History Characters / MarathonExpandedUniverse

* WomenAreWiser: ZigZagged. She comes across as more profound than the narrator in their discussions:
--> ''Kate was always smarter than I was, in a way. I was more instrumentally intelligent. Slap a book in front of the two of us, I’d be done learning a day before she was. She was more reflective, though. I’d be done and back at work and she’d walk in and say, "Science has to stand alone." I mumbled a question. Her answer didn’t matter to me then, but it matters to me now. "You can’t justify it, except using it, and you can’t avoid it. It stands alone in the mind. Like faith, like reason, and like God." Running for three days straight gives you plenty of time to think about things like that, and even more time to wonder why you didn’t listen more closely before.''

* EvilIsSexy: From the looks of it, ''Eternal'' 1.3 makes this [[spoiler:a {{Justified|Trope}} or InvokedTrope InUniverse, but also {{subvert|edTrope}}s or [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zags]] it. Hathor [[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/691755375329804318/811088711646314576/hathor-volat.gif looks]] [[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/691755375329804318/811086713711624192/hathor-impetit.gif like]] [[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/691755375329804318/811087500725977088/hathor-defendit.gif this]] (the file names are GratuitousLatin for "Hathor flies", "Hathor attacks", and "Hathor defends"), and she has deliberately chosen her own appearance because she's hijacked a Jjaro operator's cyborg form, which conforms to the user's desired appearance. The co-director commented in a [[https://youtu.be/GpxkzS8OiPc YouTube video description]], "My personal interpretation is that she intends to be both sexy and intimidating, but others can draw their own conclusions." However, her characterisation has since undergone some significant changes, and the current story ultimately {{subvert|Trope}}s this trope in that, by the time she acquires this body, she's undergone a HeelFaceTurn - she attacks Marcus in "We Met Once in the Garden" because she's furious at him, but she acknowledges that's largely because of her own anger problem, and she knows perfectly well that he can nullify all damage from the weapon she's attacking him with. Furthermore, Hathor didn't start out evil (and is heavily implied to have been quite a looker in her old body as well, though we never see it). What ultimately makes this a ZigZaggingTrope is that she eventually undergoes a FusionDance with a much less benevolent version of herself, and when she does, she keeps basically the same form seen above - so she ultimately perhaps serves as an example of "The BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil Is Sexy". There's also a clear contrast between her using her sexuality to intimidate others and how she originally used it (i.e., to make herself and others feel good and/or to relieve stress/trauma).]]

Note that, although she was already one of ''Eternal''[='=]s main characters (if not, in at least some ways, ''the'' main character), the forthcoming 1.3 release changes her early-game characterisation substantially and greatly expands her backstory and role in the plot. As a result, some of these tropes don't apply at all to earlier releases, while 1.3 changes others from subtext to text. Four previews of 1.3 are [[http://eternal.bungie.org/development now available]] as of December 2022; the development page also contains links to the work-in-progress build folder on Dropbox (which is typically more current and thus less stable than the latest preview). The codirector began posting footage of 1.3 on Website/{{YouTube}} long before its release; two playlists feature [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoysJW6pXQ6nTrE2OJ1wsznWT_WWFeyeV individual levels]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoysJW6pXQ6kiy7CaniLiZSRi-5P-SKEN full chapters]] (most of the terminals in these videos can be read by pausing them when they show up, and some particularly important terminals are also posted as video comments). Of course, since 1.3 is still in development, her characterisation may ultimately change in some ways in the final release - and since it already has changed substantially, some of the below information is likely still outdated.\\

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: A {{justified|Trope}} example. [[spoiler:Since her mind has been converted to computer code, most of her memories are stored on a set of computer banks that we turn off in "Deep Into the Grotto". So she no longer remembers some things. A lot of things. Like the shape of the Earth. This becomes a [[NiceJobBreakingItHero serious problem]] in chapter five's failure branch, since she doesn't know she's unleashing the ''trih xeem''/''novam praemátúram'' on the Sol system. She still retains memories that she has a strong emotional connection to, as seen in ''We Met Once in the Garden'' in 1.3, and according to developer commentary, she later undergoes a FusionDance with a (much less benevolent) timeline duplicate of herself who retains almost all of the exact memories she lost.]]

** MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: [[spoiler:In chapter one, she's initially concealing a deep desire for vengeance against humanity, because she's been sent to die over and over and eventually woken up without a body, and therefore without access to her favoured coping mechanisms for the trauma she developed as a result; we only learn this about halfway through. In chapter five, she's actually undergone a HeelFaceTurn, but because we powered off the computer banks housing most of her memory in "Deep Into the Grotto", she's forgotten some things. A lot of things. Like what the Earth looks like.]]

* ShadowArchetype: In several ways, she serves as one to both Marcus and Durandal, and in some senses, her character arc serves as a mirror of the player's in ''Infinity'', in addition to illustrating some concepts from Jungian psychology, namely the shadow, which represents aspects of the personality that have been suppressed; and enantiodromia, the tendency of things to turn into their opposites (particularly when they are out of balance). [[spoiler:Where ''Infinity'' effectively served as a story of the player reasserting their own autonomy, Hathor's arc in ''Eternal'' sees her ultimately reassert her true identity after spending four chapters of the game in her vengeance-seeking "Sakhmet" guise. The shadow isn't necessarily intrinsically negative in Jungian psychology, but in this case, Sakhmet is almost the polar opposite of Hathor's usual personality: Sakhmet is selfish where Hathor is selfless, vengeful where Hathor is forgiving, consumed by jealousy where Hathor once needed the entire concept explained to her. In Hathor's backstory, she papered over her traumas with sex and booze without actually addressing the root causes; Sakhmet emerged after she was resurrected without a body and could no longer fall back on those coping mechanisms. Sakhmet could ultimately be considered a manifestation of the negative emotions Hathor suppressed in response to traumas, and until Hathor reasserts control over Sakhmet, the latter is extremely destructive both to herself and to others; however, Hathor implies in her final message that she's attempting to learn to channel those emotions constructively. Hathor does ultimately reassert control over Sakhmet; her friendship with Pompeia ultimately stabilises her in much the same way Durandal's friendship with the player (and later, his fusion with Thoth) stabilised him; compare Durandal in "Blaspheme Quarantine" to Durandal-Thoth in "Aye Mak Sicur". (However, it takes much longer for her timeline duplicate from chapter four's failure branch to reassert control, in part because she has no such friendship to stabilise her; it takes ordering the attack on Tau Ceti and realising that she is the direct cause of her very own trauma to snap her out of it.)]]

A mysterious Egyptian woman Marcus meets on K'lia [[https://youtu.be/i_PrZ9q8vIo in 1.3]]. Although he has "no particular desire to kiss and tell", subtext suggests that they had a romantic and/or sexual relationship. Marcus notes that she is the only person he knows who distrusts Hathor, to the extent of actively trying to dissuade him from leaving with her. Seems to know much more than she lets on, and clearly harbours regret over something in her past that she's unwilling to talk about.

The epilogue heavily implies, without explicitly stating, that [[spoiler:Bast is an alias of a FusionDance consisting of chapter five's [[HeelFaceTurn Heel-Face Turned]] version of Hathor and the Jjaro cyborg operator Pompeia Plotina (see below), and that she is attempting to stop another recurrence of the cycle she just went through (which has resulted in the impending destruction of the galaxy, although the characters on K'lia don't know it yet - and in any case, it won't affect them, since shortly after Marcus leaves, they will flee backwards in time more than 65 million years to become the (Stage I) Jjaro). Hathor and Bast both use several of the same foreign-language phrases (specifically Japanese and Egyptian Arabic) in close succession. We can infer that (1) she really missed Marcus, and (2) figured that convincing him not to leave with her past self would be a way to stop the galaxy from being destroyed in the next timeline. Unfortunately, she didn't manage to pull that off.]]

