Do Henchmen Have Families Too?

A question occurred to me when I was playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Do henchmen have families too?

I was playing that airplane level in the latter half of the game, the one where you’re getting closer to the big baddie, stealthing, running and gunning down the enclosed corridors, taking cover behind cargo crates, popping out occasionally to gun down some mooks. I was sprinting to the end point, the anticipation of reaching the climax of the game rising as I did so…

…when something caught my eye and stopped me dead in my tracks.

Beside a couple of posters (one for a pay-per-view boxing match, another bizarrely endorsing the consumption of kiwi fruit) lay a row of lockers, one of which had three photographs stuck to it: the first showed a wee baby, its face scrunched up cutely as it lay under a blanket; the second had a man holding another small child while smiling, and the final one depicted a man making a devil sign with his hand at the camera.

The owner of this locker obviously had a loving wife, at least one child and a lot of good friends waiting for him back home. Had I just gunned down the individual, callously ending his life for my own game? Had I just killed a man who had only taken this job to ensure his family could pay the bills and keep food on the table? Will his widow receive a phone call telling her that her husband had reported for duty on a plane that never came back?

And what of all the other hundreds, thousands, nay, millions of enemies I’ve gunned down in countless titles before? Had I inadvertently irreparably ripped apart a huge number of families, tearing them apart by dispatching sons and daughters, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers? What if my actions drove orphaned children to seek vengeance, placing them into a never-ending, perpetual cycle of violence?
All these questions flashed through my mind in the space of a few seconds, long enough to make me think that there may have been larger consequences to my actions than I previously thought.

At that point, though, a bullet flew past my head, causing me to throw myself to the ground, scrambling for cover. I looked down the sights of my gun and took aim at my assailant: if it turns out to be me or him, the way I see it, it might as well be him.

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11 responses to “Do Henchmen Have Families Too?”

  1. Mark P avatar

    Chances are they’re just taking their anger out on you. Anger that stems from the fact their loving wives and children haven’t been coded and hence don’t exist in the virtual world they inhabit. Surely you’re doing them a favour?

  2. Jamie avatar
    Jamie

    If you’re feeling guilt over a pixelated enemy and his family who are equally as fake, God help us should you ever be called into real life war.

  3. Laura avatar
    Laura

    We are terrible people :'(

  4. Dean avatar
    Dean

    There was that brilliant scene in Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me that explored that very thorny moral issue better than anything i can think of.

    Kudos to the designer who put the photos on the locker. I love games that make you question your morality. Its not something often found in war games (or the military in general for that matter).

  5. Ninja avatar
    Ninja

    I think the point of it was to trigger a bit of guilt, kinda unusual in a game that’s all about blowing shit up. Does show how a bit of incidental detail can catch you out though!

    They knew the risks when they signed up 😉

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  7. DelTorroElSorrow avatar
    DelTorroElSorrow

    Surely the ends justify the means in this situation? He was helping to blow up the US (or whatever the contrived BFBC2 plot was, I can’t even remember).

  8. Simon avatar
    Simon

    It’s like that bit in Clerks, where they’re talking about all the private contractors that died in the second Death Star”s destruction. And this building contractor pipes in and says that these people know what they’re signing up for.

    It’s these henchmens’ choice to be an enemy soldier in a FPS. They know the risks.

  9. Lauren avatar
    Lauren

    Indeed, Charlie Brooker mentioned this in Gameswipe. Made me lark as he was playing Castle Wolfenstein and giving each German he shot a backstory. I was in tears larking.

    But I try not to think about it. Specially when I shot that guy in RDR when he was on his knees :/ Well … he shot at me first!

  10. Mark P avatar

    In fact this was the exact reason I never played Hitman: Blood Money. I played the demo and got to the target. He was begging for his life. I turned it off and never wanted to play it again. I didn’t shoot him.

  11. Aris avatar
    Aris

    Humanising the enemy has been a trope (dare I say, staple?) of other forms of media for a very long time, and it’s only in recent years started to filter through into games. It’s amazing what thoughts such a minor thing can inspire.

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