Raynor promised to kill her someday, while Sarah mocked Fenix’s death before letting him and her other enemies slink off to lick their wounds. Kerrigan left her enemies weakened but alive, the message sent. The Zerg were hers and she’d be waiting in the dark of space for them to test her dominance once again.

That was how Brood War ended, with Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, victorious. A monstrous villain ending that left fans reeling. The Zerg cemented as the dominant force of the Starcraft universe, even if they didn’t kill everyone off at the end of the story. It’s fairly easy of course to write a monster centric campaign like the Zerg from the position of the villain though. Brood War is a good example of writing a villain winning and showing the perspective of a monster faction with relatively simplistic depictions.

Why is Kerrigan doing this? Why are any of the Zerg doing this? Simple, they’re just evil. They’re voracious, murderous, little better than rabid animals who spread and kill and rip apart their enemies because they can. And they’re all controlled by basically a mutated psionic commando who has gone mad with power. It’s simple, but it works as a story and people can easily accept it. Kerrigan is a monster, the Zerg are evil. There is no way to really say otherwise.

And Blizzard never challenged that clear obvious reading. Mostly because for several years, Starcraft remained pretty much on the backburner of Blizzard’s many projects. Warcraft became their primary franchise, mainly through the MMO they launched, World of Warcraft. Meanwhile, Starcraft floundered in forgotten obscurity, a low priority, even as fans clamored for a sequel.

Eventually, it arrived. Although not all at once. Due to the game ballooning in size and scope, Blizzard opted to essentially split one game into three. The result was that each “Starcraft 2” Campaign was turned into a separate expansion. “Wings of Liberty” would hit first, reuniting fans with Jim Raynor, as he led a rebellion against Arcturus Mengsk and his Terran Dominion, while trying to deal with a resurgent Zerg Invasion led by Kerrigan herself. Jim’s presumption as to why she was back, “She’s come to finish the job.”

For most of “Wings of Liberty”, that assumption appears correct. As Kerrigan is still a cackling, genocidal maniac who seems to have even adopted a fatalistic doomsday mindset. Apparently she suspects the return of a long forgotten evil that even she fears her Zerg cannot stop. Heavy foreshadowing no doubt. Made more clear by the return of Zeratul, the Dark Templar Protoss hero from the original game. He too has terrible visions of this evil and he warns Jim that the only person who can stop it… is Kerrigan.

Fans consider “Wings of Liberty” a fairly good game in general, but there is one hang up for many. That being Raynor’s Vengeful Declaration he will kill the Queen of Blades for all she’s done being seeimingly forgotten. In its place is a new mission, one he’s given by Mengsk’s son and prodded further by Zeratul’s prophecies. He’s going to save Sarah, not kill her. Fans were perturbed, feeling rather annoyed that Jim would so easily go back on his vow of revenge given what had happened to Fenix. Although the general consensus appeared to be that fans really didn’t like the prospect of letting Sarah off easy for everything she had done by saving her from her infection.

One can argue about the trope of putting down former love interests because they’ve gone evil or been horribly mutated or whatever have you. It’s been a major point of contension and subject of debate about how often it seems in fiction that the hero has to kill their female love interest. A prime example is the first film version of the Dark Pheonix Saga, where Wolverine has to kill Jean. Kerrigan’s situation is somewhat similar, only Jim is being offered an out so he doesn’t have to kill her.

While this topic hits on a lot of subjects that are important to discuss, (abuse, victimization, blaming victims for the harm done to them, etc.) they are probably best saved for a different essay. Right now, it’s just important to understand this mindset going in. People were very skeptical about the idea of giving Kerrigan an easy out redemption and it sorta soured them on the campaign, despite it being overall enjoyable.

For my part, I felt, given that Sarah’s infection had clearly altered her personality and mind, it was worth trying to cure her over outright killing her. And even if Raynor had once promised to end her, it had been several years since that initial declaration. Tempers had likely cooled and it was clear Jim was in a vulnerable regretful state of mind at the start of the campaign.

While the addition of Zeratul declaring that they need Kerrigan to defeat a worse threat feels a bit like its being shoved into the story to justify enabling this change of mindset for Raynor further, it still fulfills its function. As far back as Brood War, there were indications there was more at work than just Kerrigan’s ambitions and that it would probably require more than any one faction’s forces to defeat it. So in my opinion, it just made sense as set up to the eventual final confrontation with this great coming darkness that had been long gestating within the story.

Regardless, I was willing to give the next chapter of the story, “Heart of the Swarm”, a chance to tell the story it was aiming for. At the time I enjoyed it as it was a whole different playstyle to adjust to and an intriguing story that drew me further into the characters and lore of the Starcraft Universe. However, even I had to acknowledge some of the problems encountered while playing it narrative wise.

Upon watching a good deal of the campaign on YouTube in an attempt to revisit it some, I was struck a lot by those problems again. Those issues stemming from the challenges of depicting a race of monsters like the Zerg and, instead of making them outright villains, attempting to give them more depth and nuance while still retaining what they are. And frankly, it was clear it was a hard assignment for Blizzard to pull off.

So here I am to confront the challenges head-on in hopes of better learning from both Blizzard’s mistakes and successes in writing the Zerg with this new direction in mind, Kerrigan especially. “Heart of the Swarm” probably best represents why it’s so hard to make a monster in a video game, or really in any medium, a hero. As well as probably a good explanation as to why, despite those challenges, I think it’s an admirable narrative perspective to attempt regardless. One I wish more game developers and story-tellers in general tried to attempt more often.

So let’s discuss Sarah Kerrigan and her Zerg, where we will try and figure out if her swarm of monsterous alien bugs can ever truly be considered heroic. Or if monsters are better left off just being villains.

Vengeance Shall be Mine

I think it’s important to set up Sarah’s mindset for this chapter of the story, because it presents both the promise and crux of the issue overall. Sarah is very dead set on revenge from the word go in “Heart of the Swarm.” Revenge against Arcturus Mengsk, the one guy in all of Starcraft no one will EVER defend because he is just objectively evil and the worst.

Let’s keep this in mind going forward, Mengsk is the reason everything went wrong for a lot of people. He set up Psi-Emmiters around New Gettysburg on Tarsonis to destroy the Confederacy homeworld, using Sarah to do it. The results of which killed millions of innocent Terrans. He then left Sarah to die, because she had voiced criticism of the plan and Mengsk needed to tie up any loose ends. As a direct result, Raynor split from Mengsk and started a resistance group, Raynor’s Raiders, Mengsk formed the Terran Dominion to fill the power vaccum, and Kerrigan was mutated into the Queen of Blades who would then go on to kill millions more lives and destroy many more worlds.

At the end of “Wings of Liberty”, Jim Raynor has seemingly cured Kerrigan of her Zerg infection and killed his former friend, Tycus Findley, to protect her. Tycus was actually a sleeper agent for Mengsk, forced to carry out Sarah’s assassination, lest a killswitch implanted into the power armor he was trapped inside be triggered.Tycus didn’t seem to want to betray Raynor in the end, but he had no real choice and Raynor, ultimately, didn’t either.

When we catch up with Sarah and Jim, they are with Mengsk’s son, Valerian Mengsk, who is assisting the Raiders in evaluating Sarah’s condition. By this point, Sarah is fed up with being here and wants to leave because she has bigger fish to fry. Mainly Mengsk and taking everything into account it makes sense why. Arcturus is responsible for a ton of suffering and one can’t really argue that he doesn’t deserves the payback coming to him.

For Sarah though it is a very singular focus and Raynor is the one who seems to be willing to just run off with her outright. Telling her to forget Mengsk. The reasoning seems to be the same for why she’s here doing these tests. There is concern she might slip off the wagon and become the Queen of Blades again. Her desire for revenge might actually facilitate this return as it seems almost animalistic in its simplistic viewpoint.

When she talks about killing Mengsk, both now and later in the story, it feels less and less like a desire for justice and more out of pure personal rage. A vendetta that is no doubt understandable, even sympathetic given what she suffered, but still selfish. Mengsk betrayed her and as a result turned her into something horrible. She lost years of her life, became a hated monster and, seemingly at the forefront in her mind, denied her a future with Jim.

That seems to be the driving force for Sarah, the anger she feels at being separated from Jim. In all honesty, while the romantic moments between the two in the prior game before her transformation were sparse, it was clear there was a genuine shared attraction. Jim clearly seeing her as a person and not just a weapon, like everyone else had apparently treated her, no doubt endeared him to her. The fact that Jim risked everything to bring her back has only solidified that it seems.

Without that wider context in mind though, Sarah’s motivation feels rather lacking and simplistic. In the prior game, Raynor as a human had more complex emotions surrounding his choices and actions. There were a lot of factors pushing him to make the final decision to save Sarah. Not just his feelings for her, or Zeratul’s vision, but also the fact he was trying to lead a rebellion and more importantly find a greater sense of purpose instead of drowning himself in beer after beer. Raynor needed to find hope again and that story is universal. Saving Sarah and thus stopping her mad rampage without killing her, like she’s the Dark Phoenix, is his redemption for failing her.

Sarah’s goals are highly insular in contrast, she’s already fitting a more monster motivation angle even now. How do I survive? Kill the thing threatening me. What matters to me? This person I care about. Kerrigan’s thoughts revolve around her hatred for Mengsk and her desire to be with Jim. That’s at the very least how she starts out and frankly she doesn’t really move the needle too much. There is very little struggle in Kerrigan’s mind concerning what needs to be done. Mengsk must die and she must be with Jim. Her desire to get out of her containment, out of the lab, is motivated more out of the hope of being with Jim and killing Mengsk than it is with anything else.

Sure, she wants to teach Valerian a lesson about thinking he can use her to control the Zerg and does so effectively. But she very clearly takes a little pleasure in sicking her Zerglings on the sublevel of the lab and destroying his robots. She doesn’t kill anyone of course, but she still makes her point. “You can’t control the Zerg and you can’t control ME.” So Valerian might as well stop trying, let her out and let her pursue what she wants rather than remain an obstacle. She can leave anytime she wants, as she deftly demonstrates. She’s being polite by not doing so.

Monster goals follow this sort of logic, a personal primal motivation and a refusal to be confined by artificial means. These are the motivating factors for many monsters, whether hero or villain. They’re animalistic drives, far simpler in their context, more direct thinking than complex. We can see it in many a creature feature.

Godzilla isn’t stupid, he just has a very particular goal in mind and will smash through any obstacle in his way to do it. Whether it is a building or an army. Same as Kong, the shark from Jaws, the Xenomorph, the Predator or any variety of movie monsters you can name. Kerrigan’s closest cinematic equivalent is probably Jason Voorhees, a slasher villain who is basically a monstrous entity with no real greater goal than revenge for what happened to his mother and himself. There are key differences, rational thinking, the ability to talk, the overall goal in both scope and motivation, but the parallels are there.

So even saved, Sarah still seems to be thinking like her old self or at least like a Zerg. Find the enemy, kill the enemy, protect only what interests you, refuse confinement. She might have justifiable reasons to feel that way, but it can be fairly alienating if your lead character comes across as fairly selfish and single-minded.

The concerns of her slipping back into her old persona aren’t unfounded either. When Arcturus Mengsk’s forces attack the facility Kerrigan is in, it becomes clear that the Dominion Marines have been instructed with pretty much killing everyone in there if it means taking down Kerrigan. This sorta justifies Sarah’s position, that Mengsk won’t let her live and he needs be taken down. Given the lengths he went to kill her, it’s naïve to assume he’d just give up honestly.

Implanting Tycus within Raynor’s Raiders simply to kill Kerrigan was rather insane. He had the potential to destroy the Rebels from the inside, but there was never any indication that Mengsk used this to his advantage in “Wings of Liberty.” Tycus was just there to be in the right place at the right time to kill Sarah and Arcturus was willing to let Raynor disrupt his empire to maintain Tycus’ cover the whole time. Mengsk will even potentially kill his own son if it means destroying Kerrigan. This is emphasized by the fact the Dominion Fleet keeps shooting the Hyperion, despite Valerian being aboard, because Kerrigan is also aboard. Even Valerian knows this, saying his father will “sacrifice any piece on the board to take the queen.”

At the same time however, Sarah has her own one-track mindset. When she first gets aboard the Hyperion she has been separated from Jim during the escape from the facility. Instantly upon seeing him, she psychically attacks Valerian. She blames him for leaving Jim behind, it’s only that very Dominion Fleet firing on them that even gets her to stop. She makes it very clear despite pleas to the contrary, there is no US as far as Sarah is concerned. The Raiders aren’t her allies, Jim is and she won’t leave without him.

This all denotes that Sarah is acting very much still like her old persona. While she may not remember what she did as the Queen of Blades, she isn’t really that far off from being her again. Her motivations may have changed, but she’s not truly back to her old self. The trauma and length of time as the Queen has clearly altered that.

With the Hyperion unable to stay, Kerrigan leaves for a nearby planet’s surface, hoping to wait for Jim there. Instead she finds a Dominion Outpost and a massive orbital gun. She needs it gone or else Raynor will be blown out of the sky. She can’t do it alone, so she connects to the nearby Zerg colony and its Swarm Queen. These are new units for the game, created by Kerrigan herself to replace the Cerebrates of the Overmind. They now oversee the larger Swarm for her as lieutenants.

This Swarm Queen, Naktul, dutifully obeys Sarah’s commands and assists her in destroying the Dominion Forces on the planet as well as taking out the gun. While successful, Sarah realizes that she’s slipping back into her Queen of Blades persona. She’s even starting to talk like them, separating herself from the other Terrans. With this knowledge, Kerrigan retreats to her dropship and tries to sort things out. It’s very clear that without Raynor’s support structure, she is very quickly slipping back into darkness inside her. A fact that she freely admits to. She keeps trying to contact Jim, but he’s not answering her. She’s alone, save for a single Zergling that snuck aboard creeping up to her. It doesn’t seem to be all that threatening to her, even as she points a gun at it.

Then she gets the news that Raynor has seemingly been captured and executed. Mengsk then comes on next, celebrating Jim’s death as Sarah breaks down in the dropship, unable to cope with the fact that Jim has died and she couldn’t save him. All while Mengsk gloats at the prospect of his absolute victoty and unopposed rule.

"Proud Dominion citizens, at long last our nightmare is over. The lawless terrorist James Raynor is dead. With his death comes a new era of peace. The protoss have retreated from our Dominion, and the zerg threat has been removed. Their Swarm is shattered and leaderless. Soon we will eradicate every last zerg on Char. In short, we have won.”

And all this time, the zergling stays at Sarah’s side, offering her the only support she has left to lean on it seems, her Swarm. With Raynor dead and the Protoss backing off to deal with their own problems, Sarah is all that remains to potentially challenge Mengsk and defeat him. Despite whatever reservations she had, the one person who believed, supported and trusted her is gone. With no one else, of course she returns to the Zerg and the only people that she has left. She embraces the monster within and the power it holds.

It’s obvious the scene is meant to make us side with and agree with Kerrigan’s decision to simply go full Zerg. After all, we like Jim and the prospect of him being dead at Mengsk’s hands is not going to sit well with us. We’d likely want revenge just as much as Sarah does and frankly, whatever reservations one might have about Kerrigan right now, the scene IS effective. Partially because of the high quality cinematics, the voice acting, and the direction. But generally I think it has to come back to Mengsk. His gloating, his self-assurance that he has won, that he’s the hero of humanity while Sarah mourns the loss of the one person she ever truly loved. Who wouldn’t agree with her in this moment that retaking the mantle of Queen of Blades is her best and only option?

This is the monster mindset, the subversion of the typical storyline. No longer is the human knight the savior of humanity, but a villain that needs to be destroyed. Because it has taken something from the monster, something that it felt it deserved or earned. Something that belonged to it alone. In his efforts to be the conquering hero, Mengsk has incured the wrath of a force greater than himself, more primal and ancient. This is what the Zerg represent, the scorned and wronged dragon who will burn the castle to the ground as punishment for the kingdom’s arrogance.

When we played as Raynor, we inhabited very human concepts of conflict. “Wings of Liberty” had us fighting for ideals like freedom, justice, hope among others. Kerrigan and her Swarm are now fighting in this moment for survival and retribution, distinctly more primal concepts. You can’t really spin these in good ways, there’s always a negative association with something so innately thematically insular. We might agree with Sarah, but her actions aren’t really for the greater good, they’re for herself. And that inherently makes her struggle and us connecting with her an uphill battle. Because, as we’ve established by now, she’s no longer really human anymore. Maybe in appearence she is, but not in mindset.

Summon the Swarm

At this point the game opens up to give you more choice in which missions you do, but unlike the previous game you will be locked onto that set pack of missions on which ever planet you decide to pick. Whether you go to Char or Kaldir, you’ll remain there until every mission there is completed. It’s again showing more a direct single minded nature with the Zerg and Kerrigan, they’ll keep fighting until they’ve claimed all territory as their own and every threat eliminated, or they die. So even the mission structure of the game is based around a more monster-oriented mindset.

Whichever planet you pick, you end up finding a vacant Zerg Leviathan, essentially a biological spaceship, that Sarah quickly seizes control of. It’s here we meet Izsha, a strange Zerg creature that acts as Kerrigan’s advisor and eventually Abathur, an even stranger Zerg creature who is basically an alien mad scientist obsessed with constantly evolving the Zerg.

Like “Wings of Liberty” these are the first two NPC characters you can interact with in your hub aboard the Leviathan between missions. However, while some may occupy similar positions to previous characters, Izsha is basically Sarah’s Matt Horner and Abathur is essentially Swann, that is where the similarities end.

And this holds true for all of Kerrigan’s lieutenants within her Swarm, which this section will discuss in detail. Although it might not be terribly long because of one specific problem they all have.

They are all incredibly flat static characters. And this isn’t a flaw, it’s by design.

Izsha is probably the greatest offender. She has no real personality, she’s basically an emotionless bug creature with no real opinions or thoughts of her own. She essentially exists as another extension of Sarah, functionally keeping her updated on incoming threats and providing her intel before and during missions. She is functionally just a palette swap replacement of the Adjutant that’s been talking to you for a while. Sometimes Izsha will ask questions, she might make a seemingly snide or rye comment here and there, but ultimately it reads like she just doesn’t understand the wider context of Kerrigan’s thoughts and statements.

She’s a lot like Data from Star Trek: TNG in this regard, but Izsha doesn’t want to be more human nor does she really want to understand how to be human. In fact, she doesn’t really have any desires, as she’s a creation of Kerrigan’s meant to hold all her relevant thoughts and plans. Like the Cerebrates of past Starcraft games, but with no real control over the Swarm. She simply wishes to know how best she can serve her queen. She is devotely loyal, to a fault and never once seems to doubt this.

The closest she gets is after the end of a particular mission where Sarah won’t speak with anyone and she shows concern for that. As soon as that’s over though, Izsha never brings it up again and Sarah never really confides in Izsha in any case. All she’s there to do is sift through additional plans and stray thoughts that might be relevant to the Swarm’s survival. Metatextually, this serves the purpose of giving Kerrigan someone to talk to aboard the Leviathan before more show up later.

However, she’s not a friend or even a confidant, she’s basically a sounding board for Sarah to mouth off to. Even that has its limits. Whenever Izsha’s questions hit too close to home for Sarah, particularly where it may raise some doubts, fears or problems with Kerrigan’s motivations and goals, that is when she silences her creepy advisor. Sarah snaps at Izsha to drop the subject and Izsha does so without another word. Her deference to Kerrigan’s commands and refusal to ever challenge her on anything make Izsha functionally a beta to Kerrigan’s alpha. She is in no position to make demands, her council is only needed up to a point and barely at all. She is purely a subordinate lackey, not a friend or comrade.

Abathur is at least a bit more interesting, as his character doesn’t speak nearly as monotone and has far more personality to it even if he’s ultimately just as flat as Izsha narratively. Abathur exists purely to evolve the swarm, toiling away in the Leviathan’s Evolution Pit crafting new upgrades for your various units. His nightmarish visage, gruff but direct voice and matter of fact sentence structure basically makes him seem like a less friendly, more sinister version of Mordin Solus from the Mass Effect games. They’re both mad scientists to a degree, so the comparison is apt.

However, Abathur has even fewer moral scruples and hang ups than Mordin ever did. He is not above killing living test subjects he deems failures. He will rip off limbs, he we tear through skin, break bones, lacerate organs, pull out brains, and ultimately eviscerate his experiments to achieve his ends. Those ends always being make the Swarm Stronger, more adaptable, more evolved. And if a few experiments die or are tossed aside, oh well. Just how it goes.

Kerrigan finds his rather brutal form of enforced natural selection rather displeasing, mainly because she thinks Abathur is familiar to her. Not long after meeting and conversing with him, Sarah learns the truth. Abathur isn’t a new creation of the Zerg like Izsha or her Swarm Queens. He was the one who put her in the crysallis that turned her into the Queen of Blades in the first place.

While he clearly didn’t have many options, given that the Overmind likely made him do it regardless of anything else, Abathur is unapologetic. In fact he’s proud of his work and a bit disappointed that Sarah undid it all. Not mad, just confused as to why she didn’t appreciate what he did for her. Naturally, Kerrigan is not happy with this knowledge and only restrains herself from killing Abathur outright because she understands she needs him. Mengsk is still the person who got her captured and while he’s probably more directly responsible, Abathur again had no real choice in the matter. For his part though, Abathur just doesn’t understand Sarah’s anger.

To be honest, he doesn’t understand many human emotions, seeing them as distractions to his work. It’s really all he lives for, his one prime function as set forth by the Overmind. However, while a lot of his experiments are done for the Swarm, he’s fundamentally useless without someone to oversee and guide his work. When the Overmind died, Abathur wandered feral through the tunnels of Char, until he was given purpose again through Kerrigan’s hivemind connection.

As far as Abathur is concerned, you’re not a Zerg unless someone is controlling you, you’re just another animal otherwise. This suggests that the Zerg as a species requires a leader, a controller, to be whole and functional. Even if it is ultimately to fulfill Kerrigan’s revenge, that’s purpose enough. A Zerg without purpose is just an animal and not a sapient cognitive being. To backslide along the evolutionary path is unacceptable to Abathur. So he follows Sarah, not because he has no choice, but because she offers purpose ultimately. If Sarah were to die and someone else gave him sufficient purpose, he would follow them instead.

For Abathur, the Swarm and the Evolution of it is everything, but it only works if someone else is making the decisions and calling the shots on how to direct his focus and work. That’s what gives it purpose. Which is his primary mechanic and position within the game. Abathur is the one who directs the Evolution Missions, various little side quests that unlock throughout the game that enable you to unlock more abilities for your Zerg units in battle. However, you can only pick one of two options each mission, for balancing purposes within the campaign mostly, but in-universe its because the strains will cancel each other out otherwise. As a result, you probably spend the more time with Abathur over the course of the game than anyone else and get to know the Zerg most through him.