* BigBad: He's the primary antagonist for most of the ''Salinger'' and Tycho planks, and [[spoiler:probably the most malevolent character in the entire game]].

* GoneHorriblyRight: The Dangi Corp [[spoiler:inflicted the same sort of abuse on their head research AI, Lysander, that Strauss did on Durandal, so that he would create the sort of virus they needed for their big gambit. He made that virus, all right...to be incurable.]]

* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: [[spoiler:Lysander's mistreatment by Dangi and/or scientists is what drives him to betray humans by creating a virus that is (he claims) entirely incurable.]]

Note that, although she was already one of ''Eternal''[='=]s main characters (if not, in at least some ways, ''the'' main character), the forthcoming 1.3 release changes her early-game characterisation substantially and greatly expands her backstory and role in the plot. As a result, some of these tropes don't apply at all to earlier releases, while 1.3 changes others from subtext to text. Three previews of 1.3 are [[http://eternal.bungie.org/development now available]] as of June 2022; the development page also contains links to the work-in-progress build folder on Dropbox (which is typically more current and thus less stable than the latest preview). The codirector began posting footage of 1.3 on Website/{{YouTube}} long before its release; two playlists feature [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoysJW6pXQ6nTrE2OJ1wsznWT_WWFeyeV individual levels]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoysJW6pXQ6kiy7CaniLiZSRi-5P-SKEN full chapters]] (most of the terminals in these videos can be read by pausing them when they show up, and some particularly important terminals are also posted as video comments). Of course, since 1.3 is still in development, her characterisation may ultimately change in some ways in the final release - and since it already has changed substantially, some of the below information may be outdated.\\

* BelligerentSexualTension[=/=]FoeRomanceSubtext: She seems to have a case of this with [[spoiler:Marcus]]. The third-to-last level, "We Met Once in the Garden", has a Latin subtitle (in 1.3) of "Coíbámus ólim in hortó", which can just as easily mean "We Copulated Once in the Garden" - or, with a minor word addition, "We Came Up Against One Another in the Garden". She also flirts with him several times with him and all but confirms their past sexual history.

** In [[https://youtu.be/5I3oB0xtCRE "Septococcal Pfhoryngitis"]], she makes two more, one subtle and the other blatant; we have bolded them in the quote below. The video description confirms that they are both intentional.
--->...there's an uplink in this area that'll '''service our needs''' just as well.\\
\\
I've circled the location of the chip at right. Retrieve it and '''put it in'''... the nearby uplink slot, that is.

* AGodAmI: In "The Ensurance Trap", [[spoiler:the version of her that has taken hold of a Jjaro dreadnought is certainly well down this path, capitalising all pronouns in reference to herself and making {{Badass Boast}}s like "I am the Nightmare Myself. The ''Thing'', that Demon W'rkncacnter that slept within our very Sun, is as Nothing compar'd to me; I have already seen to its Destruction. Even thou and the Jjaro cannot stop me; for now I am become God - no, now [[Literature/BhagavadGita I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds]]."]]

---> [[spoiler:built their civilization on the bedrock]]
----> [[spoiler:of one woman's suffering]]
-----> [[spoiler:so what does that say of them?]]

The first [[spoiler:W’rkncacnter]] and the one at the heart of the conflict with [[spoiler:the ascended Jjaro]]. It says its true name is [[TheUnpronounceable unpronounceable by human tongues]] (as if “[[spoiler:W’rkncacnter]]” isn’t); “Apep” is merely an appellation [[spoiler:Hathor]] gives it due to its numerous similarities to Myth/EgyptianMythology’s GodOfEvil (and [[spoiler:a woman named after [[Characters/EgyptianMythology an Egyptian goddess]]]] would be one to know); the creators have suggested that Durandal will pick up the name later because he agrees it fits. Note that, although it is present in releases of the game before 1.3, it isn’t even given a nickname in them, much less a personality, and it doesn’t contact the player in earlier releases either; as a result, only a few of its tropes apply to it before 1.3.

