Oh I’ve been wondering does anyone know what the answer to the first door is? Something about the Meeks most hated infinite powered person.
Its your character
I thought that was the second door question?
It might have been and of course lol I put my characters real name instead of the codename *facepalms*
@blackrising, that’s an excellent way of putting it. I guess what I meant in my OP was not that I didn’t get why people like Prodigal, but rather that I was sort of surprised at the sheer volume of people who are #teamprodigal as opposed to #teamjenny, #teamlucky, etc.
Unrelated, I’m so bummed this trilogy is over. Are there plans for a spinoff or did I imagine that?
@Shoelip I’m going to kindly ask you to tone down the Heroes Rise hate. You seem to be posting about how much you hate the game on every single Heroes Rise thread. While you are free to voice your opinions, and we always welcome constructive criticism, you are starting to get repetitive.
Saying that you hate the writer is completely uncalled for. You can hate aspects of the game. But hating the writer isn’t the sort of thing people should be posting. Zachary’s a great guy and he put a lot of time and effort into writing Heroes Rise.
Now if you want to post a topic discussing things you think people should avoid when writing characters in games, feel free. If you even want to write a topic of where you think Heroes Rise went wrong, and then include suggestions for how things could have been done (remember, be constructive) feel free to do that as well. You could even write your own game using everything you’ve learned not to do and show us how it should be done.
But please, no hating on the authors in this forum.
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@myariv At the end of the book it is said that Zach *might* create a second season to the Hero Project, but I wouldn’t call it a spin-off, and I’m not sure which conditions would take him to write it…
Jason said something about that in some of the first topics that came up about HeroFall, you could look for them. He needs to finish his new IP before starting another Heroes Rise game, from what I understood.
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@SpaceLesbian okay, that would have been kind of fun.
@FairyGodfeather Yeah, I really did go overboard saying “I hate the writer” I thought about it and what I really meant was that I don’t just hate Prodigal within the context of the story, but also outside. I hate how she was written. People tend to focus on the negative. Like, I’ve only posted in a few Heroes Rise threads(one of which I made myself), and talking about Prodigal in this one is entirely on topic. Just because I’m expressing negative instead of positive views doesn’t make them any less valid. I have very good reasons for why I hold my views, that I’ve tried to explain. Most people just say they like it and that’s the end of the discussion.
Regarding the fan base around Prodigal, I don’t think it comes from the fact that she’s supposedly more developed than the other characters. In my case, I find all the characters interesting and it was a pleasure to read each one of them (I even befriend Black Magic at the end of HeroFall).
I think it comes from the two ways one can interpret the behavior of Prodigal in The Prodigy. On one hand, yes, her motives are effectively from her desire to follow in the footsteps of her mother and her madness. On the other hand, one can find that there’s more in her obsessive desire for the protagonist. How else can you explain her stalker side?
The player can’t remain indifferent about her obsessive side, whether you hate it or not.
From there, it would be logical to think that Prodigal might want to seduce the MC, with or without the consent of the MC. (I personally would find it fun without xD) Prodigal is also a character with a strong charisma and with replicas that may tempt a player to see what could give a romance with her, whether our MC leans toward the justice side or the bad side.
So yes, there’s maybe a fan base around Prodigal but that doesn’t mean that everyone should love her. It’s just that the Prodigal fan base would want to have the same choice to have a happy ending than the other romances. The player should have the possibility to choose between Lucky, Black Magic, Jury, etc … and also Prodigal while having the opportunity to have a happy or bad ending with her choice.
Regarding the question on Facebook, my answer is: triple YES for an alternate ending for Prodigal! I think it’s quite possible to save her. And nothing prevents to make it the hard way, a Herculean task worthy of a hero.
Shoelip -> I disagree with you on the fact that the character is poorly written (except maybe a bit in HeroFall but I think the author was taken aback by all this fan base, which is understandable).
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@Helaran You bring up an interesting point about the obsessive stalker angle that I didn’t think of before. What if Prodigal was a guy? That would have made her way less sympathetic to most people.
Just telling me you disagree with me isn’t very constructive. I know that a lot of people disagree with me, but no one has yet to explain why.
I see some of the MC in Prodigal. And if you can’t fall for a horrible, psychotic but strangely appealing girl in a CoG game, where can you?
It’s karma in a way that she died so early, it’s like SPOILER FOR HATE PLUS mute : ( man I miss her, but she mucked up big time END SPOILER.
@Shoelip I don’t think it’d be a problem if she was a guy, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from internet fandoms is that the badder the boys the better 
Shoelip -> Obviously, you underestimate the “bad guy” fantasy. Even if Prodigal was a man, it wouldn’t have change nothing (except a screaming girl fan base. Just kidding, especially as I am a girl too ; ) It’s all about feeling “special”, so special that even the bad guy/girl would want you, would want to go to such extend just to have you.
