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It's time for another Monthly Musing -- the monthly community blog theme that provides readers with a chance to get their articles and discussions printed on the frontpage. -- CTZ]
Another musing, another
Mega Man article. It's as if I hold some strange and unhealthy fixation towards the series. And because I'm so fascinated by the franchise, I ponder about certain elements that wouldn't cross the mind of any sane person. For example, while you are playing one of the games, do you ever consider what must be running through Mega Man's head as he lays waste to fellow androids? Probably not much past "there's an evil robot ... KILL IT!" But are these robots truly evil? Are they not being manipulated by a madman for his personal gain?
According to the backstory, all Robot Masters (of which Mega Man is counted among) are capable of independent decision-making. Maybe not to the degree that X and the Reploids later in the timeline are capable of (X was the first robot with absolute free will), but that's not to imply that they are lifeless machines. Each Robot Master has a unique personality, character flaws and all, that renders it almost indistinguishable from humans aside from physical appearance. As they gain worldly experience, their mind develops not that of a child. Mega Man, whose development has surpassed that of all others robots, is presented as evidence that self-aware automatons can develop a soul.
Dr. Wily's Robot Masters are constructed with the explicit purpose of annihilating Mega Man and taking over the planet, but most Robot Masters are dedicated to aiding humans and enjoying the life they have been given. It's unfortunate then that many of Wily's plots involve capturing well-meaning robots and reprogramming them to do his bidding. As the Earth's savior, Mega Man has no choice but to fight these robots who only wanted to help mankind. It must be tough on Mega Man to have to destroy his own kind, especially those built for a life of peace then twisted into tools of war. However, encounters with random, unfamiliar robots cannot compare with the magnitude of Mega Man's inaugural "adventure." I'm talking about the time when Wily stole Dr. Light's worker bots and set them upon the world and Mega Man had to bring each and every one down.
Mega Man was forced to kill his brothers.
Okay, so the relationship among Mega Man and the Original Six (eight if you adhere to the retcon in Mega Man Powered Up) was not sibling connection by human standards, but it's as close as you can get to a one in the robot world. Bomb Man, Guts Man, Cut Man, Elec Man, Ice Man, and Fire Man were built alongside lab-assistant Rock (Mega Man's original designation), housekeeper Roll, and estranged Proto Man. They were built from common blueprints by the hands of a common creator. They lived together, worked together, and developed together, sharing a few laughs along the way. They were a family. And that family was torn apart by Dr. Wily.
When Rock heard of what had befallen his brothers, he urged Light to make him combat-capable. This tiny android with the body and mind of a pre-teen boy and no battle experience whatsoever was dead set on stopping his siblings' rampage himself. Young and naïve, he probably assumed that he could reason with his brothers and convince them to set their sights on apprehending Wily. Imagine his shock upon encountering the first brother and finding not the companion he once knew but a vicious beast inhabiting his brother's body. His determination wavering, was he mentally prepared to pull the trigger and end the struggle the only way it could end?
I'm certain many of you have had to euthanize an ailing pet because you could no longer stand to watch it suffer. The ironic decision to take the life of a close relation out of an act of love is bound to be wrought by conflicting emotions. Instead of a pet, imagine having to pull the plug on a human family member and how the difficulty of your decision would magnify exponentially. Now imagine doing that six times. No human could live through such trauma without serious psychological damage. It would take a heartless machine to be able to bear that load. Is that what Mega Man was forced to become?
Like I said before, I'm not sure how "human" Mega Man is. Can he recognize the shades of gray along the human ethics spectrum and adjust accordingly? Does his moral compass only point in one of two directions, skipping over the intermediary gradients? Or is he only advanced enough to be able to understand the gravity of his actions yet unable to express the proper human routines and emotions, leaving him frustrated and confused? In any case, whatever childlike innocence he may have possessed prior to that first mission died along with his brothers. He now carried a burden that no one should have to bear.
But Mega Man's story doesn't end there. No, Dr. Wily is one sick son of a bitch. The nature of robots means that they can be reconstructed, and so Mega Man was thrust into battle against his six brothers a second time. Mega Man's sins were not about to allow him any time for recuperation. Not even a memory and already his ghosts were haunting him. Having already killed them once, was his job any easier? Knowing now that he was capable, was he numb to the pain of recreating the slaughter?
Sadly, there was no respite for Mega Man even after he dismantled Wily's fortress. If expanded universe materials are to be believed, Light eventually rebuilt the Original Six so that they could resume their intended duties. With the intimate knowledge of his previous encounters with them, I doubt Mega Man could ever be comfortable around them again. Likewise, those six would naturally feel the same in return. What a joy family reunions must be, huh? Try as they might to sweep the past away and remind themselves that Mega Man was not to blame for carrying out his duty, being killed by someone is bound to change any favorable opinion you have of that person. Maybe you'd find it easier to forgive him had he only killed you once, but definitely after the second time you'd start to wonder about his trustworthiness and mental stability.
