Thoughts on Goria: Character Interaction Through Insanity

WARNING: Content not suitable for a lot of people!

Going against my code of not playing MMORPG's, I started playing DC Universe Online. I made a hero, not intending to use him in anything, named Revanche (French for "revenge"). He wears blue and red combat boots, gloves, goggles, pants (with black trim), armored shirt, trench coat and a cape (he's that badass), carries two pistols, and is insane. A defining moment was when I had him standing in front of Fire, dancing as she looked at him like he was an idiot. Yesterday, I figured out how to make him a villain for Goria.

Revanche is and Infected mercenary, who lost the skin from the bottom half of his face (so it's just skull and muscle) and all of his sanity. With his sanity, Revanche lost any inhibition to not kill his targets, going on torture sprees every time he finds someone who he feels deserves it, all of them bad people by our standards. Always ranting like a mad man, and occasionally faking his death time and time again to elude capture, Revanche is unlike any villain Goria has faced: Insane but not evil. Revanche is an anti-hero, but views himself as a villain due to his murdering and torture sprees.

To make him even worse, he's a reference four characters wrapped into one both personality and visually. Visually, he's Chapel from Spawn (skull), and Spider-Man 2099 (color scheme). Personality, he's Spider-Man 2099 (taunts), Deadpool (the insanity and rants), and the Joker (sense of humor, feigning death, and the entire time he's being interrogated by TORAH agents). He's also a bit of Freakazoid!, too.

The challenge of writing a character like this is keeping him over the top without A: making him too unrealistic and B: not making the character too much like the characters being spoofed. Luckily, Revanche has his own twisted style, as taken from these interactions:

When fighting Goria the first time, Revanche, while shooting at Goria, is taunting him. Goria knocks the guns out of his hands, but Revanche has an ace up his sleeve:

Revanche: Huh.... I really thought I could take you down with my words. I guess I'll have to resort to... MY FIRE BREATHING FISTS! (Closes his fists, unleashing flames from the tops of his gloves).

Yes, I totally went there.

He also has to interact with the minor characters and environment:

After capturing and torturing a pedophile and making a taco, Revanche stands in front of the guy, holding his meal and a glass bottle of hot sauce:

Suspect/victim: I'm innocent, man! I haven't hurt a kid in years, and I sure as hell didn't touch her--

Revanche: (Spins and bashes the guy's head with the hot sauce bottle, shattering it) That doesn't mean ANYTHING! (Goes to the splatter on the wall). Ewwwww! I can't use this now! I don't know if it's hot sauce or blood!

After being captured (the only time), his interactions with the TORAH staff follows.

LTC Norton's:

Revanche: You know... you remind me of someone. Granted, I never saw his face, buuuuuuuuuuuut... you shoot like him.

Norton: How do you mean?

Revanche: You ever work with a guy with a giant, yet epically awesome mustache? I mean, we're talking gloriously holy mutton chops here, my man!

Norton: (Stares blankly) You've got to be taking the piss.

Revanche: Speaking of which, if I don't get the little boy's room soon, seeing how you shoot... I may be fucked!

Dr. Ross's:

Ross: (Disturbed by Revanche's madness) Do you ever get the feeling you're in a comic book?

Revanche: Uh... what?

Ross: You know, a book told in pictures that are in panels.

Revanche: You think we're in a comic book... and I'm the crazy one?!

Vlad's:

Vlad: Why Revanche? It's French for "revenge." Why not use "Revenge."

Revanche: "Revenge" is so boring, dude! Can you see that on TV? "The police are looking for Revenge!" Revanche is sooooo much kewler!

Vlad: I'm curious. How can you say certain words and letters if you have no lips?

Revanche: (Frightened) I... have... no... lips? You mean, someone ripped half of my face of and didn't have the courtesy to tell me? All this time, I've been living a lie, speaking like a normal human being! (Calm, again). Going by the crazy guy in the lab coat, I'm going to go with bad writing!

Zeta's:

Zeta: (Alluding to his insanity) Why are you always happy?

Revanche: I'm not always happy.

Zeta: But you sound happy, and seem like you're always smiling...

Revanche: I'm not always smiling, half of my fucking face is missing! Don't feel bad, though. I'm only just now finding this out.

Mimic's:

Revanche: You should bite your lip.

Mimic: What?

Revanche: You know, that nervous habit you do when you get disturbed by something. Or when your boyfriend says something you don't want to hear. Or when your stressed out about guarding a crazy guy.

(Mimic bites her lip)

Revanche: Tee-hee! You look like a little hamster! *heart*

Goria's:

Revanche: Did I tell you about how I nearly beat a guy to death with a block of cheese?

