All this Prodigal love

Choice of Games games Heroes Rise
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So before I finally joined the forums today, I was a creepy lurker (both here and on the Heroes Rise FB page). And whilst lurking creepily, I noticed that there’s been a whole lot of love going around for Prodigal following the release of Herofall.

I’m kind of surprised about that. I mean, I get that she’s a complex character due to her backstory, but. She killed hundreds of people! She murdered a reporter in cold blood on national television! Her lingerie sounds super tacky!

(Yes, I admit that I played through that storyline. I WAS CURIOUS).

Anyway. I’m definitely not oblivious to the fact of her tragic childhood, but I’m kind of surprised about all the clamor for a happily-ever-after option with her. It just doesn’t seem like it would fit with the story given all the seriously awful things she did in the first installment of the trilogy.

Thoughts?

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I think the Prodigal love comes, in part, from the fact that she’s one of the most developed characters of the series. Like Jenny, she was never initially intended as a romantic option, and so she’s there as more than just the love interest.

I found that both Black Magic, and Lucky, suffered because they were romantic option first and foremost. Whereas the Heroes Rise trilogy is as much Prodigal’s story as it is yours.

I’m not a fan of hers. But, I think it’s the way people love a good villain and also how they love pairing villain and hero together.

That’s me guessing though.

It is also part of the genre. In comics people are always switching from being mass-murderers to becoming heroes, and then back again.

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That’s a good point. Both Lucky and Black Magic were pretty underdeveloped in Herofall. Not that the storyline suffered, because the third book wasn’t really about those subplots, but I think you’re probably right that the character development had a lot to do with it. And you make a good point about the genre (I’d sort of separated it in my mind from the comic book genre, but duh, superheroes).

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Can we talk for a second about how hilarious the Destiny’s Child reference in that scene was, though? Zachary Sergi, you are the best.

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High-terrifying-larious. I was not ready for that jelly.

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Neither was I, apparently. I was playing it in a coffee shop in the middle of downtown Manhattan and I totally made this laughing/snorting/spluttering noise that caused about three people to turn around and look at me. No regrets.

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People love antagonists. They’re dangerous and utterly imperfect and often more relatable than the good guys.
And as far as an antagonist romance goes, there’s always this idea of turning the character in question into a better person, of experiencing the novelty of being special to someone who otherwise only cares for themselves.

It’s completely unrealistic and people LOVE that.

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I’ll admit that my own favourite choice game romances are also with characters who are your rivals.

Prodigal is a mass-murderer though. I really didn’t want to see her fall in love with you and become a better person, redeeming herself for your love. I’m glad that it didn’t pan out that way. She did have a tragic story, but plenty of people do without murdering hundreds of people.

I actually think Black Magic ticks the box of romancing a character who’s selfish, and has done some extremely questionable things. I’d have loved to have seen Black Magic’s story developed further, to hear more of their back story and what was actually going on. Then again I’ve got my crazy fan theories and that story that’s not written is just as interesting to me.

I’ll even say that Jury does, although for Jury to do that properly, I’d have liked to have seen some tweaks to the earlier games. Just choosing not to assault him when we first meet him. Choosing not to be nasty to him. Keeping up the flirting and the banter in the Hero Project. I liked that Jury was, eventually, romanceable, since he was a jerk, but not a villain, and damn we did attack him first and were nasty to him at every opportunity. So he does do one awful thing, even that’s hardly deliberate, and I do think he’d do everything he could, from that point, to try and turn over a new leaf. Even if he does remain an arrogant asshole.

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I wasn’t so much hoping for a happily ever after option as I was “go full evil and join her to cause mayhem” option. I was imagining my character like, feeling bad for Prodigal enough to help her rescue her mom and then slowly, perhaps foolishly, humanize her as they witnesses who they thought she “really was”, which would then allow Prodigal to corrupt the player or something. BUT ALAS IT WAS NOT MEANT TO BE.

Also, the whole game I was wondering if somehow the power nullification thing would hit her, mute her powers, but then also mute the cancer which was said to have come from the powers. I was actually kind of hoping it would, because then you’d end up with someone who previous did do a bunch of evil things, but who now was incapable of ever doing those things again. Would it really be moral to imprison such a person?

I’m rambling.

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@SpaceLespian yeah I think she should then go to prison. I mean she did some good stuff at the end but tried to kill thousands upon thousands of people. It would be like if Hitler suddenly got injured and would not be able to talk again so people decide to let him go.

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She’s simply the best thing about the whole series, she’s Prodigal.

We saw her develop better than any other character in the series, her story was tragic but absolutely phenomenal.

The romancing part did come as a bit of a surprise as I never conceived the idea of MC x Prodigal back in the first installment, I got a lingering suspicion at the end of the Hero Project but then came HeroFall, my personal favorite of the trilogy.

