I do love the implications of the two scenes of Doomguy trying to break free of the tether. The first time, he's trying to do it on rage alone, and isn't that interesting, that he keeps thinking of the mark? Because we know it's not just his mark, not just the mark of the Divinity Machine, it's just as much Davoth's mark. It's Davoth's energy that's running through the Slayer. And what are the implications of that, that Davoth doesn't want Doomguy under the maykrs' control, either? After all, that was why he gave the Slayer his power, to get his revenge, to get the Slayer to tear the maykrs apart. Davoth is trying just as hard to break Doomguy free, in the beginning.
(And what does that say about Ahzrak's chances of success, then? That his own dark lord of Hell is trying to break the Slayer free? You were doomed from the start, buddy. If anything, Ahzrak was Hell's own sacrificial lamb, sent to help snap Doomguy out of it and get him back on track where Davoth wanted him.)
Either way, though, Doomguy fails to free himself the first time. And the second time, Davoth, the mark, the concept of rage- if any of it is present, none of it is conscious. Doomguy just realizes that there are civilians in danger, and the Kreed doesn't intend to send him down to do something about it. That's all it's ever been about, protecting people, and the Slayer isn't going to let the tether, or the maykrs, or being blasted to bits by their containment system stop him. That's enough to break him out of their control.
Idk. I just really like how explicitly clear tda makes it that it's not about the rage, and it never has been.
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Samuel Hayden is such a comedic character, and the DLCs just make him even more ridiculous. Like the first time you meet him you think he's this sick robot with a cool voice who runs the biggest research company in the solar system, and then you learn that before that he was some sort of quasi-angel extradimensional angel creature, but then you actually start looking at him and his actions, and he's just so stupid.
Like, he was there when Argent D'nur literally went to Hell, then when he came to Earth to hide with the consciousness of a god that was being actively hunted by the dark lord of Hell, his first decision was to assume the position of the head of the company that was regularly opening portals to Hell. When he found doomguy in Hell, he just decided to keep DG in the sarcophagus like instant supersoldier in a can, just add water. At the end of 2016, he kicks doomguy back into Hell with the implication that it's because he thinks using Argent Energy is the only way to do things, then he goes and straight up dies offscreen, and when you bring him back in Eternal, he spends the rest of the game telling you how Earth's destruction wasn't his fault, and how if he had been the one in control, it wouldn't have happened, even though he literally was the one in control of the UAC when they opened the hell portals. He also spends a considerable amount of time talking about he's on doomguy's side, only to go and try to stop doomguy from fighting Davoth. Then after he gets his butt thoroughly kicked, he presumably dies offscreen again, going by the way he's hardly ever mentioned at all for the entire rest of the story- except to say that his only real claim to fame, putting doomguy through the Divinity Machine, wasn't even really his own idea and he was being manipulated by Davoth, so basically whatever he said about doomguy owing him anything was entirely false.
All I'm saying is that you think he's a jerk but has at least some sort of intelligence in there, but the second you actually start to look at him, it turns out he only has a single braincell and it's wholly devoted to maintaining his ego.
I know this isnt a thing that Doom really does to begin with, but i think the harbor of souls level in TDA would've been such a good opportunity for diegetic gameplay. Some bits of the hud are def already canon, multiple characters throughout the series acknowledge the waypoints system, VEGA adds to the hud in the beginning of 2016, and the intern comments on Doomguy's mission objective in TAG2. But Doomguy doesn't have his helmet in the harbor of souls, so what if you just got rid of the hud entirely? "But what about your health-" i mean, hes already dead at that point, what are they gonna do, kill him more? Sure, keep the effects when you get hit, but you don't need to see your health if you can't die. Or better, they shouldve had an invisible health tracker that, when you died, still played the game over animation, Doomguy dropping his gun and falling over-- and then just getting up again to keep going. He already did that at the beginning of the level, why cant he do it again! I just think it wouldve been a really neat way to use the gameplay mechanics to emphasize that he simply refuses to Stay Down, even for death.