Goria: You-- You did what?

Revanche: So there I am, torturing this guy and making a nice omelette (I'm a world class chef, too, as far as you know). After a while, I notice this asshole is staring at me. I ask him to stop, but he just keeps staring and staring and staring and STARING! So, pick up this block of colby and I start smashing and smashingandSMASHINGANDSMASHING! AND I'M GOING SO FAST, I THINK THE CHEESE IS GOING TO MELT! And finally, when I think he's had enough... I put the cheese down. And you want to know what?

Goria: (Disturbed [as most people should be])No. No, I really don't.

Revanche: Too bad! So, he's still sitting there. I drop the cheese. AND THE LITTLE FUCKER'S STILL STARING!

As you can see, Revanche is deranged, disturbing, frightening, and purely psychotic. There's a very sick sense of shock humor here with him (especially since his life is quite like a Happy Tree Friends short with people instead of animals), but at its core, it's quite disgusting and horrifying. This works perfectly with the Goria universe, seeing how most of the Infected are themselves horrifying in appearance, but have human personalities, for better or worse. Revanche is too insane and disfigured to look at things "normally," and uses his backwards logic to realize this. He also uses it to keep his "moral" code, even though its as twisted as him.

Muzzle: Wounded Page 1 Hand Sketch

You have no idea how hard this was for me to do, and I don't mean drawing it. The chapter, and the one after this, both deal with a pretty harsh topic, involving something that happened to a very good friend of mine.

To make it even worse, I'm going to have to go over the art in Illustrator, because the scan is too small. But, I'm hoping, it'll be worth it.

EA: The Company of Hypocrites

For decades, video games have been under fire for being too violent. Arguably, as early as Mario, that shroom eating, fireball tossing, turtle-bird stomping Italian stereotype, to the rampant mindless (and optional) violence of Grand Theft Auto, and Red Dead Redemption. Last year saw the rebirth of the franchise that gave way to a rating system (Splatterhouse and the announced reboot of Mortal Kombat), but with no real reaction (save for MK) about the violence other than what critics had said in reviews.

Yet, two years ago, Dante's Inferno was under fire for several issues: 1: Starting a fake protest under the guise of a Catholic Church Fundamentalist Group. 2: the "Bad Nanny" Achievement. 3: The "Go To Hell" ad on the Super Bowl. 4: the Go To Hell ads in general. Giving EA credit where it' due, though, these ads, and the game, where not aimed towards children. They made it flagrantly obvious that this was an adult game, and stuck to their guns (or... scythes, as it were). As a graphic designer, I have to take their side on that.

At least I did, until Dead Space 2's new ad campaign came out: "Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2." I am fully aware of full grown nerds who live with their parents (in their bat/troll/man/nerd-cave), but let's examine this. Most of those parents don't give a damn what their nerd-spawn is playing. They're either spoiling him/her, enabling him/her, or too busy with there own lives (and, quite possibly, helping their child get their life in order) to worry about what game is being played. So, tell me, who does that leave?

I know one of the things I'm going to hear is, "these are older women." That really doesn't matter. At least one of them appeared in her 40's (at worst), which is still young enough to have a child under 18. In this day and age, it's not unheard of to hear about women having children after 50. Also take into account this: with a slogan like "Your Mom Hates..." who is it going to really attract? As a kid, and, admittedly, as an adult now, I did things that my parents hated all of the time, just for that reason. The only difference between then and now is that I'm living on my own, and the reasons my parents don't like some of the things I do is out of personal preference instead of bringing me up right. Would my Mom hate Dead Space 2? Probably, but not because I'm a kid who shouldn't be exposed to that sort of violence.

Oh, and for the record, I have to say that I have one of the most awesome Moms in history, too. Any mother who knows their child so well that they know what limits to put on certain things for that child (i.e. violent games/movies), knows what they're doing. I grew up watching violent action movies, sneaking horror movies into the mix since I was five or six, playing Ripper and Gabriel Knight and watching the Evil Dead movies in Middle School, and not once have I gone on a killing spree. It's not because of censoring; it's because of good parenting. Heaven forbid we have that now a days. But, that's a different rant.

Dead Space 2's ad campaign seems not only targeted to spoiled children, but insulting to the parents who actually do a good job of parenting. On top of that, it seems like something I kid would say to convince other kids into buying this game (well, buying at best) behind their parents' backs. It's not clever, it's childish, which makes it seem even more targeted to children. EA/Visceral created the taboo, and they will turn around and claim that it was never targeted to children when the controversy hits the fan. I just hope with have people paying attention this time.