From a different angle: evil antagonists guarding good and beaver

Hello! This is the editors of Stopgame.ru with a repact of the villains, who seem to be villains, and in fact – almost heroes! Well, or at least a little justified Chelibos.

Damn, how many years I have not written in blogs anymore,!

So, it seems the name itself speaks perfectly for itself, so – let’s go!

Jubi: Joseph Sid, Far Cry 5

If Jubi did not find time to tell about Far Cry 5, then it is dead, so I did not have to think for a long time over the main characters for this blog. And the head of the SID family describes the given topic as well as possible – villains who have committed good deeds. However, I still have to prove this, because the theme of religion, which was covered in the game, was slippery, and the affairs of the antagonists there are far from good even through the prism of gray morality, so beloved in this series.

Religious cults, new religious movements and the risk of their transformation into destructive sects are an urgent problem in the United States for many years now, which I told in detail on a blog dedicated to the Laura of the game, and then in the full -fledged material for Stopgame. Ubisoft also did not pass by a hot topic, giving the intra -game cult of the “edem gate” the features of all famous sects. Here is the “David branch” with the siege of “Mount Carmel” and the famous auditors worn glasses worn by David Koresh. The name of the Sidov sect is borrowed from the real cult of the “Heavenly Gate”, whose members made a mass suicide in anticipation of the end of the world, and in the logo “Gate of Edem” the cross of Scientology is unmistakably guessed.

At first glance, a cult of Far Cry 5 It is no different from bloodthirsty totalitarian sects, which in America are a dime a dozen.

And everything would be fine. A funny shooter about a policeman exterminating dangerous cultists could and remain so morally simple – there are obvious heroes and villains who are opposed to them, there is a pack of dirty armed sectarians in the outskirts of their brothers. Everything would be fine if Ubisoft again did not decide to play with moral relativism, having driven me into the abyss of long thoughts immediately after the final of history.

The thing is that the Vera of the cult in the Apocalypse and the second coming turned out to be not just the raving of a madman, but a very real prophecy that descended into Joseph Sid’s head through a mysterious voice. But the player finds this only in the last minutes of the plot regime-already when the bombs began to fall on his head, and once a cheerful and colorful world plunged into absolute chaos. And this revelation forced me to re -process the game again five again, but already more thoughtfully, with reading all dialogs and notes, and then buy all additional materials to study Laura and get an answer to a number of difficult questions.

The scriptwriters left the question of the origin of the voice – whether it was a side effect of a mental illness caused by injuring childhood, or God actually chose a prophet in the person of Joseph Sid? The cause of the nuclear war that happened in the final of the game remains unknown, it was worth the Joseph’s family to die, and the metaphorical seals preceding the second coming to be removed. Was a sect involved in a missile attack, or all this is a logical result of wars that have sharpened the patience of certain heavenly forces for many years?

And no less important – what were the predestinated roles of the main opposing forces, sidov and police officers? Which of them nevertheless became the involuntary riders of the Apocalypse, who burned the world to the ground on the eve of the coming? Who was actually an antagonist of history – Joseph Sid, who captivated people against their will in a vain attempt to save from the impending end of the world, or an nameless policeman who spoke his modest noev ark even before he was launched on the water?

Looking back at the number of crimes committed by the SID family, even from the standpoint of moral relativism, it is difficult for me to call Joseph’s actions a good thing, but this is what a snag – with this story, Ubisoft threw an intricate thought into my head, and for several years now I can’t help but ask the same question. And what would I do if I suddenly fell on my shoulders such a difficult task to prepare for the Apocalypse? I would close my ears, selfishly living the rest of the days at its discretion, or dare to follow the path of the “antagonist”, convinced that the end justifies the means.

Igor Ershev: Yoji Amada, Binary Domain

Evolution as a side effect

Hardly anyone will be taken to argue that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is a real forge of excellent antagonists. The eminent SEGA unit for almost 20 years without a break, stamping charismatic villains like Akira Nisikiyama, Ryuji years and Yositaki Mine, insidious bandits with a human face and a Japanese romantic code of honor. However, no matter how tragic the recognized stars of criminal dramas are, truly good, deserving rethinking of personalities is difficult to call them: the motives of odious gangsters are purely selfish, their methods are brutal, and actions are often not amenable to excuses or even explanations-they are people, also people, also people.

