Is Nathan Drake a Monster?

I beg to differ.

He's a more... realistic hero in the sense that he knows what has to be done to save the world. At the same time, he doesn't carry all the bloody emotional baggage of many other realistic heroes which I'm starting to get irked of.

I can only handle, so much emo.

Drake is a refreshing character to play as, because not only is he witty, he's a lot more human than other heroes, but yet, not quite as human as some make him out to be.

Should he be in agony over killing over 800 people? Yes.

Do we want to see him cry over every life he takes? HELL NO.

Does it make it any different if what Drake was killing was say... aliens or monsters instead of humans? Not really.

If you eat meat/are not a pure vegan, you are partly responsible for destroying the lives of animals and their families, eaten members of a herd of cattle in hamburgers or steaks, and the like, and do you feel remorse for each burger you eat? I'm not trying to justify Drake as not a monster, but to say he is one, is basically admitting that you yourself are a similar kind of monster.

Worst of all, as you eat those burgers, you're not saving the world. At least Drake did save the world from the oppression of a crazed madman. So is he now less of a monster than your average burger-eating citizen?

Who's to say?

Also. We've only ever seen Drake drink beer (made from hops/wheat products) and never scarf down a plate of food.

For all we know, he could be vegan, because he feels guilt from killing all these people, so he balances it out by avoiding meat.

Food for thought. (no pun intended initially, but I can't resist now that it's out.)

"I press the square button, in accordance with the tutorial, and the guard plummets to his death, falling hundreds of feet, hitting the rocky cliff below."

Wrong, you can see him swim away if you look closely.

I think self-defense plays a large role in a lot of the situations Drake throws himself into. Then again, you can also argue that he puts himself in those situations.

I think if you look at the big picture, most of the guys that get killed (by Drake) are mercenaries. So they kind of are in the line of work of killing dudes.

One of the only complaints I had with Uncharted was always why so many guys were after you, and why you had to mow them *all* down. Oh well, nothing's perfect.

Reminds me of the character of Alex Mercer in "Prototype."

He's portrayed as a tragic hero, trying to find out what happened to him, saving the city from the infection, and getting revenge on the military for experimenting on him.

In the actual game, you slice through waves of innocent civilians, blow up people in cars going about their day, and absorb their memories.

That seems more like a psychotic villain to me. Marvel comic's symbiotic mass murderer Carnage would even cringe at the things Alex does.

You have to kill them because you are not Solid Snake.

Clearly, if this were Uncharted Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Theives, we would see David Drake with his sneaking suit, Solid Eye, and witty remarks wooing women everywhere whilst silently taking down and only incapacitating the HORDES of mercenaries thrown at him with his tranquilizer loaded AK-47 and sneaking past his enemies with his signature Ruins Wall disguise.

:D

"Reminds me of the character of Alex Mercer in “Prototype.”

He’s portrayed as a tragic hero, trying to find out what happened to him, saving the city from the infection, and getting revenge on the military for experimenting on him."
To quote what P33PS said; Wrong.
The game developers said themselves that Alex is not trying to be the "Lets save the world from the horrible infection" type of hero. He just wants to know what happened to him, who did it to him, and make that person no matter what Alex has to do to find him.

A little mistake, I meant;
*make that person pay

in the beginning mission drake doesn't kill a single person. i made sure because i'm a continuity freak like that.

and in traditional hollywood fashion, bad guys are distinctly bad guys. henchman are always truly horrible people who are easy to kill for the protagonist in a film-like universe. the only shades of gray you see are in the protagonists, everyone else is pretty black and white.

841 people killed. but they are 841 people who wouldn't have thought twice about killing you.

@Etana

Including slicing innocent people in half for no reason? Because that helps his cause so much...

you're thinking too much, just murder those pixels already!

Nathan always felt to me as the type of guy who understands that, in order to save the world, sometimes you have to kill. this is a concept that a lot of characters in games deal with, and very rarely does it feel as important as they try to make it out to be.

@rabbeseking

He has no memory and no remorse. I hate to repeat myself, but like I said he doesnt really care about anything or anyone else anymore, he just wants to know what happaned to him and who is responsible for it. Sure I understand your point, and this is just how I see it and how I understood it. I wasnt making the game so I cant really speak for the developers on why did they really put all the slaughtering in it.

