Okay, I'm sorry, but I just can't buy into your argument here. As well thought out as it was, I'm afraid you missed the point everyone else has been trying to make on Other M.
Other M's story is simply bad. In reality, there is no excuse for it. It was essentially made as an afterthought to the gameplay and was done in a lackluster fashion. There's plenty of evidence towards that fact, too. You see, I'm currently working on becoming a story writer right now. A video game story writer, with maybe a bit of novel-writing on the side. So I'm always looking at stories in various mediums and analyzing them to the point of death. This doesn't restrict itself to good stories, either. Bad stories are great examples of what not to do in writing, and I've found that Other M falls into the very category. So let me go over both your argument and the game and see just where things fall short.
Fair note: this one's going to be a bit long as well. To other people reading this, there will also be spoilers for those who haven't played this or other Metroid games, so beware.
TheMaddestHatter said:
Many have complained about how Samus freaks out and becomes helpless in the presence of Ridley at his return. I think this deserves some context though: Ridley murdered her entire planet. Yes, I realize she's killed him a dozen times by now, and I think that's the point: She's killed him in the original game, and he had to come back as a robot for most of his tenure through the other games. But now? Here he is, fully-formed and back to normal, as if nothing happened. She accomplished nothing. The monster that she's killed a thousand and one times is not the slightest bit phased by her attempts, no matter what she does. To me, that would be-speak a certain inevitability: Your enemy always returns, no matter how many times you kill him. Someday, he will kill you. This is getting later in the series, right after Samus's encounters with Dark Samus, whom she narrowly defeats, and further back Mother Brain, whom she only defeated because of help from something she was supposed to be trying to kill. Samus lives in a world where everything that's against her is inherently stronger than she is, but she perseveres in the knowledge that she's always toppled her greatest foe, that she always leaves him with scars to pay for everything he did. But when Ridley appears in Other: M, the game has changed. He is as good as new, maybe better, and that's terrifying to her.
Ridley certainly proves to be a frightening adversary. Time and time again, he does succeed in returning from defeat. However, it feels as if you're giving him too much license. Ridley may have returned from death time and time again, but I cannot believe the reason for Samus quaking in her Chozo-made boots is because of the lack of accomplishment and a sense of inevitability. Why? Because we have no reason to believe she thinks that way.
Let's start with the sense of accomplishment. I certainly know what it feels like to think I haven't accomplished anything, but the sensation has never lent itself to fear. Frustration, anger, disappointment, these are the emotions more closely linked to that sensation. Samus has never exhibited these whenever she was faced with Ridley, except in Other M, but that was only when Anthony had been knocked off the platform towards a fatal lava bath. This isn't even implied when she was faced with Ridley in other encounters, either.
As for the feeling of inevitability, we have a similar problem. According to Samus' back story, she was raised by the Chozo and taught to fight like a warrior. That's why they gave her the suit in the first place. It also means she always faces the inevitability of her own death every time she points her cannon barrel. We may see Ridley as Samus' ultimate foe, but there's no reason to believe that other enemies don't have the power to kill her, too. Let's be realistic here. How many times have players died at the hands of enemies that weren't Ridley while playing Metroid games? I know I died a few times at the hands of Metroid Prime 2's Boost Guardian.
The more likely reason for the encounter with Ridley to be portrayed in such a way was to knock Anthony off the platform, making it a solo fight against Ridley, and to remind everyone of Samus' tragic history with him. Only the former was pulled off well enough to be acceptable. If it was really that important, Samus' history could've been introduced differently, such as a tab in the menu. There could've even been a reason for the fear to relapse, like if Anthony had been knocked off the platform
before she broke out in a panic attack. It would be like she was reliving the day Ridley killed her parents. But then, that would be banking on the possibility of a trauma, which brings me to my next point...
TheMaddestHatter said:
I don't think it would be terribly remiss to say that Samus has some form of PTSD, considering everything that happened to her. As someone who used to suffer from several psychological disorders including Multiple Personality Disorder, I can personally attest that the only thing more terrifying than the condition itself is the thought of relapsing into it. Whenever I get into a particularly stressful situation and I hear anything that even remotely sounds like a voice that shouldn't be there, I panic. I can barely breathe, and I can't see straight, because the prospect of going back to that hell-hole I used to call my psyche is that scary to me, and I only had a few years of sleep deprivation to blame for it. In Samus's case, she has genocide and years of fighting to be afraid about, and before her is living proof that everything she has done is a waste of time. If for even a second she believed that that made her helpless, that would be enough to trigger the fear of relapse, which in turn would only spike the chance of relapse higher. Thus from a natural, human perspective, everything we see in her encounter with Ridley is perfectly understandable.