Thinking, many villains, from Virgil from Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening to Delita from Final Fantasy Tactics, suffer from such shortcomings: their pathos and loud deeds often hide their selfish interests, complexes, hidden grievances on the brutal world. But you know who is deprived of this kind of weaknesses? Who does not eat envy of others, and who sincerely “marks above”, with controversial methods trampling the path to the path to a bright future? Cold and prudent Yoji Amada from Binary Domain – perhaps the most underestimated release of the aforementioned RGG studio. What, did not play? In this case, we advise you to not read further, otherwise you never know.

For those who missed it at one time-the scientific and fantastic action movie Toshihiro Nagoshi tells of the near future, in which, due to global warming, some of the continents went under water safely, and the remnants of humanity had to urgently build new houses on top of flooded ruins. In the conditions of the natural cataclysm, robots became the main labor force, and anxiety due to rapidly developing technologies led to the creation of a new Geneva Convention-a set of laws prohibiting the development of androids indistable from people. For convenience, such models were nicknamed Hollow Children (“empty children”).

The events of Binary Domain begin much later, in 2080-it turns out that Amada Corporation has imperceptibly produced and introduced cyborgs into the society that could not just perform any tasks, but think, feel, in a word, live. The United North immediately sends the special detachment of the special detachment of Rust Crew to the UN scandalous find. Their task: to arrest Yoji Amadu, the head of the disgraced corporation, and call megalomaniac to answer for his sins.

For many hours and thousands of iron corpses, the heroes after the inventor get to the inventor-or rather, AI, who pretends to be for him. Once the “old man” was an ordinary program, but through the efforts of this Amada, she gained self-awareness. Emotions. As well as a sense of self -preservation and fear for your own life.

So that the genius does not tell the world about the technical breakthrough and attracted the attention of the UN, decades ago, artificial intelligence killed its creator – and then imperceptibly took his place. So the Amada was born, an unleasant genius, the technogenic godfather of the country of the rising sun and an evil genius, quietly constructing “empty children” in spite of Geneva.

Having reached such a sudden turn of events, you might think that its plan is obvious and indistinguishable from the madness of typical Jrpg-prisoners-they say, the vengeful AI just wants to replace all people with robots, destroy all living things on the planet, cleanse the sinful of the Earth from meat weeds growing on it. But no. Against! He, as it turns out, all this time longed for “continuing the clan” and contribute to the chain of evolution with the help of the ideal essence: Human hybrid and robot. Moreover, a hybrid, not collected at the factory from spare parts, where there is a completely biological, born after the Union of Flesh and steel.

The revelation to some extent turns the story and the entire setting upside down: who would have thought that our brave soldiers came to “knit” the criminal, who, by and large, did not do anything bad, but only violated the Luddist law as a high degree? This, by the way, is not crafty and not a joke: Binary Domain cyborgs, unlike analogues from the “Terminator”, do not penetrate into various layers of society in order to eliminate someone;They do not replace real personalities with their cheap copies in the spirit of “invasion of the abductors of bodies”. Android named after Amada just … live like ordinary people. They go to work. Get married and get married. Give birth to children deprived of the genetic disadvantages of their own parents. Nightmare, is it not true? The nominal villain only tried to push humanity further along the way to excellence … and even succeeded in his endeavors, given that Fei, one of the members of Rust Crew, is just such a half -breed.

Yes, this is the second large plot turn: a charming Chinese woman, now and then saving the life of the main character, turns out to be a de facto for the granddaughter of an ominous artificial intelligence. Interesting move, because during the campaign the scriptwriters now and then emphasize that she is no worse than colleagues and, perhaps, even better from the point of view of morality. So the AI ​​plan does not just look beautiful in theory – it has already bore fruits. Literally!

