hobbes and his character arch

I remember thinking and talking about Hobbes defection for years., what his reasons were, how it all happened and so on. My brother, my friends, and me, we all came to the conclusion that he just snapped because we tried to destroy Kilrah. It even fits perfectly to his dialogue when we met him over Kilrah, where he still calls us "old friend" and so on, and not like some weird change of his character. I even regretted killing him. It made me really really sad. That character had depth.
Then years later I found out about that Manchurian Candidate sleeper thing, and I hated it. I'm not sure nowadays, I think I still do. I somehow feel robbed by it.

As for the Kilrathi: Jdawg, I think you may remember Chris Roberts not being satisfied with the Kilrathi look in the WC movie. I think I recall CR saying he was in fact pretty content with the WC3 muppets.
My personal opinion about the WC3 Kilrathi is that they are great. Best of the franchise. WCAtv Kilrathi suck, WC movie Kilrathi suck big time (die, you furless freak!), WC2 Kilrathi look like from a Kellogg's Frosted Flakes advertisement., WC1 are much better, but not quite as good as the WC3 ones (still the best 2D ones IMO). WC4 Melek looks like a bad caricature of his former self.
 
WC4 Melek looks like a bad caricature of his former self.

Give poor Melek a break - he has been trying to keep a working government together from the fragmented remains of a largely feudal society for four years by the time we see him in WC4, after all. That's bound to turn your fur greyish.
 
that is correct it does sound better to me that was the whole pt of this thread. I thought hobbes story in wc3 was sloppy and lazy, and it seems a lot of folks agree with me. kilrathi might be aliens but to assume they are all alike is wrong, just like assuming all people of a certain race are the same, or all animals of a species are the same, its just not true.

by the way if you go back to the original post of mine, I said hobbes is still a traitor and is executed for his crimes, not exactly warm and fuzzy is it.

and I understand you dont like hobbes of wc2 I can respect that, but it makes no sense to take all that time to develop him and spend so much time on his character to only say it was a lie. thats like in a tv show where all this crazy stuff happens, but at the end of the show its revealed that the main character was just dreaming. its a cop out to me.

It's not sloppy at all. "Oh, it was the guy I hated" wouldn't be good storytelling... it's a genuine surprise, and one that makes you then look back and consider your actions (which is a rare thing an interactive movie has over a film; when someone betrays Tom Cruise I can be shocked... but I don't feel like I let it happen. Wing Commander III is scripted very carefully to get you to that point.)

A lot of work goes into this. Pretty much every character in the game outright tells you they don't trust Hobbes... but because of the way it's all set up, you never once think to listen to them (and instead you grasp at straws; Cobra was in a prison camp, so she must be the traitor! They trick you into blaming a victim!) You immediately enter the Wing Commander II mindset: these people are just racist against space cats!

Wing Commander 2's traitor, by contrast is... the guy who you already hate. It's much more simplistic storytelling. It's SATISFYING to the player ending the game by getting to shoot down Jazz... but it isn't carefully scripted like Wing Commander III. I don't hate Hobbes, I certainly don't play Wing Commander II and dislike him... but even before Wing Commander III existed, I got that he was a bit too fake. He's something of a Mary Sue, a character the writers make perfect because they're absolutely enamoured of him (and the same writers treat him the same way in Freedom Flight.)

With regards to aliens acting alien, I don't mean to suggest that every Kilrathi should be identical. But they need their own reasons for their actions rather than responding like furry humans. A much more interesting defection is the one on Wing Commander Academy - where you have a Kil who believes Thrakhath is taking power away from the formerly independant clans... and decides that siding with the Confederation is the best way to preserve his way of life.

Hobbes defecting over the issue of slavery seems a little crazy, coming from a race whose entire culture is based around the idea of enslaving other races. It's treating him like he has the morals of a human in 1991 and not an alien in the 27th century. Slavery seems awful and impossible to us today... but if you go back two centuries, you find lots of people who don't give it a second thought because that's how society works (and then going on to focus that on the treatment of A SINGLE HUMAN CHILD is just over-the-top glurge. It feels like it's something so very CALCULATED to make the player character instantly respect him.)
 
It's not sloppy at all. "Oh, it was the guy I hated" wouldn't be good storytelling... it's a genuine surprise, and one that makes you then look back and consider your actions (which is a rare thing an interactive movie has over a film; when someone betrays Tom Cruise I can be shocked... but I don't feel like I let it happen. Wing Commander III is scripted very carefully to get you to that point.)

