Sarah Kerrigan, also known as the Queen of Blades is one of the main antagonists in the Starcraft series along with Arcturus Mengsk and the Overmind. She was initially a Terran woman before her capture and transformation by the Zerg Swarm into the Queen of Blades. Eventually, she redeems herself and saves the universe from the threat of Amon.
What makes her magnificent?[]
- She is one of the most complex characters in Starcraft for various reasons.
- She has a tragic backstory.
- She was psychically gifted which caused a lot of problems for her from a young age. She was able to read all the private thoughts of other people which caused her to be disgusted by them in general and as a result became introverted and withdrawn and had a hard time making new friends.
- Her mother died and her father was left with a permanent brain damage when she accidentally unleashed her powers at the age of 7.
- She is then captured by the government to be tortured, experimented upon and trained as a merciless assassin. Her memory was mind-wiped, so that she would remain loyal to the Confederacy.
- She was then released by Arcturus Mengsk but was later betrayed by him and left to be killed by the Zerg who transform her into the Queen of Blades through painful mutations.
- Loves her parents and that love is never subverted.
- Genuinely loves Jim Raynor and on several occasions risks her own life to protect.
- Has many moments where she displays moral standards or has Pet the Dog moments:
- When Abathur tells her that as the Queen of Blades she had given him living test subjects to experiment on, Kerrigan tells him that they won't be doing any more experiments on people.
- When some of her Zerg ask her for permission to slaughter the crew of a Terran ship, she refuses them. When Abathur suggests that Alexei Stukov should be killed since he is of no use to them, Kerrigan is angry and refuses his request.
- She allows wounded enemy soldiers to be evacuated, tries to keep her Zerg away from civilian centers in order to limit the casualties among the civilian population.
- Feels remorse for her actions, redeems herself and saves the entire universe from the Dark God, Amon.
- She also has a sense of honor when she is Human because she doesn`t kill civilians (except when she wiped out an entire Protoss colony), she allows fleeing soldiers to run and keeps her word.
- During her time as the Queen of Blades, she is one of the most powerful in exitence, has cool, psychic powers, is able to defeat huge armies on her own and has some cool fight scenes.
- During this time, she manipulates the Protoss and Jim Raynor that she had reformed, unites them against the UED and under her leadership they manage to defeat the UED forces.
- After their victory, she betrays her allies and kills a vast portion of their armies in a surprise attack which leaves them crippled and allows Kerrigan to become the dominant power in the Koprulu Sector.
- Kidnaps the Nerazim Matriarch, Raszagal, to blackmail Zeratul into killing the Second Overmind for her which allows her to take complete control over the Zerg and become even more powerful.
- In the final mission of Brood Wars she defeats three enemy armies at the same time with only a small fraction of the Zerg at her disposal.
- She has very memorable quotes. At one point she refers to herself as "The Queen Bitch of the universe" to emphasize how bad she is to show to her opponents that she is not going to surrender.
- Even though she has a cocky personality, she never underestimates her opponents and always tries to outsmart them rather than simply use brute force to defeat them and often manages to defeat enemies who are superior to her in terms of strength.
- She decides to make her Broodmothers smarter and teach them some tactical skills to make them more dangerous.
- When a Protoss shuttle manages to distance itself from her, Kerrigan infects a female prisoner with a larvae and allows the Protoss to teleport her on their ship where it bursts from her stomach, turns into a broodmother and slaughters everyone on board. Even Abathur is impressed by the plan and commends Kerrigan for her unorthodox thinking.
- She is not a coward and she is more than willing to face off her opponents personally and even die fighting them.
- Even though she has a tragic backstory and is insecure, she is not too defined by those things and she is able to get over her moments of vulnerability very quickly.
- While she did a lot of bad things, most of them were done while she had Moral Agency issues as the Queen of Blades or when she tried to survive against overwhelming odds and get revenge on Arcturus Mengsk (the man who betrayed her and left her to be killed by the Zerg).
What makes her a baddie?[]
- She has killed the populations of entire planets as the Queen of Blades to spread the influence of the Zerg.
- She betrayed her supposed allies, attacked them while they were resting and decimating their armies and killed General Duke and Fenix (a fan-favorite character).
- She killed Aldaris when he tried to warn the other Protoss that she had brainwashed the Nerazim Matriarch.
- She blew up the power grid of the Nerazim's capital city, killing many Protoss in the process.
- She attempted to enslave the Protoss Matriarch by using brainwashing which is a fate worse than death and mocked Zeratul when he was forced to kill her.
- She allowed the UED fleet to retreat after they surrendered to her only to then send the Zerg after them and slaughter thousands of soldiers while their ships were retreating.
- She wiped out an entire Protoss colony and then infected a female Protoss with a parasite to kill the crew of an entire ship.
Trivia[]
- So far, she and Takuto Maruki are the only Magnificent Baddies who are also Inconsistently Admirable and Inconsistently Heinous.