Haven't I seen this guy somewhere?
At first glance, Nathan Drake, the hero of the Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune seems like a pretty sweet dude. His ability to laugh in the face of danger, his dark-haired boyish good looks, and his knowledge of ancient cultures makes ladies swoon and men look up in awe. But what’s most enticing about Drake is the fact that beyond his adventurous experiences, he seems like a fairly regular guy; he reacts to things like grenades and swaths of enemies like most regular Joes would – “Shit”. Indeed, Drake seems like the kinda guy who goes to a bar in between international adventures, orders a couple beers and talks about sports while checking out ladies and making off-color remarks. He seems like the kinda guy that, despite being somewhat of a douche, you would probably get along with.
Except that you’d be dead wrong, because Drake is basically demon incarnate.
Drake takes a lot of his cues from another classic adventurer, Indiana Jones. Like Indy, Drake attempts to discover artifacts from ancient, dead cultures; what’s different is a question of character motivation. The way Indiana Jones works as a good guy is that his adventures are purely some fun on the side; he retains a day job as a university professor (though how he’s able to cut class whenever he wants to go on globetrotting adventures is a mystery to me). Most importantly, he seeks these ancient artifacts for the pursuit of knowledge – as he says, “artifacts belong in a museum”. Thus, while Indy obviously gets some self-satisfaction from the thrill and excitement of adventure, as well as an escape from his day job, his pursuit is a noble one.
You know why Nathan Drake risks his life to find artifacts from ancient cultures? Money. Oh, sure, by the end of the game, Drake is trying to find the treasure of El Dorado to save the world, but until the end of the game, everything Drake does is for cash. We get no indication that Drake has any sort of a day job – this cultural grave-robbing seems to be his primary source of income. This is not a noble pursuit; on the contrary, it is an entirely selfish one, actually depriving the human race of the knowledge that obtaining these priceless artifacts would bring. The only difference between Nathan Drake and Gabriel Roman (the villain of the game) is that Drake is young, pretty, and charming.
In fact, when you look at it, Drake is actually much worse than Roman. Looking at my medals from Uncharted, I can see that I killed, AT THE VERY LEAST, 380 people. This only includes the medals that I got for killing a certain number of enemies with a certain weapon – I didn’t get the medals for several of the guns. This means that chances are, the body count for the first Uncharted game is probably somewhere between 400 and 450. As far as I can tell, Roman doesn’t kill a single person throughout the entire game. Granted, you could make the argument that these people are all “evil”, but that doesn’t really work, as all of these people are there for the same reason that Drake is.
Not even Drake’s creators at Naughty Dog realize how much of a dastardly asshole he is. No remorse for his victims is ever shown, and it’s never hinted at that maybe, just maybe, Drake is wrong to be tracking down these things for his own personal means, or that he kills others with an attitude bordering on enthusiasm. The reason why Drake is the greatest villain of all-time is that he fools everyone, in-game and out: himself, his best friend, his love interest, his own creators, and, most importantly, the player.
5 comments:
I think you're a bit harsh. Yes, he's the protagonist but that doesn't mean he has to be inherently good. He's an average guy who wants to earn a few bucks, and at least in the first game, its based on his ancestor's lost fortune. He's like any other realistic treasure hunter (because lets face it, Indiana Jones is not realistic), he's after fame and fortune. But 'demon incarnate?' Too much man! He's an asshole, but by creating a character with such faults, Naughty Dog inserts a bit of realism into this over-the-top action adventure.
That's what I think anyhow.
I never posted anything on Uncharted 1 or 2 on my blog, because I had beaten them both long before starting it, but I'm interested in your opinion regardless.
Listen, I LIKE Drake. I think his dialogue is written well and he's a good character. But his character does not have faults - that's the problem. Sure, he messes up once in a while, but he's attractive and charming, he always wins, and he always gets the girl. If you actually look at it, motivation-wise he is no different.
And your point about "realism" is bullshit - Drake is not realistic. He's an ordinary guy who's able to plow through four hundred and fifty henchmen, some who clearly have a form of training? My ass. If you're talking about "realism", Indiana Jones is a much more realistic character.
Yeah, I have to say (not having played it, mind you) that sounds pretty fuckin' far from "realism". Realism would be showing some kind of hesitation BEFORE killing hundreds of people, and some kind of remorse after. Also, realism would be ONE of those people killing him. Like, come on. A realistic character would be conflicted, wouldn't always get the girl, would have a much more developed backstory and, most importantly, would spend a lot more time doing mundane things that don't involve killing henchmen.
But it's a video game, not a movie, and of course you can only have so much realism in an action/adventure game. Sounds like fun, to me.
Your post reminded me of this comic: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/19/
Haha yeah that's basically what the game is like.
And yeah, the game is.....well actually, the first Uncharted kind of sucks, but the second one is AWESOME!! Seriously. Rad. Review coming soon.
You're bashing me on the 'realism' comment I made. The only thing I really wanted to mention (but went off on a tangent like I usually do) is that calling Nathan Drake the greatest villain of all time is a gross overstatement. That's all.
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