:: Preview 4 arguably makes even this more interesting, since [[spoiler:Hathor (or Sakhmet, as Leela calls that version of her) has already told the player, "Thou hast arriv'd thirty-five Minutes too late," in "The Ensurance Trap".]]

* StoryBreadcrumbs: The game never explicitly states that it is [[spoiler:the W'rkncacnter from ''VideoGame/PathwaysIntoDarkness'']], but circumstantial evidence strongly implies it. In chapter five's "failure branch", [[spoiler:we follow Hathor with intents to blow up the first W'rkncacnter... which turns out to be the one at Earth. Hathor doesn't understand this because we've erased her memories of our solar system]]. The game also reveals that after ''VideoGame/{{Pathways|IntoDarkness}}'', [[spoiler:the Jjaro [[HurlItIntoTheSun imprisoned the W'rkncacnter from the Yucatan Peninsula in our sun - apparently it was too powerful to destroy outright.]] Meanwhile, who contacts us in the "success branch" claiming to have manipulated key players throughout the game? Apep, naturally. This doesn't ''guarantee'' that it's the same W'rkncacnter in both branches (indeed, the W'rkncacnter in Lh'owon's sun contacts us in "The Living Receiver", though it uses a substantially different typing style and visual aesthetic), but the chapter's narrative structure and TheLawOfConservationOfDetail certainly imply it.

The 1.3 previews employ a more sophisticated script; ultimately, [[spoiler:the "fight" is ultimately a subversion of a final boss battle in almost every possible way. Whenever Hathor takes damage, the script instantly restores her health to 32,767 (the maximum possible in the engine; comments in the Lua code for the level clarify that she isn't marked as immune to all damage sources in the physics "to ensure that she plays her 'defending' animation when hit, and that she gets angry at monsters that hit her"). Hathor starts the level with what might be termed an "anger counter" that depends on the game's difficulty setting; it's 18 on Kindergarten and increases by 6 with each difficulty setting, meaning that it's 42 on Total Carnage. (Most likely this is a ShoutOut to ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''.) Her anger counter will never increase above its starting value, but each time the player hits her, it will increase if it isn't already at maximum. Each time she hits the player, her anger counter reduces by one. (This may not occur when the player is too close to Hathor, as the engine apparently sometimes marks her projectiles as belonging to Marcus after they hit him, resulting in a net change of zero to her anger counter if she's inside the subsequent explosion's blast radius.) When her anger counter reaches zero, she stops attacking the player and teleports out from a polygon at the north end of the level. Thus, the player could be said to "win" the fight only by not fighting. Another possibility is, of course, to simply [[CuttingTheKnot Cut the Knot]] and run past her.]]\\

* {{Bookends}}: An interesting musical case in 1.2.1, where the first and last missions the player does with her as MissionControl both feature Craig Hardgrove's remix of "Landing" as background music. In 1.3, both missions still use remixes of "Landing", but the remix used in the first mission is Craig's and the remix used in the last mission is Cory King Tucker's.

** And it's also one in a few important ways to Kefka Palazzo of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''. It's an OmnicidalManiac whose sanity is so broken that it can't comprehend why its plans won't bring it any sort of solace or fulfilment and doesn't seem able to comprehend or experience positive emotions of any sort. It's also clearly very intelligent and competent, and like Kefka, [[spoiler:it initially succeeds in its plan to destroy the galaxy]].

* SophisticatedAsHell: In 1.3, she uses the phrase "Aut futue, aut pugnémus" in "[[https://youtu.be/lRA3MFW6Anw?t=715 We Met Once in the Garden]]". This is [[SmartPeopleKnowLatin Latin]] that translates roughly as "[[spoiler:Either fuck me, or let's fight]]" (see ''Eternal''[='=]s section under GratuitousLatin.MarathonExpandedUniverse for further info on the translation and Latin obscenity more broadly) and also doubles as a direct quotation to Martial's ''Epigrams'' 11:20. It also fits in nicely with the level's Latin subtitle, "Coíbámus ólim in hortó", which can also translate as "We Copulated Once in the Garden" - or "We Came Up Against [One Another] in the Garden" (Latin is a ''weird'' language). Given the familiarity Hathor demonstrates with literary classics and languages throughout the game, we can assume she intends the reference. (Although by this point [[spoiler:she's lost a lot of her memories, but she's also merged with Pompeia, a native Latin speaker who is presumably familiar with Martial.]])

