Is Handsome Jack really all that evil?

[Linus Hyper]

He wants to wipe all life of the planet and mine Eridium.
And from what I know, everyone who lives on Pandora are bandits or various kinds of a murderer. Sure, there are good people in Sanctuary, but as we all know the city was built atop an old mining ship. It can fly, which it later does. The shield would protect them from the dangers of space and also give them air to breathe. So why don't they just leave?

[Magic Spazm]

I would trade Moxi to bring Jack back.
I don't like her, I like Jack though.

[muchdebate]

Originally posted by Partha Pratim Chatterjee:

The feeling of actually being in the Borderlands. The original had humor that was intelligent and each character had a distinct appearance and personality. You would feel that the Borderlands is a dangerous place and yet be completely at home when you'd just idle and listen to the music playing in the Badlands. Then you would visit wonderful locations such as Baron Flynt's fortress in the middle of the Salt Flats or the caverns of Skag Gully. Every single thing fits with the theme of the Borderlands and forms a cohesive whole.

Speaking for myself, and only with experience of B2, I think that each character/template is quite unique (to the point where I"m reluctant to play several of them, as they don't fit into my brain well).

I like rambling around the world, and the different and lovely music that can counterpoint some of the most desolate areas of terrain.

As for the "head bad guy" I don't consider him stereotypical other than in the way that having achieved great wealth tents to 1-insulate you from any normal consequences and 2-exacerbate any cruelty.

See any number of real world examples of this. Sadly.

Originally posted by Partha Pratim Chatterjee:

the character Handsome Jack isn't even a worthwhile work of writing to warrant such a question of "morality" relating to him. It's like looking at a whitewashed wall and wondering whether it's a profound work of art or not.

In the most wide literary sense "a whitewashed fence" (technically not a wall, this was the closest exmple I had) has been a work of art (Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer).

As for Morality, Handsome Jack has the "morality" of once functioning as a head of a large organization; utter disdain for the individual person other than a cog in the machinery - or more accurately a cell in a multi-celled creature.

Oddly, he also spends too much time worrying about what the vault hunter thinks of him.

[Cowtipper]

Try out The pre sequel Jack hasnt always been evil , he just found murder too easy :D

[Nakos]

Originally posted by Cowtipper 2.0:

Try out The pre sequel Jack hasnt always been evil , he just found murder too easy :D

Um... The Pre-Sequal isn't "fact" but rather a story told by Athena, who freely aknowleges that Jack may have been tricking her to gain her cooperation.

And if you pay attention, then yes, it's quite clear that Jack is in fact lying through his teeth to present himself as a nice guy in order to gain Athena's cooperation. For example: He presents himself as a "low level programer" when he's actually the corporate officer in charge of Helios Station. Before the game even starts, he's already built a Weapon Of Mass Destruction (the Eye of Helios) which he cheerfully admits he intends to use on Pandora. He's also lying to Mr Tassiter, and trying to engineer a hostile takeover of Hyperion. His entire project of seeking a Vault is him running a side game, using Hyperion resources and funding, while keeping personal control of the rewards in order to further his aims of taking control of the company.

Jack is always evil.

Originally posted by Partha Pratim Chatterjee:

The sequel did away with all that and introduced a stereotypical antagonist, stupid slapstick jokes, trashy NPCs and a bunch of irrelevant and meaningless pop-culture references to appear to the juvenile demographic. The locations are uninspiring, the humor doesn't fit, and you stick out like a sore thumb wondering what the hell you're even doing there. It does not work, at all. In terms of story and identity, Borderlands 2 is a mishmash of sloppy writing, incompetence and literary failure from every single aspect that made the original stand out on its own.

Okay, I don't really think that's a fair assessment.

BL1 had plenty of cheesy pop culture references, they had a major boss battle devoted to Mad Max (a huge amount of BL1 is a direct nod to Mad Max). Much of the stylistic look of BL1 is based on Code Hunters, right down to the Bus in the opening scene. Pretty much everything Scooter says is a cheesy, sexist joke. The Zombie Island of Dr Ned is chock full of pop culture references (which, at their core date back as far as H.G.Wells' Island of Dr Moreau).