And so Mega Man's first mission was his hardest one. Perhaps he could have regained some sense of normalcy had his first time been against random killer robots like the kind Wily would unleash in later years. The guilt of destroying other robots would have still weighed down upon him, but it would have been a more favorable scenario than that of taking a crash course in Murder 101 against his own family. In any case, Mega Man would continue to fight Wily in the hopes of one day bringing him to justice. The people would cheer for the Blue Bomber. Their champion of hope. Such an upstanding citizen with a cutie-pie face and a cheerful disposition.
And while Mega Man put on this charade to promote good will, he would agonize over whether or not he could ever find a measure of peace of his own.
. . .
Then came Mega Man 9.
Déjà vu, indeed. Years had past since the nightmare and Mega Man was finally starting to regain some of that boyish spark. The memory of what transpired could never be forgotten, but he was learning to cope with it. One day, a newscast reports that eight of Dr. Light's androids are loose in the city. Seven more brothers and now a sister. Something finally snapped in Mega Man. Look at that image above. Look at that stern resolution. That determination. Some might call it heroic. I call it the last shred of a soul being lost forever. It's like Mega Man doesn't even care anymore. He's been fighting for so long that he's become no different than an assembly arm at an auto factory. He seems unconcerned that he is about to destroy his family once again. This was the final straw.
You have to wonder ... was Dr. Wily's goal ever to rule the world? Or was it to send the one promising robot who people dreamed could bridge the gap between humans and machines through a vortex of madness harsher than the lowest circles of hell, keeping that dream forever out of reach? If so then he succeeded. The bastard won.
The bastard won.
Contest:
7:00 PM on 04.15.2009
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then does that mean I cannot feel?
Remorse for everything I’ve done,
my hand’s a smoking gun...
Tell me, Doctor Light, why did I fight?
Tell me doctor, tell me doctor, was I right?"
-The Megas, Lamentations of a War Machine
Nice! I believe The Protomen are a good fit for the mood of the piece as well, don't ya think?
@fetusmilk
You are on the money. It was called Power Blazer in Japan but when it was brought to the West it was given a heavy makeover and redubbed Power Blade.
Excellent article as usual, Megastryke. Your musings are consistently delightful and thought-provoking.
First, Wily even calls out Mega Man on his neverending onslaught against his brothers. And I quote,
DR. WILY: You always interfere with me.
MEGAMAN: I'll keep on fighting for peace for both humans and robots!
DR. WILY: Peace for both humans and robots? Then why do you destroy
my robots, you metallic hypocrite? Do you destroy robots to
bring them peace? What's the difference between my actions
and yours? We are so alike, you and I!
(Megaman is now shown looking at his hands with a look of distraught)
MEGAMAN: Noooo! Can I really be the same as Wily? It's true I destroyed
his robots without hesitation! I could have negotiated with the
robots instead of slaying them. Maybe I could have made peace...
Am I as violent and evil as the man I oppose? Am I spreading war
instead of stopping it?
(Roll pops up)
ROLL: It's not true, Megaman! Don't listen to Wily, he's just playing mind
games with you!
(Auto pops up)
AUTO: That's right! You're doing the right thing, Megaman!
(Dr. Light pops up)
DR. LIGHT: Sometimes peace cannot be achieved unless those who spread
war are destroyed.
(Megaman joins his family and is all smiles again)
MEGAMAN: T...thank you...everyone...Thank you, everyone! I will not yield!
(Wily is shown walking away)
DR. WILY: Ha! What a cheap show. Thanks for being an idiot. I think I'll
leave now.
A quick pep talk with his family and Mega is back to throwing his brothers into the scrap heap.
And secondly, in Super Adventure Rockman, some of the Robot Masters from maybe the first three games will sometimes save you if you screw up a QTE or whatever the game's equivalent was. Granted, the whole cast didn't help, but I wouldn't want to save someone who had killed me once/twice. Then again, this is Capcom glazing over the issue, perhaps. One ending to a game shows the Robot Masters alive and well (and attacking Wily, I believe), but that further cheapens the whole issue of Mega Man killing his fellows in creation.
Why worry when you can just rebuild, right? Shame that doesn't work in the X series. Sorry Zero, no new Iris for you. D:
As for killing his fellow borgs. What about all the mechaniloids he killed? Nobody weeps for the Met? What about Sniper Joe? Megaman is a racist, he gives a hint of pity for the occasional Robot Masters or Reploids, but doesn't blink an eye when he slaughters hundreds of mechaniloids.
Also, NEVAR FORGET...
To Chronic, same thing happens to Samus. I dunno what that whole thing is all about, but it's worse since she tends to keep having to collect the same power-up every time. At least MegaMan has variation with what he collects in almost every game.
It DID fill the screen with gears, cogs, and springs though. =P
I'm serious. Internet serious.