Abathur’s obsession with evolution and his position within the Swarm gives a greater insight into how the Zerg function as a species. Essentially, besides his belief that the hivemind gives them purpose, he functionally doesn’t understand anything beyond evolutionary terms and the constant struggle for survival.

To him, the cruelty and brutal lifestyle of the Zerg is natural and simply a net positive. So long as the Swarm evolves, it endures and improves repeatedly. He doesn’t believe in perfection, because that would require stagnation. Perfection in his mind is unobtainable, always out of reach. It is a goal to strive towards, but never truly attain. There is no end state to the Zerg in this sense. No final form, no pinnacle apex adaptation, simply a constant push to survive whatever the universe might throw at you. He thus treats every experiment as vital to that continued plan of survival.

As for the other races in their way, simply bio-matter and he finds them loathsomely inefficient, Terrans especially. He even remarks on how Sarah has been “infected” with more Terran bio-matter upon her return. It’s not so much racism, as he sees human functionality woefully inadequate towards his standards of survival. Conflict with the other factions is seemingly inevitable in his mind as well, in order to keep chasing the efficiency and unobtainable perfection. While he’ll never reach it, stagnation is unaffordable, making the Swarm stronger requires it to be tested constantly. To him, the Zerg as a society is one long ongoing experiment. It’s nothing personal when the Zerg attack and assimilate a Terran colony, it’s just science.

In these terms, Abathur probably presents the first real substantial motivation for the Zerg. To evolve and seek conflict in order to do so. Their choice of conflict, however, depends on who is in charge and is entirely dependent on their whims. As long as Kerrigan holds sway over them all through her hivemind connection, they will obey. Abathur will follow her so long as she maintains the conflict neccessary for his experiments to continue. Purpose is dervied for the Zerg by a single master who controls them. Their motivations are tied to them. If Kerrigan wants revenge on Mengsk, Abathur will help her do so. For without Kerrigan he has no purpose, no drive, no means to carry on what he is.

Clearly Abathur and Sarah have different priorities. In Sarah’s case, she does terrible things because she believes she has to in order to get to her end goal. The ends justify the means. Abathur doesn’t really care about the ends, there is no end. The means aren’t important either. All that matters is evolving and improving. Morality isn’t important to Abathur, let alone the Zerg at large, it barely figures into their thought process. It might with Sarah, but not them. And without her, they have no will or drive of their own beyond basic instinct. This is important to remember for later.

For now, the thing to take away from this is that as monsters, the Zerg’s understanding of themselves runs purely on basic innate understanding of controlling their own evolution to best survive, thrive and continue to do so. If it requires other species to be consumed to achieve that, then they will. This is just how nature is. The Zerg in this sense are nature and so long as the Zerg survive, it matters little who doesn’t. Again, just like Kerrigan’s need for revenge, the basic motivations of the Zerg as innately self-serving it seems.

Speaking of Self-Serving, that brings us to the next member of Kerrigan’s crew, Zagara. A Swarm Queen that has decided she can lead the Swarm better than Kerrigan and has taken over her old roost on Char. She’s now fighting a desperate and losing battle against General Warfield who the player helped conquer Char to begin with in “Wings of Liberty.”

After a direct confrontation that sees Kerrigan out hatch Baneling eggs and nearly literally roll over her forces with them, Zagara submits. There’s no sense in dying here, Zagara seemingly knows she can’t beat Kerrigan at this point and promises to serve her as a loyal lieutenant. Kerrigan accepts, but she decides that Zagara needs to be more than just the average Swarm Queen. She needs to evolve, to understand, to be taught.

Zagara probably has the most personality of any of Kerrigan’s followers. Not depth of character, she’s hardly any better than Abathur there, but she certainly has a better grasp on emotions than he does. Abathur doesn’t really get angry, there’s a moment where he seems jealous over another faction of Zerg for how they “stole” his evolutionary designs, but it passes fairly soon. Zagara has more emotional range, even if it fluctuates between various shades of scheming, derisive commentary and bloodlusting battlerage.

Zagara also actually has the closest thing to an arc character wise, but only because Kerrigan imposes it on her as she needs what is clearly going to be one of her chief battlefield lieutenants to actually think. She determines she can’t treat them like pawns, not entirely. They need to be independent enough to be able to do things without her direct involvement.

When she first comes aboard the Leviathan, Zagara does not seem to understand much in terms of overall strategy. She functions on very basic Zerg instinct, if slightly more advanced. Build up a lot of soldiers, make your numbers big enough to absorb any hits, rush the enemy and overwhelm them through sheer numerical advantage. Quantity over quality, essentially she’s stuck using Zerg Rush as her only real trick. Emphasized in how she’s tried to defeat Warfield by constantly attacking him head-on over and over, and failing every time. But insistent that THIS time it will work.

That won’t do for Kerrigan. Zagara, as she claims, needs vision. Besides sending her to Abathur to increase her intelligence capacity, enabling her to better strategize and understand various tactical concepts, Kerrigan speaks to Zagara one on one, to try and see how she’s improving. Not that she doesn’t just understand the concepts, but can learn from them. In this sense, Kerrigan tries to lead by example, more than just show of force or strength of will. She is directly trying to pass on knowledge to Zagara to make her better.

Strangely enough, despite fitting the motif of a Starscream character in near everyway, Zagara is grateful for this opportunity. She irks at going under the knife so often, but she sees the benefits. She then reasons at one point that she’s strong enough to actually challenge Kerrigan. However, she declines, she does intend to lead the Swarm, but not until she has learned everything from Kerrigan that is worth learning. Specifically, vision and what it means.

In Kerrigan’s terms, as she explains to Zagara, vision means seeing beyond the most obvious. Looking at a different angle, taking in the whole picture and beyond it. She does this with Warfield, by thinking around his various strategies, rather than just trying to outmuscle him through numbers or power alone. Zagara watches as Kerrigan takes apart her enemies, piece by piece, instead of going directly for the killing blow. And the Swarm Queen sees the value in this form of patience easily, as Sarah accomplishes what she failed to do.

Throughout the game, Zagara and Kerrigan’s conversations continue much in this way. Zagara will put forth a very blunt direct attitude as to how the Zerg deal with things. She presumes superiority and power are inherent to their species, that nothing can crush them. While Kerrigan continues to warn her of how confidence can lead to arrogance and that learning from your enemies is as important as defeating them. I think of them as master and student in this regard, Kerrigan teaching Zagara how to be like the Queen of Blades, but free of the same traps. Zagara is taught to see beyond the limited view of the Swarm’s biological instinct and think for herself instead. Not so much in a selfish way, but in a grander idea than pure survival.

As she grows more intelligent though, Zagara gains a sense of curiosity, a desire to understand. She continues to ask questions to Kerrigan, about the various races they encounter, the places they visit and why things are the way they are. Zagara doesn’t understand all of it and everything is filtered through her Zerg mindset, but her desire to know is self-evident. More than just lusting for the blood of her enemies, although that never really goes away, Zagara does start to form a sense of empathy this way, more than Abathur ever could.

For example, she comes to view the Terrans with pity more than just enemies or fuel to evolve the swarm. They have no hivemind, no direction, no purpose given to them. They’re lost in her mind, confused and bereft of function. That they’re all so alone in the end, without the comfort of other likeminded individuals within the Swarm. She wishes to help them in the end… by killing them and assimilating them into the Swarm. Yes, it’s very alien morality logic, but she is a monster. Her values are inherently different from ours, the fact she can form any sense of empathy is a remarkable change for her.

Zagara’s loyalty to Kerrigan develops into true admiration in time, but she can never fully understand her queen though. While Kerrigan is Zerg, she’s still very much human with human concerns. Some of the things Sarah does Zagara cannot truly grasp because they are so alien to her. When Kerrigan briefly teams up with some old Terran friends, which we will talk about later, Zagara thinks it has to be because she’s tricking them. This is a long term goal, a plan of some sort, like the Queen of Blades of old. It’s not though and Kerrigan remarks that Zagara will not understand why she is doing this. No matter how hard she tries.

But Zagara wants to understand, she wants to know. She doesn’t want to become more human, but she does want to understand them and comprehend vision. If only as a means of surviving and thriving at first, but eventually to become truly worthy of being the leader of the Swarm. In this sense, Zagara comes the closest to truly transcending from pure monster to actual monster hero within the confines of ”Heart of the Swarm’s” story.

She is still beholden to Kerrigan’s whims, her morality is fairly warped and alien, she works on survival instinct and filters everything through those instincts, but she wants more. She is not nearly so self-serving in the end as she could be and her efforts start to lead her to a more aspirational desire. It’s not anything truely heroic or idealistic yet, but Zagara wants to grow and move beyond what the Zerg are as vicious bloodthirsty monsters. She’ll never be human, she doesn’t want to be, but her sincere curiosity and growing sense of empathy is far closer to a heroic template than any of the other Lieutenants in the swarm we’ve discussed thus far.

This brings us to Dehaka, a different kind of Zerg with a different personal creed. For the most part, a lot of the Zerg we’ve talked about have determined their worth in becoming more powerful in one way or another. Abathur believes in power through evolution, Zagara revolves around power through strength and later the mind, Kerrigan sees power as a means to an end more than anything. Dehaka doesn’t care about power. He only cares about change.

As discussed, Abathur looks at Evolution’s power as striving towards an ideal. While he can never reach perfection, he’ll keep moving towards it all the same. He finds purpose in trying to obtain a goal, targeting evolution and making it work to his specific calibrations. Dehaka prefers to not focus too much on the power acquired, he just prefers to change. He prefers to alter himself as a means of survival, but never as a means of gaining power. Collecting “Essence” as he says is how he improves himself and stays alive. But he never seeks direct power or control, as he views it as a trap.

This attitude comes from his origins, Dehaka is not a normal Zerg, he’s a Primal Zerg. Born on Zerus, the planet where the Zerg truly originated, Dehaka had a very different upbringing. The Primal Zerg have no hivemind, they run on pack mentality. The strongest rules and weaker bend the knee and serve. Dehaka has a pack because he is strong, but he’s unlike other Primal Pack leaders who are self-assured in their status to the point of arrogance. A Primal Pack Leader generally beats their chest, tries to kill other pack leaders who are strong themselves, seize their territory and become more powerful. They either die in the attempt or succeed.

Dehaka does not do that, he sees the accumulation of power as simply a means of getting a target on your back. He’s nowhere near the same level as other pack leaders on Zerus, he doesn’t care. He’d rather NOT become someone else’s dinner. He prefers to flow. He’ll collect essence, he’ll evolve, he’ll change, he’ll grow stronger, but he will not challenge. He will join with those he feels are strongest and lend himself to their efforts. This is how he survives, through pragmatic evolution, not via a directive towards more power as Abathur feels.

As a result, conflict is to be avoided in Dehaka’s mind. A lust for power for it’s own sake only makes you easier to destroy in the end because someone will just see it as something they want to take from you. He doesn’t even try to obtain the psionic connection most normal Zerg have, preferring to rely on his own inherent evolved abilities rather than truly join the Swarm in every aspect. Something Kerrigan allows because she herself sees the inherent advantage of using a Zerg that doesn’t have something most Zerg have that has been used against them.

The Hivemind is a great strength for the Zerg, enabling them to move and act as one unit with the same directive and goal. Dehaka not having one should be seen as a weakness, but as we find later in the game it is a trump card that Kerrigan has in her arsenal. It’s something that forces a change within the Zerg, to accept something outside their direct control, an independent ally and operator. One that will act in their interest but not be a slave to it.

Dehaka himself follows Kerrigan, not out of instinct or a desire for purpose or even because he submits to her. He follows her because where she goes new essence can be found. Dehaka describes his “loyalty” to Kerrigan fairly simply. He is not a rock or a wind, he will not stand against nor fight against Kerrigan. He will flow with her, like a river. Despite being a primitive dinosaur, in both looks and mindset, Dehaka is actually fairly intelligent in this respect. Not a slave to Zerg instincts but upholding them all the same.

He’s the one lieutenant that can disagree with Kerrigan because she holds no psionic power over his mind. He is the leader of a separate pack, not a tied to Kerrigan’s mission in anyway. He is here for his own purposes but will assist Kerrigan in a mutual partnership. Sarah recognizes and accepts this, although she constantly wonders if Dehaka will abandon her for someone stronger. Dehaka admits he would, but he doesn’t think anyone is stronger than her. He’s certainly not impressed with Terran technology, believing evolution will enable him a way around such things. For him, change is constant and neccessary. To stand still is to die. Dehaka is therefore always moving, going where the essence takes him, but never becoming obsessed with the power it grants.

In this sense, Dehaka is more of a true force of nature than even the Zerg are. He is not beholden to any illusions of power that his abilities give him. The essence grants him power, but he knows that it can also make him a target should he abuse it. He prefer the balancing act rather than forcing the change and sees no real goal beyond survival. Adapting to the change, moving with it, rather than making it what you desire, is preferable. And without a psi-connection, he remains free of Kerrigan’s true hold unlike the rest of her subordinates.

Does this make Dehaka more heroic because of his free-will? Does his willingness to help Kerrigan of his own volition make him more selfless? Yes and no. Dehaka has free will and will do what he feels is neccessary to survive. He will assist others in their plans to forward his own aims. In this sense he has more aspirational values and is not beholden entirely to self-interest. If he was, he’d be no better than the power drunk pack leaders he avoids becoming.

However, he’s still very much a monster. He’s not arrogant and he lacks any true malice, he’s even fairly intelligent. But his goals are ultimately self-serving even when he’s serving others. While he has an interesting take on Zerg philosophy, he is still very much driven by primal instinct. Being, well, a primal zerg this probably should not be surprising. He is essentially a big killer dinosaur after all, you probably shouldn’t expect any greater level of nuance beyond his pack mentality and desire to improve himself through the collection of essence. He is the Zerg in their natural state, but he’s still very much Zerg.

Perhaps then we need someone more like Kerrigan, who actually has a semi-understanding of heroic values built in. It takes a while to find him, but we do come across one lieutenant that shares more in common with Kerrigan than anyone else. An old friend, or in Kerrigan’s case, an old enemy.

Alexei Stukov, once a commander within the UED Expeditionary Force, betrayed by an infested Terran operative who called himself Duran. The truth of Duran is a discussion for later, but for now, Stukov’s death was not all it appeared to be. He was resurrected and turned into an infested Terran, now more Zerg than human. Kerrigan even notes the similarities in their backstory. And while Stukov is himself calling on Sarah’s aid now to get revenge on the people who did this to him, his reasoning is not entirely self-serving as he knows the greater stakes at hand. While he has lost his humanity, he is not completely bereft of what once made him human. And that is probably his best asset in regards to his status as a potential heroic monster.

When Stukov was human, his position within the UED was one of tempered professionalism and reasonable authority. He might have been antagonistic towards a lot of the characters we loved in the Korpulu sector, but he seemed to talk the most sense. When that one mission forced us to kill him, everyone already knew it felt like a mistake. But we had no real choice but to go along with it. Seeing him again is a bit of obvious fan service, but it’s a chance for him to be on the right side for once, and in this case he very much is.

Stukov hates what has been done to him, but he still intends to use his new power against those who tortured and turned him into the monster he is now. He reaches out to Kerrigan to help him achieve these ends, knowing he can’t do it on his own. Like Sarah he has recognized the need to form allies out of those who are probably less than savory and embrace what he ultimately is by aligning with the Zerg outright. However, he doesn’t try to take control of the Swarm, nor does he seem to have an delusions of grandeur concerning this partnership.

Stukov is still clearly out for revenge, but he also recognizes the greater evil at play within the facility he is asking Kerrigan’s help with destroying. For it is producing a threat that endangers more than just him or even the Zerg. Taking it down is about avenging the wrongs done to him, but it’s also about making sure it cannot continue further. In this sense Stukov is not running on total animal instinct. He is thinking in terms of the greater whole beyond his own personal gain. And this is true especially concerning his interactions with Kerrigan.

Iszha, Dehaka, Zagara and Abathur can’t really offer proper council to their queen. They can present other perspectives, even ask prying questions, but Kerrigan doesn’t really allow them to question her. Stukov may not question Sarah’s motives much either, probably because he doesn’t really have much of a greater moral high ground, but he does routinely warn her of potential risks with her plans. As a result, his conversations are a lot less one-sided in this regard. They’re almost equals, or they at least respect one another enough that Kerrigan will defer to his advice as often as Stukov will give it.

Despite his mutation into a Zerg, Stukov has retained his humanity better than Kerrigan ever did. He’s of course not much better concerning his methods, as he primarily turns humans into Infested Terrans to bolster his forces. However, he mostly chooses who he infects and for the most part its people who are themselves doing worse things. This doesn’t really make him a hero, but Stukov is under no delusions about what and who he is, unlike the old Queen of Blades was. You can tell he regrets a lot of the decisions he made that led to this path, he even mourns the death of his friend Gerard DuGalle. Despite the fact Kerrigan killed him, he doesn’t seem to hold any ill-will towards her. In general, Stukov seems to have accepted that he is a monster now and is mainly concerned in trying to make the most of it.

The question ultimately is, how much of Stukov’s motivation is purely out of a desire for revenge or truly altruistic? It’s hard to say, even Stukov doesn’t seem to know. However his apparent concern for Kerrigan’s life and state of mind goes a bit beyond self-interest and it certainly has nothing to do with her control of the swarm. While Stukov needs Kerrigan to get his revenge, his lack of animosity towards her suggests he’s not really being forced to make this choice. Yes, he doesn’t have many options, but he never tries to assert his dominance and doesn’t really try to make any deal towards his advantage alone. Unlike the other Lieutenants, Stukov has no truly selfish ambition beyond getting back at the people who wronged him. He also understands that there is more going on here than what immediately benefits himself.

The final piece to understanding Stukov in “Heart of the Swarm” is how his mission chain ends. With things concluded more or less, his revenge achieved and the place that mutated him in ruins, Stukov makes the assumption that he has now outlived his usefulness. Knowing Kerrigan is used to cleaning up loose ends at this point, he fully expects her to turn on him. It’s clear he suspected this would happen from the moment he reached out to her and he still asked for her help. His lack of self-preservation is uncharacteristic of the Zerg, who are about survival above all else. He knows that the threat he’s facing is too great and that his life matters little in the grand scheme of stopping it. Maybe he’s that desperate for revenge, but it honestly seems like he’s accepted this outcome if it means ending a dangerous foe who threatens all life.

Sarah, however, has changed greatly over her journey at this point. She is nothing like the old Queen of Blades now and accepts Stukov into her swarm with open arms. Although she will let him leave if he so desires. With no real other prospects and no greater purpose, Stukov chooses to stay, not as a minion or exactly a friend, but clearly the closest thing Kerrigan has to an equal aboard her Leviathan. And as Kerrigan’s designs shift away from her personal vendetta and towards a more all encompassing threat to the races of the galaxy at large, she offers Stukov a part in thos designs. Noting that the odds are likely against them and they will probably die, Kerrigan states it’s better to fight for something than lay down and die. Which Stukov readily agrees with.

Taking all of this into account, Stukov is the closest to a heroic monster among Kerrigan’s lieutenants. While his morals may not be an absolute, he does have values beyond pure instinct or survival and is willing to lay down his life for them. He is willing to forgive former enemies, with little advantage to himself. He is, for all intents and purposes, the most human of Sarah’s companions. Perhaps the closest to actually being a friend of hers among the swarm, at least at this point. And it is ultimately through him that Kerrigan finally finds a greater purpose beyond her selfish desire for revenge that could potentially make her a hero as well. He is not perfect, his methods are still monstrous and it’s hard to judge how truly noble he is in the pursuit of his goals, but he fits the hero category better than most of the other lieutenants, if only by default.

However, this brings up the issue of how heroic a monster can truly be. Stukov is the exception among the lieutenants because, like Sarah, he used to be human, and none of the other Zerg Leaders ever were. Does this mean a monster can only be a hero if they have some already existing human values? Does that undercut their monstrous nature if their sense of morality is more in line with humanity’s and not something more alien? Because those questions are ultimately a part of the wider issue here. The more human a monster is, the more in line with our sense of right and wrong they are. It’s the difference between survival instinct and intentional altruism. How much of what the Zerg do is because they wish to act on it or because either their instinct or someone else, like Sarah, is controlling them?

“Heart of the Swarm” is fairly invested in asking this question over and over again, seeking an answer. Is Kerrigan more monster than human? Is her position and function as the leader of the Zerg enable her to be anything other than a force of destruction? Can she be seen a redeemed, heroic figureor is she doomed to forever be the monster as a result of her nature? Given what she does over the course of the campaign, that question is very hard to answer definitively. Which is why we need to discuss what Kerrigan does as she returns to her old title and ask if she has truly changed.

New Reasons to be Afraid

As stated before, once players have cleared the initial prologue stages, the game opens up and allows you to pick which missions you go on. But you’re locked on a single mission set once you pick it. This choice is perhaps done to retain narrative flow, it also makes more sense for the Zerg. Why would they leave a planet if they have not yet secured it? However, both worlds you can travel to initially inevitably force you to confront the problems of trying to make Kerrigan a hero. Namely, she’s killing people who do not really deserve it. And that is emphasized with the two primary antagonist characters for the initial missions, General Warfield and Lassara.

Most players seem to go to Kaldir first, as it allows them to unlock the Hydralisk early. However, it honestly makes more sense that Kerrigan would go to Char first, as the news about the impending extermination of all Zerg there, as well as its familiarity and importance to the Swarm, would draw Kerrigan towards it. This also seems to be the canon of the actual story, for whatever that is worth. So we’re starting with Warfield first in our discussion.

Warfield is technically not presented entirely sympathetically during these missions. He’s still loyal to the Dominion and ultimately Mengsk. He’s very open in his intentions and desire to essentially wipe out the Zerg entirely on Char and he is fairly open in his disdain for Kerrigan. He’s more of a traditional opponent, so technically we shouldn’t be too concerned with killing him.

Or we would be, if we did not know him. After all, we fought alongside Warfield in “Wings of Liberty” and while he wasn’t exactly a friend, we earned his respect and admiration. His personality was also endearing, as while he was working for the Dominion, he showed true courage, resilence and cared about his men. He didn’t fight from the safety of a ship in orbit, nor did he place himself above his lesser ranked soldiers. He fought with them and for them. He had come out of retirement in fact to help fight back the Swarm when the Queen of Blades returned. He even forced the medics to cut off his damaged arm and replace it with a cybernetic prosthetic, just so he could return to active duty and fight beside his men again. He might work for a bad government, but he’s clearly not like Mengsk. And because of his actions, Raynor was able to save to Sarah in the first. In a way, Kerrigan owes her life, her freedom from the toxic personality of the Queen of Blades, to Warfield.