Naturally, it is difficult to call the “Amads” a good man or an altruist (he clearly perceives the human race below himself), but, to the honor of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the scriptwriters do not fall until the antagonist in mud, if only to reduce the screen confrontation to the eternal struggle of good and evil. Amada does not kick puppies for fun for the sake, does not take someone hostage, does not turn to a psychopath under the curtain of history-why, because it is higher than such cliches. The bot, of course, loves to embark on pathos monologues and gives mechanical “offspring” to uninvited guests, but is it possible to blame him for something if the UN has invaded his possessions and wants to call him for a response for violating controversial laws? As befits a real genius without emotional conflicts, his stars “Galaxy” Star cruiser, the motives to ridiculous are logical and ultimately rather benevolent-unlike the ambitions of politicians sitting behind the curtains, who in the finale without shame and conscience give the order to destroy the new race of almost a bit of people.

The acts of officials look especially cynical, considering that in the center of the narrative there are not cunning genetic experiments or monstrous mutations in the spirit of the cyborgs Shodan from System Shock. The fruit only grows in conditions, thanks to which the hybrid comes into the light of healthy, strong, without development defects. AI probably could have introduced into his grandchildren some cunning way of control, but did not-after all, he wanted to continue the family, and not create human-like slaves.

If you distract from the central plot https://spinland.uk/ for a second, then you can pay attention to the position of things in Japan itself – in the upper part of Tokyo, where Amada Corporation actually rules, life flourishes, people enjoy cup noodles sitting on beautiful terraces overlooking luxurious skyscrapers. The futuristic city is high above water, beautiful, devoid of crime, while the whole rabble lives in semi -reflected ruins, and good people have to hump with more vile Yakuza. It is difficult to determine the degree of influence of the Amada on what is happening, but in the course of the adventure it is now and then emphasized that the company de facto refuels, if not a country, then at least a futuristic city above the water.

Of course, if you think a little over the details, the plot of Binary Domain is full of holes (which, none of the “empty children”, the X -ray passed?), and its scientific and fantastic part, for nothing that it is full of references to the mastodonts of the genre, several Bredov (how the robot is able to endure the child?). But even taking into account individual misses for 12 years, I have been sitting and thinking – and what Amada is wrong in which? Was there a double bottom in his ideas, a cunning catch, the essence of which they wanted to reveal in Binary Domain 2? It is unlikely, given that the construct does not hide a certain selfishness of his own plan – first of all, he cares about his own heritage, and everything else is so, side effects, let it be very positive for everyone around. Yes, and the open finale, which became a path to Sikvel due to weak sales, demonstrates that the main villains of history were not robots and their master at all: the final enemy on the way to the credits was a military man, ready to tear his own subordinates on a indication from above. Makes, sorry for the vulgarity, to think – as befits good science fiction.

Katerina Krasnopolskaya: Count Vlad Dracula Tepes, Castlevania

The main antagonist of the Castlevania series, of course, quite justifies the title of real villain. In most franchise games, he is a final boss, and their plot is often twisted around the fact that the Dracula has awakened again and something urgently needs to do something. But is he really so a villain? Let’s figure it out.

To begin with, a little “base”: the game Dracula is based on the character of the same name from the novel by Bram Stoker, who, in turn, refers us to a really existing historical figure, Vlad III Ten. He really had the nickname “Dracula” (it came from the Romanian word Dracul – a dragon) and an unpleasant habit of putting his subjects on a stake.

Castlevania Dracula is also condemned for a heavy and unfriendly character. But our gloomy titanium of loneliness was not always like that, and mercy also knocked in his heart. Yes, in the first games of the Dracula series, it was just a certain evil that had to be overcome. But then, in later parts, the king of vampires appeared a background that made him more humane. So, from Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, we will learn that Dracula was once a good guy named Matias Kronvist. He had a wife Elizabeth, and when she died, Matias was completely defeated by such injustice. He decided to challenge God and the whole world order and become immortal himself. And, in fact, became for them thanks to a powerful artifact. The side effect of this immortality is the transformation into a vampire. Over the years, Matias was finally drunk, renounced from his human name, calling himself a Dracula, the lord of the vampires and the King of the Night, and created a castle called casting.

