The story is very inconsistent with how Zeratul look upon by other protoss. During WoL prophecy missions and the LoV prologue, Zeratul comes across random protoss that are like “it is an honor great one”, "let us aid you on your quest " (by the way RIP High Templar Karass) . On the other hand when Zeratul shows up before the invasion to reclaim Air, Slendis is like "arrest this traitor ". I get why Vorazum harbors anger towards him but the Selendis reaction makes no sense when all these other random templar take no issue offering him aid.
I think writers were trying to paint Zeratul as someone who acted for the greater good at the expense of his place in protoss society. But yet despite being a supposed outcast all these random protoss went out of their way to help him .
Societies are rarely unified in their thoughts and opinions. I think it makes more sense that the rank and file templar still hold respect for Zeratul, given that they don’t really care about the politics of his actions, and Artanis, of course, is his friend. Selendis, meanwhile, is a very “classic” Khalai, who was uncomfortable with the Nerazim to begin with, and then he comes in telling them to stop with a project that she has a deep and personal investment in.
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The Adept from the prologue has mad respect for him too (forget her name).
But yes I agree.
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That’s always something I found weird as well, especially if you go with the expanded works on Selendis that she worked alongside Zeratul in Enslavers II and seemed ok with him in the DT Saga. Also the vague hints she’s probably the Executor of Episode IV. The only thing with her was her slight dislike of the Nerazim but that isn’t enough to hate Zeratul as much as she does in the intro.
My personal reasoning is protoss opinion is split on him, but two key events turned a lot of the population against him. The first is known, killing Raszagal, the most important member of Nerazim society, even if he did have his reasons (incidentally I wish they kept the quote Vorazun had talking about how mad she was with Artanis allying with Kerrigan in LotV, would have made her rage a lot more justified).
The other is a bit more complex, but in the DT Saga (which introduced Selendis), the preserver Zamara meets with Zeratul, and he says that Zamara will have preserved his failure of leading the zerg to Aiur for all to see once she returns to the protoss. My general theory is that his involvement in leading the zerg to Aiur wasn’t known by the greater whole of the protoss until Zamara returned, as we see even when she was sealed in the crystal with Ulrezaj, she was able to give memories enough for the protoss to reactivate the colossi in the short story Colossus. And we also see Artanis was willing to keep some events from the greater whole of the Daelaam (the assault to retrieve wounded protoss from Aiur from Enslavers II), so in spite of him likely knowing he could have kept it to himself. I think when Zamara memories revealed Zeratul’s accidentally leading the zerg to Aiur, it was the nail in the coffin in public opinion for him for a lot of Khalai like Selendis. His self imposed exile became a true exile.
It’s something I wish they went into more, especially since in HotS they imply him helping Kerrigan would be the great crime they’d kill him for. I do think the above theory does rectify it a bit, that he’s a hero to some but hated by others for his actions, but sadly it hasn’t been confirmed.
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Where’s that from? I would have liked any evidence at all that people in SC2 disliked working with a mass murderer like Kerrigan.
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It’s nothing massive, but the sound file in the editor is “pResponse_DTLeader_DTLeader_038”
The Queen of Blades is now our ally?! It is too much to bear…
Again, it’s really nothing much, but I would have liked it over the entirely of her rage being focused on Zeratul.
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To be honest, I have a completely different opinion about the initial Lotv cinematic and the attempt to “arrest” Zeratul.
I am more than confident that such a radical decision was caused by banal security measures. Zeratul suddenly appeared on the bridge of the flagship exactly behind the head of state at the most crucial moment, without any warning or verification. In this situation, Selendis makes the most competent decision-to surround the uninvited guest in order to preserve the safety of Artanis, so it is pointless to blame her for this.
Zeratul was in exile for many years. Who knows what might have happened to him during this time-if he had lost his mind or was planning something bad against the Protoss? In addition, in SC lore we have many examples of mind control Protoss, remember the same Kerrigan with Rashzhagal. Zeratul could have been hit by something like this himself.
So they surrounded him and tried to arrest him. Not out of personal hatred, not out of Selendis’s mental instability, but out of banal security concerns. Artanis, Selendis, and other Protoss have a deep respect for Zeratul, and this is easy to prove. Zeratul along with other Protoss takes part in the battle for Ayur. And Selendis, who recently tried to arrest the “traitor”, trusts Zeratul with her troops and the life of Artanis.
I think Selendis called Zeratul a traitor simply because of the emotional strain. All the same, they are preparing the most important moment in the life of the Protoss, the return of their native world. So, apparently, Selendis just got nervous and snapped at Zeratul.
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I believe it was Talis. Took me a bit to remember.
Yep.
This scene is really the least of Starcraft’s storytelling problems.
Did Talis canonically die in last prologue mission? You get her personality in Fenix Co-OP, which implies her death, but Co-OP isn’t cannon. I don’t recall seeing her death or anything implying her death. They were under pressure from the Taldarim but she could have gotten out.
I know High Templar Karass died. May his soul rest in protoss heaven, one of the true one-off heroes of the franchise.
She dies canonically. The temple is collapsing as she holds off the Tal’darim. They say she dies in a few places, and Zeratul implies it in the outro.
Much like Fenix/Talandar, the Purifier Talis is a backup of that personality from when they scanned her brain.
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Actually, if we took co-op as canon (which we don’t) it implies she did not die, because her personality would have to have been encoded either after Fenix and the purifier equipment was retrieved from Glacius, or before the fall of the conclave. The later is possible, but unlikely since her significance was mostly due to recent exploits. On the other hand, she was entrusted as one of the very first adepts, so her being one of the first of the purifier revival program is not too big a stretch.
The purifiers as a whole create a serious case of “where is camera?”
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One of the best points for anything I have seen here lately.
in reality the existence of a purifier does not imply death, purifiers are mental clones, could happen that the protagonist of the intro stay alive and meet his robotized version , since its destiny has not been confirmed the existence of a clone means that it was considered for the new purifier program