The idea of Samus having a disorder of some kind certainly is realistic. It even gives credibility to Samus' break down in front of Ridley. You'd be hard-pressed to find a reason why she wouldn't have one. It can even be used in place of a character flaw. Sadly, I'm afraid this still doesn't quite work. Aside from that one moment where Samus did break down, there is absolutely no indication given that she has one. Seems to be a pretty flimsy reason, doesn't it? Most of the games that came before were 2D and/or were done with the use of Samus as a silent protagonist, so it's difficult to actually do something like that. Stick with me here, though. I have a good reason for this.
It's quite simple. If we, the audience, have to provide context for something that the writer of the medium, in this case a video game, could have easily provided themselves, it only shows the writer has made a mistake in their writing. We have no reason before then to believe that Samus has had a psychological disorder of some kind. They could've easily done so, too. Samus started Other M (after beating Mother Brain) in a medical facility undergoing examination. They could've easily given her a medical report for Samus and us to look at as well. It didn't have to be out-in-the-open or obvious, either. So long as the audience could see it, it would've been enough. Details like this are important in writing. The writer has to properly characterize the major players in the story, or discrepancies like that will come back to haunt. It's too bad, too. I usually don't see traumas in the stories I've read so it would've made a great device. But I digress...moving on.
TheMaddestHatter said:
But maybe it is how this encounter ends that rubs people the wrong way, with the much hated character Adam coming out to save her, implying that the "little girl" needs a "big, strong man" to save her. Specifically, everyone hates that it's THAT big, strong man who saves her, because he's pretty much a douche. To that, I would agree whole-heartedly, Adam is an asshole. Then why is Samus trusting him and respecting him? Well, again, let's look at her psychological profile and history. Ridley kills her family when she is fairly young, and she's raised by a race that isn't human. Her main male figure for most of her life is Adam. See, I think people mis-understand the undertones of their relationship. I don't think it's meant to be a purely romantic relationship. Rather, Adam struck me as her father figure, or at the very least an older brother. Does she possibly have some romantic feelings for him? Maybe, that's not all-together uncommon in surrogate father-brother relationships of this nature, especially for someone who is as psychologically damaged as Samus. I also don't think Adam reciprocates this relationship with anything more than begrudging acknowledgement. That's not to say it's a good relationship, but I think that Team Ninja's background has led some people to skew the relationship dynamic: We envision an abusive boyfriend when we see Adam, but he's real more an abusive/absentee father.
There also seems to be a consensus that everyone assumes that this relationship is supposed to be laudable or good because Samus says so. Why? I think Other: M is playing the unreliable narrator card on the sly, and no one caught them. We take everything that comes from Samus as the opinion of the creators, but that's simply not the case in my opinion. Rather, I think that due to Samus's stunted development and fractured childhood, she is drawn to abusive relationships and danger. I think, in the back of her mind, she thinks she deserves all of it. It's classic survivor's guilt. To me, that would explain why she pursues the Space Pirates so vehemently. It's more than revenge to her, it's a no-lose situation. If she kills them all, her people rest in peace. If she dies, then she gets the fate she always feels she really deserved. There's an inherent clash there, though: She's trained to kill, and the whole point of her surviving was to do just that. Yet she wants to die. Instinct vs. Desire, a conflict that is very confusing to the human body because it's incredibly rare. I would call that another factor in her reaction to Ridley, but deeper still it explains her relationship with Adam. She knows, deep down, that he's abusive and dismissive of her, but she secretly feels like she deserves it, so he's the perfect man to her.
This explains the final and most often cited example of Other: M's failure, the Varia Suit encounter. It's been said that there is no reason Samus would risk her life to obey a stupid order from someone who isn't even really her direct superior anymore, and if it were isolated to just that, they'd be correct. But when you combine the surrogate father figure effect with that survivor's guilt, you get a perfect storm where keeping the suit off is the ONLY possible outcome. It's a sequence where she will die in the line of duty, following direct orders, so it is complete justifiable and almost certainly fatal. It also involves the one person she would take said orders from, so there is no point in refusing. Now, if Samus had turned on the suit? That would have been incredibly out of character.
