probably best to leave this for another day, but i just wanted to address these two points:
47 feeding someone to a hippo as he ponders existential questions could work if it was played for laughs, but i find those two tendencies fight against each other in hitman the more seriously we are expected to take his internal life.
i know this won’t ever happen, but i wish they somehow tied the gameplay into his character more, you know?
i mentioned this before, but when we’re playing the game, we view the world as this big murder playground. the banal and everyday - from plug sockets and toilets to coins and chandeliers - become part of a tapestry of death.
that is how i think 47 sees the world too. his signature kills are an expression of this perspective, and they don’t really explore or play with that outside of the levels.
i would find him far more interesting and unique if the writers leaned into that and tied it into his character; gave us a way of looking at our world in a unique way. instead they have tended to follow a well-trodden path of action movie cliches; a protagonist coming to terms with his place in the world, breaking the shackles of control, etc.
that’s fine and all. i’m still here after twenty years of playing. clearly, i know more about what sells than the professional writers and developers of a hugely successful, decades long video game franchise
sure, but honestly, i don’t particularly feel the need to identify with 47 to enjoy the game. his character and struggles have never been the draw for me.
I agree with this 100%. I still feel the WOA tries a little too hard to justify the violence/contract killing displayed with the reasoning that the targets (most of the time) seemingly deserve it. We’re still doing heinous acts.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that. I really liked the Blood Money portrayal for seeming to accurately capture the mentality of a contract killer, especially one under pressure of death from a rival organization, albeit to the point where it overrode the personality established by previous games. I like BM 47 too but I can also definitely agree with your point about Olyphant being closer to the character.
But I definitely agree with your second point, that in the long run a character like that wouldn’t be likeable, especially one around for 20 years. And for what it’s worth, I do feel narratively it’s still consistent to believe a cold-blooded killer could eventually change. From Hitman 2 to Blood Money, you could argue each job and betrayal made him colder and colder, to the point where he hits rock bottom and shoots Diana in Absolution. For once, he is unable to complete the kill, and you see him regaining his humanity in protecting Victoria and worrying about children in death factory.
And I was really happy to see his growth when he injected the constant with the memory loss serum (I know it’s determinant, but to me canonically 47 did it). I actually cheered, it was really amazing to see this character I grew up with but could never glorify really develop. I’ve only felt like I could relate to 47 twice in this whole franchise, first during Absolution when he just seemed so lost, and the second at the end of H3.
Also I really feel like this is a great discussion, and splitting this into a 47’s personality discussion thread could be really fun. I’m sure no two fans have the exact same perspective. Looking back this convo started about 50 posts ago.
Theres one Briefing in SA not too sure about what game it is, I’m drunk where Diana actually says something like “…you see its a “political correct” Contract again” so this is nothing new.
that was not so much about justifying 47’s kills and more about the escalation of both his ever more complicated inner life (who am i? do i have agency? do i trust diana?) and the manner in which he kills people (getting someone to commit suicide, burning someone to death inside a data core, pulverising someone in a grape crusher, etc.).
i find it difficult to treat the former with more gravitas (as h3 seems to want me to) when the latter is getting more gruesome, more convoluted and more cartoon.
(i’m picturing 47 crushing vidal while thinking he should’ve run off with that art school girl he met when he was 17.)
some media straddles that line expertly (dr strangelove, four lions, etc.), but i kind of feel future hitman titles would be better served by picking one or the other pathway… unless they get suddenly very deft.
a contract is literally a list of rules. if there weren’t any, 47 wouldn’t get paid!
To add to that, it’s horrifying. I really felt bad electrocuting Klaas Teller in Contracts and the priest+reporter in Blood Money. (I’m not saying those depictions were wrong, just that they demonstrated that killing was wrong).
(I actually can’t speak about the satisfaction lol, I’ve killed so many targets/ET’s since H2SA that I’m at the point where I’m jaded and just follow the mission like a robot, IO have accidentally turned me into a jaded Hitman . Now that I think, the only target I liked killing at all in the trilogy was Abiatti)
I really think there is a way for a middle ground, it’s just something that IO would have to explore. I think IO is mature enough that maybe that could be grounds for the next entry in the series, 47 grappling with the fact that killing is wrong, but is he doing the right thing?
If people really want, yet again… get into the “why can’t I off innocent targets” topic that comes up about every three months and invariably results in someone getting pouty because they can’t actually think of an interesting contract that would involve an innocent party - it’s best to make a new topic for that.
I really would prefer this thread not become a constant rehashing on that particular opinion.
