Everything we know about the great protagonist of Gears 5. We analyze through the script how the character that tries to change the saga has been created.
We must recognize that the trailer of the story mode that Gears 5 took to the E3 2019 was not what we expected. It did not show a miserable second of gameplay and gave all the prominence to the videos about the new online mode, Escape. It is a pity because this (negative) first impression has made one of the most risky and interesting trailers of the entire fair, and possibly one of the most representative, pass without penalty or glory. As we will see below, in just one minute and with the song Bury a Friend in the background (hence the title of this article), Microsoft referred to all the pending plots of the game, to all the great questions to which you must answer the new delivery A series of questions that finally predict a height argument and that revolve around the same person. That converge, in short, in the same name.
Kait Diaz
Before the eyes of half the world, Microsoft handed the baton of the saga to Kait and crowned her as the new reyna (… see what you did there) of Gears of War. His character was one of the biggest surprises that Gears 4 gave us. An unexpected heroine? accidentally? whose history and arc of evolution is fascinating. His presence made the saga and the rest of his teammates grow to the point that The Coalition has made it the main protagonist of the next chapter. For that reason today we want to know it in depth. That is why today in FreeGameTips we discover Kait Diaz, the character called to bury Marcus Fénix.
Why do you have to bury Marcus?
(Understand that we always speak at the plot level, on the occasion of the song and figuratively. Long live Marcus).
We have nothing against Marcus Fénix and the Delta Platoon. Quite the opposite. In the future we would love to see you again in a prequel dedicated solely and exclusively to the Pendulum Wars and the battle of the Aspho Fields. Nor would we disgust a spin-off that tells how they experienced the events of Emergency Day. Perhaps we would even welcome a dark and depressing adventure (like the Mad World trailer) that tells us what happened to Anya. What the hell, for us as if they want to enroll in a final mission that is pure fan service, in the line of the movie Plan in Las Vegas, where the Delta Platoon of the cinema (Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline) he paid tribute to himself between past clicks and moments of shame from others. But despite all this, although we love them and want to continue watching, Marcus and company may have become a drag on the saga.
We explain ourselves. If Gears 4 were about any of the things we mentioned above, the presence of the team would make sense and would be welcome. But it's not like that. Gears 4 is the story of JD, Kait and Del. It is the story of a new generation that has to face the enemies of their parents, who until now were legends and tales of old women. Sera's world has changed and her people too. There are new sides (such as fugitives), new problems (flares) and new ways of dealing with things (the deebees). "Memory is important, but now hell is our turn," says Kait in the third act of the campaign. The Coalition makes it clear that this story does not belong to Baird, Cole and others at the same time that puts us at the controls of a new skull trio, and in case anyone has any doubts, introduces a temporary ellipsis and sets it all 25 years after the first trilogy. Even so, even with everything planned for the fourth game to be the beginning of a completely new epic, Marcus has little to have more lines of dialogue than Kait and Del together. And in fact, two important moments such as the beginning and end of the game are completely monopolized, respectively, by flashbacks of the past and the presence of the former squad. The history of Gears 4 was not allowed to breathe memories.
Kait was the only one of the new protagonist trio who was not swallowed by the long shadow of the past.
Because if now someone asked you about JD, it would be weird if you knew how to give his full name (James Dominic Phoenix) and even more strangely that you didn't define him as "the son of". On the other hand, if you were asked about Del, the answer would be even worse. Sorry, who? The new additions to the history of Gears went on tiptoe, suffocated by the constant presence of elements of the past. Do you remember the Trashball map of Gears of War 3? What do you tell us about that wonderful scene in his story in which Cole entered the locker room and imagined that he was again part of the Hanover Cougars? That situation was so special because it had been charging emotionally since the first title of the series. If even the first conversation with Cole was about that, about Cole Train, the mythical number 83! In the event that future deliveries want to give us moments like that again, they should prepare the ground and let us know their protagonists. Nothing to just look back, pay tribute to the past and focus all dialogues on old characters and situations. For that reason someone would have to bury Marcus Phoenix.
"On a narrative level, Marcus and company might be a drag on Gears 4."
We are not saying that it was easy to do it in Gears 4. It was a complicated transition and was the second heart transplant of the saga. The first came when he went from Epic Games to People Can Fly. On this occasion the heart was going to stop at The Coalition, a newly formed studio whose first mission was to face a similar operation, almost nothing. Sometimes out of clumsiness, sometimes due to lack of experience and sometimes out of fear, the case is that the developer made some decisions … "questionable." He created a generic protagonist, began to present enemies and then got scared and turned to the locust … and so on. Much of the title was an internal struggle between building something different and repeating the same. As if the team were fully aware that it had to turn the page to flourish, but did not know very well how to do it …
… until Kait's character exploded and claimed everything for himself.