And now she’s come to kill him. Regardless of any of his other traits, Warfield is still a Dominion General, he’s still loyal to Mengsk and Kerrigan doesn’t really care beyond that. He’s in the way of her revenge, he intends to destroy her Swarm. That means he’s a threat and the animalistic nature of the Zerg means that there can be no negotiation or diplomacy here. Kill or be killed, that’s all that matters.

All the same, for people who played “Wings of Liberty” their actions in “Heart of the Swarm” effectively undo a lot of the work from the previous campaign. You saved these Dominion Soldiers before, they helped you. Now you’re killing them all. This was easy to stomach when the point of the Zerg was them being evil, not so easy when you’re supposed to be the good guy in this campaign. If not the good guy than at least sympathetic.

If Kerrigan has any thoughts on Warfield and his soldiers that isn’t directly seeing them as a threat to her Swarm and an obstacle to her revenge, she does not share them. Partially because her minions do not care about those nuances ultimately, mostly because she has to play the role it seems. The Zerg will not respect her or follow her if she shows weakness or empathy. So she hides whatever thoughts she might have that may betray those compassionate human aspects.

For most of the missions on Char, Kerrigan systematically dismantles the Dominion operation. Taking out Warfield’s many containment and offensive capabilities. Warfield rants and raves about the inevitable destruction of the Swarm. Kerrigan simply shrugs the threats off, mingling better tactics with the Swarm’s numerical advantage to achieve victory. Before long, Warfield is lying wounded, a steel beam through his chest, as surviving Dominion soldiers try to flee to shuttles off world.

Even now, all Warfield cares about is getting them out. So when Sarah arrives, he tries to plead with her to let them go, citing that they’re no threat to her. Kerrigan doesn’t seem to respond, enraging Warfield as it seems she’s going to let her Zerg kill his men. Warfield at this point calls her a traitor, to both humanity and the memory of Jim Raynor. The use of his name is enough for Sarah to just outright finish Warfield off. But after the rage passes… Kerrigan calls of the Swarm and lets the Dominion survivors go. She decides to show compassion, more than the old Queen of Blades ever did. She doesn’t gloat over Warfield, she doesn’t cackle, she doesn’t even seem proud of her victory here.

Mostly Kerrigan just seems rather resigned to the reality that she’s just Zerg now, that she’s a monster. It seems she only let the Dominion soldiers go, perhaps, as a way to prove to herself she is still a little human. Revenge, however, still matters more. But she won’t kill everyone off out of cruelty, she can stop herself, she can decide when enough is enough. She might be a monster, but she does not have to be a villain as well. It’s a moment that shows Kerrigan isn’t the same as she was when she was previously infested.

But while Warfield might be easier to justify as an enemy, especially given that he still works for the Dominion, and Kerrigan’s bit of mercy softens the blow somewhat, this isn’t the case for Lassara. A Protoss scientist, not even a warrior, that Kerrigan essentially dooms to a terrible fate alongside all of her people on Kaldir. More so than even Warfield, what happens to Lassara is far less easy to justify, which even Kerrigan admits. As a result, it is a lot less easy to still see Sarah’s actions as heroic while taking the entirety of Kaldir into account.

When Kerrigan arrives on Kaldir, it to try to get another Swarm Queen that controls a great deal of Zerg to submit to her. However, she’s already dead and the Protoss are on Kaldir in force. As soon as they see Kerrigan though, they are very quick to decide its time to pack up and leave. They’re not trying to fight Kerrigan for most of the campaign on the planet, they’re just trying to get away.

Kerrigan knows that this is just so they can warn the Golden Armada, the main bulk of the Protoss military force. If they learn of her return at this stage of things, the Zerg Swarm broken and Kerrigan herself still not strong enough, the Protoss will destroy her. With revenge on her mind, Sarah can’t afford to fight another war against the Protoss to defeat her real enemy, Mengsk. So she makes the call that the Protoss on Kaldir must be exterminated to the last before they can warn of the Golden Armada.

This where Lassara comes in, she’s captured at the end of the first mission on Kaldir and forcibly held on the Leviathan where she reveals that these Protoss are not primarily warriors. They are simply colonists, searching for a place to live. Something Kerrigan forced upon them on when she helped the Overmind essentially conquer their homeworld of Aiur. She tells Kerrigan very bluntly that her people are colonists, scientists, civilians… and she’s killing them. Sarah doesn’t sound very sorry where she offers her rather weak response to this charge. That the Protoss have slaughtered countless Zerg themselves. This is just about survival, nothing personal.

Except, the Zerg are largely mindless without a leader, as even the various Zerg among Sarah’s circle of advisors have admitted. Overall, many Zerg are but feral animals, who will attack and kill whatever catches their attention. Killing them is not really the same as killing free-thinking sapient beings, especially when the Zerg have been traditionally the aggressor in every conflict. This isn’t a war between typical competing ideologies or cultures. The Zerg go to a planet and murder everything in sight and all the Protoss do is trying to contain and stop them when they do. Sarah’s accusation of the Protoss’ kill count to her own is not comparable in the slightest. It’s essentially a poor attempt at whataboutism by both-siding the issue. When you’re one of the chief reasons the Protoss are in the bad place they are, that takes away any semblance of moral high ground.

Kerrigan acts like she has no choice, even as Lassara tells her she could just leave. Flee Kaldir long before the Golden Armada even arrives. Perhaps even letting them leave would convince the Protoss that she is not interested in fighting them or has changed. She could try talking to the Protoss Colonists, telling them she is not a threat and simply desires revenge against someone else entirely unrelated to them. She does none of this, doesn’t even think of diplomacy, not even a token attempt at dialogue. She sees a threat, the Protoss, and attacks, like a scared animal. Except she can actually reason, she is capable of doing so, but falls back on basic pure survival instincts.

This is a by product of the game losing features. Lassara was supposed to be another advisor, a conscience among the many other Zerg who all obediently defer to her power. Lassara in this could be the only member of the Leviathan who could actually challenge Kerrigan’s actions. Perhaps even make her take different paths during certain missions. However, this was taken out, along with a lot of other ideas for the game, to streamline it. Otherwise, it would not have come out on time.

Sometimes you do need to do this with any creative endeavor as not all ideas pan out the way want. But losing Lassara as a legitimate advisor, and not a hostage, completely ruins the best chance for Kerrigan to be truly challenged directly on her Leviathan. To really have someone to discern the line between Zerg and human, between the monster and the hero. Without Lassara acting as the angel on Sarah’s shoulder there is no voice that criticizes her more extreme actions.

It’s a loss to the story and as a result makes it harder to understand Sarah’s ultimate motivations, making her seem more cruel and heartless than the game wants her to appear. If Kerrigan was supposed to be a straight up villain, this wouldn’t matter, just like the last game. But remember, Heart of the Swarm is depicting Kerrigan as a hero still, even if she is flawed. We’re meant to want her to succeed, but on Kaldir she’s behaving more like the old Queen of Blades than at any other point in the story.

On Char she let the Dominion soldiers go, the Protoss Colonists don’t get that luxury. The fate of Lassara is worse. Kerrigan infects her with a parasite, allows one of the only Protoss ships that escaped to detect her. They beam her back onto their ship… and moments later Lassara dies as the parasite Kerrigan infected her with bursts out of her. It then proceeds to grow into a Swarm Queen that massacres the last of the Protoss survivors of Kaldir.

Sarah remarks how she thinks Lassara was very brave and admirable. But its very moot, she still killed her in a way that was incredibly unecessary. It is remarkable cruel and aids in the completion of a massacre that Sarah did not seemingly need to commit. At this point, her excuses ring hollow and it is incredibly hard to justify any of these actions.

In one way, it sort of makes more sense for Kerrigan to start on Kaldir in this way. By allowing her to make up for this senseless act of mass murder by actually allowing the Dominion soldiers a chance to survive. It denotes a degree of character growth and change. But even still, that hardly makes up for the fact she still does this horribly cruel thing to a group of people who have done nothing to her to deserve this. Mengsk is the enemy we want to see Sarah get revenge on, not a bunch of Protoss who have probably suffered enough because of her.

Is there honestly anyway Sarah at this point can be redeemed now? The excuse before was her mind was corrupted by the Zerg. That’s gone now, every action she takes is of her own mind, will and personal decision making. She doesn’t get to use the evil personality card to get out of this one. It would seem at this point, the idea that a monster could still be a hero is completely off the table.

Is there still hope for Sarah Kerrigan to be redeemed? Maybe, but it requires change.

Evolve. Transform. Transcend.

Before long, Kerrigan will be visited by Zeratul. While he is no ally, he is not her enemy, a distinction he sorta forces on her when he reveals that he has found the birthplace of the Zerg. The planet Zerus, located far outside the Korpulu sector, is their true homeworld, although they are now unrecognizable to the Zerg that remain there. These are the Primals we discussed before and its clear moment one of landing they are happy to see their spaceward bug brethren return. They respond in an animalistic fashion, treating Kerrigan’s Zerg like a threat to their territory and packs.

The reaction is not unprecedented, as we find out when we accomplish our first mission on the planet and awaken an Ancient Primal known as Zurvan. The creature is intelligent and informs Kerrigan that what she knows as Zerg were taken from Zerus a long time ago by a being known as Amon. He altered the Zerg, changed them into what they are and corrupted them with something of his own design, the Hivemind. No Primal has this, they remain individuals. They are all still as hungry for power and evolution as any Zerg, however. And through this, Zurvan has something he can give Kerrigan.

Leading her to the first spawning pool, Kerrigan is able to undergo and tremendous change, reverting back to her classic Queen of Blades form, but different. She’s more powerful now and, more importantly, no longer corrupted by Amon’s designs. While Sarah was never controlled by him, she did feel his influence and dark presence guiding her actions. Amon was dead before she was turned, allowing her a degree of freedom when the Overmind died no doubt. Now however she is completely free of Amon’s taint, as her transformation within the Primal Spawning Pool has essentially purified her Zerg strain. Everything she lost as a result of Raynor expunging the Zerg Persona has been regained, but now has more in common with the Primal Zerg. The Hivemind remains of course, but now it is her own it seems, along with all her new powers.

Of course, in testing these powers by defeating the other ancient pack leaders and taking their essence for herself, Zurvan turns on her. Declaring that one of them must consume the other and become something greater, the way of all Zerg. Kerrigan of course wins, her power doubling even more as a result and a contingent of Primals under Dehakka now follow her.

Zerus is more than just a means of Kerrigan unlocking more powers on her personal skill tree though, or permanently altering her sprite and rendering for the rest of the game. It also shows a different faction and side to the Zerg. That in a way, they are victims. The Zerg were never meant to harm anyone but perhaps each other. For most of their existence on Zerus, all they did was kill and consume each other, evolving constantly as they did. Then Amon arrived and in a clear bit of colonization, forcibly assimilated the species in his grand design. He corrupted them and turned them into a menace that would go on to harm the wider galaxy. Perpetuating a chain of abusive forced assimilation that tracks all the way to Sarah Kerrigan herself.

We might be quick to suggest Sarah is doing the same as Amon to a degree now. She has come to this planet and enforced her will on it. However, one could also make the claim this is the Zerg finally getting in touch with their true nature, what they used to be and were. Sarah does not forcibly pluck and change the Primal Zerg, if anything she plays by their rules as soon as she lands. They’re brutal rules, dependent on survival of the fittest but they are THEIR rules. The Primals might not be the most complex faction of Zerg out there, but their culture is wholly separate from the Zerg and their drive to conquer. Primals have a desire to evolve more than anything, conquering is secondary and not as big a drive for them. They desire change first and foremost.

While Sarah is willing to go along with this, purely for her revenge, it is apparent the message she keeps learning as she participates in Zerus’ trials. She has a choice, evolve or die, to remain stagnant is death. This doesn’t only hold true for her body but also her mentality. A strict focus on her revenge and nothing else will simply make her like the old Queen of Blades, which she herself is forced to acknowledge was weaker as a result of this. That version of her did not really think for herself, as she was being influenced by a corruption tainting her mind. Now if she wishes to truly change, she must stop thinking in terms of revenge only.

However, this evolution facilitates, essentially, undoing Raynor’s work. This isn’t new in Starcraft. Many campaigns can seemingly undo the progress of your prior work. Resulting in the previous set of missions to feel hollow and pointless. Like you didn’t accomplish anything. Seeing Sarah freed of her Zerg bits suddenly deciding to regrow them hits a bit hard. You sacrificed a lot in “Wings of Liberty” to save her and now she’s gone right on back to the Zerg. Sure, she’s not corrupted anymore, she’s more powerful and obviously they were always going to bring back her classic Zergified look because it’s goddamn iconic and we can’t lose that, but it still hurts.

At the very least, Sarah has changed in some aspect. She has learned what the Zerg used to be and in a sense can be again if they embrace a more individualistic culture. The Hivemind will remain, but Kerrigan holds sway now and is free from all the corrupting influence of the entity that colonized them. They won’t ever stop being the swarm, its too engrained in them now, but they are less compelled by the whims of a terrible, powerful god that desires them only as a weapon. Now, like Sarah, they can potentially choose their own path. But Mengsk still must die first before anything beyond that can be accomplished.

At least now, Sarah has a sense of the bigger picture, the greater role the Zerg must play in things. It is not complete though, she only knows that the Zerg were not always what they are now. That there is a path forward for them and that the Swarm itself must evolve if it is to survive. That means it cannot be slave to conquest or obsession. It must change or die, like the primals believe so fervently. The question, what to change into? An answer is soon provided.

Born of the Void

Mengsk at this point contacts Kerrigan, revealing what we all likely suspected. Raynor is alive, being used as a final contingency plan against Sarah’s revenge. If she tries to move on Korhal, he’ll kill him. While the swarm is returning to her and she is growing stronger herself, Sarah cannot hope to invade Korhal just yet knowing that Jim will die as a result. The old Queen of Blades wouldn’t have cared, but Sarah no longer possesses her cold unfeeling malice. It’s a weakness Mengsk thinks he can exploit. That and the fact Sarah has altered herself back to her infested form which Arcturus knows Jim would hate to see as much as Sarah suspects he would.

Simultaneously relieved to know Jim is alive, but also paralyzed by the fact he is beyond her reach, Kerrigan has to rethink her strategy for Korhal. Freeing Jim is one thing, but compromising its strength also takes precedent. This is where Stukov comes in, revealing the location of a secret Dominion Lab that is breeding Hybrid Zerg/Protoss creatures. Mengsk controlling Hybrid can’t be allowed to stand, so its best to destroy these.

However, over the course of systematically wiping out the lab, Sarah learns there is far more to this fight than just her desire for revenge. By the time she is through with the station and its leader, Dr. Narud, she learns the horrible truth… Amon is alive and it is possible her reversion to human assisted in giving him new life. Amon presents a catastrophic threat to the Zerg and galaxy at large. She can’t let him go unchallenged.

The existence of Amon gives Kerrigan a goal beyond her own petty grievances, even if its about personal survival more lives are at stake beyond just the Zerg. The knowledge that, unless she uses her power against him, Amon will likely retake the Swarm and use it to its original, terrible purpose is unacceptable. She’s seen what the Zerg used to be, what they could be, she’s been purified of the corruption that clouded her mind and has seen the change taking hold of the Zerg as a result of her lessons.

After she is incapacitated following her defeat of Narud, Zagara has the opportunity to take the Swarm, but doesn’t. She heals her instead, insisting she has more to learn. If Zagara can understand the value of knowledge before personal gain, the rest of the Zerg have a chance as well. This isn’t to say the Zerg are suddenly heroic, their primary goal reminds survival, but their capacity to change is self-evident and has taken precedence over the conquest side of their nature. Maybe not completely, but enough that is can foster loyalty in a species that prides itself on its brutality.

Later on, Kerrigan also acknowledges that fighting Amon may be fruitless, even suicidal. That’s there’s simply no way the Zerg, even with Sarah as powerful as she is now, can probably stop him. Her reason for choosing to do so anyway is because the only other alternative is to lay down and die. She has abandoned any semblance of survival over all at this point or even revenge. Amon is a threat to more than just her and seeing the bigger picture at last has finally gotten through to her. However, Mengsk still must die, not just for what he’s done but because he is a part of Amon’s plan. He cannot be allowed to live.

However, to take out Mengsk, Jim Raynor must be freed and that means a reunion that Kerrigan is not looking forward to. She contacts the Hyperion to help her find Raynor and after a bit of a misadventure she accomplishes this task, tracking Jim to a prison ship that is constantly on the move save for when it needs supplies. This is when Sarah moves and begin taking the ship apart from the inside out. It’s here where Mengsk shows his truly evil side, as he decides to destory the ship, along with his many loyal soldiers, calling them heroes as he sacrifices their lives for himself. Very Zerg-like behavior from a so-called protector of humanity.

Kerrigan of course stops the self-destruct and finds Jim. He is not happy to see her in her current form. He recalls Fenix and the many lives of others she’s ended, how he sacrificed everything to bring her back, and now she’s essentially spat in his face. For what it is worth, Sarah doesn’t really offer much in the way of excuses, only that she accepts that he is beyond angry with her. She even gives him a gun and lets him point it at her head. If he wants to kill the Queen of Blades like he promised so long ago, he should do it now.

Jim does not though, he merely fires off into the wall and walks away. Kerrigan has saved the man she loved, but at the same time lost him. Jim simply can’t accept that there was any good reason to throw away her humanity again and this time be completely willing to do so. It just doesn’t fly with him, there’s always another way. For Sarah, there never was. He was always the one who thought things could be better, that they could try to find a different solution. Kerrigan generally accepted that they couldn’t always choose the good option. It was why she went along with the plan that would see an entire planet consumed and herself captured by the Zerg.

As a result, Jim leaves Sarah, unwilling to speak to her further, while Kerrigan looks out at the cold vacuum of space, accepting that she has quite possibly lost the man she loved forever. Revenge has it prices and this was the biggest one of them all. Perhaps in a small way, it would’ve been better for Jim to be dead. At least for Sarah anyway. That would mean she’d never have think about how he’d feel about her choices. Now, she can’t pretend for even a second that he’d feel differently. He just flat out told her his thoughts, he feels betrayed. And Kerrigan honestly can’t blame him for feeling like that. Because she kinda did.

If these is one aspect of Sarah Kerrigan that can be granted to her as a heroic sentiment, it’s her willingness to accept a loss, a failure and the rejection of her choices by others. Many villains would rant or find excuses or blame it on someone else or something else. Sarah accepts that all her choices did this, that she’s the one to blame and she’s the one who has to live with herself for the rest of her life knowing she broke the heart of the only man she ever loved. A reality that very well could mean he will never be able to be with her ever again.

But at least he’s alive’s and that is better than when he was dead. So she’ll swallow her pride, accept her failure, be grateful the hard part is over, and move on to finishing what she started. The end of Arcturus Mengsk.

Trapped like a Rat in a Cage

So the final campaign commences as the Zerg Swarm blots out the skies of Korhal. Kerrigan is ready to finish what she started and get her revenge. However, her human allies have made only one request. Kerrigan tells them of her forthcoming assault in the hopes that Valerian will be able to prevent further chaos in the aftermath. To do that, he wants her to land her forces outside the city instead of on top of it.

This will lead to fewer civilian causalities, but it will make fighting into the city that much harder. Kerrigan accepts though, possibly noting how Valerian isn’t seeking to use the chaos to his advantage like his father once did. He’s instead asking for restraint from Kerrigan, who has no reason to give it to him, so he can help save lives and give innocents time to evacuate. She accepts this, amazingly. Sarah is showing the ability to empathize and reason, to not place all those on Korhal as part of her revenge.

All the same, the planet is still well defended and lives will be lost no matter what Kerrigan does to restrain herself. Mengsk doesn’t care even a remote bit, as he calls on every able bodied citizen to return to Korhal to defend it. Or more accurately, himself, as he knows Sarah is really only after him. He has no choice, it’s either fight Kerrigan to the death here or surrender. Mengsk is many things, but he does not cower in the face of his end. Mostly because he has plenty of other people to die for him, but generally because he refuses to admit he can be defeated.

Kerrigan’s tactics for the assault are much different, as despite numbers being on her side, she seeks to preserve her units and swarms’ numbers for as long as possible. She could just use brute force tactics, but that means getting thousands of zerg and innocent people killed. So she opts for more surgical landfall. Where she sends massive bio-launchers to the surface and uses them to take out the planet’s orbital defenses so the rest of the swarm can get through. In the process, she opens the way for her other lieutenants to storm into and secure the landing zone.

Kerrigan’s opening mission is to protect the lives of her forces, even as she sacrifices many to get planetside. There is a limit to how many Bio-Launchers she can send down, implying that she can’t expend more resources than necessary. The whole of the swarm is hers, but she’s opted for a strategy that is about preserving lives. She could just send everyone right in the capital from on high and obliterate it, but this enables far more Zerg to survive what would be a needless slaughter while also not catching innocents in the crossfire.

Meanwhile Mengsk’s true colors continue to shine through. He drops experimental nuclear warheads on his own troops to stop rampaging Ultralisks in an evolution mission and continues to push his experiments on Zerg in the middle of the siege. Despite knowing how dangerous this is given what happened to his last batch of guinea pigs. Mengsk clearly doesn’t care for the lives under his command, which he really should since he doesn’t have infinite numbers like Kerrigan does.

It’s a sharp contrast between the usual set up in these sorts of stories. The monsters besieging the humans are more directed in their targets. They swarm but do not sacrifice needlessly. Kerrigan cares about the lives of her forces more than the Terrans seem to, or at least their leader. The Zerg rage a less catastrophic war that emphasizes calculation and tactics. While Mengsk throws lives away in a last stand that is more about preserving himself than anyone else. There’s no illusion of glory here, Mengsk isn’t doing to save the Dominion, he’s doing it for himself alone.

But despite this, the game doesn’t exactly let Kerrigan off easily, not even here. Regardless of her discretion, she still is ultimately leading this war out of a desire for revenge. Raynor is alive, sure, but Mengsk is still the reason she became what she is and that is still the clear reason behind this assault. As Mengsk will point out himself as he confronts Kerrigan through a message. He calls her out for her motivations, how many thousands are dead now because of her vengeance quest. Kerrigan doesn’t have much of an answer for his claims, simply pointing out that he made this all possible. Mengsk is adamant, that for all the terrible things he’s done, he did them to protect humanity from monsters like her.

I guess he’s ignoring that he’s part of the reason monsters like Kerrigan exist.

