The Let's Play Archive

Killzone 2

by Blind Sally, nine-gear crow, et al.

Part 17: Visari



This is it. The final cutscene of the game. I highly, highly recommend watching this cutscene without commentary. It's only six minutes long, and Brian Cox absolutely kills it. The confrontation between Sev, Rico, and Visari is incredible. In a game series that's all about Shakespeare (allegedly), this is the single most Shakespearean scene.

Just trust me, watch it. In fact, I'll link it again in case you missed it up top:



First thing we see upon entering Visari's inner sanctum:



Helghast Triads. All over the place. The same images we saw in the very opening scene of Killzone 1:



The same three-pronged image we've seen all over the Heghast uniforms and Helghan itself. To reiterate it's intended meaning, the three arms are supposed to represent the three major factions involved in the colonization efforts of Alpha Centauri. Namely, the UCN (Earth), the Helghan Administration (Helghan), and the ISA (Vekta). Of course, that was back before the First Extrasolar War, before the term "Helghast" had been coined. Under Visari's rule, the symbol has been co-opted and now represents: the Duty every Helghast has to dream of a free Helghan, the Obedience that every Helghast must show if all are to survive, the Loyalty every Helghast should have for their government. So, Duty, Obedience, and Loyalty--to Helghast and Scolar Visari.

Okay, good, let's head on in.



Damn. Nice office. Remember, "Visari's Palace" was originally the Helghan Administration building. This is the office of a very wealthy and powerful CEO.



The man himself, watching Pyrrhus City burn. The whole "Pyrrhic Victory" reference is making a whole lot of sense now, huh? Also, Visari needs an instrument. He should be playing music while he watches his city burn. Give the man a fiddle or a lyre or something, hey?



This is super interesting. It's Sev who takes the lead, not Rico, despite the fact that Rico is the Squad Leader. I think Rico's too stunned in this moment. Too much anger. Too much hate. He's not good at dealing with his emotions. He's just kind of speechless. It's like he never really expected to get this close to Visari.

Visari's booming "And who are you?" is fantastic. Really, if you've gotten to this point and skipped watching the commentary-less cutscene, you should go back. Brian Cox's delivery of Visari's lines is flawless.



Look at his face. This isn't what he was expecting. This isn't what he wanted.

"They send a Sergeant to take Visari?"



nine-gear crow has a mini-rant to go along with this particular line which is more eloquent that what I would've come up with. All I'll say is I love that he switches to the third-person here, referring to himself as if "Visari" were a force of nature, rather than a human being.

nine-gear crow posted:

“They send a sergeant to take Visari?” This, to me, nine-gear crow, is probably the seminal line of Killzone 2 as a work of fiction. Killzone 2 essentially is about things falling apart and not working out the way you envisioned or planned them working out and we’re treated in this instance to the faintest glimpse of how Scolar Visari even envisioned his deposal playing out.

Visari is a man obsessed by narratives, be they individual narratives, interwoven metanarratives (narratives which concern narration itself), or even the all-encompassing Grand Narrative of Jean-François Lyotard. Narrative is a common concern among dictators, who place themselves in the position of the authors of their societies and cultures. Take Visari’s various game-opening speeches and the pieces of artwork and statuaries we’ve glimpsed up till this point which glorify and even deify Visari and the revolution which put him in power in the first place. You don’t need to look far to see real world examples of dictators obsessed with imposing their own narrative on the world. And nothing upsets them more than when the narrative they’ve crafted, or want to see unfold is violated in some fashion.

Which brings us back to the line, “they send a sergeant to take Visari?” Visari is simultaneously resigned to his fate in this moment, and insulted by it. In his mind, in his narrative, he deserves—no, he NEEDS to be taken in by someone of stature, someone important, someone with a name people will know and remember, someone with a prevailing counter-narrative of their own, not someone who’s going to become famous by bringing in Visari. The sad irony is that the only man who would have been worthy in Visari’s eyes as the one to take him in was Templar.

The irony is, Visari walked himself into this ignoble defeat at the hands of a mere sergeant by his war machine doing its job all too well. This is the culmination of the disruption of the original Killzone’s narrative arc. This was supposed to be the big confrontation between Templar and Visari, where our hero Templar triumphs finally over the big villain whose fault this whole mess is (relatively speaking, see the Lore and History updates for the actual causes of this conflict).

It’s no wonder then that we see Visari both try to talk himself out of this predicament and, paradoxically, try to goad Sev into killing him by striking at any raw nerve he can find after everything that’s occurred in probably the past day and a half in-game. Everything has fallen apart, and the story of the Man Who Made Helghan Great is about to end with the line “and he was taken into custody by ISA Sergeant Tomas Sevchenko…”

Visari has ended up in his own ironic hell, and now fate of the most important man in the galaxy is in the hands of nothing more than a non-descript cog… and his mentally unstable war criminal CO.