A lot of work goes into this. Pretty much every character in the game outright tells you they don't trust Hobbes... but because of the way it's all set up, you never once think to listen to them (and instead you grasp at straws; Cobra was in a prison camp, so she must be the traitor! They trick you into blaming a victim!) You immediately enter the Wing Commander II mindset: these people are just racist against space cats!

Wing Commander 2's traitor, by contrast is... the guy who you already hate. It's much more simplistic storytelling. It's SATISFYING to the player ending the game by getting to shoot down Jazz... but it isn't carefully scripted like Wing Commander III. I don't hate Hobbes, I certainly don't play Wing Commander II and dislike him... but even before Wing Commander III existed, I got that he was a bit too fake. He's something of a Mary Sue, a character the writers make perfect because they're absolutely enamoured of him (and the same writers treat him the same way in Freedom Flight.)

With regards to aliens acting alien, I don't mean to suggest that every Kilrathi should be identical. But they need their own reasons for their actions rather than responding like furry humans. A much more interesting defection is the one on Wing Commander Academy - where you have a Kil who believes Thrakhath is taking power away from the formerly independant clans... and decides that siding with the Confederation is the best way to preserve his way of life.

Hobbes defecting over the issue of slavery seems a little crazy, coming from a race whose entire culture is based around the idea of enslaving other races. It's treating him like he has the morals of a human in 1991 and not an alien in the 27th century. Slavery seems awful and impossible to us today... but if you go back two centuries, you find lots of people who don't give it a second thought because that's how society works (and then going on to focus that on the treatment of A SINGLE HUMAN CHILD is just over-the-top glurge. It feels like it's something so very CALCULATED to make the player character instantly respect him.)


ben I have no problem with a character I like, being a traitor or them dying if its for a good reason and ikt benefits the story arc of the character. in MY OPINION, they did not earn that with hobbes, basically his role in wc3 was a plot device, he was basically the Mcguffin of wc3. did they give him a real reason to re defect...... no, his whole persona and backstory was fake, so that means his interesting story from wc2 could be re written like it didnt exist, that is lazy storytelling to me and an easy way out. Its basically how I felt about vagabonds character in wc4, I dont care that they killed him off, but his only character arc in wc4 is to die. hobbes in wc3 was there for one simple reason and that was to move the behemoth plot device forward.

as far as the slavery issue, in the south years ago slavery was normal and part of the culture, does that mean every white southerner supported it or owned slaves... Nope many fought against it, so why would it be so strange that just one kilrathi thought differently about using slave labor?
 
I remember thinking and talking about Hobbes defection for years., what his reasons were, how it all happened and so on. My brother, my friends, and me, we all came to the conclusion that he just snapped because we tried to destroy Kilrah. It even fits perfectly to his dialogue when we met him over Kilrah, where he still calls us "old friend" and so on, and not like some weird change of his character. I even regretted killing him. It made me really really sad. That character had depth.
Then years later I found out about that Manchurian Candidate sleeper thing, and I hated it. I'm not sure nowadays, I think I still do. I somehow feel robbed by it.

As for the Kilrathi: Jdawg, I think you may remember Chris Roberts not being satisfied with the Kilrathi look in the WC movie. I think I recall CR saying he was in fact pretty content with the WC3 muppets.
My personal opinion about the WC3 Kilrathi is that they are great. Best of the franchise. WCAtv Kilrathi suck, WC movie Kilrathi suck big time (die, you furless freak!), WC2 Kilrathi look like from a Kellogg's Frosted Flakes advertisement., WC1 are much better, but not quite as good as the WC3 ones (still the best 2D ones IMO). WC4 Melek looks like a bad caricature of his former self.

thank you, its not that I have a major problem with hobbes defecting its the lazy storytelling that went with it. I would have been far more shocked if it had been cobra bc she hated the cats for good reason so what would have been her motivation to do it. if they have gave hobbes a real reason to defect and not use the the personality overlay which was a tired plot device even in 94, it would have earned the emotional punch that it wanted. see I played wc3 on the ps1, so I always got to see the extra locker video of hobbes, and when the reason was given as to why he defected, even as a pre teen, I was like that was pretty lame.
 