To be honest though, he still has a point and Kerrigan is not denying anything he’s saying about what is motivating her and what she is. Sarah’s goals aren’t much more noble than Mengsk, but he has the excuse that he’s earnestly deluded himself into the role of savior. Kerrigan doesn’t have such luxury it seems, she’s accepted she’s the monster and is done apologizing or rationalizing it. She is holding back her nature, yes, but it doesn’t really absolve her of the wrong she has done to get here, nor the deaths she’s causing even now. Mengsk might have brought this on himself, but Sarah is still the instrument leading this march on his palace.

Perhaps that is the point though, the acceptance on Kerrigan’s part that she is, in all respects, the monster of this story. She’s not the hero, she’s not the good guy, she’s not the shining knight here to slay the mad king. She’s just the angry wronged creature of the land that just so happens to be pointed towards the right target for once. And woe to those in her way. Does that make her better or worse? Mengsk is still making excuses for himself, even if he truly believes them, they are still excuses for terrible crimes. Kerrigan has no such delusions, no such absolution on her part. She knows what she’s here for, she knows she won’t be called a hero after this, and she’s fine with that.

Does knowing you’re the monster of the story make you more heroic if you are still doing monstrous things? Even if it is against someone who is probably just as bad if not worse than you? Where’s the line? Who gets to write the final line of the story and determine which roles belong to who? While Heart of the Swarm seems to ask this question at this point, the debate is quickly done away with, as Mengsk activates his secret weapon, a psi-disruptor that intends to break the swarm’s hivemind and turn it against them, killing any Zerg caught in its range.

But Kerrigan planned for this. The Zerg is no longer so singular in its makeup, the swarm no longer so stringent along genetic lines. Dehaka is the much needed diversity the Zerg have lacked. The Primal Zerg have no such psi-connection, and thus are immune from the disruptor. Through a series of lighting commando raids and full frontal assaults on the orbital platform where the disruptor resides, Kerrigan and Dehaka bring ruin to Mengsk’s final defense against the invasion.

In this instant, Kerrigan embraces the outsiders of her swarm, the ones that aren’t truly a part of it, to assist her in this critical hour. The old Kerrigan would’ve used Dehaka and tossed him aside when he was no longer needed, but Dehaka remains loyal and so does Sarah to her Primal lieutenant. Kerrigan has done what so few monsters can do, embrace something it cannot truly control to help it. The Primal Zerg only follow Kerrigan because of her strength and power, they are not connected to her in any other way. Pawns that cannot be controlled should be a liability to the Queen of Blades. But not so here.

And this won’t be the last time Kerrigan accepts outside assistance, as her final push to Mengsk begins.

You Turned us ALL into Monsters

As Kerrigan prepares for her final assault on Mengsk, her lieutenants all have their own takes on thing. Izsha is only considerate of what matters to the Swarm, Dehaka is content with collecting essence, Zagara has fully embraced Kerrigan’s vision, Stukov is prepared to continue the fight against Amon after Mengsk is dead and Abathur has decreed that Kerrigan’s achievements are the greatest among the Swarm. When Sarah points out, acknowledging once more, that all of this is about her revenge, Abathur’s reply is succinct and consistent with his philosophy. The Swarm’s purpose changes with its leader, as long as it is fulfilling that purpose, that is what matters.

Kerrigan herself gives the greatest thought to what happens after this, even if she dies. She’s shattered Mengsk’s power structure. He won’t recover from this, even if he breaks the Swarm and her. What the Terrans do after his death or the death of this new Queen of Blades will best determine their future. And while that might not matter to the Swarm itself, Sarah clearly gives more thought to it. And, as Abathur has pointed out, if it matters to Kerrigan, it matters to the Swarm at large. As pointed out when the time for the battle comes and Valerian once more requests Kerrigan avoid civilian sectors. Doing so would put her assault at risk, as Mengsk would clearly see her pattern and exploit it. But she accepts the conditions, even though Valerian has no power to enforce them.

This is significant in terms that Kerrigan is fully anticipating she very well might die here and doing so would doom the Swarm later in its fight against Amon. Making this last battle all the harder is not conducive to either her revenge or her set path against the real villain of this story. But it is the right thing to do, the heroic thing to do and she decides to head down that path. Kerrigan has accepted she is a monster by this point, but she can choose what kind of monster she wants to be.

Mengsk’s last stand at the steps of his palace throws everything at the player. Every special weapon variant, every veteran unit, everything in the Terran Arsenal that Mengsk has left. And as powerful as Kerrigan is, the defenses arrayed against her are intimidating. But not long into the battle, someone else enters the fray. Jim Raynor, flying in with the Hyperion to destroy and take over a Dominion to Kerrigan’s flank. He’s come to help finish this with Sarah.

It was hinted at that Jim had seen that, despite her change, despite what she had done in the name of revenge, Sarah was not the same Queen of Blades he swore to kill so long ago. That Kerrigan is dead and while his Sarah is not truly back, perhaps she never could be, a part of her remains. Jim has also sworn to take Arcturus Mengsk down, and on the eve of the tyrant’s end, he won’t miss out on taking part in ending his regime. Raynor’s Raiders formed to take down the oppression of Mengsk and his government, it makes sense they would be here now even if their allies in this assault are Zerg.

Many players might question how quickly Jim comes around on this, but it’s very clear he was conflicted about helping Kerrigan until she made it clear she was not going to be indiscriminate in her ire. This is just about Mengsk, and while that’s not perfect, for Raynor it has always been about Arcturus in the end. He’s the one who caused Kerrigan’s death and rebirth into the Swarm. He’s as much to blame as anyone for what happened. I wouldn’t expect Raynor to sit out on taking down Arcturus at last. That would be far more out of character.

It also of course introduces a wrinkle into the final fight. While it’s nice to have Raynor here, Kerrigan can’t let anything happen to him. So she also needs to protect his base while pushing her assault. It drains some of Mengsk’s resources clearly to have to divert to attack Raynor, but it also distracts Kerrigan. So it makes the mission just a bit harder as a result. However, this again speaks to the duality of Kerrigan’s nature itself. She is risking her life and her revenge to save Raynor and his fellow Raiders. It’s mostly out of a selfish desire, but it is against her monstrous instincts ultimately as her need to protect Jim is clearly an emotional one rather than an instinctual one.

Jim isn’t the only one helping out of course, the whole Swarm is here. Simply destroying the defenses to the Imperial Sector will enable Kerrigan’s lieutenants to send their forces in and back up her assaults on the many Dominion bases that line the streets up to the palace proper. It shows the sense of unity and camaraderie built up among this new Swarm. Still tied to Kerrigan’s will, but still independent enough that their choice to be here is largely their own. As Abathur has pointed out, Kerrigan gives the Swarm purpose and they are ultimately willing to follow to the bitter end, achieving victory for her and themselves.

Strangely enough, because of Kerrigan’s actions and Raynor’s presence here, the Swarm itself has ultimately changed in its goals. Even if they won’t acknowledge it, the Zerg are essentially liberators for once. They are ending the reign of a mad tyrant, freeing his subjects from his oppression, all with the backing of a proper freedom fighting force in the form of the Raiders. With each street cleared of Dominion Forces, Korhal grows closer to abolishing the true monster in all of this. While Mengsk continues to rant, rave, demand Raynor’s head, and insist that he is the savior of humanity as his empire crumbles around him.

Combining her assaults between Raynor’s and her own forces that she helps break through into the city, Kerrigan can easily annihilate much of what’s left of the Dominion in her path. Occasionally taking moments out of the assault to defend Jim’s own forces and the Hyperion itself. Before long, the path of the palace is clear and only the final elite forces of Korhal stand in her way.

It’s interesting to note, that because of his actions here and Kerrigan protecting him, Jim has become an unofficial part of her Swarm. Wholly independent of course, but no less aligned with its interests. Raynor’s Raiders can be see pusing up with the Zerg, united in the same cause of taking Mengsk down. As times goes on and Jim builds up his units, we’ll see the full might of the Raiders alongside that of the Zerg. Kerrigan remains the focal point of the battle, but Raynor is clearly as important to this assault in the form of his support. Finally, at last, they are together in purpose… if only for now.

As you approach the final gate to the palace, decimating its defenses, Mengsk sends everything he had at Kerrigan in the form of drop pods to the surface. But between the mass of Zerg and Raynor’s own freedom fighters pushing up from behind, they are not much of a match for the Swarm. Once the gates fall, Kerrigan strides into the Palace itself, taking the fight to Mengsk directly as the Swarm holds outside. She cuts through what’s left of his bodyguard and then finally corners him in his office.

This is where Mengsk plays his final trump card, the Xelnaga Relic he had taken from Char and reassembled here. Knowing Kerrigan herself would come for him and that this artifact was his best bet at defeating her. It completely debilitates Kerrigan, forcing her to the ground in pain upon its activation. After coming so far, it almost seems like Sarah will die here at Mengsk’s hands.

If not for Raynor coming in to punch out Arcturus and take his hand off the activation button, of course. Because Raynor IS the hero of this story, that much isn't in doubt.

With the Xelnaga Artifact neutralized for now, Kerrigan is allowed to attack Mengsk with her full fury and she does not hold back. At last, with nothing left to use against her, Arcturus admits the truth, that HE turned Kerrigan into this monster. But Sarah disagrees, stating “You turned us ALL into Monsters,” before finally killing him.

It’s an acknowledgement of a terrible truth. That all the terrible things Arcturus had done had forced everyone involved here, Raynor included, to do terrible things, compromise valuable principles, just to take him down. Kerrigan has accepted what she is at this point, Mengsk dies refusing to believe he’s a monster himself.

But despite being a monster, acknowledging she is one, Kerrigan’s bloodlust is sated. She is not consumed by her hatred and finally ends her campaign against the Dominion. The Swarm will leave Korhal now, in its entirety. No occupation, no more spreading the creep, no consumption and mass slaughter of Terrans. Sarah’s goals are ended here and she will not continue butchering people when it is no longer necessary.

However, this ultimately means one final sacrifice, Jim. Kerrigan had said there can be no her and Raynor while Mengsk lived. But the truth is, they can’t be together even then. The Zerg need a leader to keep them in check and to fight Amon. More importantly, even if her actions ended a tyrant, she is still the monster that Terrans fear, and rightfully so. None of this has undone that. So she says goodbye to the only man she’s ever loved, leaving Raynor to pick up the pieces of the revolution he started and she helped complete. Where she goes now, Jim cannot follow, yet again.

Sarah gives up a life with the man she loves in this moment, understanding she is needed elsewhere and that it wouldn’t help anyone if she stuck around on Korhal. So she does the selfless thing in this moment, perhaps the most selfless she’s done in the entire game. Something no monster would be capable of. Letting go of something she so desperately wants, even more than revenge.

The question is though… is that enough to redeem her?

I Am The Swarm

At the end of the campaign, Sarah has renounced everything, her humanity, her identity, even the man she loves. All in the name of fighting a greater evil, for a purpose even higher than her own revenge. She no longer considers herself truly human. But she is no longer the villain either. She is still a monster, but is she a heroic one? It’s hard to say and I don’t even think Sarah herself would try to claim she is a hero. Not even at the end of the Starcraft II storyline where she admits that nothing will really make her hands clean. Her atonement is ultimately Amon’s destruction, to make all the lives she ruined count for something in the end.

As a narrative, the idea of turning Sarah Kerrigan from the Queen Bitch of the Universe into its savior is rocky. Even when the story acknowledges its pitfalls, it never does much to correct to them. Kerrigan still does horrible things in her pursuit of revenge and does little in her attempt to absolve or justify her actions. Perhaps that isn’t the point though as in the end, Kerrigan doesn’t seek absolution or a justification for her actions. She merely accepts her role as the monsters, but chooses how to act it out.

There were likely ways to better fix the issues that arise as a result of the story choices made in Heart of the Swarm. Giving Kerrigan other options besides killing the Protoss for example, or enabling players to make choices at certain points in the campaign to steer her arc in their direction. Another option, more missions in certain sections of the story that would show a more heroic side to Kerrigan or at least the Zerg. Perhaps even just better arcs for her lieutenants would be enough, letting her call her out on her bullshit or for her to better defend her decisions.

However, any of those choices could’ve easily made the Zerg less than what they were and what fans expect of them. The more you change a monster into a hero, the less they are what people love about monsters. An obstacle, a force of nature, a nightmare to conquer, confront or acknowledge, any number of allegories or metaphors is lost the moment a monster becomes more of a hero.

A clear example of this Godzilla, who started out as allegory for Japan’s darkest fears and national trauma, but just as quickly turned into a kid friendly superhero defender of Japan. Many have derided this change, many others have tried to defend it, but quite a few of them miss the point of that change. Godzilla was not entirely popular outside his singular appearence as a metaphor for the atomic bomb. In order to survive, he had to change. And he changed excessively over the years, from villain, to hero, back to villain, to anti-hero, then villain and hero at the same time. Godzilla survived into the modern day and cultural relevance by never remaining stagnant. He represents whatever the filmmaker in the moments wants him to. From atomic destruction, to Kaiju Superhero Wrestler. Then from Rage Incarnate, to angry but protective father. From a satirical stand-in for Ecological Disaster to a Defender of the Natural World before back to being a metaphor for the trauma of war. Godzilla has survived by evolving, just like the Zerg.

I monsters are meant to represent our fears, and our fears change over time, so must they. The Zerg are the ultimate expression of this. They evolve to fit the needs of whoever is in charge of them. To remain stagnant is extinction. So they change, they become what is needed to survive. As does Kerrigan ultimately. She starts as a loyal friend and love interest to a hero, before being corrupted into the weapon of a malevolent creature by betrayal. She then becomes the greatest monster in history, before her humanity is returned to her by said hero. But then, she takes up the mantle of the monster once more, but this time of her own accord for her own goals and not the corrupted mission of another. At the end of it she is neither fully monster nor fully hero, but somewhere between.

The challenge of writing any monster it seems is finding that balance, between how they evolve with each subsequent return to them. Kerrigan is never absolved of her actions, but she is never full condemned by them either. A monster can be both a source of fear and a form of liberation. Kerrigan proves this. The question is ultimately how you walk the line between hero and monster. If we can learn from what Heart of the Swarm attempted to accomplish here, perhaps all our monsters can evolve themselves.

And they need too. Not just because monsters exist to tell us how to defeat evil, but also how to empathize with what creates them, what fashions them, what drives them. A monster can be many things. A source of one’s nightmares as well as an expression of one’s inner self. The truth of Kerrigan’s final words to Mengsk can be felt in this. In someways, we are all monsters. How we write ours into being on the page is an expression of how we deal with the monster in life.

It’s something I’ve struggled with myself. How do I look at the darker aspects or myself, the things I’m not happy with. How do I reconcile this with who I want to be? Am I doomed? Am I able to overcome my limitations? Am I a good person in the end? There isn’t an easy answer and I suppose that’s why I like “Heart of the Swarm”, because it admits self-actualization is not easy. That sometimes there’s no way to fully absolve one self. And that the best you can do is own up to your failings and try to choose the best path open to you.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, let it be this. Kerrigan recognized the monster inside and ultimately embraced it, but in the end, she was not consumed by its power. She owned what she was. Accepting the monster made her a better person. Maybe not a hero, not fully, but ultimately it was the change she needed. We all have a choice in the end, how selfless and selfish we wish to be. It’s up to you to walk the line between both your way. And perhaps understanding what the monster wants, like Kerrigan, can help you find your path through it.

#Video Games #Monsters #StarCraft II #Heart of the Swarm #Sarah Kerrigan #Queen of Blades #Zerg #Jim Raynor #Essay #Sorry there's just a ton of text in some spots #but Tumblr is stupid about picture limits.

17 notes · View notes

powerfultenderness · 4 years ago

Text

The Baker’s Daughter

Title: The Baker’s Daughter

Rating: T

Pairing: TWM/Reader.

Summary: When the Red Paladins make a stop in town you meet their fearsome Weeping Monk. Only, he might not be as fearsome as they say.

Word count: 2464

Warnings: cliches and fluff.

Notes: 2nd POV. Female reader.

[Masterlist]

Red Paladins. The mere sight of them was enough to make you shiver in fear. Although you certainly had nothing to fear from them. You were human and a good and upstanding citizen of the town. Still, the Paladins behavior and attitude evoked a sense of dread that matched their bloody garb. The most frightening of them all was no ordinary paladin. The Weeping Monk. The only red he wore were the tear stains flowing down his face. Well...that’s what they said anyways. You weren’t sure why the man was weeping blood, or even if that was real or just a rumor. Either way, a man who frightened even the other paladins must be fearsome indeed.

Your father woke every morning well before sunrise to bake, and though you’d sometimes help, your job was to take the goods to the town square to sale. You spotted the red cloaks just an hour after sunrise. Your father liked when they were in town, as did other artisans, as they often had enough gold to patronize many. So you steeled yourself for some scrutinizing looks (they were always so intimidating!) But there was no preparing yourself for what you saw next.

There was a young man walking alongside an elder paladin, a man who you would later find out was Father Carden, leader of the Red Paladins. Not that you were interested in that august man. Instead, as the young man looked at the elder man, you happened to catch a glimpse of his eyes. Even with his face hidden under a hood, you could see that azure. He would have had the most beautiful eyes you’d ever seen, but that they were devoid of emotion. They did not react to whatever the other man said to him. Perhaps more interestingly, faded streaks of red poured from his eyes.

He caught you staring at him, you’re certain, for though it was just a second, maybe two, his eyes locked with yours. Whatever he thought of you, no doubt determining the level of threat you offered him (none!), he quickly looked away, hid his face under his hood again and walked away.

That man had to be the Weeping Monk. Now you knew the rumors to be true: Among the Red Paladins was a man with blood stained tears trailing down his face.

A woman coughed politely and snapped you out of your reverie. As you filled her order, and those of other customers, you were haunted by visions of the Weeping Monk. Every time you closed your eyes, you would see his: Pools of a sadly dull blue surrounded by a sea of dusty red.

You sold the last two loaves of a hardy dinner bread just around noon. That was the bulk of your father’s business, common folk buying what they needed for dinner. Which made sense, of course, but was also kind of a shame. Your absolute favorite thing to bake were sweet cakes and pies. It wasn’t just the sweetness, but to watch someone’s expression of genuine enjoyment and even happiness that came from biting into something that you made was something else entirely. Perhaps if you baked enough pies for the whole of the Red Paladins, they’d calm down! And maybe, just maybe, even The Weeping Monk’s eyes would sparkle.

You were done with the evenings sales, which usually went by quickly in any case, with some daylight to spare. It was mid summer and with berries at their peak you decided to forage for some wild berries. Sure you could buy some from one of the local farmers, but you figured your father would appreciate your money saving initiative.

There was a river only a few miles from town, that which the town drew most of its fresh water from. Around its banks was good foraging of mushrooms, tubers and berries. In addition to fishing, one needn’t go hungry in the summer months. So it was that in no time you had half a basket of wild berries.

You were so busy thinking of what you would be baking (and only half thinking about how the Weeping Monk would react to whatever it was you baked!), that you didn’t notice a couple of men approaching you. Not until a rough hand forced you to turn around.

Though you were met with two men, the first thing you saw was the color red. Two Red Paladins. You sighed, believing you had no reason to fear them. “Oh sirs, you frightened me. Can I help you?”

The man who grabbed you grinned, a deceptively nice thing of clean teeth and pretty dimples. His friend didn’t have nearly as nice a smile, his was that of a predator. “Aye, little lady. See, our camp’s gone quite cold, we were wanting a pretty local to help...warm us up.”

Your smile dropped and you tried to step back. You weren’t expecting such a crude response from Red Paladins, men associated with the Church. Although your more cynical friends and family would caution you to be weary of these men especially.

“Uhm...I would suggest a campfire?” You tried to step out of the man’s grasp again, and again his grip strengthened.

The man pulled you forward, forcing you to trip over your feet and stumble into his chest. “No. We were thinking something a little more fun.”

“Were you now?” A deep and slightly gravelly voice interrupted.

The three of you looked towards the voice and you sucked in a surprised breath along with the two paladins.

“You! What are you doing here?” The one who didn’t grab you asked, his voice half accusatory and half angry.

“I could ask you the same thing.” The Weeping Monk stepped out of the tree line, lifting his face just enough that his blood stained glare looked even more menacing in the fading sunlight.

The two men stuttered out some nonsensical excuse as the monk took another step closer. Soon they were gone, not quite running but moving fast enough that even you could see their fear.

“Are you hurt?”

His gaze met yours for a second time that day and for a second time you could do nothing but get lost in his eyes.

He sighed and took a step back, not that he was close to you! “I won’t hurt you.”

You blinked as you processed his words. “No! Uhm. I mean. I’m not hurt. Thanks to you, sir. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you hadn’t come along. So, thank you?”

Great. You meet the man you’d been thinking about all day and all you could do was ramble. You tried your best to ignore the heat spreading across your face as you picked up the fallen basket of foraged berries. Even as you scooped up a few berries that had taken a tumble onto the ground, you could feel him watching you.

For his part, the Weeping Monk hadn’t moved from his spot, what little you could see of his expression, for he had moved his hood down, was unreadable. Was he judging you? Angry at his fellows? Or just bored?

He made a sound, something between a sigh and a chuckle, and turned slightly. “I am heading back to the village.”

You didn’t miss the invitation to join him, or rather to have him escort you back. “Oh!” You practically leapt to his side. “Thank you, again, sir.”

He made a humming sound, acknowledging your words but said nothing in return.

By the time you made it back to the road the sun had fallen completely and you realized just how far from town you had actually walked. How careless of you!

The monk seemed to think you were careless too. “It’s dangerous so far from town.”

You tried to hide a wince. “I didn’t mean to travel so far. I just got caught up in foraging. And, and I thought with the Red Paladins camping outside of the village grounds, that I’d be safe from bandits and the like...I didn’t expect…”

You stopped when you noticed lamp light illuminate two robed figures on the road ahead. Even from that distance you could tell that the two paladins were not the same that attacked you, but that didn’t stop your instinctual reaction to hide from them. Thankfully the monk beside you was observant enough to notice. He took a sideways step, closer to you. Close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating off of him, and close enough that you wanted to slide your arm into his. But you restrained yourself, he was a monk for goodness sake, not a gentleman caller walking you home!

You looked up at him and realized that you didn't even know his name. “I’m sorry, sir, it was rude of me not to introduce myself.” You began and gave him your name.

Again he acknowledged you, this time with a nod, but he said nothing in return.

“May I have your name?”

He glanced at you from under his hood, only a hint of blue visible in such low light as star light.

“So that I may properly thank you. Please?”

He looked back to the road, “They call me the Weeping Monk.”

