dsm
Why don't I have a custom title by now?!
Posts: 9876
Registered: 12-01 |
I belive Doom 3's storyline was written to deliberately leave questions open for players to interpret as they see fit. The goal is to give the story as wide a range of interpretations as possible rather than go: "this is how the story goes, now fucking deal with it and shut up, we don't give a shit if you don't like this or that answer", so it leaves people to figure out their own explanations.
The story tells us specifically that Betruger is a bad guy commanding the demons, and having "Hellish powers" (at least he can transform a marine into a demonic commando - sure doesn't look scientific to me, but I'm not a scientist either, so I wouldn't know :P ).
It does not tell us why he does it (NB: whatever you read in the novel and on wikipedia is irrelevant. The Novel is just based on the game, diverging in its own plot direction and wikipedia is just the interpretations of whoever wrote the article), how he came up with the crazy idea that aiding Hell was good for him and how he gained the powers that he obviously comes to possess. But the game offers several hints that can be widely interpreted, i.e. some people apparently dig the interpretation that he "made a deal", which I think is lame. I like to think Betruger just got a bit too close to Hell for comfort and got "possessed" or driven insane because of it, his own will getting overpowered by Hell's will or something to that effect.
Sarge could be anything: Betruger's lackey from the start or ignorant, unwitting pawn of Hell right until Hell decides that it needs him to "become actually evil" and go from simply "possessed" to "mutated into horrific demon". I prefer the latter, because it makes the story more interesting and opens it up to additional interpretation, just like I prefer the idea that Hell simply "picked" Betruger as its first target for demonic possesion rather than: "Yeah, he's an asshole and made a deal with the Devil", because my interpretation opens up the storyline for additional interpretation and inspiration.
Counsellor Swann is sent to Mars to check up on Betruger's handling of the various projects and the Mars base employees, because the Board of Directors are unhappy about having to pay compensation for the various accidents that befall employees and having to deal with general deteriorating work morale on Mars (due to accidents, people going crazy, nasty rumours about Mars being a bad place, etc.).
Because he might know more about what's taking place at the Mars base than the player, he is quicker to figure out that "calling for help" = bad idea because the demons will just possess the marine fleet and use the spacecraft to get to Earth to "feast on the souls of people on planet Earth" or something. So Swann knows the critical importance of keeping the demons as far away from Earth as possible, even if it means getting everyone on the Mars base killed. How Swann can know this is not explained and I consider it one of the weaker links in D3's storyline.
The only way he could know all that is if he has had access to PDA's the player never gets access to, but it could easily be a plot oversight.
Jack Campbell is just Swann's personal bodyguard, but his personality doesn't make him seem like the sociable type. The original draft for the storyline in D3 suggested that he took pleasure in killing stuff, something which made him seem a morally ambiguous individual.
Either way, Swann and Campbell are portrayed as "the good guys", but the story deliberately makes their actions questionable.
|
02-03-08 01:57 
