turmeric
03-15-2003, 08:24 PM
i have been thinking about the psychological strain on max. first of all, his wife and baby died. as we all know, police have some of the highest suicide rates of any profession, no doubt max was probably on the brink at some point. as max says, 'alex was keeping me sane'. then EVEN ALEX dies. some kind of finnish/scandinavian cruel-beyond-cruel school of fiction i think. (see also Knut Hamsen or Halldor Laxness. sorry i dont know many finnish authors, but if you can make a game with no black people in NYC then i can say scandinavians are overly morbid and have a dark view of the world.. there our stereotypes are even now)
Anyways, lets take max, how does he deal with his pain? He goes and kills people. Not one, not two, not three. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Fourty. Eighty. Now we are approaching the level of death inflicted by military generals and so forth. But Max goes beyond that. Way beyond.
One hundred, two hundred? Five hundred? A thousand? Think about it, what must it be like to personally kill a thousand people, with everything from a lead pipe to a baseball bat to an uzi mac 10? I think Max must have some serious psychological issues after all this trauma.
Talk about post-traumatic stress disorder. People back from wars or horrific scenes need YEARS of therapy and counsling before they can 'recover' a sense of normality.... the symptoms are so varied... what would max do?
And what about the 'innocent' v junkies he may have killed? Or the chinese laundry employees?
There was no need for that. I think he may have a few wrongful death, or even homicide suits on his hands. Especially a cop in NYC, I think Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton would be out crusading against this particularly brutal instance of police brutality.
Any of the mafia that remained after Max Payne's rampage? Oh god, every single last one of them would be out for Max. Every two bit hood and hustler in jail or beginning in 'the life' would want to wack Max Payne in order to move 'up in the world' as they say.
And what about the feds? Would they use Max Payne as a token in the 'drug war'? Would they call him some kind of hero for getting rid of 'v'? Would they avoid the whole thing in order to hide their links to Aesir Corporation? Which candidates/congressional-committees did Aesir donate the most campaign funds to? That information is available on www.sec.gov (http://www.sec.gov) by the way.
Or maybe the Federales would be AFTER max payne. You think NYC can really keep several thousand homicides under its belt and not have the FBI get involved? The DEA? Christ allmighty!
Not to mention the russian ambassador, since Max did, if I recall, kill a few russian nationals.
But back to Max for a second. Even with all these slush guzzling schmoozers around him, or possibly the overly-irate busy body control freaks trying to put him in jail, how would he react? Would he be sucked in to the baubles and empty licorice candy handed to him by potential 'allies' in the 'drug war' that would use him as a figurehead, a spokesperson to make public service announcements for them about how drugs are bad? Would he go around making stump speeches to high schools about what he saw V do to his wife/family/friends?
What about Max's Wife's Parents? How did they feel about her marrying a cop in dangerous work? And doesn't Max feel guilty about it all, because didn't his wife warn him what was going to happen before it all went down, and he blew her off? Sort of like Spiderman letting uncle owen get beat down by those thugs, because of his arrogant attitude about who knew what and what was important?
How can Max recover from these psychological blows? How can Max deal with the guilt? The pain? The loss? How can Max ever have a new life? Let alone try to protect himself from the Mafia?
Would max have to move to another city? Another country? The witness protection program? Why stay in NYC? All his friends were dead, right? Think of the most hard boiled gritty dirty depressed dark minded cop character ever, then pile on a thousand killings or so and then pile on that dead family and friends and pile on that a DA who wants to put you behind bars.... Max Payne must have the most twisted dark soul on the face of the planet. How could he keep his heart from just bursting open in flames? Merely being a 'tough new yorker' is probably not even enough to get someone through something like this.
What if Max Payne were arrested and put in a temporary holding cell? Wouldn't the other criminals have recognized him and ganged up on him and killed him?
Anyways, lets take max, how does he deal with his pain? He goes and kills people. Not one, not two, not three. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Fourty. Eighty. Now we are approaching the level of death inflicted by military generals and so forth. But Max goes beyond that. Way beyond.
One hundred, two hundred? Five hundred? A thousand? Think about it, what must it be like to personally kill a thousand people, with everything from a lead pipe to a baseball bat to an uzi mac 10? I think Max must have some serious psychological issues after all this trauma.
Talk about post-traumatic stress disorder. People back from wars or horrific scenes need YEARS of therapy and counsling before they can 'recover' a sense of normality.... the symptoms are so varied... what would max do?
And what about the 'innocent' v junkies he may have killed? Or the chinese laundry employees?
There was no need for that. I think he may have a few wrongful death, or even homicide suits on his hands. Especially a cop in NYC, I think Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton would be out crusading against this particularly brutal instance of police brutality.
Any of the mafia that remained after Max Payne's rampage? Oh god, every single last one of them would be out for Max. Every two bit hood and hustler in jail or beginning in 'the life' would want to wack Max Payne in order to move 'up in the world' as they say.
And what about the feds? Would they use Max Payne as a token in the 'drug war'? Would they call him some kind of hero for getting rid of 'v'? Would they avoid the whole thing in order to hide their links to Aesir Corporation? Which candidates/congressional-committees did Aesir donate the most campaign funds to? That information is available on www.sec.gov (http://www.sec.gov) by the way.
Or maybe the Federales would be AFTER max payne. You think NYC can really keep several thousand homicides under its belt and not have the FBI get involved? The DEA? Christ allmighty!
Not to mention the russian ambassador, since Max did, if I recall, kill a few russian nationals.
But back to Max for a second. Even with all these slush guzzling schmoozers around him, or possibly the overly-irate busy body control freaks trying to put him in jail, how would he react? Would he be sucked in to the baubles and empty licorice candy handed to him by potential 'allies' in the 'drug war' that would use him as a figurehead, a spokesperson to make public service announcements for them about how drugs are bad? Would he go around making stump speeches to high schools about what he saw V do to his wife/family/friends?
What about Max's Wife's Parents? How did they feel about her marrying a cop in dangerous work? And doesn't Max feel guilty about it all, because didn't his wife warn him what was going to happen before it all went down, and he blew her off? Sort of like Spiderman letting uncle owen get beat down by those thugs, because of his arrogant attitude about who knew what and what was important?
How can Max recover from these psychological blows? How can Max deal with the guilt? The pain? The loss? How can Max ever have a new life? Let alone try to protect himself from the Mafia?
Would max have to move to another city? Another country? The witness protection program? Why stay in NYC? All his friends were dead, right? Think of the most hard boiled gritty dirty depressed dark minded cop character ever, then pile on a thousand killings or so and then pile on that dead family and friends and pile on that a DA who wants to put you behind bars.... Max Payne must have the most twisted dark soul on the face of the planet. How could he keep his heart from just bursting open in flames? Merely being a 'tough new yorker' is probably not even enough to get someone through something like this.
What if Max Payne were arrested and put in a temporary holding cell? Wouldn't the other criminals have recognized him and ganged up on him and killed him?