You gave out a quiet huff of air, half a laugh. “Well they call me the baker’s daughter but that’s not my name!”

Once more the monk was silent.

“Oh. How long has it been since anyone has used your real name?”

“Many years.”

“I see. Well then, you shall simply have to respond to “Hey you!”

“That’s not the worst thing I’ve been called.”

You chuckled, was that a sense of humor peeking out from under that hood?

By now you had turned into town and were on the path to your father’s house. While it wasn’t quite late, the house and outside lamps were lit higher than usual. He was a sweet man, a pacifist, and always very worried about you.

Your father rushed out of the house, yelling your name in both relief and exasperation. “There you are! I’ve been searching for you since sundown! I was about to alert the city guard!”

You sighed, it wasn’t that long past sundown! And yet, after what you experienced perhaps his anxieties were warranted. “I’m alright, father. This fine monk here was kind enough to walk me home.”

The Weeping Monk looked up just enough to nod at your father, revealing his face enough that your father could see him in the lamplight. If you had heard about the Weeping Monk then your father certainly had. He noticed the monk’s eyes, or rather the blood stains under his eyes and his distress was suddenly doused.

“I see. Thank you for seeing my daughter safely home.”

The monk took a step away from you, either as a way to assuage any unease he read from your father or to signal that he was leaving. You moved from his side to stand beside your father and gave the monk a small bow, “Yes, thank you, sir.”

The monk returned your bow with a slight inclination of his head. For a final time that day you stared into those haunting blue eyes, the edge of your world dusty red of tears.

You spent the rest of the night baking hardy and sweetened traveling scones. As the sweets were cooling you gathered some cloth to bundle them in. Only you weren’t sure which cloth to choose.

“This one.”

You jumped, surprised by your father's appearance.

“Father! It’s late. You should be sleeping.”

He smiled fondly at you and handed you a simple looking cloth of a dull gray color. Not one of the ones you were considering but it did remind you of the monk’s rather plain color palate.

“He’s not a flashy man.” Your father reasoned as he moved about the kitchen.

He took the jar of vanilla beans, the most expensive ingredient and a treasure in its own right. He then poured the beans out onto the cloth.

“What are you doing?”

He wrapped the cloth around the beans, “Let them sit overnight. When he has finished the scones, the cloth will smell of the vanilla. And remind him of you.”

“Oh!” What a great idea!

Your father smiled at you once more, “It is how I won your mother’s love.”

Your face heated up with a blush, “He’s a monk, father, not-”

He chuckled, “Yes, yes. Of course he is.”

That morning was busy and many times you caught sight of what you thought was the gray garbed monk, only to be disappointed. You were beginning to think you would make a lunch of wild berry scones when you saw the familiar gray colors of your favorite monk. He was walking in the opposite direction of where your stall was, so you had to risk calling out to him or miss him for who knows how long.

“Hey you!”

The monk stopped and slowly turned. You could have sworn there was a slight smirk on his face when he turned but by the time he reached your stall his face was neutral.

You smiled at him and held up the wrapped package, with a half portion of a scone on top. “For you. To thank you for helping me last night, the fruits of last night's foraging.”

Gently, almost as if he were afraid to touch you, he took the package and broke a piece off the small offering. As he bit into the scone you could see him contemplating the flavors, enjoying the sweet and tangy berries and the slightly caramelized sugar coating. And a small smile formed at his lips, where he had just a crumb lingering. Most wonderful of all, that smile reached his eyes! A brilliant sparkle glistening among that beautiful deep sea blue. Even the tears that stained his face seemed less sorrowful.

He inclined his head slightly in thanks, “Delicious.”

“Thank you!” Not even the strongest of magics could stop the happy warmth that filled you as he finished eating the offered treat with eagerness, especially as his tongue quickly slid across his lips to savor every last crumb.

“Lancelot.”

“Hmm? Lancelot?”

He nodded once and, you were so enamored with his smile that it took a second more than you would have liked to realize that he was giving you his name.

You smiled and glanced down for a moment to cover up your embarrassment. “Well, don’t worry, Lancelot, your secret is safe with me.”

This time the smile that crossed his face was not hidden, though it was short lived, and he returned to his stoic demeanor when he turned around. But you would never forget that smile.

#the weeping monk #twm lancelot #the weeping monk x reader #lancelot x reader

165 notes · View notes

immortal-enemies · 4 years ago

Note

Hi!! So I want to say I totally respect all your opinions but I had just wanted to add my two cents. Y’know, just another perspective, cause your discussions gave me interesting stuff to think about!! Hope y’all are having a good day!!

First, about Livvy- I don’t think I completely agree that she couldn’t stand on her own as a character. I do see where you’re coming from, though.

I think one of the underlying facets of her that was explored in TDA was a subtle struggle with individuality. Her brother and family means a lot to her, and for the Blackthorns especially their family was a lifeboat. Traumatized kids left orphaned and abandoned by the adults of their world logically come to depend on each other and influence one another in a perhaps more intense way than kids in normal situations do.

For example, let’s take James and Lucie at the start of TLH (not twins but are quite close in age). they’ve been able to “be their own person” in the way that we define that condition, because they exist in a time of unusual peace and freedom/security to leave one another. They can explore themselves outside of their immediate family and still have the generally guaranteed security of their loved ones.

Livvy and Ty, meanwhile, have from their childhood known separation and death. The way that their bond manifests is not just because of the stripped-down facts that they are twins and that they understand each other better.

Now, in TDA the focus was on Emma, Julian, Cristina, Mark more than it was on Livvy and Ty. That and the sheer size of the cast (a situation which has undeniably impacted a lot of CC’s writing, especially in TLH and TDA) means that we didn’t get to spend as much time with her alone. We don’t have a Livvy POV except in a short story where she’s a ghost, and for all those who will accurately say that POV is not the only way to get to deeply know a character, we just didn’t get much out of her alone except in Thule. So it’s easy to understand why she might have just been seen as disposable. And I do wish she had been developed more.

But don’t forget that Livvy was just as complex as any character- firstly because of her inherent worth as a human being, but also because:

she wanted to run an Institute one day (it doesn’t really matter that this isn’t a concrete personality trait, it was an important dream of hers that points to other aspects of her life). she wanted the bond of parabatai. she was a romantic at heart and she was scheming about Julian’s love life and talking about hot celebrities from the beginning. She loved love and weddings and celebration. She was curious about and wanted to include Kit as much as Ty was. She wanted to know what a kiss felt like. She smelled like orange blossoms. After she died and was brought back we see her reflect on the strange stasis she exists in and we see the danger of that condition.

The point is, from the exterior it’s easy to say that she revolves completely around Ty but... a lot of factors impact that perception. As to her death being considered more for its impact on the other characters: well, no one looked at the situation and thought primarily, “this sucks because we’re going to be so sad.” They grieved for her loss and all the things she would never get to see or do because they cared about her as a person, because of her and not because of anyone else. Livia’s Watch wasn’t established for Julian to feel sorry for himself or to make Ty feel better- grief doesn’t work that way. It was to try and honor Livvy, to put her name and character and associated feelings on something larger in order to make up a little for what she lost.

One last thing- are we forgetting Thule Livvy :(

I understand “it’s not the same Livvy.” Let’s worry less about the technicalities of how much their souls match up and think more about the actual character. The whole alternate universe construction is meant to evoke one main idea: POTENTIAL. what could have happened. It asks, what if. Now the irony is that Livvy died in the main world and in Thule she was the only true and known survivor. Outside of this, though, didn’t Livvy have the capacity to fall in love? To grieve? To stand alone as a character and save lives, protect others, make awful decisions as the leader of a weakened people? Didn’t she become even more of a key player by the time Julian and Emma left?

Just stuff to think about! Obviously no one has to agree with me lol

Hiiiii!!! Don't worry! You're good!!

I always viewed Dru as the Blackthorn who was fighting to stand out 🤔

Yes! James and Lucie are very sperate characters! But, that's because they, along with Cordelia, are both the main characters in the series. (CC said herself that it was each of their stories)

Livvy, in the other hand, exists purely because of Ty. She's not a main character, she's somewhere between a secondary character and a tertiary character. To me it feels like she existed to make us like her and then she was killed so Ty and Kit could resurrect her, which would go wrong, and that leads into TWP.

CC obviously knew Livvy was going to die from the start. She didn't just write the end of LoS and think "ya know what would be CRAZY lol?" She knew Livvy was going to die. So there wasn't much need to really grow her character into one that could stand on its own. Especially since once she was a ghost, she was tied to Ty and really couldn't develop because she has to be apart of Ty. She's not even really her own character anymore.

Yes, I did take Thule Livvy into consideration. I think she was more so put in there for the same reason all of Thule was; to set up TWP.

Yes, she was important in Thule. I mean, I don't think anyone could honestly say that Thule Shadowhunters would even exist without her.

But the story doesn't take place in Thule. She is Livvy, but she's not Livvy, so I think comparing them to the standard of "can they stand by themselves" is a little unfair.

Jdbdjsjsjs yes! All of these reasons are completely valid!! And thank you for sharing them!!

#ndmsndss 💙🧡❤️#asks #anon #livvy blackthorn

8 notes · View notes

codenamesazanka · 5 years ago

Text

A meta about Dabi! I surprise myself; but HUGE DISCLAIMER: Dabi is still not a favorite character at all, and I am biased as hell. This is my interpretation of events. I will not be reading his behavior as if he is without doubt Touya Todoroki - that’s not at all confirmed - and so I will be less sympathetic due to not coming from that perspective. Also, extremely long meta.

First up: I’ll take Dabi for his word that he doesn’t gave a crap about the League.

I’m not saying he absolutely does not have a single milligram of care for the League - he does seem to rely on and intend for them to provide support for his goal; but he’s very much detached from everyone else, and haven’t demonstrated much empathy for any member of the League. Not quite part of the ‘Found Family’.

It’s very possible that he could be lying, trying look tough in front of the Hero.

But the evidence from the past chapters kinda shows that he means his words. Here’s him burning away Twice clones and barely avoid hitting Real!Twice:

“He never actually hit Twice,” “He had no choice cuz Hawks was right there,’ ‘He knew those aren’t the real Twice, and what do you expect? He’s a villain, and he expects his teammates to take care of themselves.”(*1)

All fair! Still, I’ll say this attack is pretty careless; and moreover, it took away some of their much needed manpower. Two Twice clones could’ve created four more Twices and so on; and at the very least might have interfered with Hawks targeting the real Twice.

And here’s him attacking Hawks in a way that would’ve burned Twice badly.

Images are out of order, my apologies, but these panels show that 1) Dabi had really intended to hit Hawks (and Twice), what with him being shocked that Hawks had been able to evade the attack; 2) Dabi’s fire output was very strong, and so 3) as Hawks points out, he nearly burned up Twice.

Even if he thought that Hawks would protect Twice, that’s still quite a risky move that would’ve badly injure a fellow League Member.

Here’s a comparison of Dabi and Mr. Compress during the battle in Deika:

In the first image, after Mr. Compress ask for help, Dabi dismisses him. Sure, he does point out the Twice clones shortly after, but it cold enough that Mr. Compress even asks, ‘Are you so unfeeling?!’.

Meanwhile, when it’s Dabi in danger, Mr. Compress is concerned for him, wishes to help, and yeah, that ‘Poor Dabi!’

All throughout My Villain Academia, he’s been pretty rude and aloof from everyone:

Refusing to help fight Gigantomachia (to go recruit a Hero that he never trusted in the first place) when everyone is ready to eat cold dirt for a month and a half with Shigaraki.

And:

Dismissing everyone’s effort, and insulting them.

In fact, in comparison to everyone else in the League, Dabi is really lacking. We all know Twice is a total sweetheart who would do anything for the League; Spinner is canonically in love with Shigaraki explicitly stated that his goal is to help Shigaraki realize his vision (Chapter 233). Toga showed her care for Twice during the Overhaul mess (Chapter 148). And Mr. Compress, again, was worried for Dabi (Chapter 230), wanted the Doc to help Shigaraki (238), and is in general genial towards his teammates.

I think, overall, narratively in both writing and visuals, Dabi is written to be rather unlikeable to the reader (or at least neutral).

My Villain Academia is the arc where the League are the protagonists, the Point-of-View characters: we hear their thoughts, and we learn their backstories.

A huge messy image! I’m sorry! But from the silly faces, to the little actions (Mr. Compress whispering, complete with ‘psst psst’), to the asides (Mr Compress, again, “Where did you pull that phone out of?”), these give us a bit of funny moments that kinda endears the League to us. (Even Giran gets a moment or two.)

Not quite Dabi though. We get a glimpse of his thoughts at the beginning of Chapter 228 when he encounters Geten, we have some interactions with Twice that are humorous (though it’s Twice carrying out the majority of it), and... that’s it.

“What about Mr. Compress? We got no backstory.”; “What about Toga? We don’t really hear her thoughts either?” Yes to all those points, but these were made up for: as shown above, Mr. Compress having those little moments; and Toga, who already demonstrated her care for Twice in the Overhaul Arc, and we’re reminded of that directly when Twice brings out the handkerchief she gave him.

There, of course, is that moment that he goes to attack Hawks and help Twice in Chapters 264-266. Good of him, right? Heroic, even.

Except that 'rescue’ doesn’t really give it a feeling of ‘The Calvary Has Arrived!’. IMO. For one thing, he almost burned Twice. For another, the reaction from Twice is more desperate than relief or joy. Compare with Toga and Mr. Compress’s clear utter joy at being saved by Twice.

(And no could forget those amazing spreads of Twice overcoming his trauma and unleashing Sad Man’s Parade? Those evokes such a feeling of “THE CALVARY IS HERE”, omg. Dabi’s flame entrance is not quite. *To me* )

I would even go as far to say as Dabi is being portrayed as a possible “third party” antagonist.

Yes, the League are already the main antagonists in the overall story, but they’re quite sympathetic-- Dabi, in relation to the League, although being a member, is the odd one out in many aspects.

I think the recent chapters with Twice and Hawks and Dabi illustrates this really well-- Because we go from [Twice vs Hawks] with Hawks as the POV ‘bad guy’; and now we have [Hawks vs Dabi], Dabi as the bad guy. The story writing and the art shifts immediately to portray that, aimed at directing our empathy, at the character Horikoshi wants us to root for.

In Chapter 264 and 265, no doubt we’re to root for Twice. All those flashbacks! Him cowering on the ground. His heart breaking because he trusted Hawks. We feel for him. And so Hawks is portrayed as the ‘Villain’-- but not completely.

For Hawks, we go from dark and menacing, him being looming and scary...then immediately move to seeing Hawks expression of remorse. Horikoshi wants us to understand Hawks is conflicted. And he’s not doing this for fun. And finally, they’re shown as equals in the fight: Twice and Hawk’s faces aligned at even levels.

Chapter 266, we finally have the three together. Most definitely, Dabi is on Twice’s side - but like I said, it’s not actually showing Dabi as a reliable backup.

Then we get to Chapter 267. We first start off with that cute image if the Fataxi. It’s adorable. Then Tokoyami notices the flames, the flying, putting two and two together. This positions them as sorta the main focus. We’re back in the Heroes’ POV.

Moving onto the fight, I do sense anger from Dabi: the flames, the stomping, the stomping flames. But it’s more portrayed as manic, sadistic anger, instead of grief, vengeful anger. And that smile!

It’s a true villain smile. The stretching of the corners of the mouth, and the way the eyes are curved. Joyful smiles tightens up the eyes. And sure, you can have a contradictory smile while angry and in grief, a grimace, but there’s other things to cue at that - tears, sweat drops, the eyes again - usually big and triangular.

Do I think it’s possible he’s smiling contradictory? That he’s feeling real sadness and anger at Twice’s death? Yeah, it’s possible. But it’s also possible he isn’t - and I feel that’s the more likely option, given all he says about Twice being useful and about Stain’s philosophy (*remember Stain didn’t like Shigaraki! he didn’t like Villains either. He was going to purge the world of both.)

Anyways, Hawks is right there, on the ground, trying to shield himself. It’s a pitiful look. He’s clearly drawn as the victim we’re to emphasize with, because this doesn’t look like a fight between equals. Just one guy playing with the other, having the ability to incinerate him immediately, but dragging it out.

(True, Dabi’s a villain, and-- “Didn’t Shigaraki do the same thing? With Overhaul? Dude chopped off limbs and laughed.” Yes! Absolutely. But Chapter 160 was from the League’s POV, and everything about it was to position the League as winners, badasses, ‘The Next’.)

(My god, we even get a Baby Hawks flashback for us to fawn over.)

Here, it’s Hawk’s POV and Dabi is full Villain imagery. Hawks has to looking up from a protective pose - at a very menacing Dabi, looming over, stepping on him. The panels with the outside fighting and the city, linked with Dabi smiling - that’s classic {‘I’m going to target and hurt the world’ evil mastermind monologue, insert evil laughter}.

Once Tokoyami enters the scene, there’s no more argument. A likeable Hero student? Arriving to protect his mentor? He’s the clear Hero we’re to cheer for, against Dabi, (who we never even get to bond with during MVA... unlike Twice).

All in All, Dabi rejects the Heroes... and he also rejects the League.

The thing that confuses me most about this whole arc so far is “Why the fuck did Dabi recruit Hawks?” He said he knew Hawks was lying from the start, but he still let a Hero into the club. Moreover, if Dabi noticed and knew enough to guess where Twice and Hawks is the moment the Hero attack started; if he knew enough to even think “This isn’t your fault, Twice,” then why didn’t Dabi do anything sooner?

We don’t know his specific goal yet. Did Hawks factor into it in an important way? He’s willing to kill Hawks right now. It could be that Hawks, by now, is more dangerous than he is worth as a trap for the heroes, say, so it’s time to cut some losses.

But Hawks had pretty much only brought bad luck for Villains: Made Endeavor look good; found out about the MLA and discovered their plot; discovered the hospital; set up this attack. None of it furthers Dabi’s stated goal to Kill All Heroes, and none of it helps the League either.

Until we get his gameplan, I can honestly regard him as dumb. What is this series of events???

(Even if the other League Members were to be dumb and fuck up like Dabi, we know they did it with good intentions for Shigaraki, for the League.

Toga, doing risky things: Literally said, “I’m sure [retrieving Deku’s blood, betraying the Hassaikai] will make Tomura happy.”

Twice, the sweetheart: recruited Overhaul cuz he thought he was a good guy. Befriended Hawks because he thought Hawks believed in the cause.

Mr. Compress: Kinda ruined the ‘kidnap Bakugou’ thing; but since then he hasn’t done anything. And we’re sure of his sincerity because: Lost an arm, still stayed with the League, fought for a month+ with a broken prosthetic.

Spinner: Was a Stain fanboy, but has stopped.)

“This isn’t your fault, Twice,” and it’s true. It’s not Twice’s fault at all. It’s Dabi’s. The blame has to be on Dabi.

So. Dabi. Looking more and more to be on neither side, and now having wronged both. What’s gonna happen to him?

Not sure, but I’ve got a theory he might actually be killed by Shigaraki, to develop Shigaraki and the League. But that’s for another post.

(*1) “...what do you expect? He’s a villain, and he expects his teammates to take care of themselves.” Also true. And I am aware that Shigaraki did the same thing when he decayed that tower no knowing whether Giran got rescued yet or not, so there was some callousness there. But consider: one guy had been so sleep-deprived for one and a half months that he had hallucinated slightly and was wobbling with each movement; and the other has not.

All this is my opinion and impressions. Sorry if it’s unclear at points. Thanks for reading!!!!! And thank you so much to friends that helped me brainstorm and discuss this! Your contributions are invaluable.

#Dabi #League of Villains #bnha #mha #meta #nalslastworkingbraincell

116 notes · View notes

gumnut-logic · 5 years ago

Note

Ooooh okay! For the ask thing, 41 and 33!

41. Any advice for new/beginning/young writers?

The One and Only Rule:

Any and all advice should be ignored if it doesn’t work for you. You know yourself better than anyone else. Try different things out until you find some things that work for you and run with them.

Things that have worked for me (that you might want to try out/discard):

The boring bits like layout and punctuation – unless you are going to remove every capital letter in a fic for some important reason, please don’t. Readability is very important. Punctuation exists for a very logical reason.

Beat – language has rhythm and beat. I have a background in poetry so I’m aware of this and read all my lines try to make sure they flow well (when I’m not already fifteen minutes late for work, that is). It is most obvious at the ends of my fics as they will beat to an end, often with a short one to three-word last line. This also explains all the weird structure in my fic. I am a fan of short and concise and often have one-word paragraphs. This may kick me in the butt if I ever try to go professional (beyond what I already write for work), but I feel it communicates quite well.

Don’t use the same word twice too close together – When you use the same word twice or more it messes with the beat. The words echo off each other and distract from the communication of the scene or action. Unless you want to emphasize that scene or action and match it to the beat. And yes, I have repeated those words on purpose. They actually kind of work in this situation. But the situation can change. And if you get the words off beat, you can end up with a poor situation. (Note: The first and third ‘situation’ are what I’m talking about). Yes, this proves why I’m a poor teacher.

Every word should, in theory, have a reason to be on the page - reread everything and kill off any word that isn’t necessary. Kill off extra ‘that’s and watch your ‘had’s – ‘that’ is a word that is often unnecessary. ‘Had’ can inadvertently mess with your tense and create passive voice. Look out for chaining ‘and’s, there should be no more than one per sentence unless unavoidable due to lists.

When writing action, write short and sharp. When writing calm, write slow and easy. This relates to beat and rhythm. You want your reader’s heart rate to increase to excite them or make them nervous, so increase the beat. The reverse is true for calm scenes – you will often here me ramble on about scenery when I have Virgil on a beach feeling the breeze, but hardly any description in an action scene, only movement.

One way to do this is to move your description to the verbs.

Virgil slammed down the chunk of concrete.

Virgil lowered the chunk of concrete.

The entire description of his action is contained in the verb. This is also why I don’t like wasting verbs by using things like ‘said’, ‘walked’, ‘put’, etc. They are empty verbs and lost opportunities to add colour to the prose. I prefer ‘screamed’, ‘whispered’, ‘grumbled’ or ‘shouted’ to ‘said’; ‘stomped’, ‘slunk’, ‘skipped’, ‘traipsed’ or ‘trotted’ to ‘walked’; ‘threw’, ‘chucked’, ‘dropped’, ‘plonked down’, ‘slid into place’ to ‘put. English has the largest vocabulary on the planet, use it.

The adverb thing – there is a lot of raving about adverbs being bad. I still haven’t entirely worked out how bad they are, but I’m a strong believer that if it sounds good and communicates clearly, then it is doing what it needs to do.

