This is my submission for Murf's 2015 Screenshot Safari, category Heroes or Villains. At first I read the category as requiring a screenshot featuring people of which their status (hero or villain?) was unsure. But then it dawned to me that we were probably allowed to enter either a hero or a villain as well. I decided to stick with my earlier interpretation, though, because I thought it was an interesting approach. What do you think of my juggernaut Neserys depicted above: is she a hero or a villain?
Neserys is a pureblood sith. Even if you're not a big Star Wars fan, you probably know that this is usually bad news. However, Neserys wants to do good. Her profession in service of darth Baras leads her to situations in which she has power - power she wants to use to make the right decisions.
I tried to show Neserys' attunement to the light side through her outfit. Her lightsaber is yellow; not red, as is traditional for sith. Yellow is a relatively neutral colour: blue or green, traditional jedi colours, would cause many raised eyebrows among her peers. You may also notice a distinct lack of red, purple and, above all, black in her clothing. There are also no pointy shoulders, frayed skirts or skull ornaments. Instead, she wears a cape that wouldn't do bad on a superhero and a lot of gold, which Imperials will attribute to her sith heritage: many pureblood sith like to wear golden adornments. After all, she still is part of the Empire and cannot give away that she has different motivations than most.
Does it work? If my friend's reaction while checking out my characters on the SWTOR character selection screen is any indication, Neserys has nothing to fear. "That one? Ahhhh no, I don't like her. She is really creepy."
Poor Neserys, but everything for the good cause, right?
My 2015 Screenshot Safari contributions:
1) Juggernaut Neserys: hero or villain? (hero or villain)2) The Republic wants YOU (selfie)
3) Capturing High Fantasy (High Fantasy)
4) The scariest place... for a hungover Elf (the scariest place)
All of your interpretations are correct. It is meant to be a more open-ended category. I wouldn't fault anyone for submitting just a hero, just a villain, or both, or even neither. It is hard to explain a category without unintentionally adding a bunch of rules to it, so part of the fun for me has been seeing how people interpret them and then explain their case!
ReplyDeleteAs for your character, I would default to 'villain', but then upon further reflection, I wouldn't be so sure. I think the color scheme is what really undercuts my perception of how this race/look ought to behave. I really like it. You've made a villain look heroic indeed!
Glad to hear it worked out. That was exactly my intention!
DeleteI like it! She's got that villainous creepy look at first glance, and then on second glance, the costuming is more that of a superhero.
ReplyDeleteI also admit to a soft spot for monstrous looking characters with a heart of gold. All part of that "don't judge by first appearances" thing, and I love the internal contrast narratively. Working within a corrupt system to do good, or vice versa, being a selfish evil jerk in a supposedly 'good' organization.
I haven't played deeply into the Jedi stories, but while the Sith faction is almost uniformly hands-rubbingly evil, the Republic is no paragon of virtue in the Trooper story so far. Lots of institutional and personal corruption. And, of course, the Smuggler story is all about the underbelly, anyway.
DeleteI want to get my Pureblood Assassin (mixed, but more dark than light) through his story so I can create a Pureblood Jedi. X-D
ReplyDeleteI think that she still looks a little bit creepy, it is just the genetics... I mean she has those eyebrows and eyes that make it a little bit scary. I think that it is very hard for a sith pureblood to look nice or something, they have evolved over millennia to look very evil. The clothes make it a little bit better.
ReplyDeleteIt would be easier to see who is evil or not, if it was not possible to turn of the dark side corruption. Now she can still be a evil person who just cared a lot about good looks. You will never know...
And that red is the colour of the empire I totally ignore, my main characters on the republic side have all red clothes (favorite colour). And I also gave my jedi knight thul armour and my imperial agent organa clothes. So which side my characters are on is very confusing :P. I just pick out the clothes that I like :).
Thanks for the evolutionary insights... you're quite right. :)
DeleteI don't mean to say that red always means Empire, it's rather a potential clue. It's like, "hmm, red", "hmm, also black", "hmm, skulls", "hmm, emo mascara", "hmm, pureblood sith": the more of the clues are there, the bigger the chance it's an dark side character. Or at least that's how I try to 'code' my characters' appearances.
And don't worry, all your characters look waaaay too cute to ever be confused for dark side characters, no matter how much red you let wear them. ;)
Great post here, as always, Rav! I absolutely love how ambiguous this toon is in terms of hero or villain. Usually when I see a Pureblood Sith, my first inclination is, "baddie!", but it goes to show that it is easy to misconstrue someone's intentions. I like the choice to go with red and gold rather than a more traditional approach.
ReplyDeleteI wanted Zerne to really look intimidating. Black armor, respirator, claw-enhancing gloves, and Zabrak horns. Enabling Dark Side corruption was a must because of its affect in transforming the normally light orange completion to a pale white which really accentuates the black tattoos. All this while wielding a red/black saber. Villain just embodies every part of Zerne.
I love how the same class can be played so wonderfully different while also appearing so different.
Zerne certainly pulls off his intimidating look: there's no doubt about his attunement. It's pretty cool that going dark or light side really affects the sith warrior storyline, or at least, so Conrad tells me. I would fully recommend doing the story twice to everyone, just to see what happens. (I'm only on 1/3rd of the storyline of my light side warrior at the moment, though, so please no spoilers.)
DeleteAnd yay for going all the way and showing the dark side corruption!
You know, infiltrating and subverting an established system in order to achieve your own individual goals sounds like a very Sith-y thing to do. Even if those goals happen to be "goody-goody" in nature.
ReplyDelete