#also wrote this at NotLateAtNight

[m-s-justice]

Once again, I show up to the Cod:z tag with a fucking essay. Once again it's about Dempsey. Sorry for Demposting :'(

The whole point of this is just to focus exclusively on a point made very briefly in my previous one. The whole Dempsey-Player dynamic (and a little bit of Treyarch mixed in for spice) is just so strange.

Three main questions I’ll try my best to answer, and a few more open-ended ones to chew on.

What are the lines?

What causes the lines?

Player control and the extent of it?

what the fuck is up with the lampshading seriously is this gag a joke or an actual part of his character now???

1.

The first question is easy. Pretty much all of his lines referring to the Player are, to put it lightly, incredibly rude. He frequently insults and even outright threatens us. In Shangri La, he says that he’ll appear in your living room and that he’ll have “words with you”. The most polite is when he’s being passive-aggressive. “Why do my guns feel so light? HINT. HINT.”

2.

So what causes him to speak up? That’s also pretty easy: anytime his ability to kill is threatened, when the Player isn't doing well,  or when they make him do something he doesn’t want to(though the last is much more rare). The majority of his lines are ‘out of ammo’ lines but he does have a few of him demanding headshots or blaming you for his lack of points(which he’s right for doing but also fuck him he’s a rude bitch and I’m going to force him to walk into a horde). In Classified, he’s particularly sassy: “Wait, this isn’t the secret song. What the hell do I need this for?” “I suppose you want me to comment on this thing, right? Hey you made me pick it up, pal! Well guess what! Fuck this thing in partiular.”

He’s clearly not enthused about the whole “being controlled by an untouchable entity”, but he also is strangely flippant about it. Fatuous, almost. It’s actually kind of concerning how nonchalant he is about it. But that could have a little something to do with the next point

3.

How much control does the Player really have? In the grand scheme of things? Not very. In cutscenes, Dempsey is in full control, we have no input over what he does. In game, we only have control over his body, and even then, not complete control. Dempsey can talk all he wants and he can still have minor control over himself with idle animations and the like. This is compounded by the linear story-telling. There is only one major story EE in every map and the outcome never changes. This is pretty much expected as COD is a FPS, not a choice driven game. The most Player influence we ever got was in BO2 with Maxis vs Richtofen, but even then Treyarch said "Fuck Richtofen" and made the Maxis route canon. So no matter what, Dempsey will still so the only thing he can(progress the story via the EE)

Despite this, one would imagine that he’d be more concerned about his total lack of autonomy while in a combat zone, yeah?

4.

But this could be dismissed as a running joke; Treyarch giving Dempsey a neat, ultimately harmless and insignificant quirk. Except.

Except there’s an in-universe explanation for it. It’s a side effect from the 115 testing for Ultimis and after getting his soul extracted, Primis starts acting similar to his Ultimis counterpart with the same happening to his teammates. But you know, maybe that’s just a one-off thing. "Oh, Dempsey is just insane in canon now. The 115 fucked him up and now he thinks he’s the Player Character."

Except. It’s fucking acknowledged. Characters on the level of gods know that he’s doing it. And try to manipulate him with it. Only two do it, but they are the Shadowman in Revelations and Samantha in Classified.(ok, both Toffens make fun of Demp in Alpha Omega, but he clearly has no idea that it’s rude to talk about someone who is listening.)

“Oh… oh Dempsey… another big tough man without a brain… always a good soldier… always the American savage… and always so eager to kill my puppets! Who are you always talking to? I always hear you doing it. Even when the others aren’t around. You are like a talking doll! Speaking to people who aren’t there! Maybe Teddy DID break you! But you can stop him! It could be so easy! Just pull the trigger, and… POP! No more Teddy! What is it you want? Do you want to stop fighting? Do you want to go home? Do you want your memories back? What he took from you? Kill him for me, and I can give you EVERYTHING!”

Wow that’s a lot to unpack, but for now I’ll only focus on what’s actually relevant to my point. Samantha fucking knows that Dempsey is talking to ‘someone’. Comparing him to a doll and contemplating that Richtofen actually managed to ‘break’ him. The latter bit of the statement lines up with the in canon reason, but still. (the doll bit is an admittedly apt comparison, considering that’s exactly what we’re doing with him, but I feel like that was unintentional on Treyarch’s behalf.) Of course to others he comes off as absolutely insane, but to us who are there, it’s a really odd thing to point out. Samantha could’ve easily utilized Dempsey’s lack of memory and his unrelenting hatred of Richtofen to manipulate him, but instead she mentions ‘people who aren’t there’.

And the Shadowman. He’s kind of a bitch and is very manipulative, but to be manipulative you have to know your audience, so here.

“ ‘Tank’ Dempsey. Do you even have a first name? You know so little about yourself. You used to talk to imaginary forces all the time! Forces you thought controlled your destiny. Or have you forgotten that? Of course you have! It’s all Monty’s fault!”

A lot shorter than Samantha’s schtick, but still telling enough. For Primis, who hadn’t even been experimented on, by sheer virtue of being Dempsey the Player(and probably Treyarch, too, considering the whole ‘controlled your destiny’ bit) is immediately brought up in an attempt to exploit him. Which is so strange. It implies something much deeper than what is really there.

But above all, the one link between every line regarding Dempsey and his connections is the fact that the Player(and Treyarch) are either fake or just ignore him.(though, considering his treatment over the series, yeah kinda.)

“Speaking to people who aren’t there”

“You used to talk to imaginary forces all the time!”

“Dempsey, whoever you’re talking to I don’t think they are listening.”

Which is so strange. Why bring it up in the first place, if his calling is responded to with only silence? Why try to manipulate him with it, if Dempsey is so clearly unaffected by his circumstances regarding his lack of control? The important-non importance this facet of his character is given just confuses me. Maybe they were going to do something with it, eventually, but y’know. He just gets killed off.(I’m entirely bitter about this)

End of Post(me complaining)

The whole thing is just sitting in between being a joke given justification and a Chekhov's Gun. And I really wish Treyarch let Dempsey pick it up. If not for some serious plot point or justification, then just to do something with it. It’s been given the spotlight from characters of great importance and knowledge, so why not do something with it?

I hope I don't come across as someone ungrateful or unnessecarily scrutinizing, but the vibes are off man. Takeo's obsession with honor and the Emperor got utilized and made into character development, as did Nikolai's drinking and nth Wife gag. Richtofen got his madness explained and could be viewed as perhaps not redeemable, but definitely pitiable.

Dempsey is just ruthlessly mocked at ever convenience and while thrown into focus few times by some big names, it's nevery really made into anything more. I dunno where they were going with this, but man. Dempsey as a character was so underutilized. For a fan favorite, he gets a whole lot of nothing.

Ah, but that's for another post. This one is already far too long.