Tenses and POV – I prefer to stick with one at a time (though admittedly this isn’t the only way of writing, I just prefer it). I find it very disconcerting to be reading from inside one character’s head and then suddenly bounce to another’s mid-paragraph, or in some cases, mid-sentence. I like to stay in Virgil ‘s head for one section of fic, then break before skipping to Gordon’s. The reason for this is that looking through Virgil’s eyes comes with a very different world view to looking through Gordon’s eyes. For example, Virgil looking at the sea through an artist’s eye sees the ocean very differently to how Gordon would see it through his scientific background. Gordon might know the species of seaweed that has been washed up on the shore. Virgil might just see it as brown sea detritus. This leads to different phrasing and description. Also, each character thinks in its own way. I write Gordon much more colloquially than I would write Eos, for example. I could ramble on this bit for hours, but I’ll just say that there are a lot of reasons for watching points of view and what you do with them.

Ultimately communication is the key – you are trying to get a scene and evoke a certain kind of emotion from your reader. If you can communicate that, you have succeeded. How do you know you’ve done it? Get someone you trust to read through it. Even better, get a beta reader with a nasty red pen to read through it and scribble all over it (if you are ready and feel strong enough to take CONSTRUCTIVE criticism with possible suggestions to fix any problems). Ultimately, it is your fic and you have final say, but I find it very important to get someone to at least look at it with fresh eyes, particularly if I’ve been staring at it too long and the pictures in my head leave me too biased to see clearly. Also, great when you get to the point where Virgil, big tough guy, is bawling his eyes out and I’m going ‘how the hell did that happen?’ Did he have enough motivation to end up that way? Have I thrown him out of character? Omigod ::tears hair out:: What is happening? Scribbs and Veggie help!!!!!! What have I done?! Yeah, a reader often helps to sooth the nutzoid writer.

Which leads onto this – outside the writing of the work itself, find a good group of friends to share it with. All creativity is best shared. It makes for a better experience. It also opens you to learning and encouragement. If you land in a shitty group of people who mess with your mojo and crush your spirit, get another group of friends. You don’t need crap.

Be willing to interact with the group in a positive and open manner and share your experiences. Comment on other people’s work and generally be kind. You often reap what you sow. Not always, but it is generally good to be nice anyway. Different writers have different experience and confidence levels. Writers groups should be a safe environment where everyone feels confident that they can put their work out to the group and receive encouragement. Never give unasked for criticism and if you are asked for your honest opinion, always state it in private and couched with a lot of reassurance and positivity.

Be open to learning, but remember the One and Only Rule at the top of this page. Take what works for you, and ignore the rest. That is actually a good general life rule – I used it when I had my babies – the advice you get the moment you announce you are pregnant is insane – the one and only rule works well in that situation.

Be always aware that you will never have learnt everything. You will always be learning new stuff and that makes it fun.

Umm, I rambled a bit, er, sorry ::hides:: Also, I’ve probably forgotten several things.

Oh, another question ::takes a deep breath and dives in::

33. Have you ever killed a main character?

Yep.

I used to do it a lot more years ago in other fandoms. Usually only in barely prose closer to poetry when I was feeling dramatic.

I’ve only done it once in this fandom. Poor Gordy. I’m sorry. But there was fix it fic! Thank goodness for the Scribbs :D

Oooh, look, I answered that in less than 2000 words ::headesk::

Nutty

(I’m ridiculous, I’m sorry)

17 notes · View notes

ayearofpike · 6 years ago

Text

The Cold One

Tom Doherty Associates, 1995 394 pages, 38 chapters + epilogue & 12-page prologue ISBN 0-812-51245-6 LOC: PS3566.I486 C65 1995 OCLC: 31289835 Released December 28, 1994 (per B&N) Mass printing December 15, 1995 (per B&N)

The Cold One is no longer under guidance from its external voice. Without this incessant instruction, it does not know what comes next anymore. All it knows is that its destiny is to destroy humanity — an outcome that it has no feelings or concerns about whatsoever. What exactly is this creature? Where did it come from? How will it carry out its inevitable mission? We're going to have to read about a whole bunch of other people, and how the Cold One connects to them, to find out.

Oof. This book is a monster, which is part of why it's taken me over a week to write a new post. (The other part is, you know, stuff.) There's a lot going on, and even though a lot of it ties back to stuff Pike's written before, this is a new story with new uses for the same elements. In that vein, I was surprised to find that I didn't remember a single word or a single plot point out of this story — which allowed me to no doubt be freshly disappointed by the rushed ending.

I mentioned that there are a bunch of characters. For the first time in a while, Pike's writing from multiple viewpoints again, which makes me unsure how to best approach this summary. It probably makes the most sense to just begin at the beginning and describe the people and their doings as they appear in the narrative. It won’t be the fastest way to cover this book, but let’s be real: that’s not what I’m here for.

That prologue? It's two prologues, actually. We start with Penny Hampton, a rehab nurse at a hospice facility who works on unresponsive patients so that they don't totally atrophy while comatose. She's creeped out by one particular patient who has been there since before anybody can remember, and this is justified when the power goes out and she gets her breath taken away — literally — while manually respirating her. Worse is when the patient uses her first living breath in years to speak: just two words, one of which Pike doesn't tell us right now because it would give too much away I guess. Oh, and this is the last time we hear directly from Penny, which is a little bit of a rip, especially toward the end. We'll get there.

The second prologue is from the perspective of the Cold One Itself. You read that right — whenever It narrates, Its preferred personal pronoun is It, capital I. (Which might make my writing awkward in this entry as I attempt to avoid using "it" for other things.) We discover that It has been guided by a voice (or as It says, a "Voice") that has just stopped, and now It has awakened into Itself somewhere in Baja California. It no longer knows what comes next, but It knows that ultimately It will be responsible for the death of humanity. And It decides to start with the dude that picks It up hitchhiking. I'm not totally sure this was necessary as a prologue; I think it would have been just fine as Chapter One, seeing as it ties into the continuation of the story. We get plenty more chapters from the Cold One's POV, so it wouldn't have felt particularly out of place to have this start the story proper.

But how we launch is in a dream, inside the brain of journalist and educator Peter Jacobs. He's fishing with an old and dear friend, a beautiful girl who catches a creepy sea monster and then tries to undo his pants, but he's woken by the ringing phone. On the other end is a creepazoid who implies that he knows something about the mysterious and gruesome death of a young woman two weeks before. He hangs up before Peter can get any specifics out of him, but it feels weirdly like an extension of the dream. He does manage to record most of the conversation, to go over at work.

We learn a little more about Peter here as he prepares for his day: how his roommate is a mentally handicapped friend with whom he's grown up in foster care, how his job is writing a nationally-syndicated column that promotes good news in a somewhat cynical voice, how he had a girlfriend who got pregnant and had a miscarriage and left him with no explanation just that fast. None of this is covered in much depth here, which is OK because it allows us to fill in the blanks and then be surprised when Pike fills them in later on.

Peter plays the tape for his editor, who wants him to go to the police. As it happens, the police are investigating another unusual death, and ask him to come to the scene. The MO is totally different — a dude smothered and then stabbed in the heart — but it's linked to the other girl by a similar fingerprint. In fact, there have been half a dozen killings split between these two methods that are tied by the same print. I'm not sure why these cops are so eager to tell Peter about it, if he's a journalist, even though he's said he's not going to write about the deaths. Convenient storytelling, I guess.

Our next character is Jerry Washington, a high-school dropout and South Central gang member who is trying to get out of the game. The big man won’t let him leave, though — in fact, we meet Jerry as he's carrying out a hit on a rival gang leader. This whole part is kind of hyper-violent and unnecessary, but you know, adult fiction. And again, I could do without Pike writing minorities in LA who belong to inner-city gangs as the only native non-whites in his story. Ultimately, Jerry blackmails his boss into letting him walk and takes off for Malibu, where he meets a hot young thing who is up for a little danger and intrigue. This is Susan Darly, and she and Jerry quickly fall in love/like/lust and become each other’s world, like you do in a teenage relationship. But one day, as they're bodysurfing, Susan doesn't come back up, and Jerry can't find her. Eventually he does — on the beach down the opposite end of the current, a way she'd never have been pulled naturally, being respirated by a long-haired woman. And Susan, who wasn't breathing at all, starts again, thank goodness. OR SHOULD WE

Now we meet Julie Moore, a psychology doctorate student who is studying the meaning of near-death experiences. She speaks with an older woman who's had one, and is totally spooked by the clarity and authority the woman evokes in talking about crossing over and reviewing her life as opposed to the more familiar way she speaks on mundane matters. (Everything-old-is-new-again point: the timeline of life as a single viewable document, used in Eternal Enemy and Remember Me 2.) Julie is also spooked when the woman says she has a message specifically for her, about not fearing the end of life. It's so creepy that she leaves the hospital room without asking all of her questions.

As it turns out, there's a doctor in the hospital at the same time who has done a vast amount of research on near-death experiences, and Julie wants to pick his brain. Dr. Lawrence Morray is less than amenable to this at the present moment, but he does invite her to look him up later, at which time he may share his research. So Julie goes home, has a shower, and then has to fend off a home intruder who turns out to be her ex-boyfriend being grossly intrusive. He's supposed to be a creep, so we won't feel bad later when he gets mutilated and killed. Spoilers! But for now he just walks out and leaves a mess.

Meanwhile, Dr. Morray has a late-night appointment assessing the need for heart surgery on one of his patients. They schedule the procedure, and then he goes home to his wife Sara, to whom he feels unusually connected and compelled, if not actually in love. She mentions a young girl almost drowning on the beach and then offers to make dinner for them, and while she does Dr. Morray goes into his office (which is actually a lab) and stares at a wall safe that exhibits signs of life even though he hasn't put anything in there for two months.

We whip back to the Cold One, who considers killing a child to observe its mother's reaction, and then succumbs to a street preacher's saving throw or whatever in an attempt to feel something. (I guess I should mention, too, that outwardly the Cold One looks like an attractive woman, and It seems to know how to interact with unturned humans so as to avoid arousing suspicion that It is not.) Neither of these things has an effect on It (and It actually decides against killing the kid to avoid making a scene), and so It goes to find the man who gave It a ride north and give him a job. It has successfully turned him into ... well, not another Cold One, but certainly an unfeeling monster with inhuman strength and a craving for flesh and blood. It calls the monsters who survive Its turning "bastards" and acknowledges that they will have to be destroyed before It can successfully take the necessary step toward creating the true downfall of humankind.

Back to Peter: he's gotten another call from the creepy guy, who asks to meet him at the museum of natural history. The cops wire him up and set him loose, hoping to catch the monster. At the same time, Julie calls Dr. Morrow’s house and gets Sara, who invites her to drop by that evening. She waits outside for him, and when his car pulls into the garage and immediately back out, she follows it. To the museum, happy accident. But it's not he who gets out — it's Sara, there to work on a drawing. Julie decides to go after her anyway, thinking she might be more accommodating than her husband. But when Peter sees her and starts talking her up, Julie hangs back, intimidated but also somehow instantly attracted to him. She does corner him as he's leaving, and they go for coffee together, and they're more honest with each other about themselves than they've been to anybody else in LA. So we're pretty sure they're going to see each other again.

Jerry, meanwhile, hasn't seen Susan since that day on the beach, when her parents panicked that he was black and kicked him out of the hospital. He tracks her down at her school, but she's so dark and empty and ... well, cold, that he freaks out and bails, straight to the hospital, where he tries to get more information about how she was treated. The doctor who saw her volunteers that she checked out earlier than he would have liked, and that if Jerry wants a more thorough psychological assessment he might consider contacting Julie. After all, Susan did nearly die, and Julie is the expert on such matters.

Right now, though, she's on a date with Peter, which ends up back at his place. She’s totally sprung on him, and Peter likes her just fine, but he can’t stop thinking about Sara even as they’re making out and getting hot and heavy. His roommate walks in and interrupts them half-undressed, which kills the mood, and so Peter goes to check his messages. There’s one from the police detective, letting him know that there’s been another killing — and what ho, it’s Susan Darly’s ex-boyfriend. They’re holding Jerry on suspicion after his storming of the school, though he insists that it was Susan.

Peter realizes that Julie’s mentioned Jerry this evening — he left a message on her machine, worried about Susan. They go back to her apartment and listen to the message, and it doesn’t jibe with what the detective told him. Here they become more honest: Peter tells Julie the truth about his sting operation trying to unearth the mystery killer, and Juile tells the truth about having followed Sara Morray and who she is. Peter wants to talk to Sara himself, and Julie doesn’t really like this but she gives him the number. It’s weird how hard she’s fallen after two dates, right? But Julie insists that there’s something special about Peter, even though Peter thinks of himself as pretty cold and emotionless. Still, he does stay at her place overnight, because desire ≠ love.

The Cold One doesn’t really understand either of these things, but It is checking them out with the street preacher. It has picked up enough cues that he desires It, and so It decides It will try for some kind of feelings or emotions by making sex with him. But then he comes too fast and so It rips his ribs out. No, seriously, It is still trying to figure out whether It can have attachments or feel loss, and figures that if It truly loves the preacher then It will mourn his death. Even if It is responsible. But no — It feels no shame or pain at ruining this man, and walks out to leave him dying painfully on the floor.

* * *

And now we jump to a whole new section, to a whole new continent, to a whole new narrator, who I can’t really figure out why he actually belongs in this story. Surely there could have been a more elegant way to describe the ancient demon that awakens from induced slumber to teach the people of Los Angeles where they have come from and how to reach their desired end. Instead, we get him followed by Govinda Sharma, a dam engineer who has forsaken his religion and returned to India after the senseless death of his pregnant-to-term wife and their unborn child. But like ... at least it’s a brown person who isn’t a gangbanger.

Govinda has rediscovered religion, in a way: his company’s runner has introduced him to a Master, a young Jesus-looking mystic who helps him find peace through meditation and specific breathing techniques. It’s making Govinda feel better than he has since burying his wife. So he doesn’t really think twice when the Master summons him with a job: follow Rak, the immortal monster who has awakened and is leaving his cave for the first time in five thousand years.

Rak was accomplished in a technique called Seedling, which uses the sexual chakra of the body to bring about unquestioning obedience in potential followers. Have I mentioned Seedling before? Pike brought it up in some of his other stories, where it was important that someone be hypnotized and acting against their pattern but not necessarily their will. Most specifically, Helen used it in The Immortal. Certain people are born with an ability to tap into it (typically the leaders we see as charismatic and dangerous), but Rak could inflict it without any concern. This ultimately made Rak so dangerous that Krishna (remember him? Sita’s buddy?) had to overpower him with a mystical weapon analogous to an atomic bomb, which blinded him, killed most of his followers, and knocked him out for millennia. But he’s awake now, so obviously is a totally safe person for Govinda to go after.

He doesn’t go alone: he brings the runner and his younger brother with him, so that they can watch Rak in shifts and make sure he doesn’t lose them. But one night they all accidentally fall asleep, and wake up with a cobra sitting on the youngest one’s chest. Govinda tries to get the kid to sit still while he finds a stick to knock the snake away, but the kid panics and grabs at it and it bites him in the hand and the kid dies within moments. I’m not totally sure that’s how cobra venom works? But obviously Govinda isn’t going to sacrifice another child to this jungle — or to Rak’s black magic, sending a snake after them, which is what it feels like here. So he sends the other brother to get help and follows Rak all the way to the Delhi airport, where they both get tickets on the next flight to Los Angeles.

* * *

Back to Juile: she meets Jerry in a coffee shop to talk about Susan. His description is not really precise enough for Julie to figure out what’s wrong, but he doesn’t want the two of them to meet, knowing that something bad will happen to Juile if they do. So he takes off, and then Julie calls her dissertation chair to talk about the issue — and about Peter, who hasn’t called since they did it three days ago. The chair thinks she should call him, and also try to get in touch with Dr. Morray about his research. As doctoral students do, she puts work first — but Dr. Morray is curt and brusque, upset as he is about some journalist in his house.

Yep: Peter called Sara and they’re flirting with each other. She says that she and her husband don’t actually talk; that she didn’t even know about his all-consuming research of years prior until Julie called to see if she could come over. She’s an artist, and she shows Peter her paintings, and this is where Dr. Morray comes in and gets all upset. So she walks Peter out and kisses him goodbye, and like ... gross? Am I a prude to want someone to be faithful and true, close out a relationship before starting another one? This whole thing really annoyed me — and I get it, with Peter and Sara being who they are (we’ll get there), but I don’t have to like it.

We’re back with Jerry as he walks up to Susan’s house. She’s creepy and gross, worse than she was at school, and she won’t give straight answers. No, that’s not it — she gives NOTHING but straight answers, and they’re not answers that make Jerry feel better about how she’s acting. It turns out that when she didn’t get out of the water, it wasn’t an accident: she was PULLED under by the woman who respirated her, and ever since she’s wanted to eat dudes. And yep, she killed her ex-boyfriend, and then she killed her parents, and now she’s going to kill Jerry. His gun does no good; she kicks his hand INTO THE WALL before he can fire it, and then starts to take his pants off with lust in her eyes and blood in her mouth. And this is the last we hear from poor Jerry.

Peter now gets home, and guess who’s there? Julie is showing the roommate some things that Peter knows are IQ tests and mind exercises, and he doesn’t really like this. Which ... I don’t really get Peter’s objection to his slow roommate, whose IQ has been pegged at 60, getting some help from a caring and thoughtful friend. I understand that he doesn’t want his friend to feel ostracized or bad about himself, but this is a sweet and thoughtful woman who has been nothing but good to Peter and his friend. Maybe let her talk to him, work with him, help him step up?

So they talk, Peter apologizes, Julie goes home, and then the creep calls, but Peter isn’t scared this time and doesn’t alert the police. Weird? Instead, he calls the newspaper with a pitch on a possible story: that Dr. Lawrence Morray is somehow connected to the creepy murders. He asks his editor to dig around for information on Dr. and Mrs. Morray — and learns that she is not the doctor’s first wife, as Sara has intimated. Definitely more to investigate.

Meanwhile, Rak and Govinda have landed at LAX. Rak is still in a loincloth, but somehow hypnotizes a college basketball player into giving him a spare set of clothes. Then they take off, walking God knows where. Govinda is careful to keep his distance as they walk from the airport to the beach and then north to Malibu. Yeah, walk — Google Maps says 20 miles. This is a long-ass walk for a thirty-year-old desk jockey, and by the end of it he’s almost hoping for his own snake.

Peter’s story chase has taken him to San Francisco, to the apartment of Dr. Morray’s sister, who has nothing but lovely and wonderful things to say about Larry’s wife. His first wife, that is — they don’t really talk anymore, and so she doesn’t know much about Sara. But Sandy’s death was so tragic, the way she fell off the boat they were using in Mexico and drowned. Peter didn’t know that Dr. Morray was there when she died, and this is suspicious to both him and the editor. He decides to fly to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to try to meet with a mutual friend of Larry’s and Sandy’s, at the behest of the editor who won’t really tell him why yet.

Julie’s got her own investigation to follow. She hasn’t been able to get in touch with Jerry (wonder why) and so goes to Susan’s house, where she gets the same cold and icky vibe, along with the stench of blood and decay after, what, a week or two of parent and boyfriend carcasses rotting in the house. Julie is smart enough not to go all the way in, and runs away home at her first opportunity, where there’s a message from Sara Morray on her machine. It seems that Sara is intrigued by Julie’s research, and by her husband’s, and since she can’t get him to talk about it she might as well ask the grad student (because that’s all we can talk about, is our research).

Peter makes it all the way to Iowa (nonstop and first-class from SFO to CID, which does not now exist) before he learns just why his editor was so eager for him to be out there. It seems that there is no death certificate for Sandra Morrow, and the journalist’s investigative digging instinct led the editor to learn that she is being kept alive by machines at a clinic an hour out of town. (I’m hoping to learn a little more about Iowa in the comments ... specifically why Peter wouldn’t have been better served just flying to Des Moines. This is your moment, @mildhorror.) So he goes and poses as Sandra Morrow’s son, and ends up talking with: you got it, Penny Hampton. Remember her? She tells Peter the two words that came out of Sandy’s mouth just weeks ago: child, cold. She also tells him that she’s had asthma since trying to respirate his “mother,” and as repulsed as she is by Sandy she now feels compelled to keep her alive. As though her death will mean Penny’s to come.

There’s a whole chapter about Dr. Morray carrying out his cardiac procedure with the patient from earlier. The guy says he hears music as he’s going under, which ties into Larry’s research about near-death experiences. Ominous? Probably, considering he miscalculates with the balloon angioplasty and ruptures the inferior thyroid vein and kills the dude. He gets home all pissed off to find Julie administering a Rorschach test to Sara, which Dr. Morray thinks is a waste of time. And Julie kind of hopes so, because Sara is freaking her out with non-standard and sociopathic responses. Sara asks Julie not to tell Peter, and before Julie can think too much about this she has to excuse herself and get the hell out. But before she can get too far, Rak steps in front of her car and asks what she was doing in the doctor’s house. Without even thinking about who this giant blind Indian might be or what he is to them, Julie sort of word-vomits all over him and then asks how he knows the Morrays and what he thinks of them, specifically Sara.

“She cold.”

Back in ... I don’t know, Muscatine? Peter is trying to throw his weight around to get Sandra Morrow’s records. He has to call in a favor with his police officer friend, and then it’s partly in Spanish (remember, Mexico) and all in doctor handwriting, but he determines that yes, she drowned thirty years ago and has been on the machines here ever since. But there is a little oddity: she was pregnant when she was admitted to the facility, and she carried to term and delivered nine months to the day after her accident. So now Peter wants to track down the baby and see if that gives him any more info.

Dr. Morray, it turns out, actually was kind of freaked out by the inkblot test, especially since Sara was not blind to Julie’s reaction and now thinks she’s empty. So he goes back to work, of course, and who should show up but Rak. He tells the doctor a story of a young man who would dive to the bottom of a lake using reeds to breathe, and when the other kids got jealous and stole his reeds — his breath — he didn’t die but couldn’t rejoin humanity. Obviously Larry doesn’t know what this means yet, but Rak doesn’t have time to spell it out for him.

In the meantime, the Cold One has figured out what It needs to do to take the next step in monster making. It tells Its bastards to sacrifice themselves making a gory mess in a mall, and then decides to eliminate Julie Moore as she is too close to Peter Jacobs. This bit here feels like it gives away too much too soon, but again, I’m still enjoying the story as it doesn’t totally spell out what’s happening and I can piece it together. So the Cold One goes to Julie’s apartment and finds her ex and his lawyer there waiting for her. And It figures, why the hell does It have to hang around to kill Julie when It could just turn these two into bastards and make them do it? Efficiency!

