I nominate The Guardian from Ultima 7.
Being an omnipresent, all powerful being on the cusp of becoming this world's god doesn't mean you shouldn't take time out to chide people for stealing. Your character is the good one, he's the bad one, know your role. But do you? Completing most games in the series required you to steal stuff, lie and slaughter things. Regardless of a means to an end, that's totally against the core morale value that makes you what you are, the Avatar of the Eight Virtues. It's that level of self satisfied arseholishness that makes him evil. He destroys you indirectly. Having one murderer in a church probably isn't a valid reason to go all morale jihad death inquisition on the whole church. But you do. In U8, you prove your xenophobia to any ideas outside your own and your general satisfaction with witchcraft, demons and being worshipped as a Titan. In U9, you step it up and figure "Fuck it, I'll win, I'll become a god, just like him." No morales, no need. And that's how he won. But in Ultima 7, he's just an arsehole, who you can't really defeat, but can momentarily close a door against. Snide remarks, chiding, occasional teleport dickery. But he completely destroys your core being. You probably can't be considered the Avatar by the end of the game and definitely not by the end of U8. But in U7, the seeds are sown, little amounts of arseholishness have found fertile ground.
He then goes on to prove his level of arseholishness by making the rest of the series shit, with really poor plot elements, not to mention gameplay, just to show how little you mean to him in the grand scheme of things.
But in a slightly less meta sense, he makes you into him. In tiny little ways, you become as powerful as him, and you become just that little bit more evil and non-caring about your Virtues. It comes down to winning, beating the "bad guy", being the hero, by any means necessary.
He is literally your better half. Better in every way, with knowledge and wisdom of things well outside your realm of experience. So he makes remarks. He does, in fact, know better, regardless of his own actions. And you're the goddamned Avatar. But are you just a self righteous zealot who is more powerful than anyone around you, so much so that they essentially worship you already? When push comes to shove, there can only be one faith, one moralistic hero to cherish, no matter how hypocritical. And you become him? Or did he win and become you? Whereby destroying any hope for Brittania and the other worlds against him. He's pretty much already won in U7. You can't win against him AND be the Avatar. You HAVE to be a little bit evil. The gate thing, the castle black rock, everything didn't really matter. He took away the world's Avatar, by first corrupting him, then by becoming him, pulling the strings and being a smug arsehole while you dance to his tune. You were the most powerful being on the planet, the only one he wanted to consume, the only one worthwhile adding to his power, you just weren't hypocritically crusadery enough to become a part of him yet. So he baited you, and you took it, hook, line and sinker. One murder was all it took to lead you down the slippery slope to Guardianship and away from Avatarhood. All the while crapping on about Virtue and the righteousness of what you were doing as you stole everything, lied your arse off and murdered whatever you wanted. By the end, it's "Pagan? Oh yeah, I was a Titan there at one point, now I'm god. People do weird murder thievery drowning magic because of me. It portrays my image best. Britannia? Yep, god there too. Someone murdered someone, yadda, yadda, yadda, became evil, went travelling, came back, then merged with an evil entity of cosmic power. It took a while. All the other dimensions? Yep. I'm god there too now. Actually kind of already was. But now I've got more Guardian in me and an Armageddon spell. Or was it Avatar and omnipresence? Whatever. Even the Time Lord is shit scared. I AM the Space he plays in."
The Guardian probably did way more evil shit after Ultima 9. He had a pan-dimensional empire to rule. Even as the Guardian/Avatar.
"I wouldn't do that, Avatar...."
It's like a caring, omnipresent and omnipotent god telling the pope what to do about corruption in the church, even if that god lets/makes all kinds of bad shit happen, and the pope knows it. Smugly knowing all along that the pope wants to get to heaven and become one with god.
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Topic: Videogame Awards (Read 2119 times)