Chercheeze small.jpg

So the title of this contest is villains I'd like to kill again.

Honestly, I don't like having to kill anyone, even in a game. Wait, that sounds like I kill people outside games too. I must enthusiastically emphasize that is not the case.

I was trying to think, then, of other spins I could take with this. I considered favorite boss to spare, but that leaves me with a very small pool of options (basically Undertale). In most games not killing bosses is not only frowned upon, it's impossible.

The very concept of a boss, in fact, is intimately tied up in the idea that you must defeat them to advance. There are some bosses that you do not need to kill to keep going, but tellingly these are typically referred to as optional bosses. Even in one of my favorite games of all time, Fallout, you have to "defeat" an end boss to complete the game, and though you can actually talk to him, a victory by diplomatic means still means their death. The rare times you get through a boss fight and the boss survives it's usually just so they can threaten you again down the line. It's also typically not your choice to spare them.

So, I thought...if I COULD spare any boss, which would it be?

So here are my top five game bosses I'd spare if the game didn't make you be a murder hobo.

5: The Colossuses - Shadow of the Colossus.

A pretty obvious choice here. Even before you know the game's TERRIBLE SECRET you feel bad for fighting the big, stupid things.

4: Kreia - Knights of the Old Republic 2

I have a lot of sympathy for anyone who thinks the whole Jedi/Sith dynamic (at least as it was once elaborated on by the prequels and expanded universe stuff) is ridiculous nonsense.

Besides, I already went through everything I could do to try and save her in my playthrough so she's gotta make the list.

3: Jon Irenicus - Baldur's Gate 2

Ok, so I know this guy was a total butt and I have zero reason to think he deserves redemption.

On the other hand, it's kinda like the mummy thing. Fictional peoples gotta stop cursing their implacable enemies with superpowers.

Plus elves are generally pretty lame.

2: Ravel - Planescape Torment

One of only two named people you have to defeat in the game, Ravel is the least deserving of the two to die, and yet is the only one of the two (the other is a rogue angel ala Neverwhere) that you can't spare.

Sure the entire plot is kicked off by what she does to the main character, but I can't help feeling a bit sympatico with an ugly person that falls in love, no matter how psychotic.

Yet again, I feel it necessary to mention that I do not kill people.

1: King K. Rool - Donkey Kong 64

Ok, first off, why would a gorilla have a stash of bananas? DK would never encounter bananas in his natural habitat. Sure zoo gorillas like bananas, bananas are tasty, I get it. But in the wild? We've never seen any sign of actual humans in DK's world (Mario does NOT count, have you seen that dude? He can jump five times his height. That is not a human person). Certainly not in the Country series. It's clear that beyond his tie, DK is a "wild" specimen.

Moreover, a banana horde is just stupid. A banana will last maybe a week outside of a fridge. A male gorilla can eat about 280 pounds of food in that time. THat's about 840 bananas if he ate nothing else. Let's round that up to a generous 1000. Just going by the number you are required to collect, there are at least 1680 in the game. That's far more than a single gorilla could eat before they went bad, and even attempting to get close would likely give him potassium poisoning.

I know what you're saying, "K. Rool is a Crocodile! He doesn't even eat bananas!" But actually, no! Crocodiles actually do eat bananas and other fruit. All he wants is to stop DK's obsessive greed and wastefulness.