…Let’s see how this plays out now.



Sev just wants to do his job. To take Visari in. To end this conflict. Annoyed at the inconvenience of his capture, Visari insists on engaging in some back and forth verbal sparring. Note: Rico still hasn't said word one. In fact, he's standing behind Sevchenko, as if he were the subordinate.



Oh god, don't let him keep speaking, Sev! Visari is a master of rhetoric. If there's is a way to get you wound up, he will find it. As JamieTheD points out in the video, Sev is even-tempered enough to ignore it.

But what about Rico?



Not exactly true. The Helghast have physically lost a lot. Ideologically, however, Visari is right. If anything, the dropping of the Red Dust nuke only further cemented in the minds of his people the true righteousness of the Helghast nation. Duty, Obedience, Loyalty. Duty, Obedience, Loyalty. The Helghast people, soldiers and civilians, believe the ISA dropped the nuke. Now is not the time to abandon their cause. Now is the time to fight even harder.

If you watch carefully, you can see Rico glance over at Sev a couple times. Is he nervous? Agitated? Confused?



And then Visari drops the "martyr" bomb.



That look on Rico's face. You can just tell that he can't believe what he's hearing. Of course though, Visari is right. He has every reason to be confident in his safety. As he just said, "the Helghast have lost nothing". As if the belief that the Red Dust nuke was an ISA attack wasn't enough to galvanize a populace, could you imagine what it would mean if the ISA were responsible for the death of their leader, whom they worshipped like a god?

No, Visari is safe.

"Your fleet burned, your friends butchered, and you become a hero for saving my life?"



No. No, it doesn't. To Sevchenko, it sounds like the ramblings of a madman. A madman who's about to face justice for those he killed. Sev knows what's going on and sees right through it. Sev isn't just some grunt. He comes from a wealthy, upper class Vektan family. He's educated. He's smart. His family didn't want him to join the military, they wanted him to go into law or something. Sev isn't about to let anyone talk circles around him. He's elite. He's Alpha Squad.

Now Rico, his skills may be beyond question, but he certainly doesn't excel in the rhetoric department. Hakha talked circles around him in Killzone 1, and Visari's talking circles around him now. Rico is eating up Visari's bullshit, taking it all at face value. "Become a hero for saving [Visari's] life?" You're damn straight that doesn't sound like a victory to Rico. That sounds like defeat. That sounds like the cowards way out. That sounds like a betrayal. A betrayal of all those ISA soldiers who died in this conflict. Most important, it sounds like a betrayal of his friend, Jan Templar. Rico wants his vengeance. He will not be denied.



And he finally speaks, not a word in argument, but an outburst of rage and frustration. Sev stops him, not fully comprehending what's going on with Rico, distracted by Visari's charisma.



Visari is signing his own death warrant, and he doesn't realize it. To be fair, he has no idea who these two people are. ISA soldiers, sure. One of them is a Sergeant. The other, the quiet one, is probably some grunt. A Private? A Corporal? Visari has no idea it's Rico Velasquez, and that's important, because Visari actually probably knows who "Rico" is. I mean, he wouldn't have known during the events of Killzone 1. He was in contact with Lente, so he probably would have heard that a Captain Templar was causing trouble for their invasion forces with a small group of soldiers that included the traitor, Gregor Hakha. Afterwards, though, with Adams, Lente, and the SD Platforms defeated? Well, that whole squad becomes ISA war heroes. I mean, yeah, I can see Hakha and Luger's involvement being hushed up, seeing as they're a spy and covert ops respectively, but Templar and Rico? Regular guys. Heroes. They both got promotions. I am sure that General Stratson would've passed along that info to Visari and the rest of the Helghast High Command. Why not? Rico, along with Templar, continued to be a problem for the Helghast in Southern Vekta. Metrac captured Rico. Stratson tricked Rico into betraying the ISA. Rico is a big enough player that his name would be of some importance to Visari, I truly believe that. Sevchenko? No. He's new. Like crow says, Sevchenko is the kind of guy who would become famous by capturing Visari. Rico helped defeat General Adams and General Lente, halting the northern invasion of Vekta and liberating the SD Platforms, AND he helped defeat Colonel Cobar and General Metrac, halting the southern invasion of Vekta while revealing Stratson to be a traitor. Visari's capture would just be another bullet point in Rico's long list of heroic achievements.