And the. Thira having such a plain and obvious shift in opinion about Doomguy. Yeah, she's against the tether from the start, but I get the impression she's more upset about having to beg the Kreed to send Doomguy instead of being able to deploy him at will, rather than being upset about Doomguy being a man who's had his autonomy stripped away. For the first two chapters of the game, she doesn't really acknowledge him directly. If there's something that needs doing, she instead tells someone to mark it on the Slayer's map, or route him toward a location, but she never talks to him. She treats him more like a tool to be weilded.
Then there's the dimensional barrier on Hebeth (and it's stupid that it's there, on Hebeth, but I digress,) and Doomguy rips out the barrier core, and Thira sees that. She didn't order him to do that, and neither did the maykrs, and he's not supposed to have anything in his head but hate and bloodlust. Yet here he is, taking an active time bomb, holding it to his chest, and trying to get as far out of the city as he can before it goes off. He's trying to save the city, Thira says, and after that, she doesn't just start talking to him instead of around him, she's ride or die with him. She trusts him with ancient secrets, and takes him to a sacred site, and is visibly, viscerally furious on his behalf when she's told the tether can't be removed.
Thira saw Doomguy trying to save people, even when he shouldn't have been able to, and she immediately trusted him with everything.
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Hey!! Sorry to hear you aren't feeling very well. As for asks, I was wondering if you have any headcanons for the Slayer's family-- as in his wife and son from that one photo (and also if you think he includes anyone else in his family!) Hope you feel better soon!
Ty for the ask, and for the well wishes!! I'm already doing a lot better :)
unfortunately! i Do Not Like the photo being doomguy's wife n kid for a couple reasons, but i'll throw it under a cut in case u don't wanna read me ranting about it. largely tho, i like to handwave it entirely by headcanoning that, what with him going mad between the end of 64 and landing in argent d'nur and almost definitely getting bonked on the head more than is healthy, doomguy can't actually remember much of his life before argent d'nur. mostly just the major story beats of doom i, ii, and 64, and a scattering of random details here and there. so here's a pre-divinity machine doomguy Contemplating the photo for u
unrelated to the photo, i do like to headcanon that doomguy is blazkowicz's great grandson on his dad's side, and ranger's grandson on his mom's side. yes i know wolfenstein: new order and beyond seems to be distancing the story from previously implied connections to doom, and yes i know quake doesnt actually have any connection to doom at all, but i think doomguy being the descendant of two different unstoppable idiots who refuse to die is funny. not that he can remember anything well enough to know his ancestry, of course. forgot that along with whatever origins of the photo.
anyhow. i don't like the photo for a handful of reasons, and the biggest of them is that it feels like lazy storywriting to me. first theres already enough interesting things about him to explore, you don't need to retcon in that also he's just another white guy out for vengeance for his dead wife and child. it makes him a lot less interesting as a character to me, personally. and then like. if you really wanna do that with him, then okay, fine, im not the one making the games, but at least actually, yknow, write that?? you're telling me that, at the very least, he's had this photo since doom 64. then he carried it with him through hell for an indeterminate amount of time, even when he went insane to the point of no longer recognizing other people and attacking them the same as demons. he held on to it all through being a prisoner in the blood arena, and being made into a night sentinel, and being made into the slayer. he somehow still had it as of waking up in the beginning of 2016, despite being stripped of the praetor suit and the praetor suit being stripped of all weapons. and now as of tda, we also have to say that he managed to keep it while being enslaved by the maykrs, falling into an ocean of acid, literally dying, and being left in hell long enough that he started to rot. he managed to hold on to the photo through all of that.
BUT ALSO, he never stopped to look at it, never pulled it out anywhere, never reminisced about his dead family, never gave any indication that they were important in any way, or, in fact, that they ever even existed, and ultimately he doesn't seem to care that the photo's fallen under his desk? and hugo martin wants me to believe that these are his dearly departed wife and son, whom he loves so much and is fighting to avenge? he's got a framed and spotlit oil painting of his rabbit on the wall. he takes care of his toys and keeps them neatly lined up on display shelves. and he lets the photo fall on the floor and lie next to the trash can.
if u like him having a wife and kid and that being them in the photo, then more power to u! i'm glad youre having fun with it. but personally? i have a very difficult time believing that the people in the photo are important to him.
s till can't get over how much they made it clear that doomguy CARES. practically every single cutscene has him doing something that shows he cares about the people around him. ur honor that man is fuelled by LOVE.
