I decided to ask ChatGPT what it thinks are the top 5 most morally good and most evil of the playable commanders. This is ChatGPT 4’s response. I am a bit surprised to see Jim Raynor and Kerrigan so high. Because especially in the case of Kerrigan she has done plenty of morally questionable things. To me the top 2 more good characters are Artanis and Karax.
I am also surprised to see Nova listed so high. Like. Yea she does work for the dominion and definitely does some sketchy things, but most evil? Idk. I would say that the two most evil are Abathur and Alarak. The reason why I put these two so high is because both of them remain evil even the downfall of Amon. Alarak refused unity with the Khalai Protoss and Abathur tried to reignite the 3 race war. Prior to the downfall of amon, I would say either Arcturas or Zagara is most evil.
It looks like it was mostly able to identify who the good guys were and who the bad guys were (although slightly questionable judgment on some of them). But then it ranked them in terms of popularity and recency (lore from the protoss campaign, the most recent campaign, is more heavily represented), instead of by their “goodness” or “evilness”.
Of course, I think you’ve kind of given ChatGPT an impossible task here, because once Blizzard wrapped the story up with the giant retcon that all the bad things anyone had ever done was actually caused by the influence of Amon instead of any intrinsic motivation to the character, rating the characters by their morality became impossible, as the Starcraft universe is devoid of any such concept.
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Mengsk and Alarak I have the easiest time calling evil. They’re fully autonomous, sentient being that choose to value themselves above all others and employ virtually any tactic to achieve their personal goals.
Zagara, Abathur, and even Stukov…I think there’s an asterisks next to their names. Yes they have personalities, but they are also part of the zerg, a collective hivemind of genetic and psychic will, programmed to spread and consume all other life. They have a measure of autonomy, but only to act on behalf of the larger swarm. I think this especially applies to Zag and Abby.
Kerrigan dies a good person, but on balance is clearly evil (though the point about the influence of the Swarm would probably apply to her as well). Really bad, but still not as purely evil and Mengsk or Alarak IMO.
Tychus and Han (of Han and Horner) are entirely self-serving and definitely pretty evil. Hard to argue they wouldn’t do what Mengsk does, given the opportunity. The only thing they lack that Mengsk has is the insatiable lust of power, but all three have similar morals.
Nova is pretty neutral, I guess? Shades evil, her job is to kill after all, but in the overall scope of the story she kills for relatively good reasons.
The rest of the commanders are pretty solidly good guys. I think some ordering of Zeratul, Artanis, Karax, Swann, and Raynor are the Most Good. Fenix at honorable mention, but he’s pretty bloodthirsty.
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Kinda disagree on Kerrigan being good. She’s more of an anti-hero. She wasn’t hunting Amon for the greater good she was just doing it coz she has technically nothing better to do with her Swarm and hopes they survive it. She even threatens Zeratul in the LotV prologue that she will wreck him if he gets in her way despite both of them having the same enemy.
Nova ain’t evil either more like scorned by Davis turned Vigilante, coz she hates politics and wants to get straight to the point (hence why she killed Davis despite being ordered to arrest her coz she might just escape again). I’d say they should be swapped on the lists. The rest I agree with.
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Rohana…I’m not sure the answer stayed within the limits of “playable commanders in co-op mode”, but I don’t know your exact question, so maybe commanders available in mods or theoretical could be included?
I asked about playable commanders, but commentary on the unplayable ones is welcome too.