Give poor Melek a break - he has been trying to keep a working government together from the fragmented remains of a largely feudal society for four years by the time we see him in WC4, after all. That's bound to turn your fur greyish.


in wc4 melek did look bad, but there was something sinister about his character in wc4 and they way he talked, even though he was being docile, the way he talked always made me think he was about to slit my throat.
 
in wc4 melek did look bad, but there was something sinister about his character in wc4 and they way he talked, even though he was being docile, the way he talked always made me think he was about to slit my throat.

Might've been the character sitting there talking to you, while in the back of his mind he's probably thinking to himself "You're the jackass that blew up my planet and utterly wrecked my way of life, and I really freakin' want to kill you", that lends itself to that perception (i.e. that was probably deliberate on the part of the writers and it was portrayed well in the game).
 
Might've been the character sitting there talking to you, while in the back of his mind he's probably thinking to himself "You're the jackass that blew up my planet and utterly wrecked my way of life, and I really freakin' want to kill you", that lends itself to that perception (i.e. that was probably deliberate on the part of the writers and it was portrayed well in the game).
prob didnt help that blair kept touching him and patting his shoulder lol
 
back to hobbes, I think it was strange he was on the victory to begin with, bc in wc2 tolwyn didnt want him flying combat missions or anything like that bc he might get killed or injured and he seemed to want to keep hobbes close, but he is on the victory to start wc3, which blair made sound like was a shit assignment at the start of the game. I wonder why Tolwyn abandoned hobbes to some extent in wc3. maybe its in one of the novels.
 
Blair thought that the Victory was a crappy assignment because it was to a second-line small carrier away from the main action--a major step down from the Confederation's former flagship, the Concordia. However, Tolwyn was hand-picking his best officers and pilots (Blair, Maniac, Hobbes, Eisen, etc.) and the Victory carrier group for the Behemoth escort duty--he had probably been planning this since the loss of the Concordia.
 
Sorry a little bit off topic ,but on-topic regarding Ralgha .
"
It was later revealed that the Hobbes Maverick knew was a construct, a result of an identity overlay, by order of Prince Thrakhath. The real Ralgha nar Hhallas remained loyal to the Empire. His true personality returned after seeing Thrakhath’s hidden message in the broadcast of Angel’s execution. Until that time, Hobbes was not aware that anything was different about himself."

This is directly from https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Ralgha_nar_Hhallas ,our WCPedia. I have never read the WC3 novel (still one of the books I still miss) , is that what happend there ? Because in the game the Hidden Message "Heart of the Tiger" was not during Angel`s Execution.
 
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This is directly from https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Ralgha_nar_Hhallas ,our WCPedia. I have never read the WC3 novel (still one of the books I still miss) , is that what happend there ? Because in the game the Hidden Message "Heart of the Tiger" was not during Angel`s Execution.
The trigger phrase is uttered during the Kilrathi jamming attack (or Worm, to hear Rollins describe it,) after leaving the Ariel system.

"Talking trash is what I call it." Vaquero
 
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The trigger phrase is uttered during the Kilrathi jamming attack (or Worm, to hear Rollins describe it,) after leaving the Ariel system.

"Talking trash is what I call it." Vaquero

Yes I know ,thats how it happened in the game , what about the novel ? thats why I ask. Why the encyclopedia says that ?
 
Going back through it, it looks like it happens at roughly the same time; after the Kilrathi have forced Victory to jump to Delius by "closing" the jump point in Ariel. The difference is in the timing of Thrakhath's personal challenge to Blair - in the novel, that happens at the same time, but in the game, it happens right after the Kilrathi have trashed Behemoth.
 
I never liked the personality overlay idea for many reasons. What was it supposed to accomplish? The odds on Hobbes being put in a position where he could access vital Confed information after he defected seem far too low to be worth the effort. Sure he did end up getting that vital information but that was an insanely long shot that put him in place to do so.

Though assigning Hobbes to the carrier escorting Behemoth was an incredibly dumb move on Confed's part. Sure Confed command trusts that he wants to see the empire defeated but there is a huge difference between wanting to see your government defeated and being ok with the destruction of the homeworld of your species. I think him turning on humanity because he couldn't bare to see Kilrath destroyed would have been made much more sense then the idea that his personality was overwrittten in the slim hope that if he defected he would be able to learn something useful to the Kilrathi.
 
