#but at least i've got ~650 words rn. once i hit 900 i'm sending it in (cuz 1000's definitely a Vague Number for Length Goal purposes)

[number1villainstan]

Ok, so, I have a random question and it’s something that’s been bugging me for a while but I don’t know how to go about figuring it out so I decided I’d ask you cos I know it’s something you can probably know more about.

Would you say that from a meta standpoint, that Doktor Blutwurst is a good character? Like, his canonical backstory and how he is as a villain and such, would you say he’s a good character? Not likeable but well written/well executed I suppose.

Take your time answering this, there’s no rush.

Hmm, that is a good question. I'm not sure if I'd say he's a well-fleshed out character, especially because a lot of the tropes surrounding his backstory are kind of overused for cheap sympathy plays and because we see very little of him, but I'd definitely say he's the most character lmao

Okay, so--Blutwurst's role in the story is as an antagonist, obviously, but we can get more specific than that. The main emotions that Blutwurst's depiction in-game are meant to evoke are disgust and hatred; outside the diary entries that insinuate he was raised in an abusive household, he's never presented as sympathetic or kind or fair or with any sort of redeeming quality. The game gives him no charisma, not like Hax. To this end, the game not only shows him engaging in undeniably harmful acts and conduct, but also uses a variety of common (fatphobic, ableist, probably racist too) tropes to establish him as a "gross villain" right off the bat. I won't get into them right now, but I will say that these tropes seem to convince the average player to hate and be disgusted by Blutwurst pretty quickly.

(It bears saying right now that you and I, Horizon, are not average players/viewers--we're living a lot of the things those bigoted tropes are based on and know that That's Not How It Works, and we can use ourselves and our life experience as reference to figure out what's going on inside Blutwurst's head. In other words, he's more sympathetic to us than he is to the average viewer because we share certain traits with him.)

In the sense of doing what he's supposed to do, providing a Hate Sink for the player, then yeah he does a pretty good job for the average player, even though the designers used bigoted tropes to do it. In the sense of being well-fleshed-out or realistic, not so much--but then again, as a general rule, Hate Sinks generally aren't very well-fleshed-out, because knowing a character's backstory tends to make the average player hate them less. I hope that answers the question?