How can you explain me the cute explosions and pew-pew? Are the explosions meant to be the corruption of Megaman's childhood and his slow martyrizing of a hero to a psycotic a*hole that lives for war alone and the pew pew the sound of Megaman's youth , with his ingenuity used as Light's weapon?
What do you think about the reunion ending of Mega Man 9? How does that fall into all this?
It's just a game, dude! Don't think too far into it! Gosh!
@Dimly
The "reunion" was staged to fill Dr. Light's family-time photo album. Helps him pretend that everything is hunky-dory.
lol! I always though Dr. Light was a bit in denial. And what a great family-time photo album he must have.
I think that's the point. Over analyzing a video game to make funny commentary and stuff. For example, overanalyzing Bioshock by looking at Jack kill little Sisters and extracting their ADAM. You could overanalyze that by saying how Jack is a pedophilic misogynist or whatever.
AMAZING ARTICLE! Teasing out subtext in Mega Man 1? I LOVE IT! This really helps to give some validity to Mega Man's violent freak out at the end of 7. If Mega Man is a "real boy", he's had to process ALOT.
I'm going to stop myself, but I could probably talk about Mega Man story theory all night! Not that it needs it, but I hope anybody's Mega Man 10 would really get into what connection the justice bot of the MM series and the lamenting man-bot of the MMX series.
Oustanding!
If we can assume that Light's programming philosophy was in line with the Three Laws of Robotics, Rock's primary programming would be that he could not allow humans to come to harm by his inaction. It's not necessarily that he would want to fight (as far as I'm concerned, Rock doesn't really have "wants") but that he's compelled to do so.
That's the perspective I've always had on it, anyway.
I was fully ready to write a mini-thesis following up Mega Man's strife, which continues all the way through the X-series, but I'll pass. Instead, I just wanted to point out that his internal struggle eventually does catch up with him, leading to Neo Arcadia in the MM:Zero series.
Now, Capcom just needs to create an original MMX title with HD graphics (in the spirit of SF2HD) for the PS360!
We should have tea so that we may discuss things.
@Conrad
Rock and the other Robot Masters have simulated emotions, but at what point would an AI construct absorb enough data to closer approximate human behavior?
Besides, Proto Man and Bass are far too independent to question whether they are following their original programming down to the letter.
Sounds an awful like how a certain copy of a certain other Megaman with a one letter destination sees damn near all Reploids (And humans, I swear he took down a few before Wiel had the chance) in the far future if you ask me.
By 9, Rock has stopped caring. When presented with the fact that Wily was the one behind it - which he knew already, he just didn't have the Evidence to prove it because Wily stole it, he'd make a good PW Enemy, I'd say - he doesn't stop (ignoring the fact that by this point he's destroyed all the robots anyway) He doesn't stop, he doesn't feel remorse for putting down these robots, he's been doing this so many damn times that he's established his role as a Maverick Robot Hunter.
He goes into Wily's Castle and once again comes across the rebuilt robot masters to have another (by this point, I'm sure, gleeful) pop at them with his p-shooter.
After murdering his fellow robots a second time, he then proceeds give Wily a talk down on how he (Wily) is a complete and utter tit and then have the situation turned around because, guess what, that stuff about being more than a robot in 7? that was bullshit.
He is a robot, bound by the laws of robotics Asimov put down from above, he is but a mere pawn, destined to play this murderous game until Wily croaks it (Possibly nuking everything in the process, no doubt) and he's decommissioned because he's a good little dog of the establishment like that.
Oy-vay, Atom would smack the Jesus out of him if he ever ended up in the Classic Megaman time line for some strange (possibly Phoenix related) reason.
However, there's one point I have to cast doubt on:
Under the premise that a robot can, in fact, be rebuilt, apparently while fully preserving his personality and memories, isn't being "killed" merely a temporary inconvenience? The wonders of advanced cybernetics allowing them to be literally reborn again and again? Aren't Mega Man's moral demons haunting him for brutally "euthanizing" his peers rendered kind of innocuous then? Knowing that each and every renegade robot being dealt blazing plasma justice can hypothetically be brought back to artificial life sooner or later?
Still, great article.
it's not so emotionally distressfull to kill one malfunction robot that is killing people, knowing that you can rebuilt it again later fully functional and with his actual memories and personality. I actually played the game the first time thinking that the "power up" mega got was his brother's true memories, being used to help with and saved for when the conflict ends, so to rebuild them. that even kinda explained why he didn't have any powers on the second game and over.
it would be his brothers that have emotional scars, knowing that they once got mind controlled and caused so much trouble against their will, even to the point that they were capable of killing humans, that can't be rebuilt.
If I break your arm, hey, no problem. It will heal itself eventually. Right? If I break your arm more than once, you'd probably stop wanting to play b-ball with me.
OR ARE YA CHICKEN, MCFLY?
That last line hit me hard man.