During the early part of BL1, Steele does exactly the same thing Jack does: She calls you up on the radio and taunts and threatens you. From the stand point of character motivation, it's exactly the same thing (except one of them is a cold (sterile) authoritarian and the other one is the Joker). I'd argue that Jack is much more effective at promoting emotional engagement because of his disdainful mocking irreverence. Steele tries to be "tough" and (to me) it came off as trite and hackneyed.

You preferred BL1, that's fine, but it wasn't any paragon of writing either.

[CoolingGibbon]

Originally posted by muchdebate:

Speaking for myself, and only with experience of B2, I think that each character/template is quite unique (to the point where I"m reluctant to play several of them, as they don't fit into my brain well).

I like rambling around the world, and the different and lovely music that can counterpoint some of the most desolate areas of terrain.

Then I can pretty much guarantee you'll enjoy the first game more (in terms of story and exploration), especially since you enjoy games like TES.

Originally posted by muchdebate:

As for the "head bad guy" I don't consider him stereotypical other than in the way that having achieved great wealth tents to 1-insulate you from any normal consequences and 2-exacerbate any cruelty.

See any number of real world examples of this. Sadly.

You seem much more forgiving in that regard. For me considering Jack to be a "bad guy" or more generally a "good character" in any conceivable way becomes even harder when I consider some actual real world examples or look at some other games.

Originally posted by muchdebate:

In the most wide literary sense "a whitewashed fence" (technically not a wall, this was the closest exmple I had) has been a work of art (Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer).

But you're forgetting the context in which it was used (wherein "whitewashing the fence" leads Tom to a realization about how people perceive something as a trivial "chore" or a privilege) , and how that context was conveyed to the audience. A whitewashed wall alone (as I used in my analogy) has no context in and of itself.

In Borderlands 2, the writer fails to create any relevant context that would lead me to believe that the character of Handsome Jack has any redeeming worth other than being used as mere filler in order to prolong the story. By the end of the main mission I absolutely did not care about anything I had done so far. All I wanted was to start the next playthrough so I could level up more.

Originally posted by muchdebate:

As for Morality, Handsome Jack has the "morality" of once functioning as a head of a large organization; utter disdain for the individual person other than a cog in the machinery - or more accurately a cell in a multi-celled creature.

Oddly, he also spends too much time worrying about what the vault hunter thinks of him.

And yet there is no background of how he became that way simply from being merely a programmer at Hyperion to discovering Eridium and taking over Hyperion. I'm pretty sure most "programmers" at companies don't have such wild escapades as he did. It's like they used the ever so cliched "power corrupts" trope to justify any lack of meaningful plotline on account of Anthony Burch's complete inexperience with writing for video games.

The first game made no such pretense. Commandant Steele (the antagonist in that game) did not try to come across as some sort of profound moral dichotomy (savior of Pandora or whatever) regarding her characterization. She was the bad guy (or girl in her case) and that's it, done. None of the superfluous frivolity or the apparent attempt to get the player to care about the character inspite of any lack of character traits like in the case of Handsome Jack.

Originally posted by Nakos:

BL1 had plenty of cheesy pop culture references, they had a major boss battle devoted to Mad Max (a huge amount of BL1 is a direct nod to Mad Max). Much of the stylistic look of BL1 is based on Code Hunters, right down to the Bus in the opening scene. Pretty much everything Scooter says is a cheesy, sexist joke. The Zombie Island of Dr Ned is chock full of pop culture references (which, at their core date back as far as H.G.Wells' Island of Dr Moreau).

Yes but those things were not shoehorned in, but were the primary sources of inspiration. Mad Max has been the go-to reference for a large number of works set in the Wasteland because it's a reliable framework to further the post-apocalyptic narrative. Codehunters though, came much later since Gearbox figured BL1 had started to look to much like RAGE, so scrambled to change the artstyle very late in development. But regardless, the idea still worked because they didn't throw out all the underlying seriousness of what makes the Wasteland (or Borderlands) a dangerous place.

