So I just got the Doppleganger pack (I decided to go with Lady Hammerlock first) and I realized something interesting about the gender dynamic in TPS; all the women are natural and all the men are artificial.
The Women:
Athena-Atlas assasin, trained from childhood to be an utterly lethal opponent.
Nisha - An outlaw who spends her time hunting down outlaws
Lady Aurelia - Highborn, obscenely wealthy and murderous.
All of these women are natural, self made without augmentation. they are badasses because their training, background and skill sets make them badasses.
The Men:
Wilhelm: A man obsessed with improving himself with cybernetic enhancements, probably bordering on Technophilia.
FR4G-TP: a robot programmed to be a soldier.
Jack’s Body Double: a guy with Student loans who attempts to inhabit the persona of Handsome Jack.
Each one of the male characters is “false” in some way, Wilhelm is throwing away his humanity as fast as he can, becoming a true cyborg, FR4G-TP will never be more than he is programmed to be and “Jack,” is just pretending to be someone else.
I find this very interesting. Anyone else have any thoughts.
Nice observation, but I don’t think it has any deeper meaning than that. It can be just a coincidence, especially considering that orginal 4 were all pre-existing characters.
“Jack” is not really jack, he’s pretending; therefore he is a fake. Claptrap is purely artificial, right down to a programmed “male” personality. So, he too is not real and so a fake personality.
Wilhelm had/has a bone disease is the reason for the robotic enhancements. Nothing “fake” there, just dealing with life.
Timmothy had student loans … who hasn’t been there. LOL!
Clap is a robot … albeit with a masculine voice … but really neither male nor female.
However, the whole BL series is built around the odd experiences that brought everyone together … so everyone has some “baggage”. We all do … that is how we relate.
Like Jubamon pointed out, i don’t think there is actually a conclusion, I don’t think it runs any deeper than coincidence, but it is interesting because these are the first Borderlands characters to be divided by more than just their classes and genders. Aside from Krieg (those tubes in and out of his body suggest some kind of augmentation) all the borderlands characters have been natural beings (even if Zero is an alien, he’s still a natural creature).
We have seen gender lines in games before, but there does seem to be a bit more going on here. Again, it may be coincidence and I’m looking too deeply into a shallow decision spawned by nothing more than “wouldn’t it be cool if…”
It could also be that, because there is the cultural presence of women in video games as not being realistic, that the developers decided to flip the idea on it’s head: all the women are natural and the men are unnatural in some manner (at least in concept; I find “Jack” to be the most realistic with his social awkwardness and fear of heights).
There is nothing lacking in manliness with Wilhelm implementing tecnological upgrades to himself to make him more of a killing machine and bear in mind hes a galactic mercenary for hire. Hes no slouch.
he wasn’t saying doppleganger jack was the real jack. he just said that he’s still a real person. also, he didn’t actually want to be jack. he applied for a job and was forced to become his body double.
he wasnt forced, he made he descision, as poor as it was, it was timmy’s choice to walk thru the door. whether he knew it was to be a jack body double or not is irrelevant. the echoes in jack’s office paint a clear picture. he needed to pay off loans yes, but he coulda found another way.
i wouldnt say tricked or forced, a lack of information… yes, rushed… yes. but not tricked or forced. it is my opinion from hearing the echoes. i dont like people blaming others for poor choices that they make. not trying to be a dick to anyone, but people dont take responsibility for their own actions and choices.
haha cant say dick.
and i was explaining the reason for my conclusion