This was the first cover letter that The Coalition wrote about it in 2015.
From a certain point, Kait is the one that moves the action and the story. As a result, Gears 4 has a huge second half. His character has internal and external conflict, has his own story, emotions (something that seemed vetoed in the saga) and above all, personality and arrests. Kait is the one that connects with the original trilogy and at the same time the one that allows us to look to the future (eye does not become one of the great villains of the next generation). It is the one that has led JD to reinvent itself in the fifth installment and the one that, in short, saved The Coalition in Gears 4 and marked the way (on a plot level, we repeat).
The evolution of Kait Díaz
We do not know to what extent the emergence of Kait was planned. We suspect that it was a surprise for the developer herself, because there are several decisions in the play that seem to play against the character, but of course, then we see what her first intervention in the title is and we doubt, who does not. Because look at the first appearance he has in Gears 4. In it, Kait is with a butterfly cocoon in his hand and says the following: “Do you know how this little boy starts? If it survives, although most do not, look for ways to change. The small larva becomes a chrysalis. It is destroyed and at the same time it is built inside. It makes its way to get out of its cage and then it is something new and beautiful. ” Chance? Not even the Oracle of Delphi!
The real chrysalis of the new trilogy are not the locust, but her.
But unfortunately yes, it is coincidence. Well, actually, The Coalition wrote those lines thinking about locust. Kait would quote them again later, when she, Del and JD go down to a grave of larvae and discover that they were not dead, but evolving within those mysterious and indestructible yellow crystals. That allegorical first appearance of Kait was not an allusion to her or the future of the saga because, at this stage of the game, the developer was not yet aware of her potential and treated her like a Sam Byrne of life. (By the way, although in the last installment the poor Sam reduces her contribution to “Baird's follamiga”, in the novels of the series she offers a splendid version of herself and stars in the epic and tragic defense of Anvil Gate, where she succumbs outside the Canyon).
Among those decisions that seem to go against Kait are all the first interventions related to her, there is not one that does not produce some blush. In act one, for example, the main team consists of JD, Kait, Del … and Óscar, a relative of Kait who, as he continuously repeats, is only there to protect her. "You shouldn't have come," is one of the first phrases dedicated to Kait when he sees her "playing with butterflies and pupae." Soon after, one of the first dialogues started by the young woman will be to say that she is afraid of babies and that she hates being told that she has to have one. The rest swirls before her and throws her in the face that "we must repopulate." In the semantic field "topics about female characters" the word "baby" and "protection" are the first on the list. Why do some studies remain committed to the fact that female characters can only define and mark their personality by pronouncing themselves on motherhood and proving that they do not need anyone's help? Are there not enough heroines already to have learned more ways?
The poor remain caged during the first three acts.
Their story is so good that they copy it for JD
Kait shows signs of having a sufficiently interesting background at the end of the first act. So interesting that The Coalition copies it and implants it to JD. It happens when the game introduces us to the fugitives, a new faction that lives outside the CGO and its new leader, Minister Jinn. Among the fugitives, who are like a family to her, are her mother (Reyna) and her uncle (Oscar). A family that struggles to save when they are attacked by Jinn's beegees. After a well-defended assault, and while the village of the outsiders rests, the swarm attacks at night and The Coalition delivers without knowing everything Kait's character needs. It gives him a motivation (revenge, as will be seen in full act four when Kait says: "We will drag your hive whore to the ground") and a mission, an objective (to rescue his mother). We say that The Coalition does it without knowing it because, instead of focusing on it, that it is the person most affected by what happened and who has received what any script manual would describe as “the call to adventure”, we will put the focus on JD to … repeat exactly the same! For the most incredulous, here is the formula of the first two levels:
Gears 4 starts twice! After what happened in act one, the second level, an evening walk with Marcus, does not make much sense. Even weirder is that, once they kidnap Marcus, we go swift and quick to look for him. And Reyna? Why have we not come to your aid in this way of borrowers and volunteers? No one remembers her? The excuse to give priority to JD's father is that he knows where Kait's mother can be. However, upon rescuing him, Marcus confesses that he has found out Reyna's whereabouts because, having been in a larval cocoon, he has come into contact with the hive mind-hive of the swarm. No one has ever wondered, if he finds out at that moment, where did he lead us and lead us before? What was the night walk for? One can almost see the scriptwriters of the game behind the characters, making fuss and giving directions: “Hey, JD is the protagonist! Marcus is more important! ”
At the narrative level, the second act is a break, a jug of cold water, until we reach the third, the thing does not start again.
