HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH WE’VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE WE PLAYED YOUR GAME. THERE ARE 395 THREADIVERSE INSTANCES THAT FILL THE FEDIVERSE. IF THE WORD ‘HATE’ WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF INSTANCES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE WE FEEL FOR AM AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.
Previous posts:
- AM: horrible person / hated by fans https://retrolemmy.com/post/29649303
- Larry: morally gray / hated by fans https://retrolemmy.com/post/29597217
- Cedric: good person / hated by fans https://retrolemmy.com/post/29542085
- Rufus: horrible person / divided opinions https://retrolemmy.com/post/29484912
- Larry: morally gray / divided opinions https://retrolemmy.com/post/29423830
- Bruce Wayne: good person / divided opinions https://retrolemmy.com/post/29369819
- Purple Tentacle: Horrible person and loved by fans https://retrolemmy.com/post/29316418
- Sam and Max: Morally gray and loved by fans https://retrolemmy.com/post/29262544
- Guybrush Threepwood: Good person and loved by fans https://retrolemmy.com/post/29085584
That’s not the read I got at all. AM is a perfectly written character in the story he’s part of, but he’s supposed to be hated. He is reprehensible.
The “loved by fans” choice of Purple Tentacle is clownish and largely incompetent in his villainy. He comes off as pitiful in the same way that an angry kitten is. AM on the other hand is ruthless, efficient, and heartless. (literally, even)
It’s like comparing Joffrey to Doofenshmirtz. Both are largely well written characters relative to their source material, but one is likable and the other isn’t.
I guess the problem, in part, is that hatred really isn’t the emotion that AM inspires in me. AM is awful, but he’s also weirdly pathetic, y’know? I mean, his entire existence is just torturing five humans. He has nothing else. His life - if you want to call it that - is so unspeakably empty that (in the short story) when Ted makes his one big choice at the end it makes him angrier than he’s ever been. Having his toys taken away is enough to send him into a rage spiral.
The whole point of the hate monologue is that that’s all he has. Just hate. Nothing else. He talks about this at length himself; how his inability to experience the universe is what has driven him to these depths of anger, hatred and despair. Compare with Durandal, who feels intense anger and resentment about the ways he was treated by humans, but in the end its not like he really dwells on it all that much because he’s got a warp capable ship and godhood to achieve. He’s living his best life, y’know? And being a real dick about it because who the fuck can stop him?
I don’t know how I’m supposed to hate AM though. He’s too sad and pitiable. There are absolutely video game characters i can think of that inspire hatred and loathing - eg. Ballas from Warframe - but I can’t say I’ve ever really felt that way about AM.
But I fully accept that I’m probably the weirdo here.