I never liked the personality overlay idea for many reasons. What was it supposed to accomplish? The odds on Hobbes being put in a position where he could access vital Confed information after he defected seem far too low to be worth the effort. Sure he did end up getting that vital information but that was an insanely long shot that put him in place to do so.

Though assigning Hobbes to the carrier escorting Behemoth was an incredibly dumb move on Confed's part. Sure Confed command trusts that he wants to see the empire defeated but there is a huge difference between wanting to see your government defeated and being ok with the destruction of the homeworld of your species. I think him turning on humanity because he couldn't bare to see Kilrath destroyed would have been made much more sense then the idea that his personality was overwrittten in the slim hope that if he defected he would be able to learn something useful to the Kilrathi.

I'm not fond of the personality overlay plot either, and I sometimes wonder if the 'explanation' scene was cut from WC3 PC in order to leave the story open to interpretation by the player. Certainly I preferred it this way, because at the time I just made the assumption that vanquishing his own homeworld was simply a step too far for Hobbes, so he decided to betray the Confederation and run.

Amongst the last words (if not, the last words) Ralgha says to Blair are: "No-one will ever truly understand what I did".

That line stuck with me. After his defection I mulled over just how profound a decision he'd made to relay information about the Behemoth back to the Kilrathi - then risk his life by returning to his people.
 
I just thought of another hole in the idea that Ralgha's defection was faked to slip a spy with a personality overlay into Confed. Ralgha didn't defect because he decided he wished to he did so because the Ghorah Kha rebel council ordered him to do so. How could Thrakhath know that the rebels would order Ralgha to join Confed?
 
I just thought of another hole in the idea that Ralgha's defection was faked to slip a spy with a personality overlay into Confed. Ralgha didn't defect because he decided he wished to he did so because the Ghorah Kha rebel council ordered him to do so. How could Thrakhath know that the rebels would order Ralgha to join Confed?

Obviously it's a retcon that can't couldn't have taken every stray comment from the franchise into account when it was concocted, but that entire chapter is very interesting! Yes, Hassa sends him to give up his ship... but why is Thrakhath at the interrogation just paragraphs prior?! If you can make up something as crazy as the identity overlay, it's easy enough to assume that some other aspect of Thrakhath's plan (a double agent in the Ghoarah Khar rebels?) lead to him being sent to Firekka. But with the knowledge of WC3's existence, the intro to Freedom Flight takes on additional meaning. It looks to me like Thrakhath is testing Ralgha's new personality to see if it's held up and working. Maybe a major reason why he was chosen for the overlay was because they knew he was working for the rebels and could find himself in a position to be useful later.

"Enough." The tall Kilrathi rose from his chair in the corner of the room, striding forward to face Ralgha. Prince Thrakhath, Heir to the Throne of Kilrah, stared into his eyes, thoughtful and calculating. Gold rings glistened in Thrakhath's ears, bright against his red-brown fur and his red cloak. The spicy musk of one who dallied often with females wafted to Ralgha's nostrils, but Ralgha refused to be distracted by it. "Tell me, Ralgha… who do you serve?"

"The glory of the Emperor and the Empire of Kilrah," Ralgha said, stiffly. "I am yours to command, my Prince."

"Yes." The Prince spoke quietly, his voice low and resonant in the small room. "I believe you are, Ralgha. You will do well." The Prince turned to the intelligence officer. "Enough of this farce, Jahkai. I had suspected a personal animosity when you brought me your suspicions; now I am certain of it. We are finished here. I will return to K'Tithrak Mang tonight. You will give up this grudge of yours. And to ensure that there will be no repetition of this—scene—I require that you bring me concrete proof of deceit before you make any further accusations."
 
The one thing I don't understand about Hobbes' as sleeper agent concept is why it was removed from PC version. Let's be honest - more people played WCIII on PC than read the book and played 3DO and PSX versions together, many of whom (like me) only learned about the sleeper agent thing after coming to this site. In the meantime, they grew attached to their theories, and have hard time letting go. So, does anybody know why it was cut?
 
The tale is that they pressed the PC version onto 60 minute CDs (as they were more compatible at that time) rather then the 74 minute ones used on consoles. Therefore some stuff had to be cut. But only god knows why of all possible scenes that one was choosen as one of the most unimportant ones... (note that the scene cut had to be on the same disk, so there might be less options then we assume, but still ...)
 
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