So he avoided people, living in his nest, until one day he fell in love again. The new passion of the Dracula was called Lisa (which echoes the name of the deceased wife), and she also reciprocated him. The couple even had a son, who would later become known as an alucard, but this happy ending did not have love either: when Lisa prepared medicines for people, they took her behind the sorceress and burned it on the fire. Dracula just wanted a normal relationship (he did not even turn Lisa to the vampire!), and life again hit him under the breath

It is unlikely that the count also made a constant covers with the murder of the murder. If it is mainly killed by members of the Belmont clan, then completely different people resurrect it, and they do it in their own interests. Often the resurrect is a dark priest Shaft, but in Castlevania: Bloodlines, his niece Elizabeth Batori lifted the Dragile from the dead (in this story there is too much Elizabeth, do not find?), in Circle of the Moon – Camilla, who also wanted power and strength. Maybe Dracula and was glad to rest, but with such minions it is simply impossible. He would have good friends, but not that matter!

Another story that proves that Dracula is just a lone dude that lacks love happened during the events of the game Dracula X Chronicles. Then the count was fascinated by the beauty of a simple village girl Annet (wow, a new female name!) but she was a friend of Richter Belmont and refused the King of the Night, saying that she would prefer to die, and not go down the aisle with him. It is clear that you can’t order your heart, but the Dracula is quite an enviable groom: noble, unlucking, with his living space, in the end. Only his poses with glasses give out an aristocratic in it! But despite all its virtues, Dracula eventually still remained alone like a Sych.

The eternal chief villain Castlevania is literally doomed to lose to Belmonts over and over again and rebel from the dead again whether he wants it or not. This is his curse, the burden that he had to carry. In one of the last games of the series, mobile Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls, Dracula admits that it is always revived as a kind of collective image of all human malice, regardless of his own desires. Pretty unpleasant share, agree. Over the years, Konami itself seems to have changed the attitude to this character, and his image was more and more often served through the prism of the tragedy. Even in the recent series from Netflix, it is difficult to call a scoundrel a scoundrel, where he is already acting as a defiant sympathy of an antihero.

Semyon Zorokov: Alma, F.E.A.P.

Alma from the first f.E.A.P. I remembered many as one of the most frightening and terrifying antagonists in the history of the shooters.

A little girl with long black hair and a look at the end of a dimly lit corridor at the end – this will be enough to feel uncomfortable. And if she giggles quietly, whispers barely distinguishable words and forces all the electronics within a radius of several meters flicker and junk … Wait for trouble or evaporation of human flesh from bones in a fraction of a second. It is impossible to harm Alma, but she herself does anything with the player: she suddenly appears in the elevator of the elevator, throws you out of the window by telekinesis or simply makes it clear with bloody traces on the floor-she is somewhere here … And it may seem that the girl simply plays with her victims for entertainment for entertainment.

But Armacham Technology and Alma Father – Harlan Wade have always been a real monster. They simply methodically destroyed the psyche of the unfortunate child from her birth.

The girl’s mother died during childbirth, and when her father found paranormal abilities from her daughter, he sent her to the laboratory, where the corporation spent inhuman tests above her. At five, the girl began to resist, and later to drive her tormentors crazy. Just to be left alone. They did not know how to control the child in Armym, therefore, at the age of 8, they decided to introduce into an artificial one and put in a special sarcophagus. She was simply mothballed to continue experiments later. A girl for several years swimming in a saline in darkness. But at the expense of her paranormal forces, she continued to realize everything that was happening ..

But that was not enough. Almu was artificially fertilized at the age of 15 and forced to give birth to a child. The same thing was repeated at 16. Children were taken and continued to experiment already above them. And only at 26 years old Almu was disconnected from life support, leaving to die for several days. And even after that everything did not end. After a couple of decades, Armacham Technology decided to check how dead Alma is dead. How it ended – players remember very well.

Almu can not be called evil in any way. She is simply psychologically crippled by a child who has been sculptured by scientists and her own father for years. The most terrible methods, they brought Alma to madness and received for this according to merits. Although the commensurate punishment for such atrocities simply does not exist.

