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The original was posted on /r/starcraft by /u/Dave13Flame on 2024-04-27 07:26:48.
I haven't really thought about it when I first played the Heart of the Swarm campaign, but Kerrigan is really kind of just a terrible person throughout that whole campaign.
Now I know a lot of people have issue with how Raynor is portrayed as having "forgiven" Kerrigan in Wings of Liberty, and being all mopey and sad about her which constrasts with his vengful attitude in SC1, but I honestly have no problem with that. Kerrigan was under the control of the Overmind, she's not actually herself, she has no choice, she didn't consciously kill all those innocent people in SC1, however that is NOT the case for SC2 Heart of the Swarm, which I DO have a problem with.
She was freed from the Overmind's control at the end of Wings, she regained free will and a more or less Terran/Human perspective on life, and yet, she absolutely does not give a damn about murdering humans that she doesn't really need to.
Here's what I mean:
She wants revenge on Mengsk, that's clear enough to understand and I am fully okay with her wanting him dead. She also wants her freedom and agency, so ofc she escapes from the test lab. She only kills robots there, so no harm, no foul, even if she is recklessly endangering lives, I can completely understand her there. She makes a point about her being treated as a test subject instead of a human and she wants her freedom, that is fine, I get that.
But then comes Char. She tellls Warfield a couple of times to leave the planet to her, that's cool, she appears to at least be willing to use threats to avoid confrontation, but she does it so badly and she never really expresses why she's there to even begin with. For all intents and purposes her dialogue suggests she just wants Char for herself or for the Zerg Swarm. She never expresses WHY she wants it. The game even makes a point about casualties with Warfield, who keeps telling her she's killing people until the end cutscene where she lets a couple dropships go after Warfield's death, and it's this big moment with swelling music in the cutscene of her having mercy on people who are evacuating...
Here's the problem with that - Her goal was to regain Char so she can amass enough power to take vengeance on Mengsk, cool. Why not just tell the Warfield that instead? All she has to say is "I don't have beef with you, just with Mengsk. There's no reason for us to fight, the only person I want to kill is Mengsk, nobody else. Leave."
Now Warfield doesn't strike me personallly as a Mengsk loyalist given he goes with Valerian and Raynor in Wings of Liberty, but even if we say he IS a staunch Mengsk supporter, and is willing to die to protect him, his men proably aren't all willing to die for Mengsk. Bear in mind this is AFTER it's revealed Mengsk is responsible for Tarsonis, which was a big plot point in Wings as setting public perception against him and Kerrigan is a victim of that event. This would reframe the entire mission from a "Kerrigan why are you killing humans" perspective that Warfield keeps telling her, to a "Why are you willing to die for Mengsk, the war criminal that killed all of Tarsonis and covered it up, Warfield?" perspective. But that doesn't happen she never points out that she is only after Mengsk and she never even tries to send a message to anyone other than Warfield. We know she can send out messages to entire armies of people as per the first time we fight against her on Char, where she tries to intimidate the Terrans to give up. She could have sent out a message to all troops - "I have no desire to hurt any of you, I am only after Mengsk, the person who destroyed Tasonis and caused me to become infested and turned by the zerg. Leave now and I will let you go peacefully." - Some soldiers would've easily taken up that offer, she could have easily encouraged desertion and spared some folks. Now I know some are prisoner-soldiers, conscripts who probably have no choice but to fight, at least if they're implanted with kill-switches, but that's not everyone and hell, I bet plenty of folk would rather risk death by execution than being eaten by zerg if they had the option. And if by some miracle every person on Char is staunchly a Mengsk loyalist and they stand and fight then fine, I am okay with her fighting against them and killing them, but at least she would have tried to spare those she could.
This is especially egregious later on Korhal, where you even have side-objectives to open the gates to the city which is presumably full of civillians. Why let the zerg rampage through the city? What possible strategical value does that have and is that really worth it? The worst part is Raynor even goes along with this plan and while there's a line that Matt is 'evacuating civillians' it is AFTER the city's gates are opened and zerg pour into the city in the previous mission. Oh and again, Kerrigan doesn't even try to reason with any of the defenders whatsoever. I seriously don't think people are THAT loyal to Mengsk by this point that they'd throw away their lives to fight a massive swarm in his name, she wouldn't have to try that hard to have people desert the dominion forces. Heck, Valerian is on Raynor and Matt's side by this point, they're working together, HE could have done more by ordering Dominion forces to leave, who would then have to pick a side, Mengsk or Valerian, and I doubt everyone would pick Mengsk if it also meant fighting a billion zerg. Kerrigan could have spoken with Valerian or Matt, but really there's not a lot of dialogue and she never ponders the question of minimizing casualties. There's not one segment where she is thinking about trying to avoid killing humans.
Oh and by the way, once Mengsk is killed, there's no reason for the rest of the Dominion forces to fight, so really even the ones who are forced to fight via kill-switches or the threat of death could have been spared with a more surgical strike, but there's no consideration of that at any point.
There are SO many missions where there's 0 attempts from Kerrigan to try and spare people who did nothing against her, it really makes her look bad, she's committing mass murder for absolutely no reason and she is never bothered by it.