Compare that to BL2. It took all that fine balance between seriousness and subtle black humor and ran entirely towards slapstick, memes, d*ck jokes and whatever else Anthony Burch could think of to fill the story with so he could get paid. It worked from a commercial perspective, I admit... since the demographic that enjoys this type of content far exceeds in number the one that enjoys the actual Wasteland feeling.

Originally posted by Nakos:

During the early part of BL1, Steele does exactly the same thing Jack does: She calls you up on the radio and taunts and threatens you. From the stand point of character motivation, it's exactly the same thing (except one of them is a cold (sterile) authoritarian and the other one is the Joker). I'd argue that Jack is much more effective at promoting emotional engagement because of his disdainful mocking irreverence. Steele tries to be "tough" and (to me) it came off as trite and hackneyed.

I figure I don't have much to add to this since you seem to enjoy Jack's character for the very same reason I dislike him. I do not want any sort of "emotional engagement" that's in my face, over the top in stupidity, and needs to shout "Look at me, I'm evil and yet so morally ambiguous as hell!" just so I'd notice it. To me it's nothing but a failed attempt at writing trying to be passed off as satire, that's it.

Originally posted by Nakos:

You preferred BL1, that's fine, but it wasn't any paragon of writing either.

Never said it was. But it wasn't a travesty either and didn't try to come across as something it wasn't.

[Hunk]

of course Jack is a bad guy. he killed a lot of people.some of them is good guy.

[▙▘▚ ▜ ▞ ▟ ▚▝ ▛]

I didn't ever read all your posts above... but im certain that the next game will probably be 3 times bigger and slightly more serious

[-glomps u-]

Originally posted by Phobos⛧Anomaly:

He wants to wipe all life of the planet and mine Eridium.
And from what I know, everyone who lives on Pandora are bandits or various kinds of a murderer. Sure, there are good people in Sanctuary, but as we all know the city was built atop an old mining ship. It can fly, which it later does. The shield would protect them from the dangers of space and also give them air to breathe. So why don't they just leave?

If you was game theory's video about this topic it will explain i think jack is just a person that not wanted in on pandora abandoned by all loved ones explained in the video link here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5onlG_8J18

[muchdebate]

For me, some of what I see in Handsome Jack is a severe case of Personality disorder (mostly cluster B). He does have some aspects of redeeming features; he does show affection for Angel (now I could also argue that I think it's dysfunctional love, but even in real life there is a lot of dysfunction in family dynamics).

As for "most programmers" not having such escapades - of course not. Any person who "climed to the top" (regardless of how they got there) isn't "most people".

My point is that I like B2. If you dislike it, then we disagree.

I may or may not like B1 if I ever play it.

[CoolingGibbon]

Originally posted by muchdebate:

For me, some of what I see in Handsome Jack is a severe case of Personality disorder (mostly cluster B). He does have some aspects of redeeming features; he does show affection for Angel (now I could also argue that I think it's dysfunctional love, but even in real life there is a lot of dysfunction in family dynamics).

That's fine as per your perspective.

Originally posted by muchdebate:

As for "most programmers" not having such escapades - of course not. Any person who "climed to the top" (regardless of how they got there) isn't "most people".

Except "how they got there" is the most relevant question in my opinion. This dissonance should not exist.

Originally posted by muchdebate:

My point is that I like B2. If you dislike it, then we disagree.

I don't dislike the game; you'd know I'm invested in it more than most players here if you happen to read my posts (or take a glance at my profile). But I like the game for the gameplay, not the story. The story is the cancer in an otherwise great work of entertainment.

Originally posted by muchdebate:

I may or may not like B1 if I ever play it.

Correct. The guarantee is on my behalf since I do not speak for your tastes.


P.S. It's usually better if you quote the relevant sections when responding so the discussion is a bit more readable. A direct response to the thread implies you're responding to the OP.

[muchdebate]

I had said:

Originally posted by muchdebate:

As for "most programmers" not having such escapades - of course not. Any person who "climed to the top" (regardless of how they got there) isn't "most people".