HOWEVER, Rico neglected to mentioned who he was when they entered the sanctum. Sevchencko took the lead, Rico stood back. Visari literally has no idea who he's talking to. I'm sure that if he did, this entire exchange would have gone differently.



And so, blissfully unaware of who stands before him, Visari cranks up the rhetoric to 11--



--before moving on to threats of doom and gloom.



We have a wonderful bit of visual imagery here. Scolar Visari and Tomas Sevchenko face-to-face. This is the very same imagery we started out this game with:



Only now the roles are reversed (literally, Sev was on the left in the earlier image, he's on the right now). Where once Visari was the more powerful of the two, now Sev holds all the cards. You could argue that this power was represented by the "glow" of the television screen that Visari's image bathed Sev in. Now, it's the light on Sev's uniform that bathes Visari in the sickly blue light of the ISA.

We gave Metrac a hard time for having a light on his uniform that seemed to serve no other purpose than to cause dramatic lighting, but I'll be damned if it doesn't look super cool here.

Anyways, as we know, Rico shoots. Here's Visari screaming in Sevchenko's face, pronouncing their failure, and Rico finally snaps. He pulls the trigger.



How's that for you, Visari? How's your Great Narrative now, huh? Now it's all sorts of fucked up! You weren't expecting that, now were you?



Sev looks on in shock and horror. It takes Rico fractions of a second to realize just what a stupid mistake he has made.



In a fit of passion, seeking revenge for the countless comrades he has lost, including his best (and likely only) friend, Rico Velasquez has damned this mission. I mean, not only has he basically sentenced all of the remaining soldiers of Battlegroup Mandrake to death, but now all three objectives of the Vektan ISA's invasion plan have failed. Let's re-cap. The ISA's objectives on Helghan were:

Well, the Helghast have most certainly not been removed as a threat. Rico just killed Visari, so there goes the whole public trial thing. Oh, and "establish a more easily controlled regime?" With the Helghast military still intact and their leader dead at the hands of the ISA? Ha, good luck with that. This whole mission is a failure. We failed to accomplish any of our longterm goals in Killzone 2. I mean, if Visari was still alive, we could've leveraged him to get the remaining soldiers of Battlegroup Mandrake to safety. The trial could have been held. With Visari captive, we MIGHT have even been able to establish a new regime, one sympathetic to the ISA. The military is another problem, by 2 out of 3 isn't bad. It could've worked out.

Except for Rico.

I'm just gonna leave this here. You fill it out. You all know what Rico did:



Oh yeah, and remember how I talked about Killzone 1 being a sort-of-reverse-Heart Of Darkness? One where we started out in the pits of insanity and crawled our way back out of the river until we reached something resembling Hope? And how Killzone 2 is a proper reference to Heart Of Darkness where we start off feeling hopeful and then head on up the Corinth River, further and further into the insanity that is Helghan?

Just a sayin'.



The horror. The horror.



Visari's last sight is that of the symbol that represents his people. His ideas. The Helghast Triad.

Duty, Obedience, Loyalty. Duty, Obedience, Loyalty. Duty, Obedience, Loyalty.



I mean, Visari even looks like Marlon Brando.



Rico just sort of gives up. He sits down in the corner, the weight of his actions pulling him down.



Narville and Natko arrive. They're too late. They see the scene and know they're fucked.



Natko just accepts it (but he still takes the time to see if his friend is okay--you're alright, Natko ). Narville tries to rationalize it, to explain it away.

Sev says nothing.



He walks outside. Visari was right, the madness has begun.



Remember wondering where the Helghast naval fleet went? Yeah, Admiral Gray's first wave took out a whole bunch of them. Some stragglers, under Radec's command, were able to attack and infiltrate the New Sun, but they were ultimately beaten back too. It seemed as though the Helghast really only had the Arc Weapons and their ground troops going for them, right?

Wrong!

I've quietly dropped the excuse a couple of times, but now we're going to hammer the point home. Wasn't it convenient how there were NO civilians in Pyrrhus City? Say what you will about Visari, but he had the entire civilian populace evacuated. Only soldiers stayed behind. Only Helghast military and ISA died in the nuclear blast. All the civilians went to Konstantine City. Not an easy task. It took time. An entire city's population? Big task. Well, they're done now, and they've returned to Pyrrhus to add their support in the fight against the ISA.



Battlegroup Mandrake is more or less doomed. Captain Narville's Avenger Convoy is the only functioning spearhead. The nuke wiped out the majority of the ISA forces in the area, so aside from a few pockets of survivors, there won't be anyone to call for backup. Oh, there's like, three ISA Cruisers still hanging around, but they're all damaged to some degree from the last Helghast counter-attack.