Obviously Peter hasn’t been able to get the adoption agency to give up its files — he has to call in another favor with his cop buddy. But he learns that there was a girl, adopted by a family, where both parents died and the brother (also adopted) was in a mental institution, but the dad’s sister still lives in Iowa City. He kisses Sandra Morray goodbye before he leaves ... why? Peter doesn’t know, but maybe there’s something to Penny’s previously stated connection with her. And then he goes to the sister’s house, where he learns that the daughter was always kind of off and freaky, even when she was adopted at five days old, even though she was a wonderful artist. The brother had asthma and anxiety and willingly chose to go to the institution when he was 18, and then when the girl was a few months shy of high school graduation both her parents died and she took off for California. Peter doesn’t want to, but he asks if the woman has a picture — and sure enough, this weird artist girl is Sara Morray. Ew, she married her dad!

And now we’re suddenly in the perspective of the police detective, because Pike just can’t fuckin’ help himself. This is another too-gory chapter that serves no purpose except to kill off the bastards and I guess make the book more adult. It seems that there is a group of weirdos literally tearing people apart in the mall, and the detective is needed on the scene. When he gets there, the monsters are barricaded in the sporting goods store, and there’s a trail of gore and viscera leading up to it. Fortunately, there are only two left, but unfortunately they have unlimited hunting ammunition, or however much the store has in stock, which is enough. The detective decides to go in through the air duct, and he manages to take down one of the creatures with a lucky head shot, but the other one blasts him in the shoulder with her shotgun. Yeah, her. Of course it’s Susan Darly, the last monster alive, cold and eager to keep killing. But the detective empties his revolver into her, and finally she stops moving. And that is the end of the mysterious monster killings storyline. Seriously, we never see the detective again.

But now Julie shows up at her place, and her ex is there, and he is determined to get in one last lay before he kills her. I told you this asshole was a gross monster who we wouldn’t be sad to see die. And boy does Julie kill him. She stabs him in the neck with a letter opener, she drops a ten-gallon fishtank on his dick, she hits him in the face with a body powder he’d been allergic to when they were dating, and then she drops a TV on his head, which (back in the day when TVs were heavy as shit) crushes his skull. And then the phone rings, and it’s Sara Morray, and she wants Julie to come over and talk. Obviously, Julie doesn’t want to, but she feels like she HAS to. Seedling!

And also now Peter has gotten an audience with the doctor who was Larry and Sandy’s mutual friend, the reason that Sandra Morray is vegetating in Iowa rather than somewhere closer to her husband. It seems that this guy dated her first, but Larry stole her away and they got married really fast. He’s tried to be happy for them, because she obviously loved him back, but he also knew that Larry had a temper, and in fact he’s pretty sure that’s how the accident happened. That Larry hit Sandy because she was pregnant and refused to get rid of it, and that she got knocked overboard and nearly died. Larry managed to keep her alive until they got to shore and medicine, but there was no way she would ever wake up. Old love and anger bade this doctor to take over Sandy’s care, but because he’s not the legal guardian he couldn’t just end her life, which is why she’s still on machines after thirty years. He did deliver the babies, though, and wants to know what Peter knows about them.

Babies. Plural. Twins. A boy and a girl.

We remember that Peter’s a foster kid. He certainly remembers that. And I don’t begrudge him leaping to conclusions here, considering everything he’s been through with Sara and Sandra and the monster killers and all. But ... are you trying to tell me that there were twin babies placed with an adoption agency at the same time, and the agency has detailed information about what happened to the girl but fuck-all on the boy? Like, nobody even bothered to go, hey detective journalist guys, don’t you want to know about BOTH of Sandra Morray’s coma-born babies? Or maybe, yeah, we have that record on file — which child are you asking about?

* * *

Good building and scaffolding of a premise so far, right? It’s too bad that from here, the narrative kind of dribbles to a halt. And before we can get to the closure of Peter and Sara and Julie and Dr. Morray and everyone else (except the cops, like I mentioned), we have to listen to Govinda dream about the story he was told of Rak’s birth. Basically, his mother was a celibate seer who was raped, and the act implanted in her a monstrous presence that was never wrong. In fact, one of her predictions went so right that the man she was giving it to killed her, pretty much at term. So the dude who raped her cut the baby out — and it ended up being Rak.

Govinda is still watching him, in a cemetery, digging up a coffin. Govinda’s wife’s coffin. Who then comes to zombie-life and delivers their baby, also dead. Govinda realizes he’s being given a second chance with his god; at least according to this narrative, Hindus must be cremated rather than buried. (Wikipedia says this isn’t always true of every sect, but remember Pike didn’t have Wikipedia in 1994. Besides, even with a burial there are still preparation rites that we can probably assume Govinda didn’t follow, being too distraught to be a good Hindu.) So when his dead wife and son lie back down, he lights them on fire. Is this why he was supposed to be following Rak? He’s not risking it — he leaves the pyre and goes after him.

Now Julie shows up at Sara’s house, and she wants to go for a walk on the beach. Obviously Julie is still under Seedling, because she knows she doesn’t trust this lady but goes with her anyway. And she’s right to distrust, because Sara drags her into the ocean and starts the same transformation she did on Susan Darly.

And even though we know the Cold One is Sara, It still narrates in this way as It makes Its way back to the house. I’ll give this to Pike: he thoroughly commits to the voice. Who should It encounter on the road in front, though, but Rak, who asks to hear Its story. The Cold One tells how It has always had a consciousness beyond Its apparent age and that It followed the instructions of the Voice until it suddenly disappeared. Rak reveals that the Voice is none other than the ghost of the life of Sandra Morrow, causing the Cold One to relive her life up to the point of her death. Which is why It has ended up where It is. It wants to kill Rak and his weird Indian follower, but Rak won’t allow It to touch Govinda and can’t be manipulated by It anyway. This pisses It off — but hey, finally emotions!

It goes inside to find Lawrence Morrow staring at two bottles. One is whiskey, half empty. The other contains a moving fetus — the Cold One’s miscarriage from three years earlier, echoing the miscarriage that Sandra Morrow had three years before her death. And now that It remembers everything from both lives, It wants to make Dr. Morrow hurt the way he hurt Sandra. But because It has emotions and feelings for the first time, It wants to savor them, to drag things out and taunt and scare Larry. So he gets away, with the knowledge that his wife is somehow the comatose vegetable seven states away and the goal of stopping her, with maybe a plan? We don’t know yet.

But Rak and Govinda are still outside, because Govinda doesn’t know if his job is done yet. They walk down to the beach and find the lifeless body of Julie Moore in the surf. Govinda is ready to stop Rak from murdering an innocent, but all Rak does is watch Julie struggle to breathe. Govinda wants to help, but as he’s reaching in her mouth to clear the airway Julie bites off his finger. And now Rak steps in, calmly pushing Julie back to the sand and quieting her. He explains to Govinda that Julie carries a child who is the incarnation of the Hindu death goddess Kali, and that there’s nothing either of them can do and no rationale to what’s already happened. He takes off, and this time Govinda doesn’t follow, so he’s there when Julie wakes up and can take care of her instead.

Now Peter is stuck in the Denver airport on a layover and is thinking about everything he’s learned. He calls up the ex-girlfriend who bailed on him after her miscarriage, and learns that she was scared of the sensation, not just of miscarrying but also how cold and abnormal the life inside felt. So Peter’s vindicated in his jumping to conclusions, even though he hasn’t read the whole book like I did and couldn’t possibly know everything.

When he gets home, the first thing he does is goes to see Sara, and tells her everything he’s found out. She’s not to be deterred from her plan, though: fuck her brother and make a Cold Baby. If she can’t carry warm life to term and he can’t provide life for a ... I don’t know, “warmie”? Then maybe they should get it on together and allow their cold child to destroy humankind. Before she can torture him into banging her, though, Peter’s roommate shows up, having found the address and directions in the apartment and thinking it was a new place he had to deliver a newspaper. So Sara holds him under in the hot tub until Peter agrees to do what she wants, but it’s too late and the roommate is dead.

Meanwhile, Dr. Morray is flying the other direction, to see his wife for the first time in thirty years. And not just to see her: to cut her life support so she can die with whatever shred of dignity she has left, and so her undead reborn self will also die without ruining the world. Does he sign a medical order of withdrawal of life support? Hell no, he’s too rich and important for that. He sneaks in a scalpel and slices off the air tube, holding Penny Hampton hostage while he does it so nobody will stop him.

And now, with no breath in the warm lungs, the Cold One realizes that It is near Its end. That sentence is a cheat to make it sound more interesting: we’re still in Peter’s POV, as Sara smothers and fades. She tells him what Rak told her: that the first breath is a gift, and it can be given just as a life reaches its end to make more life. So Peter, who has never had anybody except this roommate, realizes that he has a responsibility to let him live. He blows his last breath into the roommate’s lungs and then dies beside his naked sister lover monster.

Epilogue, finally! Three years later, Govinda is back in LA for a meeting and he connects with Julie and her daughter at a playground. The kid sure is creepy and precocious, and doesn’t seem to be hot even though it’s a sweltering day. Maybe he shouldn’t have let Rak save Julie? Too late! To be continued! Only not, and it never was, and now Pike says it never will be!

Like ... what happened to the roommate? What happened to Dr. Morray and Penny Hampton? How is everybody reacting to the deaths of Peter Jacobs and Sara Morray? Has the city recovered from the monstrous killing spree? Does Govinda actually have a reason for being here beyond just telling us what Rak is doing? Where is the actual closure?

I really enjoyed reading The Cold One right up until that fourth section. It spent all of this time building people and monsters and showing how they were related to each other, and then it rushed to the end in less than a quarter of the length, with Peter’s death literally the last thing before the epilogue and no time to react or respond to it. It feels like Pike just had to get through the book to fulfill his contract requirement and didn’t have time to actually finish it, thus the tossed-in promise of The Cold One 2: Seedling at the end. I wish he would have just finished it at the time instead of kicking the can down the road to infinity.

4 notes · View notes

lalondeislandicedtea · 7 years ago

Text

The Wrap-up of We Whispered Names

we whispered names to the things in the dark is now complete. And man has this been a learning experience.

Some thoughts under the cut:

1) Back when I was writing Night Owls, I pretty much only had one objective- to finish something. Anything. It was the hill I was gonna die on, because the last time I finished a chaptered anything was 2012, and it was pretty much one of those Baby’s First Fic sorta deals- extremely cringeworthy, poorly written, etc. I’m glad I wrote it, because it was definitely a learning experience for plotting, characterisations, etc. But I wouldn’t subject anyone to reading that, because good lord.

It was important that it built a bedrock of skills, though. I spent the intervening years starting stories, both fanfic and original, never finishing them, bemoaning my lack of technical skill and commitment to my stories. So I sat down mid 2017-ish and decided that I was going to finish something. Anything.

I did it in 2018 and that was really the ego boost I needed to keep going.

2) One rule I had when I was writing Night Owls: no starting anything other than NO. I had to be focused. It really paid off.

With WWN, I bent the rules somewhat and came out with two half-assed one-shots. There’s nothing wrong with one-shots, and I do want to be good at them, but they probably won’t be more than the artistic equivalent of doodles for me.

I will still keep to that rule for anything else, though. It’s a good rule. Saves everyone a lot of heartache when I start more projects than I can handle and then inevitably abandon them all.

I’ve finished two reasonably long chaptered stories. I can do another.

3) My stories tend to balloon. I know that now.

The outline of WWN was originally 4 chapters and an epilogue- one of those five times fics, kinda like “four times Terezi warded off Vriska and the one time she didn’t”. Clearly, no outline survives contact with the actual writing and that outline went up in flames.

The premise itself took a big beating, too. It was supposed to be a normal college AU. Terezi and Vriska meet at a nightclub through half-shut eyes and spend the rest of the fic stumbling through hormones and finding each other.

Then I sat down, wrote them meeting and it was very much not a college AU anymore, lol. That got spun into an outline which got spun into a real story. I’m glad it worked out, and touched on the themes I wanted to- (mostly, Vriska’s upbringing, her horrible mother figure, and the Sollux/Aradia quest for agency/coping with trauma).

Also there’s a bunch of themes that I wanted to touch, but didn’t happen- Terezi’s big Thing, for one, the indecision. For a main character, Terezi Pyrope ended up irritatingly passive, sort of reacting and being pushed into things more than she initiated them. But then, it kind of worked out- one of the big Things ended up coming from Rose and her perspectives on Fate, and Destiny, and how us puny mortals just Deal in the wake of those things.

Still. The side character drift might have given it a somewhat disconnected quality. We were chasing the Vrisrezi storyline, the Rosemary storyline, and the Arasol storyline, which only intersect passingly(mostly outside the grocery store, and whenever the Arachnea attacked). While they more-or-less resolved each other I could have put more thought into it(especially the Arasol storyline, most of which took place in the past)

Probably would have made the fic longer, though. And I’ve found that long is the enemy when it comes to me actually finishing.

This wasn’t a problem in Night Owls because I made the deliberate authorial decision to only alternate between Rose and Terezi’s point of views. The one deviation which I’m annoyed about having to use was the Vriska PoV fragment, but I was too tired by then to think of a better way of showing that particular scene, with all the foreshadowing and past-revealing that it had to include.

4) What did I learn from WWN?

One major new thing I did in WWN: illustration.

Will I be doing that again? Probably not, since illustrating the Shepherd took a solid day. But editing images from Homestuck proved to be much easier than anticipated. So maybe that, when I need to. I feel scummy about it, though.

It was also an exercise in worldbuilding- how could I convey my world? Night Owls was a fairly generic ‘oh i’ve seen that on TV’ sort of thing, which I can evoke using attention to detail. WWN involves a lot of lurid description of weird spirit stuff, fleshing out details about how spirits interact with people- victims and supplicants.

I fear that some parts might have been bogged down by the mechanics. The Shepherd’s storyline, especially- I’d had to establish her main mechanic, which is how her True Name grants resurrection, but I couldn’t think of a good way to have another character bring it up- hence, the forums. But Cassandra’s mechanics were also rather difficult to pin down.

.... and that is in addition to the stuff I was already doing for Night Owls. I’ve never been to California in my life, but I decided to stick this fictional nonexistent city there anyway because why the heck not?

(Maybe one day I’ll actually write a story set in somewhere I’ve actually been. But... probably not)

As for symbolism, most of it(spirit stuff) was incredibly hamfisted. Vriska’s wings, duh. Spiderweb chains. I know it’ll get the message across, though, so I’m happy with that.

5) Where do we go from here?

I have a cyberpunk dystopia Roxy-fic bouncing around in my skull(around the same length as this) and a Striderlonde-centric clusterfuck that's set in this universe(current length unknown). But I'm a bit tired of WWN, so I'm thinking cyberpunk-fest, then "working title: dirk tries to summon his long-lost sister, fails fantastically, and rose and dave are on clean up".

I also have “Terezi Pyrope: long-winded character study, with extensive allusion to The Waste Land by T.S Eliot”, mostly bc Eliot was an elitist dick and knowing that a young woman is writing fanfic based on his literary masterpiece would probably make him spin in his grave and I live for upsetting dead old white men. But that’s probably a long, cathartic project that I’ll start with more free time, and more surety in my skills. I’m also tossing up on illustrating it, because I’m Not Fast when it comes to illustrations and I’m loath to compromise my updating schedule anymore than my already erratic writing schedule does. But some of the imagery is just so good.

#writing #we whispered names #long post

2 notes · View notes

denimwrites-archive · 7 years ago

Text

Enough Endings and Beginnings

Prompt: Not a request - I was listening to The Ataris’ song The Boys of Summer and it kind of made this, the song isn’t even that similar to this fic, but it definitely influenced it. Song HERE.

Fandom: Dear Evan Hansen

Pairing: Connor Murphy X Reader

Summary: Connor was running away from your memory, and it wasn’t a good journey, but the stars helped remind him of better things.

Word Count: 1,985

Warnings: Reader death, grief, pain, lots of angst, kind of a hopeful ending?