Of course, it’s a little disturbing, especially the more questionable the bad guy/girl is. I personally think it’s a question of balance between redeemable and questionable features.
Also, my apologies if I didn’t develop my point of view about my disagreement. I didn’t want to make a novel but I will try to answer you ^^
First of all, if Prodigal was a poorly written character, there wouldn’t be so much debate around her character. Yes, in The Prodigy, she’s a psycho, a villain but as she said herself: a hero can’t exist if there isn’t a villain to face. Think about the Joker for example, he’s also a psycho who had a tragic past and was driven insane because of it.
Batman had a similar tragic past but he chooses the path of justice instead of crime, even if there’s proof that he’s himself a little crazy because he dresses himself as a bat man. It’s all about choice. The same thing was underlined in Harry Potter when Harry asked Dumbledore if he was the same as Voldemort because they share similar features. Dumbledore answered that Harry didn’t choose the same path as him.
Regarding Prodigal, she was always alone. The MC had her grandma after the arrest of her parents but no one was here for Prodigal. No one to guide her, to shelter her, to teach her about responsibilities regarding her powers. Prodigal is like everyone: everyone need anchors, references, goals to give life a meaning.
For some people, parents and relatives are the obvious choice to serve as reference for a child, whether one would want to follow the path of her parents or rebel against it. For Prodigal, the only one reference she had was the path of her mother while you had your schoolmates, grandma, Jenny, etc… Without forgetting the fact that your parents were still alive while she believed her own mother dead.
But her mother path was not enough to Prodigal, she needed another anchor to her life, someone to identify with. She decided to choose you, the child of her mother arch-enemies. It can be interpreted in three ways: as a way to forget her loneliness, as a way to have the impression of having a relative (you) and as a way to give her life a meaning.
She refused to be another anonymous in the crowd. The burdening of her mother Legend was too much for her to handle by herself. When you take the time to think about it, she’s a broken, vulnerable character with a weak will behind the villain mask.
So yes, in the end, if you can understand that, you can’t really hate her so your point of view is accurate on this point. A philosopher said that when you understand something, you can’t hate it. Hate comes from fear, and fear comes from the unknown.
As you can see, I can speak volumes about the Prodigal character, a simple proof that if we can explain her reasons and behavior, that must mean that the author was extremely thoughtful when he wrote the character.
She was poorly written in HeroFall only in her romance route, because her behaviour and the MC behavior were offbeat in regard of their common past and personalities.
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@Helara You make excellent points. However, we must take into account that not everything we believe to be true about a character came from actual writing… A lot of it comes from our interpretation and feelings during our reading.
I think Prodigal was a well thought out character in general, and I feel a lot of things behind her behavior, but I’m sure that a good deal of that is just the way that I felt about her while going through her story, and not necessarily what Zach intended her to be. Sometimes it can get difficult to pass an exact thought or feeling through writing, as a lot of it will be open to reinvention in the reader’s mind.
@Helalarn Thanks for responding in such detail, but you didn’t address my biggest issue with Prodigal’s writing. She is clearly an emotionally crippled psychotic mass murderer with an extremely bare bones grasp on reality, but she is somehow able to pull off this intricate plan with tons of moving parts, many of which relied on basically pure chance. Right up until the main character gains their infini powers, at which point if you choose to kill her she somehow miraculously survives that too…
Also, have you ever really thought about the detrimental repercussions of stalking?
GoldenXan-> Of course, my main intention was simply to underline why Prodigal is a well-written character. I agree that it may only be my own interpretation but I tried to base it on the clues that were available throughout the series and Prodigal speech in The Prodigy.
Even if you don’t take into account what I said, the simple fact that there’s room for interpretation is proof that there’s much to say about the subject : )
Shoelip -> Pure chance? I read again the Prodigal Manifesto and I didn’t see any flaw in her plans. Even if the Black Magic/Millennial Group meeting and the sidekick part didn’t turn as expected, Prodigal would have find another way to reach her goals.
As for the crazy part, being crazy doesn’t necessary mean being stupid. The Joker is able to pull off very intricate plans for example and Hannibal Lecter is one of the most intelligent psycho if you want a literary example.
As for the stalking part, that’s why I said: “The player can’t remain indifferent about her obsessive side, whether [you hate it or not].” and “[Of course, it’s a little disturbing], especially the more questionable the bad guy/girl is. I personally think it’s a question of balance between redeemable and questionable features.”
We are talking here about a “bad guy/girl” fantasy, a literary concept, not the reality. Don’t make me say something that I didn’t say. I only take into account the Prodigal case and situation. It’s up to the player to make her own decisions about Prodigal, whether to kill her or not, to try to redeem her or to condemn her like Jury for example.