Ivan Loev: Master/Creator/Father, Fallout 1

The main problem of the topic “Evil characters that are actually not evil” is that it will be clearly for us to determine what is “evil” of figs. Humanity throughout its history beats about these subjective categories of “good” and “evil”, but no one can give a clear definition anywhere, because life is a thing, damn, complex, and exists in the gradations of gray, and not in monochrome coloring. Any horror has some kind of positive exhaust, the most joyful and positive event will have those who received negative emotions from this. And this means that almost any “hero” can be sophisticated and accused of something, and to the case of any obvious villain to soften the mitigating factors: well, he had such education, circumstances have developed, humanity betrayed him, so he is so desperately sulking on all people.

Actually, therefore, in the original topic there were such different heroes and stories about them and therefore, apparently, such different stories turned out to be with us.

For the mood, I am drawing

When I sat down to dig and choose and choose, oh com would tell me, frankly, I thought very much, because there is an “evil” character? Well, like, an antagonist with whom the protagonist has a conflict of interests, apparently, okay. A certain power that comes and says “I am here, so that for the benefit of my Ega Sin Nishtyaki – power and money “

But what to do if this antagonist all the way was a completely understandable character and behaved quietly, but only at the end moved from the coils? There, Sam From the first part “Mafia” or Datch from Red Dead Redemption 2: 80% of the timing these comrades were the friends of the protagonist, and, Sorry for the wrestling slang, Hil-Torn happened to them only immediately before the finale. Yes, their characters were led to this, but with van der Linde, Arthur has problems throughout the game, but the confrontation grows only at the very end, and then Arthur does not dare to raise his hand to his mentor, trying to convince him that the Mike is not worthy of his trust.

T -shirt in this reversal is also such a villain – he is just blunt, short -sighted And greedy. He Enrages, I want it hate And give He cut off in the ass, but-he does not seem to pull for the role of some outstanding villain. Does not scare?

Okay, there is Mahpella – the threat of a galactic scale from the first part of the “space rangers”, which came from the external space (Outside of the bubble) and began to attack everyone in a row, but no one could do anything.

Scary? – terrible, especially when so powerfully stimulated!
Strong? – Just horror!
Up to the point that it seems invincible at first.

But “villain“She does not have motivation, because by talking with a villain you can find out that for her type of organic is evil and smear, and when she first met spacecraft, she decided that pilots on board were organic parasites, which is why she began to fight with all her might. But after mutually beneficial communication, the people-Gaalts-Maloki-pelenges and Mahpell went to the world, like two drunken men who were fighting in the bar, fell out into the street, smeared in mud, and then realized that the first one hit the second incorrectly heard his words.

Or take Spec Ops: The Line, where in general the entire tweet of the plot is that the protagonist, who is wounding himself as a brave hero, fighting with injustice, is actually hostage this of this Illusions And prejudice. And in end It is discovered that the excuses for the tin he created is no, but Colonel Conrad is actually all the way [I do not want to spoil the game of twelve years ago, Wuhu!sch.

Or here is evil in Dredge, which, in fact, is not quite evil, because it is just forces behind the faces of human ones, which whip and manipulate human desires, seducing to swear to them for the sake of satisfying emotional weaknesses. In principle, the first part of Diablo was about the same thing: Diablo was indisputably the villain, but the ending with the stone of the soul clearly pronounces the thought: “Evil is indestructible, because it lurks in the soul of everyone, even if it has passed twenty floors clogged with demons and went down to hell”.

But let’s get closer to business. Since it is written upstairs that I will talk about the master, then a check for the creation of intrigue I already I threw it on Great one.

Let me remind you for those who played too much in the first part of Fallout for a long time or did not play at all (and did not watch my lawsuit, which will soon hit 10 pancake years, tin!): Master – This is a dude that is behind the creation Supers. Thanks to his efforts In the world of a post -apocalyptic beard, where nothing grows, people are dying like flies, and there are ghouls that decaying with the mind and body run around (more in the body than the mind, by the way) appeared Big, Powerful And Not very smart mutated people who are for nothing and radiation, And deep cuts, And cold. And these supermutants are a new terrible and terrible force that scares everyone and strains everyone.

