User blog:DarkClaw3/PE Proposal: Sergeant Breaker Night

Well, a PE Proposal blog is a first for me. And the character I'm proposing today is a bit of an obscure one; that being Sargeant Night (note that the article is supposed to be spelled "Sergeant Night"; don't ask me why it isn't) from the Cartoon Network series Mega Man: Fully Charged. I haven't updated the page in question to my liking yet, but I figured that this is about as good a time as any other to propose this basta—er, big meanie. Anyway, let's get on with this.

Who is the Villain?
So, just for a little exposition first, in this version of the Mega Man universe there once was a major event known as the "Hard Wars", where humans and robots waged a Terminator-style war with one another before eventually making peace and deciding to forever live in harmony. Night was a veteran from said war, and apparently lost one of his arms at some point in the conflict, forcing him to replace it with an artificial one that he detests. Due to his loss and already being your stereotypical racist southerner, he became fairly opposed to the new peace between man and machine, and continued to organize rallies/demonstrations against it. Going even further, however, Night began to collect an army of disgruntled and embittered robots of his own whom he began to use to create chaos in Silicon City in order to further his view point, with the ultimate goal of stealing Doctor Light's Mega Key—a device that can reprogram robots for healing purposes—thus bringing him into conflict with Mega Man. Later on, he himself takes up the persona of a revolutionary Robot Master named Lord Obsidian (based on King), and starts to get help from his equally radical son Namagem (based on Proto Man/Bass).

What Has He Done?
Now, from that description, I imagine that you think Night is your average Saturday-morning cartoon bad guy. And in some respect, he is. But what separates him from the likes of Skeletor and Cobra Commander is that, as the series goes on, what he does to prove his point about robots and what he's implied to have done to the same extent gets more and more disturbing if you stop to think about it. In one episode he has Fire Man and Wave Man simply cause an unbearable heat wave in the city, but a little while later on he uses literal psychological torture to torment Mega Man when he sleeps, among other things varying in heinousness from episode to episode. A list of some of the best examples follows:


 * In "Lightfall Part 1 & 2", under his Obsidian persona, he sadistically beats Mega Man to near-death with the intention of making him feel so defeated that he'll be more willing to join his forces. Later on he breaks into the Lighthouse to get the Mega Key, and fights with Mega Man along with the Light Family, and in the process of doing so shoots and critically injures Rush, threatening to do the same to the rest of the family if they don't stand down.
 * In "Big Bad Dreams", Night (like I said before) has Namagem utilize his copy of Hypno Woman's schematics to get into Aki Light/Mega Man's dreams to torment him and thus impact his capability as a hero. Mega Man ultimately manages to turn the tables on his enemy and puts him through his own worst nightmare, which just so happens to be Night/Obsidian himself (an important detail for later on...)
 * In "More More More!", after orchestrating a gold robbery using Guts Man in order to trick Mega Man copying the former's schematics and becoming hindered by his new incredible appetite, Night enacts a new plan to use an energy force field to literally separate humans and robots onto different sides. A pretty notable scene in this one involves Night/Obsidian and his cronies mercilessly beating down on the Good Guild robots (who are essentially the police) for being "traitors" to their kind, with him seemingly nearly killing one before being stopped by Mega Man.
 * In "Too Much is Never Enough", Mega Man becomes unstable after absorbing all his copied Robot Master schematics at once and gaining their individual personalities as well, leading to Night/Obsidian deciding to try and bring him over to his side, having him fight with Namagem to prove his new strength, obviously not caring when his son his hurt. Then, when Mega Man comes to thanks to Suna and Rush, Namagem finds that his father has completely abandoned him to deal with the heroes on his own (again, another important detail...)
 * In "Enemy of My Enemy", Fire Man and Namagem get into a (literally) heated argument over who is the better right-hand to Night. Being the world-class problem solver he is, Night basically tells them to fight to the death until they prove who the weak link is; which is exactly what they do, with Night's evil laugh after they leave showing he clearly couldn't care less which one of them is killed (note: remember that Namagem is supposed to be his SON). Towards the end of the episode, a glimpse of Namagem's scarred face is shown from behind his mask (the last of these important details; I swear I'm going to bring it all together).
 * In "Change the Charge", Night/Obsidian's latest scheme involves having Elec Man plant charge points all across the city, from which Namagem can use his hypnotic powers to brainwash all the robots in the city. And once he has control of all robots, what does Night have them do? Why, "liberate" themselves by killing all of the humans, of course! No joke, Night assigns all of the robots to exterminate humanity in Silicon City all for the sake of his "prove robots are evil" goal—and while nobody is actually hurt in the end (one robot even remarking "were we brainwashed again?" afterwards), it is disturbing to think that two of the people shown being pursued by the killer robots were kids. KIDS! Not accounting everything else that may have happened, Night seriously would have been responsible for the death of two children in this episode had Mega Man stopped him one minute later. And that is just messed up...

