Was Kerrigan Preordained to Be an Evil Mofo?
I confess that I have been a weathered supporter of Blizzard Entertainment. On that note, I also wish to admit that the lanky and foxy Sarah Kerrigan was my video game crush back when I was an awkward tweenager.
In this article, I shall revisit one of the most notorious female villains in video game history and determine if there was any shaving of uprightness penned within the abyss of her infested heart. Was the girl a misjudged victim or a deranged vixen?
Profile
Most if not all Starcraft fans should know that our attractive redhead lieutenant was betrayed by the dastardly Mengsk on the planet of Antiga Prime. She was subsequently abducted by agents of the Zerg Overmind, shoved into a chrysalis and had all vestige of her humanity sucked out of her.
She transformed into the muse/heiress of the Zerg and became one of the most appalling entities in the known universe.
How ominously fitting, seeing how Antiga Prime itself was once a planet brimming with aquatic life, which decayed into a plane of lifeless mesas and salt flats. The humanity of Kerrigan was to undergo a similar fate.
Justice or Betrayal?
Arcturus Mengsk was a despised individual, no qualms about that. But, was he the one who had cast the first stone?
The self-proclaimed emperor of the rebellion group, The Sons of Korhol, was an outlaw who willed the destruction of the Terran Dominion on Tarsonis. With the imminent threat extinguished, Mengsk turned on the very weapon that assured his triumph.
Much to the horror of Jim Raynor, the dutiful White Knight of Kerrigan, Mengsk fed the ghost operative to the Zerg swarm without so much a hint of remorse.
By most accounts, Mengsk seems to be the perfect antihero, but upon further scrutiny into the canon, we learn that the history between Kerrigan and Mengsk goes way back. Kerrigan was answerable for the murder of Mengk’s family. Yes, you read that right.
Background
Born Sarah Louise Kerrigan, on the planet of TarKossia within the Kropulu Sector, Kerrigan was biologically normal up till the age of seven, when she suddenly reached psionic maturity and killed her mother by accident while severely wounding the mind of her father.
Shortly thereafter, she was enrolled in the fledgling ghost program initiated by the Terran Confederacy, from which they trained classes of specially skilled youngsters as super soldiers.
One of the first tasks of the graduated Kerrigan? To infiltrate the grounds of Korhol IV and slay the anarchic Mengsk family, which included the father of Arcturus, Angus Mengsk, along with his mother and sister.
It is believed that the decapitated head of Angus Mengsk remains to be found.
Perhaps Arcturus had some unfinished business. You know what they say, keep your friends close and enemy suckling from your tits.
Kerrigan was appointed as a tried and tested agent for the Sons of Korhol, up till the point when she outlived her usefulness. Through this supposition, Mengsk had pulled a twofer: end the confederacy and avenge his family.
Lieutenant Rumm
This crazed soldier could have been a crucial element in the corruption of Kerrigan.
During her training, Kerrigan was under the wing of a psycho by the name of Rumm (more like rump), who was obsessed with mentally breaking down the young cadets in the ghost program.
The instructor attempted to destroy the moral compass of Kerrigan by obfuscating her judgment between right and wrong, so she may unleash the destructive powers of her psionic abilities.
In one sadistic experiment, Rumm injected a harmless kitten with a tumour-inducing serum. Kerrigan was then, forced to either remove the tumour with her psionic powers or euthanise the creature, ending its misery.
However, this was not enough to push Kerrigan over the edge, which aggravated Rumm further. The amoral lieutenant aimed his gun at the defenceless animal and threatened to shoot, but Kerrigan stood stoic. Rumm chose to walk away, leaving the animal to expire slowly in agony.
During the early days of ghost experiments, some rogue instructors applied cruel contraptions of cybertechnology, in mentally manipulating uncooperative students of the Ghost Academy.
One such device was known as the neuro-adjuster, which rendered a ghost subject incapable of defying orders from a confederate superior.
The device installed within the neuronal circuitry of Kerrigan had kept her functioning as a cold killing machine during the assassination of the Mengsk family. It was only upon her capture in the Fujita Facility on the planet Vyktor 5 by the sons of Korhol, that Mengsk decided to deactivate the neuro-adjuster and restore her former memories.
Due to the ostensible rescue mission on Vytor 5, Kerrigan felt indebted to Mengsk, who eventually delivered her to the heart of the swarm at Antiga Prime.
The Overmind
The Overmind is the prime mover of all Zerg and a backfired creation of the ancient Xel’Naga race.
Kerrigan was transmogrified within a chrysalis (cellular sac) through the terrific powers of this stationary cyclops (we later grasp that it had been the innovation of cellular architect, Abathur, who was responsible for the general genetic sequencing of the Zerg broods), imbued with hatred for the duplicitous Terran that had abandoned her.
The Overmind hijacked the volition of Kerrigan, while underestimating her psionic anomalies. If the chrysalis did anything at all, it had fueled the swelling rancour within the former ghost, while physically scarring her pretty countenance and thereby, infuriating her even more.
Kerrigan was mightier than the Overmind and his Cerebrate lieutenants, they had little effect on her agendas.
Verdict
Kerrigan was one tormented individual. She languished through the guilt of inadvertently destroying her own family, got broken by a maniacal scientist, used as a mindless assassin, played by Mengsk and was genetically raped by hideous Zerg DNA source codes implanted into her lithe human body.
Her relationship with on-off beau and space cowboy, Jim Raynor, was perpetually rocky and tragic due to her resolute commitment towards the greater good, even if it meant throwing some people under the interstellar bus.
The real Kerrigan is no Elizabeth Bathory, she was just an extremely gifted woman who was undeservedly flung into the trappings of the planets and the insecurities of their settlers.
She has been a weapon, a succubus , a turncoat but we still appreciated her the way she was, and this is why there will never be another Kerrigan. Yup, I am talking about you Nova.