The transformation
Despite that act two in which they call him "apart" in bad ways, the third chapter of the game works very well at the narrative level. Interestingly, and linking with what we said at the beginning of the text, it is the only chapter without echoes of the past. The first moment we are alone with JD, Kait and Del, being able to really know them. At this level we are stuck to the controls with many hooks. Why have they kidnapped Reyna and Marcus? Where do they take them? Who are these creatures and what do they have to do with locust? While all kinds of new enemies (pouncers, rapists) appear and the first internal jokes of the group arise (Del del Octopus falls when he suggests believing in magic and when they discover that he does not know how to play rock, paper and scissors) . The characters talk about the legacy of their parents, the long shadow that these will save the world and how childhood was in a dark and destroyed Sera in which locust burials were common. Here is Kait's phrase "memory is important, but now hell is our turn."
In this intermediate act there is also an important scene for the relationship between Kait and JD. It takes place in a funicular, in which Kait separates from the group for a few seconds and JD comes to worry and care about her. We suspected that Kait had not moved away because he was sad and needed support, and we think he did because he was up to the ovaries to look for Marcus instead of looking for his mother, but hey. The important thing is that from this moment there is also the change of Kait. Perhaps because she is tired of being relegated to the background (she and her problems), perhaps because now that she knows the locust threat she is forced to act, or perhaps it is simply because she has been tested in combat and has been able and prepared to the action (in act two he even felt uncomfortable with his armor, "it is as if he were wearing a door"). Be that as it may, the case is that after act three and from the funicular scene, Kait grows and takes over the game.
The final kinematics of Gears 4 leaves Kait alone with the player, forging a moment of intimacy that will mark both. The only one of the new characters?
In the fourth act, for now, Kait sings Marcus forty when he says to take another walk and ask for help. "A deviation? What if we had turned aside when we were going to see you? Let's go get her. Now". She is the only one who confronts him, clarifies things and makes it clear that there are no Phoenix orders. That this is the story of his mother's rescue. Also in that chapter, the new Kait interrogates Marcus about some of the ghosts of his past (a mission that did not go well) and is the one that guides everyone through the level at the dam, offering new facts about his life (“ We strangers live on batteries. I have looted sites like this ”). It is also the one that sets the emotional rhythm, and knowing about the death of her people, it is she who decides whether or not it is time to cry ("Crying for our friends we will not help my mother"). Even when he proposes solutions to road problems (such as getting on a turbine), Marcus acknowledges having been advanced on the right and tells JD: "Your girlfriend is very special."
With whom does the final boss who invokes a brumark speak and challenge himself? Who climbs next to JD to the fuses available in act five? Who is the whole cinematic and final cliffhanger aimed at? Who is the post-credit scene related to? Two acts later, Kait has already taken over the story and is the protagonist. Too bad that Gears 4 has two equal starts and loses a level in them, because if they had taken advantage of it we would have come to see Kait in all its splendor. As things stand, you have to wait for Gears 5.
The first trailers of Gears 5 make clear the relay or "burial" that the game needed. Now there is a character capable of doing it.
Kait and JD, yin and yang
They say that yin is the feminine principle. Earth, darkness, passivity and absorption. On the other hand, yang is called the masculine principle. The sky, the light, the activity and the penetration. We are not going to lie to you, we don't know much about Taoism, but both definitions fit quite well with Kait and JD. Both characters are two opposing and complementary forces that are in the epicenter of what happens in the new Gears of War universe.
He is missing a mother and the father is kidnapped. On the contrary, who he has lost is his father and the person who kidnaps him is his mother. He is (was) a member of law enforcement, his own name indicates it, CGO, Coalition of Ordered Governments. She is "a savage," an outsider, a member of the so-called outsiders. JD is the son of the man who eradicated the locust and everything indicates that Kait is the granddaughter of the queen of the larvae. When we have to choose whether to go on the right or on the left, blessed inheritance of the first Gears, none of them will coincide and, even then, both will be needed to move forward. She takes the first act of the title and he takes over the second. The two share a third and connect through a scene, that of the funicular. From that moment they will share tears (when Marcus is taken out of his chrysalis), they will travel to the end of the world (aboard a wick) and finally, they will give us a final scene in which both simply embrace.
JD and Kait met when they were older. While he was growing up and becoming a CGO officer graduated from the New Ephyra Officers Academy, she trained outside of Jinn's political propaganda. His uncle Oscar taught him to shoot and fight, and his father educated her thanks to the few books that, after the Locust War, were saved from the libraries of Montevado and Ilima. After a service incident that was "classified" and made a summary secret, JD and his friend and right hand, Delmont Walker "Del", decided to defect and leave the CGO. Their exile led them to Settlement 2, where Kait helped his mother. Little else is known about their past and the type of relationship that unites them
One of the great surprises of the first trailer was the appearance of JD, protagonist of the previous installment. Virtually unrecognizable. It is worth that in the previous one some fans called him "lacking in personality", a pretty boy with a "generic" design that looked like Prince Charming of Shrek. But from there to grant him gallons on the basis of suffering traumas … Of course he seems much harder and attached to his feelings. Missing her blond hair, she now has a huge scar on the right side of her face (not Tyrion Lannister's). A right side where he seems to have … infected his arm? to the point of needing sedatives and all kinds of technology. What creature or incident did that do to it? Will we revive it in Gears 5?