Alright. Now that we've discussed some of his more notable appearances, let's get into the real meat of what makes Night so horrendous. In "The Gauntlet Part 1 & 2", Night/Obsidian rallies all of his robots together for one giant assault on the Lighthouse, which is ultimately just a distraction so he can get the Mega Key. During the assault, Night slowly begins to unravel his true feelings towards his son—refusing to let him destroy Mega Man, cruelly berating him for failing to complete orders, and forgetting about him entirely when the Mega Key is almost in his grasp—which comes to a boiling point when Mega Man blows him and his son are away to a mountaintop via explosives. Namagem tries to charge back in to fighting Mega Man, but Night disallows him to do so, remarking that Mega Man is too valuable a weapon to let be destroyed by a "broken" robot like him. This remark drives Namagem into attacking his father unsuccessfully while claiming he is "not broken" and "what [he] made him"; and being the great dad he is, Night swats his "ungrateful" son away like nothing and promises to erase his mind once he has the key. Night then engages the Lights once more and, despite some initial advantage, he overpowers them all, and tells Mega Man, and I quote: "Once I scrub your family out of your circuits and from this world, you'll be the perfect weapon". Essentially, there are NO threats this time around, and Night is definitely going to kill the entire Light family and brainwash Mega Man into becoming his servant. Pleasant.

Of course, Mega Man manages to acquire a dues-ex machina transformation similar to Namagem's that allows him to defeat Night and expose his identity by destroying his Obsidian armor. Night proceeds to Scooby-Doo-reveal that his ultimate goals were to use the Mega Key to wipe the minds of every single robot around—including his henchmen—into a "blank slate" and re-brand them into servants of humanity and/or start another war with them (since it's been implied since the beginning that he's wanted this). Keep in in mind that robots in this world are basically people, with legitimate hopes, desires, and even emotions; which Night was preparing to wipe away on a whim like he was clearing his browser history. This revelation pisses Namagem off for obvious reasons, and he nearly kills him before being talked down by Doctor Light, who reveals that the mysterious robot is actually his long-lost son, who went missing towards the end of the Hard Age (again, leaning on those Proto Man inspiration).

Now, this is the crucial part. Remember all of those important details I made note of before? Well, with this revaluation, and the remarks from Namagem of what he has been through for the sake of Night's lies of robot liberation, they all conjoin together to suggest that he was HEAVILY abused under Night's care. I mean, the signs are all right there. He possesses a deeply-rooted fear of his adoptive father and of failing him, and desperately seeks for his love and approval at any cost, wanting to destroy Mega Man and achieve their goals with him (as if he sees the opportunity for murder and world domination like father-son bonding time). Not to mention the huge scar that runs right across his face, which as you can guess was not there before he was stolen, the numerous mentions of him being "broken", and the fact that Night literally threatens to make him suffer should he turn disobedient again in the episode "SWISH"—again implying that something was done to him before. Plus, Night makes note that Mega Man would have unlocked his new form years before had he been trained under him, which implicates Night in being the one who helped (or, rather, forced) Namagem into unlocking his new form for the sake of his faux cause, which was probably what damaged him in the first place. And after all that—after all he put his own kid through (well, a kid he kidnapped from his family, but still)—Night still has the audacity to not even give a damn about him in the slightest, fueling his obsession with beating his rival/inferiority complex by abandoning at very turn and treating him like garbage even when he is trying to be good to him. The scumbag even smiles when Light says he couldn't have expected that he was responsible for Namagem's disappearance. Thank god he's probably going to be spending the rest of his life in a cell; especially so if this show isn't picked up for a Season 2.

Mitigating Factors
There genuinely aren't many as far as I can see. I mean, there is the possibility that Night's motives stem from seeing the loss of soldiers and people he cared about in the Hard Wars, and not forgiving robot kind for taking such things from him (since his official character profile says that he "knows loss and wears it like a cold suit of armor"), but this idea is never explored in any episode, even when Night is openly preaching why humans and robots cannot live together, making it seem as if his only reasoning for his crimes is "boo-hoo, I lost my arm". There's also the fact that most of his abuse against Namagem is not seen on-screen, but it is still very heavily suggested.

Final Verdict?
I think it goes without saying that Night is a terrible, terrible person—what with his unrepentant robo-racism, his terrorist acts, the fact that he treats his metallic minions like disposable appliances, etc. But its just how brutal his methods are when you break them down that pushes him to the next level. That, and just about everything about his relationship with Namagem, too. Child abuse, especially of the psychological and physical nature that Namagem presents, is new to any product of the classic Mega Man series, I believe (maybe to the series as a whole, but I'm not incredibly familiar with all the spin-offs), and it elevates Night to a whole new level of evil, particularly for a normally light-hearted show such as this one. Overall, Night may seem like your average Waluigi-'stashed, evil red-eyed techno-xenophobe, but inside resides a heart colder than his metal arm.

But that's just my personal take. What are your thoughts?