Leela?

[Weezer14]

While playing M1 I felt like Leela was my only friend amongst the chaos. Once Durandal captures me he tells me not to worry about Leela and he says that she is "getting what she deserves". After the events of M1 what happened to her? (i may have missed or not payed attention to something vital in the story so dont think that i'm just an idiot)

Thanks

Weezer14

[treellama]

Have you beaten the game?

[Weezer14]

Have you beaten the game?

No, actually. I dont remember the name of the level but im stuck on the level where Durandal transports you to the pfhor ship.

[ukimalefu]

I think I know what you mean "stuck". Here's some help:

Spoiler:

First, use the map to make sure you've seen EVERYTHING on the level. Then go back to where you started (you can see the Marathon on the window, and stop. You'll be teleported out.

By the way, Leela was always my favorite Marathon AI.

[Blastfrog]

I never really felt like Leela was well developed as a character (or at all for that matter). She acted more as a narrator that relayed recent story events and mission objectives to you than acting anything like an actual character. Her personality (or lack thereof) feels sterile and without emotion. All the player ever saw of her was in her normal, non-rampant state. It is indeed true that she became rampant when reanimated after being sold by the Pfhor to whoever it was, but the player never actually got to see or hear about any of this, he was only informed of it being an event that occurred, but no actual details that could put together an even mildly entertaining story. She no real importance at all beyond the role she played in telling the player what was going on and what he should do about it.

That's it. She's a story narrator and a mission briefer. After that, she serves no real role in the story besides attempting to protect the ship and the colonists, no other ambitions or anything (and this is directly because of not being rampant at any point during the events of Marathon 1). She's not a bad character necessarily, she fulfills her intended roles quite well, it's just that those roles aren't very entertaining compared to what the other characters are doing.

In short, the rampant AIs were interesting, but the player only ever saw Leela in her boring normal state, thus making her (in my eyes) not a very interesting character.


More inane rambling follows below:

The marine, too, is quite like Leela, in that he serves a very important, but mundane role. He is merely a pawn for whichever AI has power over him at any given moment in time and does nothing else of importance, so he is also a MacGuffin. Unlike Leela, he doesn't even have dialogue, making him even flatter (although he has more relevance regardless since he actually DOES stuff and does it for three installments instead of just one).

I personally feel that Durandal is the real protagonist and central character of the trilogy's story arc, and that the story is presented to the audience from the perspective of this mute pawn, who is merely a stand-in of the individual audience member experiencing the story for themselves (the player, obviously). Marathon is more like a book with it's pages scattered across the levels an otherwise simple and straightforward FPS game, that the player must find and read, slowly soaking it up and interpreting it to attempt to draw their own conclusions.

I wrote way more in this post than I intended to.

[tinkertoy]

Spoiler:

For lack of a better word, she's dead. The Marathon was destroyed, remember?

[General Tacticus]

Spoiler:

Well, if you pay attention to the marathon 2 endscene, you find out that she was downloaded onto the pfhor ship that destroyed the colony, from which she ecaped or somthing. She wound up ramant and spread accross the computer network of several planets.

[NobilityV3]

I never really felt like Leela was well developed as a character (or at all for that matter). She acted more as a narrator that relayed recent story events and mission objectives to you than acting anything like an actual character. Her personality (or lack thereof) feels sterile and without emotion. All the player ever saw of her was in her normal, non-rampant state. It is indeed true that she became rampant when reanimated after being sold by the Pfhor to whoever it was, but the player never actually got to see or hear about any of this, he was only informed of it being an event that occurred, but no actual details that could put together an even mildly entertaining story. She no real importance at all beyond the role she played in telling the player what was going on and what he should do about it.

None of the AI's were intended to have character or "develop as a character", that is until they're in the state of rampancy which is where the ACTUAL emotions you would get from a normal character are "Jealousy, Anger, etc". Pretty self-explanatory.

[mchief111]

None of the AI's were intended to have character or "develop as a character", that is until they're in the state of rampancy which is where the ACTUAL emotions you would get from a normal character are "Jealousy, Anger, etc". Pretty self-explanatory.

This, AIs without rampancy were specifically made not to have much emotion. Remember that Rampancy was at the known to scientists at the very least, and any sign of odd personality would have been viewed with a great deal of suspicion.