As for me, my character is all about redemption, she also gave Jury and Rebellion a chance to redeem themselves.
And if you think about it, Batman always give his villains a chance (perhaps too much but it’s one of his flaws). If you read the “Killing Joke” for example, the readers can see how particular is the relation between Batman and Joker. He clearly don’t hate the Joker, he just want him to choose another path.
Quotation from The Killing Joke - Batman: “It doesn’t have to end like that. I don’t know what it was that bent your life out of shape, but who knows? Maybe I’ve been there too. Maybe I can help. We could work together, I could rehabilitate you. You needn’t be out there on the edge any more. You needn’t be alone. We don’t have to kill each other. What do you say?”
The only thing I can’t answer is about the Kill Prodigal route because I didn’t take this route.
@Helaram And you’re quite right at that. Prodigal is an amazing character. At least in my eyes she is, good or bad, romance or not.
She only became so in the third installment though, I extremely disliked her in the first game. Says something about character development. 
What about the similarities between Black Magic and Prodigal? Black Magic’s parents also died, they lived on the streets having no one else to turn to. I was actually sad that Black Magic’s storyline seemed to be intertwined with things in the first game and then mostly dropped in the sequels. It’s there but we don’t get to experience quite the same closeness as we did in the first game, and Black Magic becomes relegated to being a side character.
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Yes, I missed her presence in the the last two installments. After all the scandal in the second game, I wanted to hear something about why she acted the way she did, and given more opportunities to deal with her, the same goes for Lucky.
The first game treated more about Black Magic, the second about Lucky (though certainly not to the same extent), and the third one worked on Prodigal, to a level greater than in any instance. However, Prodigal wasn’t merely a romance, she was a big part of the plot, and both Lucky and Black Magic could be in a coma at the beginning of the game, which might have been reasons for the change… The romance part is questionable, I know.
I liked Black Magic in the first game more so than almost any other character from any CoG, and I also missed her presence and participation in the sequels, but after the second game I wasn’t thinking of her the same way, and so I wasn’t as much bothered about her lack of involvement, but I still wanted to have more opportunities to learn about her. I was never very involved with Lucky, but I’d hope that she too would have her chance.
Now, going back to your point about their similarities: I don’t really mind their background.
Perhaps that’s not the best way to structure this… I think both backgrounds are relevant, but I don’t think they are as relevant as the character’s actions or, in Prodigal’s case, her powers. I don’t want to keep hitting the same letter, but the idea that Prodigal needs to be at war to function made me treat her in a whole new light.
First, I didn’t have an issue with Black Magic’s power, or at least not by choices I mean, and I always respected her. People began as friends or, at the very least, not rivals with Black Magic, and then she turned badly. With Prodigal, she was always the villain, and then she turned an ally. You are conditioned from the start to have her as your ally, even if temporary, and that’s something that definitely helps bringing people into her.
While Black Magic’s background is presented as something dark on a good story, as in implying that it is something negative about her, Prodigal’s background is more of a reinforcement to ‘justify’ who she is. Even if both things are similar, just the way and sequence they are presented directs people’s opinion.
I think the whole Batman and Joker thing is an excellent argument. We don’t know the differences between their background, but the point that both had similar beginnings (to an extent) and turned into very different individuals has meaning.
Black Magic broke because of her past? Alright. Prodigal *was* broken because of her past, and then turned into something better. Black Magic began good and went evil (or misguided, to be fair). Prodigal was evil and turned to good. Well, that’s not my opinion, but I think a lot of people might feel that way.
For me, her power was the most significant attribute to her. I still think it was crazily interesting and curious to make them work only at war. Powers are so intimately tied to what a hero or villain is. With her, it shaped the very soul that she had. If there is one single element that I think is the most powerful in the story and the writing is exactly this one.
But like I told Helaran, all this impact might be something that I created on my interpretation, I never heard or read anyone talking about this concept. I find it to be the most important of all in her story, and ours. And everyone else’s.
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Well, from my point of view, I don’t think her power was so decisive in her life style choice. Why? Because she could have chosen to be at war with crime instead with your family or with justice in general. The MC said it so at the end of The Prodigy (Well, in the Justice route, I suppose). And in HeroFall, after all, she was able to be at war with the Meek and with Victon who is the true villain of the series.
She has also proven that she was able to make useful, non-lethal technologies like the Telelock or her surveillance system.
Nonetheless, her power set could have been, on the other hand, decisive in the fact that it was similar to her mother’s power set, forging a bond that goes beyond blood in her eyes (especially since it was her only heritage from her).
But I agree with you on the fact that more interaction with characters like her, Black Magic or Lucky would have been nice. Romance or not, I would like to know more about the other characters.