I don't quite think anyone believes Samus' relationship with Adam was romantic after Other M. Samus herself said she viewed him as father figure. On top of that, when people talk of "big, strong men," they aren't referring to Adam; they're referring to his entire unit. In truth, it's not a far off verdict on the matter. It's unusual to see a military that doesn't have women in it, and even though Samus does say she was often looked down upon because she was a girl, it doesn't really lend credence to seeing no women in this particular squad. And based on the movements on women's rights in the past century alone, I highly doubt such a standard would actually stand. Mind, it's not impossible for a there to be a squad with only men in it; it's just extremely unlikely.
But let's get back to Adam. You are certainly correct; not all relationships are good, and to those paying attention, it certainly seems like the one between Samus and Adam wasn't good at all. However, I don't think it was because Samus is looking for an abusive relationship, or because Adam is an asshole. It is once again a product of bad writing. This proven in the fact that there are times where the writer actually does try to show that there
is a good relationship between the two. The event with Ridley once again takes point when Adam not only approves the use of two pieces of equipment, but also shows some concern when Ridley faces off against Samus and she freezes. Also, in front of Sector Zero, he elects to go in himself and blow up the station rather than have Samus do it herself. Of course, there's no denying the quality of how these scenes are handled is poor. Even the voice acting helps these scene suffer. But it's the simplest answer, and those answers are usually correct.
As far as the 'instinct vs. desire' argument goes, I'm not sure I can buy into that. Usually, when there's such an internal conflict, the abilities of the person in question usually suffer as a result. In this case, if she really did want to die, I'm not entire sure she would put up such a fight against some of the stronger enemies she's encountered. Even if she was driven by instinct to fight, it would still show in her 'abilities.' I'm not just talking Other M here. I'm talking about the series as a whole. Metroid Prime 2, for example, ended with an escape timer and battle with Dark Samus. After beating her, if she really wanted to die, she could have just stood there and died with Dark Aether. Forget her having the last of the planetary energy; with Dark Aether and the Ing on their way out anyway, it wouldn't have mattered if she delivered it or not. Aether and the Luminoth were saved, one way or another. She even could've stayed and fought the Ing that arrived at that moment. It would've easily circumvented such a conflict. Yet she didn't. She ran for the gate out and used it. No one who was actually looking for an excuse to die would do that, not when they have the chance siting right in front of them.
That said, I find it funny how most people count out the Chozo when it comes to how Samus was raised. Sure, they weren't human, but I don't think the only thing they did for her was take her in and train her as a warrior. I would like to think they cared for her to some degree. The suit she wears is proof of this. The Chozo have shown they do care about who can use their technology. Metroid Prime, for instance. The Chozo Lore spoke about their opinions about the pirates using their artifacts. And we don't exactly see other humans wearing Power Suits of their own. So I don't think the Chozo neglected in caring for her. There's no doubt she thought of them as family, either. The moment at the end of Metroid Prime where she's overlooking the ruined artifact site shows that better than anything else.
Meanwhile, the Varia suit mess, or Hell Run, is yet another incident that suffers from bad writing. It was clear whoever designed the game, whether it was Team Ninja or someone at Nintendo, wanted to do a high temperature run, so they put one in there. They just didn't think to properly introduce a reason for it. They could've gone as far as setting up an explosion that shuts the function down for a bit, or even introduced a reason that better suited the need for the function to be off. But they didn't that's where that scene broke down.
And there are other examples where the writing was bad. When Samus first met up with the squad, the encounter was nothing but narration. The basic tenant of writing, as Extra Credits said, is 'show, don't tell'. Yet this was nothing
but telling. Why exactly is an Admiral leading a group of soldiers for something like a simple distress beacon? Why wasn't Adam a slightly lower rank? It would've made things more believable and he'd still be a CO. And why didn't they let Samus find out who the Deleter was? All she had to do was turn over that last body...
This all lends to Samus' characterization in one way and one way only: if the rest of the story was this badly written, then it stands to reason that the same can be said of Samus' character. Now, let's be fair here: under normal circumstances, I wouldn't mind how she was characterized. I've made my thoughts clear on the idea of trauma. I can certainly agree that some relationships aren't good. But that was never the problem. Her new character came from a flimsy idea and a lack of consideration for Samus' pre-existing history. Just because we don't have intimate knowledge of her thoughts and feelings doesn't mean we don't have some idea of what they are. And there is room for some character flaws, even trauma if the writer is skilled enough. But the job done in Other M is still lackluster at best is ultimately what drags everything down.
*sigh* I'm sorry if this seems a bit scattered. It actually took a whole day to write this post, with all the research and my own lack of focus... But you should understand that while Samus doesn't have to be badass #1 in the world of female protagonists, she still does have to be characterized properly, and she just wasn't in Other M.