This is it.

Sev knows this, so he gives. His final act in Killzone 2 is to sit down on the steps of Visari Palace in resignation.



The players last image is that of Helghast Admiral Orlock's fleet, flying in to crush all the player's accomplishments.

Congratulations.

You've done it.

You've beat(?) Killzone 2.

nine-gear crow posted:

I prefer to believe this is how Killzone 2 really ended. It's not much of a consolation, but whatever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL2JFiCZDag

(Apologies on the cropping of the video, I forgot that Premiere's "1080p" aspect ratio isn't 1:1 with an actual 1080p ratio)

PREMIEREEEEEE!!!!



Meeting Colonel Kurtz:


Alpha Squad and Avenger Convoy are doomed:


Gargamel Gibson posted:

Now do we get an answer to the question posed in the thread title? I'm not sure I understand what "Why are you, Sevchenko" means, but I certainly want to know the answer.

Blind Sally posted:

I'm gonna let CJacobs field this one.

CJacobs posted:

There are many interpretations of what the title of this thread could potentially mean. I will list for you now just a few, though there are many more, possibly so many that they wouldn't fit in SA's unusually long max word count!

1. First, the obvious: The question I'm sure many people found themselves asking at the beginning of the game. Why are you Sevchenko? Why not Garza, the superior member of the crew (rip)? Why not Natko, the wisecracking jerkoff who apparently can't hold down a marriage? Why not that other guy everybody hates whose name doesn't even deserve to be uttered? Most importantly, why not Templar, the best character? I think the answer to all of these lies in the fact that Sevchenko is graced with plot muteness. Much like Jak of the Jak and Daxter games, he CAN talk, he just doesn't unless the player is not driving his consciousness. None of the other characters have this ability- or, perhaps, curse -and to that end Sevchenko is the best qualified player character. Someone who won't interrupt the player's either rage on the battlefield or awe at the horrors of war when it's their turn to be in the driver's seat, but who can speak up against that dumb asshole who ruined everything when it really, really counts. Or at least show some disappointment.

2. The next one is a little bit more meta. One could ask, why are you, Sevchenko? What purpose does he serve? Outside of cutscenes and even sometimes inside them he is a non-character, a blank stand-in for the player. He says what you are most likely thinking and in some cases is just so dumbfounded at that drooling retarded crewmate of his that he doesn't even need to say anything, his expression says it all, particularly at the tail end of the game. Every character has a purpose in the story: Garza serves as the moral support, Natko serves as the comic relief, and that other guy tries to do well but is literally incapable of it by some kind of unfortunate birth defect or something. Sevchenko, in terms of the squad, serves no purpose. He doesn't even lead the team; you spend most of your time following the other NPCs around until you end up in a fighting arena at which point they let you run ahead to have fun shooting those poor underage drafted Higs. But I think Sevchenko does serve a purpose to you, the player; not just because you control him or because he allows some literal navel-gazing given the camera placement, but because without him you would be controlling someone who has a role already. If you controlled any of the other squadmates, even the shithead one, you'd be put in the shoes of someone who already HAS a personality, leaving no room for you to project your own.

3. Finally, from a philosophical standpoint: Why are you, Sevchenko? Why is Killzone? Why are any of us? I think this one needs no explanation. But I'll explain it anyway because having 3 things on a list is more aesthetically pleasing to humans for some reason. If there was no Sevchenko, there would be no Killzone 2. If there was no Killzone 2, there would be no Let's Play of Killzone 2. If there was no Let's Play of Killzone 2 there would probably be a fully completed LP of Prince of Persia 2008 but that's beside the point. Without Killzone 2, the rest of the series and this thread would not exist and all of the compiled minutes into hours spent recording, editing, and posting therein would be spent doing other things. Nine-Gear Crow might have cured cancer; Blind Sally may have become the dictator of Belarus. Myself and the rest of the co-commentators may have banded together as one red army and overthrown the proletariat. The possibilities for all of the time spent on Killzone 2 not just by us in this thread, but the millions of people and millions of hours cumulatively spent playing it, are endless. All of those hours that could have been exhausted doing anything whether more or less important have been permanently tied to Tomas Sevchenko And His Band Of Merry Assholes. Human life is short and ends sometimes on a moment's notice and all of us, together, have given up pieces of our lives to enjoy Killzone 2 together. Not just to play Killzone 2, but to steer around Sevchenko, all 2.5 feet of him.

Thus, Sevchenko is the culmination of millions of hours' worth of human life. He is the most important character in Killzone 2. That is why he is.