* AwesomeMcCoolName: Go on, tell us "Pompeia Plotina" isn't a cool-sounding name. It helps that it's alliterative and assonant, with both names also ending with the same letter. Perhaps best of all, it's not even made-up.

* MythologyGag: Her ThemeNaming with Hathor is part of one both for Myth/EgyptianMythology and for the game itself. DependingOnTheWriter, either Hathor or Bast might have Sakhmet as her SuperpoweredEvilSide. The epilogue heavily implies that [[spoiler:Bast is a later version of Hathor who's undergone a HeelFaceTurn and fused with Pompeia.]] Bast is a new character in 1.3 [[spoiler:at least partly: she's seemingly comprised of an existing character who's merged bodies with a new character]]. Similarly, the Egyptian goddess Bast first appeared around 2890 BCE, while Hathor may have been worshipped as early as ca. 3100 BCE.[[note]]Per Wiki/ThatOtherWiki, the first unambiguous mention of Hathor dates to ca. 2613-2494 BCE, but artefacts that refer to her may date to ca. 3100-2686 BCE.[[/note]]

* StoryBreadcrumbs: Despite its length, Ksandr's terminal still falls into this category, as he never actually uses [[spoiler:Hathor]]'s real name; to understand the full implications of his revelations, players must connect the dots between [[spoiler:the Pfhor referring to the Jjaro [[GratuitousLatin/MarathonExpandedUniverse Arx]] as "the Hollow World Floating in the Sky" and its surface as "The Land in the Sky", and Hathor's references in her "Flight of Icarus" terminal to her dreams about "the hollow world, the land in the sky, all of it floating in the void"]]. To be fair, the game has already emphasized that these phrases are important with [[spoiler:the level names "The World Is Hollow", "The Land in the Sky", and Floating in the Void"]], which increases the chances that players can connect the dots.

* StoryBreadcrumbs: The game never explicitly states that it is [[spoiler:the W'rkncacnter from ''VideoGame/PathwaysIntoDarkness'']], but circumstantial evidence strongly implies it. In chapter five's "failure branch", [[spoiler:we follow Hathor with intents to blow up the first W'rkncacnter... which turns out to be the one at Earth. Hathor doesn't understand this because we've erased her memories of our solar system. The game also reveals that after ''VideoGame/{{Pathways|IntoDarkness}}'', [[spoiler:the Jjaro [[HurlItIntoTheSun imprisoned the W'rkncacnter from the Yucatan Peninsula in our sun - apparently it was too powerful to destroy outright.]] Meanwhile, who contacts us in the "success branch" claiming to have manipulated key players throughout the game? Apep, naturally. This doesn't ''guarantee'' that it's the same W'rkncacnter in both branches (indeed, the W'rkncacnter in Lh'owon's sun contacts us in "The Living Receiver", though it uses a substantially different typing style and visual aesthetic), but the chapter's narrative structure and TheLawOfConservationOfDetail certainly imply it.

* PoweredByAForsakenChild: DiscussedTrope. In "The Near Side of Everywhere", Thoth remarks that [[spoiler:the Ascended Jjaro "have effectively / built their civilization on the bedrock / of one woman [i.e., Hathor]'s suffering" - meaning that the version of history the Ascended Jjaro have come to consider sacrosanct depends on Hathor's resurrection as a disembodied intelligence, which makes her miserable and desperate for centuries, to the extent that she spends most of that time seeking vengeance on humanity until she finally snaps out of it midway through chapter five.]] In recent revisions, he adds, "we must not [[Literature/TheOnesWhoWalkAwayFromOmelas walk away from Omelas]] / we must free [[spoiler:the suffering child / at its heart]]", referring to a famous short story by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin that [[spoiler:uses this trope as its famous twist]]. Of course, the timeline that the [[spoiler:Ascended Jjaro]] are defending is awful in numerous other ways as well, starting with [[spoiler:the ''nov praemátúra'' immolating the galaxy from 2881 onward.]] But Thoth argues that even without that, [[spoiler:their torment of Hathor alone]] would be sufficient to make it an ethical imperative to oppose them.

