STARCRAFT 1 and 2 SPOILER ALERT – GO PLAY THE GODDARN GAMES FIRST.
This text deals with Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor, two of the main protagonists in the Starcraft and Starcraft 2 games released by Blizzard Entertainment.
It is not very often I mix my professional mindset with the stuff out of which my hobbies are made... well, I lie, it is very often, but it's rare I transfer my psychedelic bouts unto text. So here I am, trying to outline Sarah Kerrigan's (ie. Starcraft series) pattern of relating to men and institutions and how her relational scripts might lead to Jim Raynor's death should these two characters stay close.
What is Object Relations (ORs)?
“Object Relations Theory is a theory of relationships between people, in particular within a family and especially between the mother and her child. A basic tenet is that we are driven to form relationships with others and that failure to form successful early relationships leads to later problems.” [1]
What’s up with Kerrigan?
When Kerrigan was little - and I admit, maybe way after the formative years as outlined by Freud and Klein, yet I'll make a leap of reason and grant it that Sarah's object relations have already been put into effect by her parents in some twisted way - her psionic powers unleashed, killing her parents and prompting the governing powers to take her away for processing her mind in order to become a Ghost, a highly psionic and skilled assassin. [2]
So:
(1) Kerrigan kills the parent – literally - and another “parent” takes over to save her from the grief. This would be the starting point. Maybe it was grief, maybe on an irrational, unconscious level Kerrigan felt betrayed by her parents for not being able to contain her – it’s all mixed up, contradictory and ambivalent, the way psychoanalysis loves to see all things human.
Arcturus Mengsk comes along and liberates Kerrigan, drafting her to do his work against the Confederacy [3].
(2) Kerrigan is saved by another parent figure, a man - this plays exactly into her ORs as we say them in (1). It has been said that paternal authority stems from fear, they same way the Confederacy and any totalitarian regime applies its rule [4]. After being saved by the man, he attempts to "kill" the previous male representation, the one for which one she worked and by which she was manipulated.
Raynor comes along, and loves Kerrigan. This sets the ground for some later rescuing. Mengsk leaves Kerrigan to die in the hands of the Overmind, an alien mastermind with a strong paternal character. The Overmind gives new abilities to Kerrigan, makes her a supreme being of human/zerg genome, and she does his bidding, until he is slain by their enemies.
(3) Another father figure saves Sarah from the previous one. The Overmind wants to kill, among others, the humans, which stand for Sarah the previous paternal betrayer-manipulator.
The Overmind is slain, and with a not-so-brief break Sarah returns to her quest for Zerg dominance, albeit fatherless, her own person – yet not quite. Overmind’s effects are still in effect – she ahs the powers and the zerg prowess that allows her to follow her plans and eventually her revenge on paternal betrayers. What happens next though puts the OR in perpetuity once again: Raynor saves her from the Overmind’s transformation, and makes her human again.
Kerrigan, in Heart of the Swarm, is now bent on hunting down Mengsk for betraying and manipulating her.
(4) Another male – an alpha male, with strong paternal behaviours and attitudes throughout Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty story mode – saves Kerrigan from the previous one. Kerrigan, loyal to her ORs, feels compelled (and quite rightfully so) to kill the previous, betraying-manipulating paternal figure – Mengsk.
Mengsk abducts Raynor. Kerrigan is left without a paternal figure both externally and internally – she is without Raynor and without abilities. Surely enough, Zeratul – another paternal male figure – comes along and shows her the way to restore her supernatural/transbiological powers.
Kerrigan is now in power again to hunt down Mengsk. She is still on the quest to find the only man that has not betrayed her yet – Raynor, and it’s the first time we see her break her ORs in that capacity.
Raynor is freed by Kerrigan, but leaves her – quite understandably so, since a mutated hot readhead does not lend her body much to human carnal interactions, aka: disgust. Raynor becomes the betrayer, albeit in a different form. Kerrigan does not seem to be projecting her ORs unto him, since she shows understanding of the consequences of her actions.
Or does she? She did become a monster to save Raynor, but completely disregarding the prospect of having normal relations with him – if you know what I mean. She feels COMPELED [5] to act this way – her ORs are more powerful than any common sense.
In the Heart of the Swarm story mode, she kills Mengsk, she exacts her revenge and kills the final betraying male, paternal figure. What is next? An alien force so vast that cannot but evoke the same fearful paternal imagery – powerful beyond comprehension, evoking strong fear to all species.
What Raynor did and what has maybe saved his butt was the fact that although she did abandon Sarah was the fact that he did help her in the end kill Mengsk, essentially helping her act-out her ORs. In the end, he was not the male figure to love Kerrigan for who she was, but guided her for what she did: killing her paternal rescuers/betrayers.
Jim saved his own hide without knowing it, and Sarah is free to roam the galaxy always acting out her ORs, always full of angst, her issues unresolved forever…
I am aware of the possible holes in this whole hypothesis – that Kerrigan has been compelled to act out her ORs her whole life – and that essentially her relationship to her parents is not explored fully, but hey, this “article” is meant for brain teasing, not proper psychoanalysis.
I am also aware that I did not address properly the role of other male figures in Kerrigan's story, for example, Zeratul, who seems for the most part to have an antagonistic role to Kerrigan's.
Sources:
[1] http://changingminds.org/disciplines/psychoanalysis/concepts/object_relations.htm
[2] http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/media/blizzard-comics/kerrigan-hope-and-vengeance/#/9
[3] http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Sarah_Kerrigan
[4] Hanly, C.M.T. (1996). Reflections on feminine and masculine authority: A developmental perspective. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 65, 84-101.
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_compulsion
