Uncharted/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

**** First of all, Nate is not, and can never be, a Badass Normal because there are no superheroes in his universe. <ref> Badass Normals can only exist in a world where superpowered, magical, etc. characters are commonly known. [[Batman]] is a Badass Normal because, in his world, there are superpowered characters such as Superman and Poison Ivy. However, in ''[[Kick-Ass]]'', Kick-Ass and Hit Girl are not Badass Normals because no one has superpowers in that world; everyone just went through a lot of training.</ref> Second, I have no problem with him being a [[Badass]]; it's Naughty Dog ''claiming'' he's normal that I have a problem with. That and the [[Action Survivor]] trope on the page, which is what ND says he is.

***** I don't think the attitude is anything to do with Drake's abilities, but his persona and outlook. He's not a grizzled commando or war hero, he's a pretty ordinary guy who himself seems incredulous at what is happening around him. It's not so much that he's "SO NORMAL", it's just that he is compared to most recent videogame heroes. The one flaw is that he guns down thousands of Mooks without batting an eyelid, but really, that's an acceptable side-effect of it being a third-person shooter, and ''Among Thieves'' likes to remind us that while Drake may be "normal", it doesn't necessarily make him "good" in the usual sense.

****** ''Iji'' isn't exactly the best example because it's making a ''point'' of not forcing you to kill mooks - it ties into the game's overall themes of violence bgetting violence and so on. ''Uncharted'' is more an adventure story; death-defying escapes, spectacular action, explosions, treasure, attractive people doing dangerous things, etcetera. I don't think it would do much for the atmosphere if Drake started having a genuine, realistically depicted psychological breakdown.

* Nate's attitude toward Chloe in the second half of the game makes no sense. She pretends to be on Lazarevic's side to cover them, but when Lazarevic and Flynn walk in on her ''holding a gun on Nate's group'' (to cover for them, but the bad guys don't know that) and take her to the train, Nate thinks from some reason that she's being held prisoner and immediately risks ''everything'' to try to save her. Even a moron could tell that she was just playing along! Then, at the monastery, he runs into her again, still playing along. She claims that she didn't know they were there and is just trying to save herself (pretty obvious), and yet Nate still treats her like crap until she gives him the dagger. This is the dagger she ''needs'' to find the secret door with to live, so Nate's possibly sending her to her death without it. Pretty nice and observant guy, ain't he?

** When she's taken on the train, it's implied pretty heavily that Flynn has figured out she's betrayed him and is working with Nathan. IIRC this is confirmed when you find her on the train and she is being treated significantly worse by Flynn than she was during the opening portions of the game.

** Lazarevic knows that Drake is the more adept treasure hunter than Flynn - I think he even says that he wishes he'd hired Drake. Flynn himself probably realises this on some level so his plan may have been to stay out of the way and let Drake find the path to Shambhala for him - which is exactly what ended up happening. If Flynn stuck around, Drake was not going to search and knowingly lead Lazarevic there.

* During the train level, Nate crosses a flatbed car with a tank and comments, "What do they need a tank for?" Later, the tank is [[Foreshadowing|a major boss]]. However, the tank was on the section of train that got blown off when the helicopter first shows up during the train level... so they shouldn't've had the tank later in the game. While the bad guys could've had two tanks, what do they need ''two'' tanks for ''in the Himalayas''?

*** Lazarevic wasn't taking those tanks into the city. He was taking them into the ''mountains''. You know, the exact terrain where tanks are at their least effective? How was he even able to get his other tank up to the Tibetan village when it was seated at the top of a high mountain with a sharp incline on all sides, anyway?

**** You are forgetting that "Least effective" does not mean "not effective," particularly since those in the mountains and other areas where tanks are unlikely to pop up tend to be prepared for them the least. And he might be taking them because it's better to do so than to abandon them and thus have them get picked up by one of the sides in the civil war and thus lost to his arsenal. As for how they get the tank up there, well I believe it would involve extremely complicated and low-tech pullies, amongst other things.

*** So shoot Lazarevic.

**** [[Idiot Hero|Because Mr. Drake is the Hero, and according to the Rules of Heroes, you're not supposed to shoot the bad guy until he's done powering himself up. After all, you need to give this]] [[Complete Monster]] [[Idiot Hero|a fair chance of battle, no?]]

***** Perhaps he was just honestly curious whether it work. That's what I chalked it up to. His curiosity overcame his rational impulse for a moment. At the wrong moment.

***** That makes sense given his habit of examining whatever artifact he's just found there and then, no matter how dangerous a place he might be in, and ignoring other characters when they tell him to hurry up and keep moving. I think he's just prone to thinking irrationally whenever he's confronted with something he finds interesting.

*** Perhaps Lazarevic hired his private army out to one side or another as a cover. Possibly to the Nepalese government to put down the rebels.

**** Imagine the government's reaction in that situation; it's not like he can brush off everything as collateral damage:

'''Lazarevic:''' "Um... I want shiny?" }}

***** The Nepalese military *REEEAAAALLLY* is not the world's finest, to put it generously. They were stalemated and arguably *lost* a ten year war against Maoist guerrillas who were largely operating off of table scraps and what they could seize (and the occasional aid from [[Red China]] and India's [[Dirty Communists|Naxalites]] that nobody wants to acknowledge) when they themselves were equipped with aid from the better chunk of the Western world for starters. In addition, as far as armed forces go, they're rather small even for the country's size, at less than 100,00, of which 40,000 aren't regulars, all of whom are of uneven quality from battle-hardened veterans of said 10-year civil war to "very green" to "worse than very green". Lazarevic's army doesn't have to be *large*, all it has to be is comparatively high quality in personnel and equipment and with the proper preparation. If Lazarevic restarts the old civil war and forces the government to commit most of its' troops out to the outlying countryside *like they did during the war with the Maoists*, he can probably waltz in fairly easily and occupy a large section of the capital and resist any attempts to dislodge him by either side unless they were willing to take punishing if not crippling losses to do it (and thus open themselves up to exploitation by their native enemy). If he guards his territory fairly well and acts relatively unambitiously (basically, what he is: a looter looking for goodies rather than some filibuster trying to take the country over), it's quite possible the government and their enemies (be they Maoist or otherwise) would judge that they have bigger fish to fry and assume they can deal with him once the situation's stabilized enough that they can free up enough men to evict an elite mercenary army from their capital. TL;DR: Lazarevic doesn't have to destroy the Nepalese military or government. All he has to do is beat them up enough until they are forced to fully commit themselves to the civil war and leave him alone, something he can *probably* do. Add *that* to potential covers like signing on officially with one sides (and remember: they only can't prove it's collateral damage if somebody witnesses it, which given [[Complete Monster|Lazarevic]] is... [[Leave No Survivors|unlikely.]]