* BigBad: [[spoiler:Is set up to be this and qualifies as such for the first four chapters of the game, but it's ultimately ZigZagged. We have to oppose her plan in chapter five because, owing to a major gap in her memory, she doesn't understand that her plan to destroy the first W'rkncacnter will also destroy Earth (because she [[NiceJobBreakingItHero lost most of her memories of our solar system when we powered down the computer banks that housed them]] in "Deep Into the Grotto", and the Jjaro's memory of our solar system has presumably long passed into myth). In 1.3, we also fight her (sort of) in "We Met Once in the Garden", as she's furious at us for rejecting her plan, but she herself acknowledges she has a major anger problem and will get over it. However, she's not responsible for the explosion of the galaxy in the fifth chapter; the Pfhor are, but to be fair, they have no idea that unleashing the ''trih xeem'' on the ''Arx'' will destroy the galaxy. Additionally, the fight between the (Stage 3) Jjaro and W'rkncacnter is also implied to be a greater long-term threat to the galaxy. That said, a FusionDance of chapter five's post-HeelFaceTurn Hathor, Pompeia, and the pre-HeelFaceTurn Hathor from chapter four's "failure branch" also becomes the Great Mother Crouched Behind the Throne, the goddess-empress of the Pfhor. The two versions of Hathor that comprise the Great Mother rarely agree with one another (and in fact can't stand one another), and Pompeia and chapter five's Hathor effectively spend the whole time attempting to mitigate the actions of chapter four's Hathor; the constant arguments between them (in a language the Pfhor don't understand) are one reason she "appears insane" to "those privilege[d] to serve her". However, the Great Mother effectively serves as an arguable GreaterScopeVillain (though chapter four's "failure branch" version of Hathor is the only one with villainous motivations) for the entire series, with "Apep" serving as a yet-still-GreaterScopeVillain.]]
* BittersweetEnding: Her story ends as a mixture of this and NoEnding. [[spoiler:Midway through the fifth chapter, she genuinely wishes to reform herself by averting a catastrophe that would result in hundreds of trillions of casualties, but because [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Marcus personally destroyed most of her memories]], she doesn't know that her plan to avert it would destroy the Sol system and therefore humanity itself, so Marcus still has to oppose her. By going Outside, he essentially engineers events so she won't be resurrected after her final death at Tau Ceti in the new timeline - probably the best outcome for her, since her life after she was reawakened was more or less a constant string of misery.]]\\

* PoweredByAForsakenChild: DiscussedTrope. In "The Near Side of Everywhere", Thoth remarks that [[spoiler:the Ascended Jjaro "have effectively / built their civilization on the bedrock / of one woman [i.e., Hathor]'s suffering"
- by which he means that the version of history that the Ascended Jjaro have come to regard as sacrosanct depends on Hathor being resurrected as a disembodied intelligence, a state that makes her miserable and desperate for centuries, to the extent that she spends most of that time seeking vengeance on humanity until she finally snaps out of it midway through chapter five.]] In recent revisions, he adds, "we must not [[Literature/TheOnesWhoWalkAwayFromOmelas walk away from Omelas]] / we must free [[spoiler:the suffering child / at its heart]]", referring to a famous short story by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin that [[spoiler:has this trope as its famous twist]]. Of course, the timeline that the [[spoiler:Ascended Jjaro]] are defending is awful in numerous other ways as well, starting with the fact that [[spoiler:the galaxy starts to explode in 2881.]] But Thoth's point is that [[spoiler:even without that, their torment of Hathor alone would be sufficient to make it an ethical imperative to oppose them.]]