I’m sad that she had to die… the inner fanboy inside me kind of wishes she and the MC ran away together in the end or something but ultimately I suppose her end was befitting.

And there’s no way to save her at all… :frowning:

There was a lot of demand at Zachary’s facebook page asking for the ‘key to saving Prodigal’ but he made it clear that her life can’t be saved:

‘‘NOTE: Prodigal may have redeemed herself in many ways, but her own actions led to the consequences of her sickness and death, so unfortunately there’s no way to save her, as much as we might want to!’’

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I only played the first game, but by the end of it I didn’t even hate Prodigal. I hated the writer for creating such a terrible cliched, implausible, and worst of all uninteresting character. She’s clearly completely batshit psychotic at the end yet we’re expected to believe that she somehow invisibly manipulated events in order to control your every move up until that point… It’s just so badly written…

Personally I felt like Madame Vice would have been a much more interesting romance option both in that she was a villain, but also in that she wasn’t just a slaughter everything chaotic stupid style villain. She also ended up being simultaneously less manipulative, and more interesting than Black Magic. And then they tossed her down a plot hole. Also significant, she wasn’t a dead ringer for a Pomeranian.

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I can explain in great detail why I feel the way I do about it.

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For me, it wasn’t so much that I ‘forgave’ her for anything she did, I do know that she’s done evil things and killed innocent people, but as her story developed I slowly learned what I already expected, that this was about more than her will to do evil things…

I think the big turning point was when we are told that she *has to be at war* in order for her to work. Her powers just aren’t the same, nor does her health, if she is not at war. That didn’t make me ‘forgive’ her, but it made me understand her better in a way that we haven’t come to understand any other character, just like FairyGodfeather said.

Think about it for a moment, she would have been dead earlier on from radiation if she hand’t been stalking your every move, and planning all those things that she did.

I’m not justifying her actions, I’m saying I passed to understand her, which matters considerably. With Black Magic, it wasn’t so, as she felt crazy just because, no reason whatsoever (that I could reason satisfactorily). Prodigal was conditioned from birth to have an aggressive nature over other living things, *part of her* wasn’t because she wanted to, but because this is the way she was born, the way her powers aligned with her.

She didn’t choose her powers, just as we didn’t choose ours, but as it turns out, we have very useful powers that don’t require us to be at war with anything. Living like that was the only thing she learned.

Finally, I do not think she, although conditioned to be the way she was, truly liked to be evil, or murderous, or whatever. I think she preferred to be good, and I wanted to help her achieve that, romance or not. I would gladly sacrifice a part of me to help her stay alive and prove her own nature wrong, damn the social stigma, but I have no complains from the outcome–Whatever way, positive or negative, was just perfect, just as it was supposed to be, no matter how much I wished for it to be different, for such is life.

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@Shoelip damn. That’s kinda harsh.

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Well that’s a it’s damm shame you feel that way. I mean Zach can’t please everyone. But oh well. I personally enjoyed the games and thought Zachary did rather well. But maybe I’m easy to please anyway it’s your opinion. And though I disagree with it I’ll respect it. At least you can take away the fact that you’ll be more discerning when checking out games. Maybe next time you’ll get a (in your view) better game than this one. I wish you luck with it. :slight_smile:

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@Razgriz Ok, I guess I shouldn’t say I hate the writer, but I hate how Prodigal is written. I didn’t hate her as you’re supposed to hate a villain. When I got to the cages at the end of the game I was just thinking “Seriously? What the fuck? This better have a good explanation…” And it really really didn’t. She didn’t even have an interesting motivation for targeting me. She just completely broke my sense of suspension of disbelief at that point, and I just stopped caring about what happened next.

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I’m not stopping you but there’s likely other threads to state your opinion on. Besides I’m certain just about everyone already knows you don’t care for this particular game series and that’s fine.but there won’t be any real reason to hate on these games when you’ve already cut all ties to them that and the author is already finished with this series so you won’t really influence anything.

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@Razgriz I’d say that pointing out the flaws has the potential of hopefully getting writers to avoid them in the future, but you’re right that I’m going a bit off topic.

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@GoldenXan I highly agree with you

I do have a thought that if there was a option to save Prodigal like as attacking Victon before he shoots and find a way to cure Prodigals cancer with the help from Black Magic maybe.

That would’ve open the door for different opportunities for her fate.

For interest, if the MC romanced her or became allied after the both of you defeat Victon that’ll lead to supporting her to re-build the Assassins Academy under the improve of the MC’s family of course. So Prodigal can restore the lost of her mothers dreams.

Although, I do like the ending as it is, Prodigal died because of karma in addition to resting in peace after the nightmare she dealt with growing up. Her death was a true honor of a misunderstood psycho that became a hero to the city.

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