sarahnevra:

tinybuggy:

sassheliosazuras:

pineaberry:

Oho! Judge Nonny! Fair enough, I submit for your review the following essay…

I honestly view Quinn as an Imperial doing his best to retain a semblance of honor in a system built to screw him over. When the writers talk about Quinn, they talk about him as a character who is intensely loyal to the Empire as an ideal. Without getting too deep into lore, part of the history he was exposed to since birth was the idea of the Republic as being an evil, corrupt government who used their Jedi to go on a genocidal rampage against the Sith. And Republic very much DID issued orders to commit genocide against the Sith after they had been defeated. The propaganda machine has since skewed the attack and made Imperials believe they survived because of the strict Sith hierarchy, but more importantly, because of the Emperor. Lord Scourge himself sheds some light on the subject. The Emperor is viewed as a savior god, and the Jedi are used as boogeymen. They literally tell their kids “Behave or the jedi will get you.”

Slavery, Sith infighting, treating imperials as expendable, social castes… the propaganda machine would no doubt pose all of these necessary evils. “We need slaves because we’re outnumbered. Sith need the freedom to lead. Don’t question your betters…” Quinn is born and indoctrinated deep in this Empire and his loyalties reflect that. He was written as a character who does his duty even if it comes at great personal cost. Drukenwell could have very easily cost him his life for insubordination/mutiny, however he was willing to challenge Moff Broysc. He puts the Empire before his own wants and needs. Is it problematic? Yes. On so many levels!

And then to add on to this flaming garbage of a situation, Baras rescues him.

I don’t think people realize what a huge deal this is. He was looking at incarceration or possibly execution and Baras rescued him. Quinn being Quinn only focuses on his salvaged career but he owes the man EVERYTHING. A lot of players get upset because Quinn betrays you on the transponder station. This is due to the fact that we expect our companions to be loyal to us! (I know I’m guilty of this, but that’s a different essay.) But the point remains, he is indebted to Baras. Per the writers, Quinn’s sense of honor meant that he had to act against you, but his love/loyalty to you meant he was never going to seriously try to kill you. Essentially Quinn was committing suicide by Sith on the transponder. Convoluted and poorly written perhaps, but at least my Sith understood it was a situation of an Imperial being caught between two Sith.

Why do people hate Quinn? I think most of it has to do with that expectation we have of having our companions be 100% loyal to us. You don’t expect someone on your team to just say ‘Hey by the way you suck, Baras rocks. Come at me!’ Another part is a somewhat unfair perception that he has more say in the matter than he actually does. He’s an Imperial caught between two Siths, serving a government that has repeatedly screwed him over. Baras is a Dath serving on the Dark Council. Baras IS the Empire at this point. Quinn then follows the only thing that has gotten him through his life, his sense of honor. Misplaced honor in the case of Darth Baras, but that is what he has. It’s his flaw. He doesn’t expect to come out alive from this, in fact he expects you to punish his deceit with death. Some people don’t see that, they just see someone they trusted turned out to be a snake. One of my SWTOR buddies killed Quinn on Iokath, and I told him he pretty much reacted how Quinn expected.

Which brings me to a somewhat controversial third reason… Quinn is disliked because he is written as a submissive man. He is competent, intelligent, brave but all of that is drowned out by the fact that he is deferential to the Sith Warrior. He stood up to Moff Broysc, single handedly rescued Major Ovech, and protected Vowrawn ‘with no thought as to his own personal safety’. And yet, people still refer to him as opportunistic, cowardly, or at best fickle. Why? Because he defers to you and if he was a real man he wouldn’t grovel like that. If he was a real man, he’d stick it to the Sith and defect to the Republic. Nevermind that he literally spent years in an Imperial prison because he defied orders to stop looking for you. Nevermind that in all that time he stubbornly refused to move on and accept the Wrath was dead like the Empire wanted him to believe. No, he’s spineless because he is reverent to who you are as the Sith Warrior and real men don’t fawn over someone like that.

I can’t help but feel we’d be having different conversations if Quinn’s character was a woman.

Tl;dr Quinn is an nuanced and complicated character. His personality is a product of his upbringing but he is worthy of love and understanding: 1) He’s just not some people’s cup o’ tea. 2) He’s got great character traits, but is stuck in terrible social caste system that screws him over. 3) Some people just can’t respect a man who was written as a submissive regardless of redeeming qualities.

You are correct, if Quinn had been a women the reaction would be far different, the sheer visceral hatred from the fandom would be overwhelming. Having a female love interest companion betray a sith lord? This fandom would implode.

This fandom (and video game fandoms in general I’ve seen) wants both companions that are actual characters who have depth and motivation…but also who never ever go against the all powerful player.

And the just have not figured out that you can’t have both.

Thank you for articulating what I’ve seen in Quinn’s motivations fir a long, long time. I still can’t convince some of my friends that there are seriously obvious in-character reasons for this man to behave as he does. An Imperial caught between two Sith is SCREWED and they know it, not even love (in the case of romanced Quinn) can really breach that ingrained need to repay what’s essentially a life debt.