You commented:

Originally posted by Partha Pratim Chatterjee:

Except "how they got there" is the most relevant question in my opinion. This dissonance should not exist.

I'd be interested to hear you expand on this.

The few "at the top" (of whatever) are by definition not the norm. So I don't see that difference as dissonance.

[muchdebate]

Oh btw I would highly recommend a book called "The Lucifer Principle" for any discussion about morality and ethics that involves both individuals and groups.

[CoolingGibbon]

Originally posted by muchdebate:

I'd be interested to hear you expand on this.

The few "at the top" (of whatever) are by definition not the norm. So I don't see that difference as dissonance.

Definitely, I'll try and clarify my point. Whenever we talk about climbing to the top (especially to a position that wields significant power), we consider a process that enables such a change to happen because these things don't happen overnight. The fact that those at the top are not the norm is a given. But that's doesn't fill us in on how they got there in the first place; just that they got there, period.

Let us consider Handsome Jack's case. Handsome Jack was a programmer at Hyperion and a lowly one at that. This is evidenced by Harold Tassiter (the ex-Hyperion President) constantly nagging him and reminding him of his place.

And yet, here is Jack... overseeing all of Hyperion's operations on Elpis and secretly building Control Core Angel. Then he goes on to "murder" Tassiter by strangling him to become the President of Hyperion, having managed to successfully "scare" the board members into selling their shares.

As you see, these are all significant endeavors, so the audience would obviously desire an explanation of how Jack managed to accomplish such feats to begin with given that he was "just" a programmer with no conceivable access to the resources these sorts of undertakings would require. Or how the entire company decided to bend over for him, figuratively speaking.

Of course, we all could say it's just a video game and most of this isn't supposed to make sense from a logical perspective; but then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

In terms of canon, there are large holes that need to be filled in before the character of Handsome Jack can achieve significant realization as a primary antagonist in the Borderlands universe in my opinion.

However, that's disregarding Handsome Jack's characterization (or lack thereof) entirely. If we were to look at the character through an entirely separate lens as nothing more than a "court jester" then perhaps such leeway could be given, but considering the character is touted as "THE" face of Borderlands 2's evil, maniacal whathaveyou side (unlike in the antagonist's case from the first game), I'd expect more depth than that of the aforementioned "court jester". Especially when actual well-written antagonists exist in other games of the same vein who are less pretentious about their "evil" nature. "Evil" in this case being something more than scooping out someone's eyeballs with a spoon, hilarious as that sounds.

Originally posted by muchdebate:

Oh btw I would highly recommend a book called "The Lucifer Principle" for any discussion about morality and ethics that involves both individuals and groups.

Just read the summary. Seems very interesting, will definitely check it out.

[K0rkki]

I wouldn't call Jack evil. More like mentally ill or something.

Also, I really like the Angel fight. It reminds us that even the scummiest of scumbags have not necessarily always been as much of a scumbag. Even Jack had loved ones once. The man has many good qualities that he could have been known for but those things tend to become meaningles once you succumb to the path of crime/murder/madnes etc.

RIP Jack, you magnificent b@stard.

[▙▘▚ ▜ ▞ ▟ ▚▝ ▛]

Originally posted by K0rkki:

I wouldn't call Jack evil. More like mentally ill or something.

Also, I really like the Angel fight. It reminds us that even the scummiest of scumbags have not necessarily always been as much of a scumbag. Even Jack had loved ones once. The man has many good qualities that he could have been known for but those things tend to become meaningles once you succumb to the path of crime/murder/madnes etc.

RIP Jack, you magnificent b@stard.

Jack is the one that killed angel

and i really like angel

so yeah, screw him

But still im sure jack's not dead, gearbox can bring him back whenever they want

The Handsome Jack at the vault of the warrior had the same skill (Action Skill)
as timothy (Doppleganger Class) from The Pre-Sequel

So the next borderlands game

SURPRISE!
jacks not dead, the guy you killed at the vault was actually just timothy

And jack was hiding in a very, very, very faraway planet, secretly manipulating all things hyperion, without hyperion itself even knowing...