Gore sells. Period.

Impressionable young minds are so impressionable these days.

@TemjinZero (and others really): That is kind of my issue, they make a really cool character, a lovable one, very real feeling at times but he is put into situations and has to handle situations in ways that counter that characterization.

Also, he doesn't really know about the 'save the world' part until later. After he has already killed quite a few people. Even then, I'm not sure his character would rush in like he does.

The meat eating metaphor is a little off but I did enjoy the theory of his remorse being reflective of the food he might choose to eat. ;) I do wish it took more steps to allow Drake to be less in-your-face-confrontational. Killing hordes of dudes is just as silly to me as him being Solid Drake.

@P33PS: I replayed the section before writing this and I am fairly sure you don't see him swim away, but admittedly I didn't watch all that long. It would take a lot of suspension of disbelief for me to buy that the guard survives though.

yea its more like a realistic hero situation where to get the good deed done there ultimately has to be a price... but thats just what heroes have to face as they go about their day and their life

@skyliner I agree with what you say, but I think the ultimate question is can we justify taking any life, even if they're trying to take ours. In the end its still loss of life. And I also think that's what the antagonist is trying to convey to Drake. To make Drake question about the actions hes taken, and how its no different from what the antagonist has done.

I think it would have been great if they had Drake actually face this as an internal conflict for himself in the story. Where hes forced to come to realization of his past actions, what he has to do to move forward in his journey. Drake seems to be the kind of character who gets absorbed in his quest to not realize the effects of his actions in the process.

I don't know if this actually goes on in the game, I haven't played it yet. I've only seen some parts of the game while Brad was playing. Btw this really remind of what Ichigo from Bleach goes through a lot. O.o

P33PS is right about the guard swimming away. I remember Nick talking about that exact part in an earlier podcast, so when I came to that specific part myself, I made sure to watch to see if he swims away, and he indeed does survive the fall.

I will agree though, that was a pretty big fall and that height I'm pretty sure there isn't much difference between water and solid ground at that point, though I'm no physics major so don't quote me on that.

Sure, Drake is a monster, in a way that a human would kill a human. But ask yourself, what's 800 lives (of the bad guys) compared to the world, innocent and bad? Of course, you know what I mean by the world, since you played the game.

Here is a video of the fountain guard making a groan after you "break" his neck. I'm guessing that they used a cracking sound instead of a thud is to make it a more distinguishing sound from the sounds made by the flowing water in the fountain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwpDSypIm44#t=2m06s

Here is a video of the plummeted guard swimming away. I'm guessing the reason they developers made it such a huge fall is to make the player go "Holy crap!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rgWoTE4iPY#t=5m28s

Sometimes story-telling has to be sacrificed for gameplay. Would Uncharted 2 be as fun if all the player had was a tranquilizer gun and did not have the ability to pick up and use the enemies' machine guns?

Also, the game is imitating action adventure films in the style of the Indiana Jones movies. The story and characters aren't suppose to be deep and thought-provoking. If Indiana Jones broke down and lamented after he killed an enemy, I wouldn't enjoy the movies quite as much.

You know what they say about serial killers.........."he seemed like just a normal guy". We're watching you Nathan Drake. Before you know it we'll see Elena's head on a stick.

so.......in depth....... my eyes are OPENED O.O

He's got some ways to go to catch up with a mass murderer like Lara Croft. She's slaughtered thousands, man and animal alike.

Animals don't count. They don't have feelings.

It's kill or be kill, that simple.

His enemies are humans and supernatural creatures for the most part, he has no choice. It's not like he's just walking up to some random people just minding their own business reading the paper with nothing to do with what's going on and murdering them.

Just because he's killed doesn't make him a monster, the reason for killing always determines this and doing so in self defense or in the defense of others is a good enough reason for me.

The writer of the above article is retarded.

I've got that same reflection when I got to the end part. The first thing that flashed into my mind was that quote brad said in the highlight of the first uncharted "I wonder how this guy feel at the end of the day. I've kill a thousand man". You do kill way to much people for the hero your suppose to be. I don't think even laura croft killed that many in all her game. But the only missing peice that make me think he would have change is point of view would be passing some time in jail. Maybe that's what change him and we don't know why. But that wouldn't count for the death in the museum.

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