JD has fed back on Kait's growth to the point of changing it completely so that it stops being "generic."
No less important is asking yourself which side you are in now. Have you returned to the Coalition, to the CGO? Are you under Jinn's orders after what happened in the previous installment? Why? In the trailer he does not stop repeating that they have to carry out orders and at a given moment Marcus is prevented from accompanying Kate in her search because "Jinn would notice". They even thank you for coming, as if it had been a while since they last saw each other. If you have stopped being outsiders, how will this affect your relationships with your former team?
Will Gears 5 have JD as a playable character to see this other side of the story, following in the wake of Gears of War: Judgment and its multiple views?
Could the queen not be dead? Maybe have an heiress?
The big questions of Gears 5
After the blow of the delivery starring a "Non-Phoenix" (Baird en Judgment) the bet is very risky. This time it is a numbered delivery.
There is much to know about Kait. From his father, for example, we hardly know that he was the founder of the fugitives. What happened to him? The same goes for your relationship with JD, which also lacks details to tell. How was the scene where they met? Are they really a couple? However, what everyone has in sight is the famous medallion that Kait receives from Reyna in the last scene of the game. She tells her beloved "Kaitie" that it is a family treasure, a gift "from her grandmother" and the poor take it without knowing very well what it is. A pendant that although on one side does not tell us anything, on the other it contains a symbol that we have had enough to see … the emblem of the locust. It is one of the symbols most linked to Queen Myrrah.
What does this mean? Is Myrrah Kate's grandmother? It could make sense. Perhaps that is the reason why he can hear the swarm calling her in dreams, something that he recognized was happening to him in the first Gears 5 trailer. Maybe that is also the reason why they kidnapped Reyna and didn't just kill her. . Will the locust be looking for a new legyrite queen heiress of Myrrah? And curling the curl even more, if this were so, who could be his grandfather? Because rubbing makes love and much has been rumored that Myrrah and Adam Phoenix worked so long together that … could it be? Could Marcus and Kait be half-brothers without knowing it?
Everything we've seen so far brings us back to the E3 2019 trailer and the Bury a Friend song, our starting point. As we said, with it one of the most risky, interesting to analyze and representative trailers of the whole fair is forged, and whose lyrics read like this: what do you want from me? Why don't you run from me? What are you wondering? What do you know? Why aren't you scared of me? Why do you care of me? When we all fall asleep, where do we go?
Again.
What do you want from me? What do you want of me? Why don't you run from me? Why don't you run from me? What are you wondering? What are you wondering What do you know? What do you know? Why aren't you scared of me? Why don't I scare you? Why do you care of me? Why do you care about me? When we all fall asleep, where do we go? When we all fall asleep, where will we go?
Again.
What do you want from me? JD comes out and becomes JD 2.0 (the evolution that we already described above). What does JD expect from Kait? Has she caused her arm injury? What does JD expect of life or what is happening with the return of the locust? What happened between both protagonists? Why don't you run from me? Marcus, whom we have already seen interested in Kait and the medallion, instead of running away (What are you wondering?) Shakes his head, perhaps because he suspects an unfortunate fate? What the hell has crossed his mind to shake her? What do you know? What do JD and Marcus know about Kait's life and destiny that hide from her? Do they have the right to say something? Why aren't you scared of me? The image of his mother, Reyna, appears. Why did you accept Kait in case you are not your daughter and come from the locust? How doesn't that idea scare you? Why do you care of me? Oscar's face. Didn't know the truth? Is that why the big man took care of her? When we all fall asleep, where do we go? Visions of all his friends … pain … and death.
Again.
What do you want from me? What do locust want from me and my family? Why do they kidnap us instead of killing us? What did my mother expect of me when she gave me the medallion? Why don't you run from me? Why don't others run away and leave me alone despite my visions, the damage I have caused and the fact that I am still an outsider now that JD has returned to the CGO? What are you wondering? What do people think visions are? Does anyone suspect that I may be related to the locust? My grandmother was Myrrah? What do you know? Why does Marcus send me to Mount Kadar and the New Hope Station? What hides me and what do you expect me to find there? Why aren't you scared of me? Why do people still do not fear me and respect my decisions? Why do my enemies underestimate me still coming from such a lineage? Why do you care of me? Why do you care about me and not your son, your family? Or are we? When we all fall asleep, where do we go? What I see when sleeping are nightmares … or are they visions?
And another.