A/N: I’m sorry this is really depressing. I wasn’t in a great headspace and this helped with it? The reader’s death isn’t detailed it’s mostly just Connor’s response to their death and kind of mourning their memory. The POV is kind of from an outside person who’s kind of telling you what’s happening? Idek if that makes sense, but that’s why I didn’t tag this as a reader insert. Hope you like it though, feedback would be greatly appreciated!

~~~

The late summer wind rushed through Connor’s hair as he rode his motorcycle down the road. He was riding away from all the memories he made with you that summer. The summer that changed his life. Shaking his head, he tried to focus on the road, but could only imagine your face.

The sun was setting and the sky was painted with so many colors, each of them causing him to think of another night he spent with you, feeling more alive than he had in a long time. Your smile was still at the forefront of his mind. The way your laugh made his chest feel a hundred times lighter. How you were always so accepting of him. Every part, his anger, his sadness, and his happiness, even if you were the only one who could evoke it.

He just kept riding. Trying to forget how amazing you made him feel, how human he really was. As the distance became greater and greater, Connor could feel his walls being rebuilt, but they were different than the ones that had been there before. The ones that you had knocked down as if they were nothing but dust.

These new walls were painted in your beautiful colors, a constant reminder of what you made him feel, of how you saw him. Connor knew that they weren’t as strong as the last ones, and he understood that they would never be that strong again. But he still attempted to fortify them with each mile he drove.

Even when he had to stop for gas further down the road, the neon signs reminded him of your glowing personality, and the way their vibrancy lit up the parking lot painfully reminded him of how you brightened everything surrounding you, including him.

Filling up his tank as quick as he could, and he was on his way again. Driving through country roads under heavy forest canopies, it started to rain. Still he continued. The water only aiding in his distraction from you for so long.

Then the memory of you dancing in the rain, carefree and solely focused on him. You had beckoned to him with more than just your extended hand, but with your whole soul. It was that night that Connor had known he would never be the same. That was the night he told you he loved you. Maybe not in so many words, but he knew you understood. Maybe that was why he had to leave, before you understood more than you were supposed to.

Continuing to push through the agony Connor felt in his heart, he kept going. Mile after mile, road after road. Even as the storm around him grew worse and worse, just like the cyclone in his head, he persevered. Or at least he did, until he imagined your voice, and he was a goner.

He knew that he couldn’t last without you. As much as he wanted to try and leave, forget everything you made him feel, he knew he never could. He only wanted the best for you, even if that meant it wasn’t him. So that you might have a chance with someone better, someone who deserved you. He felt so selfish, but he knew that you wouldn’t see it that way. Pulling over on the side of the abandoned road, the storm still whirling around him, he screamed.

Shouting for the pain he put you through, for the misery his life was and would be if he continued on this path. But most of all he howled at the world and its fucked up way of showing humanity. It had brought him the thing he wanted most, someone to listen to him and make him feel whole, and then snatched you away as a cruel reminder that the world didn’t care about him.

That was a lie. You cared about him, and you were his world. And now his world was dead. Nothing but black skies and decomposing matter. As he shrieked into the night, he could feel his world continue to disintegrate. The cracks that had started, grew into gaping chasms. It felt as if he was being torn apart and all he could do was bear witness to his own demise.

Thunder boomed overhead, and his roars echoed the anger in the crashes. Lightening lit up the sky and he cried at the brightness. The light as beautiful and unique as the one you had given him. Alone on that country road, Connor let out all of the grief he had collected since he first met you.

He despaired for all the times he never told you how amazing you were. All of the days he missed seeing you. The days he knew he would never get back.

He mourned the moments that he couldn’t be there to comfort you, and the days that you had to comfort him. How he wished he could go back and tell himself to hold off on all of that emo bullshit until after you were gone, because then he would really have something to be upset about.

The rain continued to beat down on him, and soon enough he couldn’t handle it anymore. Falling to his knees he weeped for future you could have had. For the life you never got to live together. For the dreams you never got to see come true. And most of all for the light that had been taken from everyone, especially him.

You were so understanding, so loving. He didn’t know how he had been so lucky to find you. Someone who helped him to tear down his walls and see that there was light all around, not only that was being provided by you, and others, but by himself as well. And now you were gone, leaving him in the shadows again.

The second he heard you were no longer there, everything faded into black and white. Color just didn’t exist for him anymore. It only endured through the things you lived on in, like the photos you were in, and the memories Connor had. He couldn’t take it anymore, and tried to run, and here he was on the side of the road.

How can you be so pathetic? At least they aren’t here to have to deal with you, I’m sure that’s a real blessing, his voice said. Gritting his teeth he tried to remember how you would help him when that voice got so loud, but you weren’t there. And never would be again. Like I said, they got off easy.

Wiping the water from his face he got back on his bike, uncaring about the storm or the cold that had started to bite through his jacket. Starting the engine, he took off, mind numb from all of his emotions. Voice still ringing in his ears of how lucky you were, no longer having to deal with Connor or any of the other bullshit that was on this Earth.

He just kept riding. Soon enough the storm ended, but Connor barely noticed, he just kept going. The night wore on and he found himself lost even further in the middle of nowhere, trees far behind him he drove down empty roads surrounded by nothing but fields of crops and animals.

He didn’t realize he was slowing down until his bike slowly drifted to a stop. Blinking in confusion he realized he was out of gas. Looking around him wearily, he had no idea where he was, or how far a gas station was. Groaning, he couldn’t believe how stupid he was. Can’t even run away right. Great job on getting as far as you did though, I’m sure they would be very proud of you.

“Shut up,” he said to himself. Getting off of the bike and moving it to the side of the road, he felt the weight of everything come down on him heavily. He sat on the ground, unsure of where to go from there. Breathing heavily, his mind was filled with memories of you, your smile, your laugh, everything that made him good, along with that voice.

It wouldn’t shut up. It laughed over yours, twisting it into an ugly thing. Squeezing his eyes shut tight Connor tried to focus on anything but the awful words it was saying. He thought of the time you went to the fair and how beautiful you looked when you were at the top of the ferris wheel, all of the lights giving you such an amazing glow with the stars surrounding your head painting a crown.

Opening his eyes he saw those same stars blinking down at him. The voice was silenced as he looked at their twinkling glow. He was brought back to the night you had laid on the hill on the outskirts of town and made up constellations and stories for each other.

Connor saw the turtle you had thought of, the one who used his shell as a shield for the mouse he had found. The one who was scared of everything, and best friends with the fox that hated the world. The fox that would do anything for the turtle, and was constantly annoyed by the weasel.

He remembered that night so vividly, it was like he was reliving it. Your voice in his ear as you pointed out different animals, giving them the personalities of people you cared most about. Connor interjected every once and awhile, making corrections or adding on to the story.

The turtle had ended up saving the fox, just like you had saved Connor. And all the other animals had rallied around the duo, celebrating the heroicness of everything. But when you disappeared, no one had revered in all of the battles you had fought and won, just agonized over the campaign you didn’t even know you were participating in, the one that you ultimately lost.

As Connor focused on the shapes in the sky, a new story unfolded. One of the turtle and the fox. One where the fox was left alone, but was constantly followed by the turtle. He tried to look away, focus on anything else, but it continued to develop.

He watched, helpless, as the fox desperately searched for the ever elusive turtle. Never giving up, and never moving on, refusing to face that the turtle was gone but still there somehow, lingering. Connor watched it unfurl until the sun started to rise, changing the background and signalling the end of the chapter.

Sitting up, as the sun finally crested over the horizon, he knew he had to face what had happened. Nothing was going to change the past, but he could try to accept the good that you had brought, and the memories that would live on in him. He understood that he couldn’t keep looking for new ways out, new methods to pursue answers, like the fox had done.

Breathing deeply, he thought it had started raining again, only to realize that it was tears that ran down his face. Wiping them away, he stood. Looking in both directions of the still empty road, his eyes lingered on the way he had come. The past had happened and he had to keep moving forward, but that didn’t mean he had to run away.

Glancing down the road he hadn’t been down yet, he contemplated what to do. Swallowing his fear, he set down the new road. Sometimes looking behind him, he found his chest lightening slightly. Not as light as it used to be, but Connor found that he could breathe more openly again.

When he finally happened upon a gas station, he knew what he was going to do. He was going to make you proud. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to complete that goal, but it was a place to start. And that was enough.

Tag List: @helplesshansen

#Connor Murphy x Reader #connor murphy fanfiction #connor murphy #dear evan hansen x reader #dear evan hansen fanfiction #deh x reader #deh fanfiction #musical x reader #musical fanfiction #my writing #not a request

48 notes · View notes

kitten1618x · 7 years ago

Text

GoT Afterthoughts 7x07 The Dragon and The Wolf (Jonsa Edition) SPOILERS

So here we are -the finale. I’d like to bitch about how badly we’ve been ripped off by D&D, but I don’t want to be repetitive. lol We begin our episode outside the walls of Kings Landing. It looks like the Unsullied have abandoned Casterly Rock for a display of power and muscle, and are quickly joined by the Dothriaki -whooping and hollering in a most obnoxious way (I truly dislike them). Jamie and Bronn watch from atop the ramparts for some lively “cock banter”, ya know, since D&D are epic writers and such. Side note: I love how they slowed down Dany’s theme song here. At least the musical score is never disappointing. We get a nice aerial shot of Euron’s huge fleet, as what’s left of Dany’s sails towards KL. Jon, ever a Northerner, is NOT impressed with KL. Stay true to your roots, Jonny boy. Suspiciously (not really), Dany is absent. Gee … I wonder if she’s planning on a flamboyant dragon-styled entrance? The Hound goes below deck to check if Bones is resting comfortably. The box is quiet -must have been that Dramamine they gave him to counter his seasickness. Nope -he’s awake, and clearly feels their hospitality leaves something to be desired. Side note: I wonder if Jon inquiring how many people live in KL is a foreshadowing of a future disaster there? Remember that there are casks of Dragon fire buried everywhere beneath the city. I’m almost positive that will come into play next season. We jump quickly to Cersei in the Red Keep who’s been informed that Dany isn’t with her entourage. How much you wanna bet that Cersei’s thinking the same exact thing I wrote above? She informs Ser Gregor that if anything goes wrong, he’s to kill the silver haired bitch first, then her brother and then the bastard who calls himself King. Now we’re back with the entourage, and we get a bit of a history lesson about the dragon pit ruins, and Jorah says something I perceived to be very important (as well as synonymous of Dany and her conquering Targ ancestors): Jorah: Dragons don’t understand the difference between what’s theirs and what isn’t. Land, livestock, children. CONQUERORS! We learn how over time, with entrapment, the dragons withered away to nothing, small as dogs. This particular part didn’t serve any purpose, other than to reunite the original brotp3, Pod, Bronn and Tyrion. We see that they all still have a fondness for each other -and perhaps a foreshadowing that Bronn will be switching allegiance soon. The Hound and Brienne also have a surprisingly friendly reunion, as they bond over their adopted daughter, Arya. I’m glad they brought her up, and I’m so very excited to see a Hound/Stark girls reunion next season! So, we’re in the Dragon Pit now, and truthfully -this entire 20 minute scene was utter garbage, and I’m pretty pissed that they wasted nearly the entire finale on this flaming dumpster, tbh. Clegane bowl is coming. Cersei is annoyed with Dany’s theatrical entrance (and truthfully, the extra-ness of it all was kind of lame). I guess it was necessary to put Drogon in the dragon pit? But when he flew away, let’s be honest -his wings would have sent those canopies hurling away and knocked everyone on their asses, too. Euron’s a dick. Tyrion attempts to open the floor for Jon, Cersei is her usual snarky, skeptical and extra self (I fucking love her), and finally Sandor releases Bones, and …… the Dramamine must have kicked in? Time for a jump scare! Bones charges Cersei and is yanked back just in time. The Hound cuts him in half, but he keeps on coming until Jon does his sales pitch demonstration (how sad do you think Kit was that they made him do this terrible scene?) of fire and dragon glass (thanks Davos, for your assistance). Euron peaces out -all but throwing up deuces upon his hasty exit, but not before propositioning Dany. Cersei agrees to the truce -tell me honestly -did you all REALLY believe her? She suddenly became so reasonable, which is schiesty as hell, if you ask me. She throws some shade at Dany, and asks Jon to stay neutral. Cersei specifically evokes the honorable Ned Starks name, insinuating that she can trust the son to be as honorable as daddy dearest. Did this jump out at any of you? Because of course Cersei does know that Ned was honorable -yet, she also knows that he had forsaken that very honor in the end, for his daughters -at the request of Sansa (per Cersei) to save his life (and probably hers) which was all for naught because Joffrey was a cunt, as Sandor would say -but you get the point to this clunky run-on sentence, right? And not only that, but he LIED to everyone, and especially the people he loved and cared about (his wife, best friend, family) to save the life of his nephew -and he went to his grave with that secret. So what am I saying? Honorable Ned wasn’t above lying for the greater good, or to protect the ones he loved. Does that put some things in perspective for you? Back to our story (however shitty it is for the time being) Jon declines. Choosing this moment to back Dany, and again “figuratively” bending the knee to her -this time publicly. Side note: Dany’s face in this moment. She’s so smitten with Jon. Cersei basically tells everyone to fuck off, and exits stage left. Brienne attempts to slap some sense into Jamie, uttering two words that stop him dead in his tracks: FUCK LOYALTY. This isn’t about honor and following whomever you’re loyal to -it’s about humanity. Did she appeal to his better side? Methinks so. Now everyone takes the time to belittle Jon for doing the very thing that they haggled him about for the entire season. But Tyrion the KING of bad ideas this season, has yet another -he’ll go talk to Cersei alone. He magically warps to the Red Keep, somehow making it through the city and the castle without being murdered for the hefty price on his head, but …. that D&D logic, tho. He and Jamie say “goodbye” one idiot to another (hey, you guys said it -not me), and as foreboding music drones in the background, the standoff begins. But, so I guess that Jamie and Tyrion decided to let bygones be bygones? And to one of my favorite scenes of the episode -my God, Lena and Peter SLAYED THIS SCENE! After the accusations fly, Tyrion tells Cersei to have him killed -the Mountain reaches for his sword and begins to unsheath it, but the order is never given. Cersei looks torn. Perhaps she isn’t as heartless as she tries to portray? Perhaps a tiny part of her does have affection for her little brother? Or maybe she just doesn’t want anymore Lannisters to die? I’m not entirely sure of her motivations, but she certainly looked gorgeous in this scene, though. After Tyrion collects himself (and likely wishes for a clean pair of shorts), he downs a goblet of wine and pours his sister a cup. We know now that he does regret killing his father (despite deserving it), and that Tyrion really doesn’t want to see the end of his family. Is he lying? Doubtful. He loved her children as she did (except for Satan incarnate, Joffrey). He realizes that Cersei is once again pregnant, and somehow appeals to her better senses …. And I’m just here SCREAMING at the TV: why do you all believe her??? This is Cersei -the son Tywin always wanted -but with a vagina (oh, the irony)!! We jump back to the Dragon Pit where Jon is back to brooding as he shuffles through some dragon bones. He lets his disappointment in the turn of events known, as Dany decides to join him. She tells him she respects what he did (is that what we’re calling it now? did ya’ll see her face when he announced his allegiance with her? It’s cool Dany -I “respect” Jon snow sometimes when my hubby isn’t around, too 😂) and then begins telling him how the end of the Dragons is what really spelled the end of her house. The dragons made them extraordinary -without them, they are just like everyone else. (BINGO). This leads to Jon complimenting her -she’s not like everyone else and her family hasn’t seen its end because she’s still here. Dany follows up that she can’t have children -in case you missed that last episode Jon, when she said the Dragons are the only children she’ll ever have, and then you nodded your understanding when she point blank asked you if you understood. Remember? Oh, are you just double checking? Okay my son, carry on …. *So this is important: J: Who told you that? D: The witch that murdered my husband. J: Did it occur to you she might not have been a reliable source of information? (Because clearly it’s occurring to Jon). D: You were right from the beginning. If I’d had trusted you everything would be different. J: So what now? D: I can’t forget what I saw north of the wall, and I can’t pretend that Cersei won’t take back half the country the moment I march north. So -let’s do a bit of reading between the lines here, shall we? What we know now: Dany fully trusts Jon, when she didn’t before. When Jon asks her “what now?” It’s pretty clear that he’s unsure whether or not he can trust her to prioritize the NK and his army over Cersei and the Iron Throne. And her answer lets him know that he’s in the right with his suspicions. J: It appears Tyrion’s assessment was correct, we’re fucked. You sure are, Jon. Better think of something quick -because apparently just “bending the knee” may not be sufficient -and you do need those dragons and army. As if by cue, Tyrion returns -Cersei and her entourage in tow and she agrees to help and delivers one of the most epic lines of the evening: “perhaps you’ll remember that I chose to help with no promises or assurances from any of you.” YOU LIE LIKE A RUG CERSEI, BUT SLAY YOU UNAPOLOGETIC BITCH -I LOVE YOU!! Now I want to ask if ANY of you caught the look that passed between Jon and Tyrion here? Admittedly, I didn’t on my first watch -but it’s plain as day. Remember it -I’ll return to it later, because I actually think it may be important. Now we take a ravens POV, flying through the heavy snow towards Winterfell. Sansa sits irritatedly tapping her message from Jon on her desk. She’s not happy about the news she’s received. Seems like Jon finally decided to write home and let her know he bent the knee. You broke up with the North in a text message? Really Jon? Little Finger does what he’s always done -acts like he’s on everyone’s side while sewing his seeds of doubt and dissension. For those of you who were waiting for the crypt scene payoff: here it was … While discussing Jon’s “reasons” for doing this, he drops the bomb that the Dragon Queen is rumored to be very beautiful. Why? My guess is he’s wondering if Sansa has the same subconscious affections for Jon that he displayed in the crypts. S: what does that have to do with anything? LF: Jon is young and unmarried, Daenerys is young and unmarried. S: you think he wants to marry her? (the thought obv never occurred to her, due to her reaction). LF: An alliance makes sense. Together they’d be difficult to defeat. He was named KitN, he can be unnamed. S: Even if I wanted to (she doesn’t) Arya would never go for it. Shut down AGAIN, LF -Sansa isn’t going to turn on Jon. So, he switches gears back to Arya, thinking that’s the key to driving a wedge between her and Jon and setting the crown on Sansa’s head -get Arya out of the way. He continues his little mind game, encouraging Sansa to play along, and by the scenes end, we’re made to believe she’s fallen for it and is on board. Really -unbeknownst to him, he just planted the solution to Jon’s birthright situation in her lap (when it’s revealed). Unite the North and South by marriage -together they’d be difficult to defeat …. hello Jonsa season 8! And we’ve warped back to Dragonstone. They’re planning their strategy to head to Winterfell. Jon suggests that they sail together, and Jorah thinks Dany would be safer flying Drogon. Of course because she’s hot on Jon -she’ll take his suggestion -especially since we ALL KNOW the Northerners will NEVER see her as an ally. But she’s all: I’m going north to save them, not conquer them. 😏 So many nervous glances here amongst all the men … The meetings over, and Theon catches Jon and Davos as they pass through the throne room (anyone else curious about what they may have been talking about?). Okay, and OMG, another important conversation with so much hidden in the narrative! (I may paraphrase a bit here) T: What you did in KL, you could have lied to Cersei about bending the knee to Daenerys. You risked everything to tell an enemy the truth. But …did he? J: We went down there to make peace, and it seems to me we need to be honest with each other, if we’re going to fight together. See above. T: You’ve always known what was right. Even when we were all young and stupid. Every step you take …it was always the right step. J: It’s not. It may seem that way from the outside, but I promise you it’s not true. I’ve done plenty things I regret. T: Not compared to me you haven’t. Clearly, he’s referring to betraying the Starks. J: No. Not compared to you. Clearly he has no intention of betraying his family like Theon did -although I do believe he intends to betray someone. T: I always wanted to do the right thing. Yada yada. It always seemed like their was …an impossible choice I had to make. Stark or Greyjoy. Confirmation here. Jon’s angry. He’s angry that Theon betrayed their father -who although may not have been his true father, he treated him like a son-better than Theon’s own father -sound familiar? J: Our father was more a father to you than your own father ever was. T: He was. J: And you betrayed him, betrayed his memory. T: I did. J: But you never lost it. He’s a part of you, just like he’s a part of me. Jon may as well be having this conversation with himself next season! Well - at least parts of it. T: But the things I’ve done … J: Its not my place to forgive you for all of it. But what I can forgive, I do. You don’t need to choose. You’re a Greyjoy and you’re a Stark. *I love this little nugget, because I feel like it gives credence to my Wars of the Roses meta theory -that Jon will combine both sides of his heritage/houses into one. Although, the deeper meaning behind it, is he’s allowed to be both without betraying the other. And …. he will always be a Stark. The conversation continues with Theon explaining that Yara tried to save him -she needs him now. And Jon gives Theon his blessing to go get his sister: “So why you still talking to me.” This scene with Jon was truly beautiful, with true healing quality for Theon. A little bit of old Theon emerges when he doesn’t stand down to one of Yara’s men and takes a hell of a beating (damn, he really is a Stark -can’t keep my babies down!) and succeeds in rallying the men behind him. Not for him -for Yara! We return to Winterfell where a very forlorn Sansa stands upon the ramparts in her and Jon’s “spot”. Is she thinking of him? I believe so -but that might just be my pesky shipping goggles. Sophie Turner has looked exceptionally beautiful this season -like bewitchingly so. She’s always been lovely -but damn. Shaking off her sadness: my skin has gone from porcelain, to ivory, to steel -she steels herself for what must be done, and orders the guard to have her sister brought to the Great Hall. We flash to the Great Hall. Arya is escorted in, as Sansa and Bran sit like they’re about to judge her. Arya and LF share a “fuck you” stare, and Arya asks Sansa if she “really wants to do this?” Sansa replies that honor demands it, and after Arya’s “get on with it”, Sansa rattles off charges, and then flips the script on LF, leveling the charges on him. Haha! He blinked so hard, I thought he was about to fall over! As Sansa annihilates him with charges, he stumbles with excuses, but all 3 Starklings gangbang his ass, and he’s done for. Using his own lessons and words against him -the student has surpassed the teacher. “I am a slow learner, it’s true -but I learn.” SAVAGE. MY QUEEN IS SAVAGE. And with a nod of Sansa’s head, and despite his resorting to crying and begging, Arya slits his throat before he even realizes what hit him. For all his scheming, what was his legacy …? I would have liked to see him go out with a bit more fight -but maybe that’s the point. BY THE WAY -I WANT FUCKING RECEIPTS!! I TOLD YOU ALL MY GIRLS WERE PLAYING HIM!! To the Starks, who fought to make it back to Winterfell and each other -family is everything. They’re a united front. We jump back to KL for the last time this season. Jamie is going over battle plans with the Lannister soldiers. Cersei dismisses them and asks Jamie what he’s doing- he tells her that he’s planning his expedition north. Cersei resorts to her usual cruelty: “you really are the stupidest Lannister.” She tells him it was all a ruse, and Jamie’s not happy about this. After accusing him of conspiring against her and telling him that Euron didn’t really tuck tail and run, but instead went to pick up the mercenaries she purchased with the help of the Iron Bank, Jamie finally grows a pair! He pledged to ride north and he intends to. Cersei’s last bit of treachery is FINALLY the straw that broke the camels back! Cersei threatens his life -reminiscent of her earlier scene with Tyrion. Jamie calls her bluff, and again she doesn’t act on it. And as our hero leaves for the North, Winter has finally arrived at KL. (Told you better things were in store for my Golden boy … can he really be TPTWP?)!! We head back to Winterfell -Sam and Gilly have arrived and Sam seeks out Bran. Not gonna lie -this part confused me a bit, because I thought Bran was all knowing ….yet, he asks Sam WHY he’s come to Winterfell. Also -it’s Sam who informs him that Jon isn’t a bastard. Also -why has Bran told this to Sam, and not his sisters? Unless he has? And we just haven’t seen it? Like the Starks conspiring against LF? Makes me wonder of the other things that may have happened offscreen this season, too …. Bran does what he does and goes back in time to witness Lyanna and Rhaegar’s marriage -Roberts Rebellion was built on a lie. Jon’s real name is (barf) Aegon Targaryen, and he’s never been a bastard -he’s the TRUE heir to the Iron Throne -all of this over boatbang, sucking all the romance out of the coupling and painting it in an ominous light -just as I suspected. Remember when I told you all that CONTEXT was everything, and that there was a reason we found out about Jon’s parentage prior to boatbang -and the reasoning behind overlapping R/L’s wedding wasn’t to depict this EPIC romance, but to instead imply incestuous overtones and foreshadow the future Targbowl? Yep. That’s about it in a nutshell. But, more about boatbang towards the end -as well as my suspicions … We return back to Winterfell, where our Starkling sisters are perched upon the ramparts. Here they confirm their bond, both understanding the true strength of the other, and that despite each others quirks -they love one another and will take care of each other ….just as their father would have wanted. “When the Snows fall and the White Winds Blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” Despite their losses, the Starks are a pack, and they will endure. Lastly, we shoot to Eastwatch, where everyone’s favorite ginger is perched atop the lookout post -probably daydreaming of Brienne. A horn blows as the NK’s army has finally reached the wall. Viserion, gorgeous blue eyes shining soars through the air with the NK on his back, and shooting flames to match his eyes -the wall begins to crumble. We see people getting caught up in the destruction -hopefully not Tormund, because I’ll fucking riot, as the wall falls and the dead march forward into Westeros. Winter is here. Okay, so back to boatbang. Aside from the basics I outlined above -let’s break the scene down. Jon stands before Dany’s door. His expression is troubled. He heaves a heavy sigh, then he lifts his hand to knock on the door -yet he hesitates before actually knocking. Why? After Dany bids him entrance, Jon closes the door and we see Tyrion emerge from around the corner. Unless he’s been stalking Jon -he has perfect timing. Why is this? Could it be that Jon was just with Tyrion? Could that look they shared at the Dragon Pit mean something? Could Jon be the means as to which Varys suggested Tyrion find a way to make Dany listen? Tyrion’s expression doesn’t look like jealousy to me -he looks concerned, worried even. Has he conspired against his queen, knowing how smitten she is with Jon, to stay the course and maybe feels guilty because he knows she’s falling for Jon and he’s playing her? Have secret discussions been going on offscreen, like with the Starks, only to be revealed later? You’ve kind of gotta wonder this season … Look, whether or not you subscribe to the undercover lover theory or not, you’ve got to admit that there’s been a lot of oddness surrounding this rushed romance. Two episodes ago, Jon was ready to hightail it out of Dragonstone and never look back (and he didn’t, although Jorah did), and we’re suddenly supposed to believe he’s smitten? I guess If I shipped them, I’d want to believe that -but what about Jon’s odd behavior? The fact that while Dany has literally poured her heart out to him, yet he’s managed to share absolutely NOTHING personal with her is a HUGE damn red flag to me. Not.One.Damn.Thing. Could he be attracted to her? Sure. She’s quite beautiful and he’s not blind, but it seems that D&D have been hiding little clues within the narrative -they’ve also managed to successfully sabotage this relationship before it even got off the ground -with the parent reveal last season. The way I see it, is we’ve got a strong case here, and a 50/50 chance that this is all for show and Jon’s actually LISTENED to Sansa -that he’s being smarter than father and Robb, that he’s NOT a Northern fool -and he REALLY does know how to play the game. All this talk of Ned, and honor? OR, he is truly a damn fool and Jon Snow really does know nothing …. I just can’t stand by this. If I’m wrong, fine -but everything screams at me that that Jon knows Cersei was lying, or just doesn’t trust she’ll follow through. Jon knows that once Dany figures that out, she’ll probably want to go back south with her dragons and armies -pledging himself to her clearly didn’t work (as witnessed by her words at the Dragon Pit) -but clearly she’s smitten with him …he’s seen her heart eyes. What’s a sure-fire way to get her to commit to the war and assisting the North in fighting? Why, committing to her man, of course. So, back to analyzing the sex scene. There was no lead up -no first kiss, no tender caresses -just a closed door and then BAM two naked (damn Kit, daaayum!) people. Dany seems to have taken the aggressive stance on top. Jon flips her into missionary, and before he thrusts, STOPS -again, like at the door, he’s hesitating as he looks down at Dany, regretful -like he’s not sure he should do this -NOT because he doesn’t want her (he IS a man, after all), but because he’s feeling guilty about what he’s about to do (to her), as she stares up at him all dreamy-eyed and awestruck, and he doesn’t feel the same way. Make no mistake that I do believe he likes her as a person, but love is not reciprocated here. He heaves yet another heavy sigh, with this same haunted expression, and then pants as he steels himself to go on -seemingly forcing himself to continue, squeezing his eyes shut as he kisses her. All I heard in my head was Arya saying “get on with it”. This was not romantic epic love. Jon didn’t look at Dany like she hung the moon. We’ve all seen the way he’s looked at Sansa -

Vs. a very intimate moment with the woman he “supposedly” has fallen for?

Nope. I may be wrong about undercover lover, but I think that there was so much more than meets the eye here. Buckle up babies -we survived season 7 and boatbang. Season 8 is ours and Jonsa is STILL endgame. It is known. 😘

#got afterthoughts #got recap #got speculation #jonsa #jon x sansa

497 notes · View notes