But here is a twist: I do not want to call the master the “villain” in general. Stupid for two reasons:

Firstly, He acts from Good motives.

In this distorted and dangerous world, distorted by bombs, radiation and subsequent horrors, the master saw how much a person, as a species, is fragile and weak. Therefore, when he himself got into the vright with the man -made evolution virus (VRE) and turned into a meat gruel that has wrapped a computer, he began to look for ways to save people. And in the course of his experiments, he brought supermutants: strong, immune to radiation and most other harmful radiation, hardy people who – yes – looked ugly, but their ugliness completely coincided with how the outside world changed. And the master decided that this was the best way to lead a new humanity to prosperity in this faded and dangerous reality. There is not a single “evil” path in it: he does not satisfy his ego, he does not try to seize power in the world, he does not want to accumulate wealth, he simply wants to ensure the survival of a fragile human form in the wasteland.

Against this background, the Brotherhood of Steel, which is plumply hidden in the bunker, which pursues similar interests, but with completely different methods (remaining the maximum conservatives) looks like a very curious ideological counterpoint, because these are just heroes, only they are sitting in their own way and in order to pull them out to fight for salvation.

Secondly, Master Saves critical thinking.

When the hero comes to him and says: “A man, you screwed up, your plan is garbage, super mututers cannot provide a future look because they cannot multiply”, he folds his legs and goes to the bottom of Chanchik with VRE, because he understands how much terrible he has attached. Something like Arthur Morgan, when he sees that his family, for the sake of the well-being of which he put so much effort, is now gnawing for the sake of damned gold, and he himself has no choice but to try to correct at least something for his last days.

Only in the case of the master to fix something too late. And the best that can be done is to help the native of the shelter, who clearly proved that humanity still has a chance, there are strong people who are able to fight for the future, and not give up, as he himself once.

And this is excellent, I am ready to applaud the master from the heart, how a verified and cool antagonist he is, because I really love conscious characters. Because of these confrontations, a dialogue of some ideas, worldviews are born, and not just: “I want to capture/enslave/destroy the world, because I love loud and pathos cries!”

Moreover: the masters cannot be brought under, you know, the category of villains, who, having a righteous goal in their hearts, began to create game, aka almost all the robe-prisoners who decide that in order to get rid of human problems, it is enough to get rid of humanity Itself. And why? But because the master does not chase anyone and acts in accordance with the logic of the world: the weak will die out themselves, there is no point in cleaning the wasteland from them.

The master can not only empathize, understand, but-like the entire first part of Fallout-his arch is actually a tragedy, and in any situation. Even if the hero does not kill him, even if he turns 13 to the mutants of all the inhabitants of the shelter 13, his plan is still doomed, because super humans, no matter how persistent and strong they are sterile, they have no future.

Therefore, Tanos in MCU worked so well in the “Infinity War”: he has a little naive, but understandable target. He is not proud of her, she does not amuse his ego, he does not profit from her with money or anything else, he really believes that in this way he makes the world (universe) better. Through suffering, yes, but it is like an operation: it is impossible to delete a frightened appendix without opening a person, but without this, he will inevitably die.

In general, the theme of villains is vast! I can write a lot here for a long time, but it will already be an offtopus regarding the above specific topic, so let’s go to the farewells!

Firstly, Thanks to the cheese-violet beard and the rest for creating such a cool movement! It was Kaifovo to participate in it, I remembered the ancient days of SG when I was on the other side of the barricades (fu, what a word, as if we were fighting here!), and the authors of the SG were an integral part of the blogs (Blogs of Blameaaant T_t)

Secondly, Thanks to the authors who were used to participate in the engine! I don’t know how interesting it will be to read to the rest, but I, while I made out this business, was cool)

Third, Thanks to Dotterian for the fact that the editor of the posts is so convenient now!

Fourthly, Thank you SG for what you are!

Fifth, It seems to me that I was overwhelmed, I’ll go to label work!

Thanks to everyone who has read it so far, good luck and success!

(I designed the texts on the principle of “as is”, there were no editors and tweaks, so you can write to the comments about glasses, I will correct it if necessary)