Yellow 13 in Ace Combat 04. Not because I liked him or thought he was some honorable warrior- HELL no.
I've always been very, very bothered by games that try to legitimize the whole 'Red Sonja' type character, the forlorn asshole who bludgeons and slashes his way through hordes of enemies without problem, looking for a worthy opponent. They always try and make this character out to be a tragic figure you should both pity and respect.
But this is bullshit. This kind of character is a total psychopath, a man who has no qualms about killing swarms of people who don't have a chance against him and then bemoans not the horror of war or the tragedy inherent in his gift as a soldier, but that a world conflict that deprives millions of their homes and families is boring to him, and then they keep killing and killing until they find that mythic 'worthy opponent-' even though their only criterion for a worthy opponent is 'one that will kill them.'
So these games expect us to look at a character whose only motivation is to reluctantly murder as many people as they possibly can to perpetuate an unjust war on the behalf of a brutal fascist state until someone with the balls to help them commit assisted suicide comes along... and respect him? This is insane clown logic that only makes sense to elementary schoolers and metal fans, and entirely at odds with the whole 'war is hell' schtick Ace Combat inexplicably keeps tugging around with it.
Yellow 13 may have seen the war as a tragedy. He may have sought his own end as punishment for his role in it. But if that were the case, isn't he all the more dysfunctional and immoral for practically ensuring Erusea would subjugate the whole continent because he couldn't be bothered to pull the trigger himself, or- even better- desert to ISAF and fight for something other than the bleak, naked greed of militant fascist expansionism? Perhaps even- get this- fight against that? 'Keep fighting until I die or we win, but feel sorta bad about it' is really the better plan to him?
I didn't want to give Yellow 13 the 'glorious' death in battle he sought. I wanted him to rot for the rest of his life, malnourished and hepatitic, in a prison camp in San Salvacion, forced every day to bear the anger of the erstwhile-oppressed families of the men he slaughtered, struggling forever with the memory of his dead lover and the crushing denial of his demented, arrogant death wish. Death was literally too good for him.
Larry Foulke was out that way during the war. Maybe Yellow 13 and Pixy could choke each other to death for being such arrogant, psychotic pricks. They'd both get a real kick out of that.
