User blog:Koovy/PE Proposal: Lionel Starkweather

Presenting Lionel Starkweather of Manhunt.



What's the work
Manhunt is a famous horror video game made by Rockstar, most known for the Grand Theft Auto franchise. There are even shreds of evidence that ties the Manhunt and GTA universes together, such as the fact that Michael De Santa mentions the settings of the game, Carcer City, in one dialogue.

In Manhunt, the protagonist is James Earl Cash, a death-row prisoner freed by Lionel Starkweather's cronies just before his impending execution. In return, Cash must fight his way through the aforementioned, crime-riddled Carcer City under Starkweather's orders...

Who is the candidate? What has he done?
It is mentioned in Manhunt's lore that Starkweather was once a wealthy Vinewood director (Vinewood being the GTA-equivalent of Hollywood) until he fell from grace and bought with his remaining wealth a mansion in Carcer City. From there, Starkweather began turning underground pornography (with very, very dark implications, even though none of this is actually shown in the game) and snuff films, which involve real violence and murders, and sold them to wealthy Japanese businessmen.

His newfound success made him very rich, and allowed him to open an illegal company, Valiant Video Enterprises, which soon dominated the underground market for the quality of their "productions". Starkweather enacted his vengeance on those who ruined his careers, by kidnapping them and putting them in his snuff films. Starweather hired numerous psychopaths such as a veteran called Ramirez and a psychopathic manchild only knew as Piggsy to star in his movies. It is also revealed that Piggsy, kept in chains in the mansion's attic, is fed with human remains (presumably from the snuff ring's victims).

At one point, Starkweather decided to turn a new genre of snuff films, a manhunt, in which one man will be chased by dozens of Carcer's criminals under his payroll. Starkweather chose to free James Earl Cash, the playable protagonist.

Starkweather had Cash made his way through different neighborhoods of the rotten city during the night. In each neighbor, Cash had to kill several, if not dozens of Carcer's thugs, using any mean available, which often involved gruesome executions (I'll spare you the details, but you can see all of them there). Starkweather makes sure to have Cash kept in check thanks to his mercenaries, the Cerberus. At one point, Starkweather ups the stakes by having Cash's family kidnapped. Cash save them, but he has at least one of the family's member killed. Starkweather then proceeded to show the footage to Cash, which enraged the latter.

Cash was set to die in an insane asylum while pursuing a psychopath known as the White Rabbit (because he was literally dressed as a white rabbit), but escaped and managed to kill the Cerberus mercenaries send there to stop Cash. Then, Cash defeated Ramirez, protected a journalist from the corrupt Carcer City Police Department, before storming Starkweather's mansion and killing most of his mercenaries.

At one point, Piggsy managed to break his chains, retrieve his chainsaw and kill Cerberus mercenaries. Cash eventually faced and killed him. He took Piggys's chainsaw and killed the remaining Cerberus. When he finally confronts Starkweather, the twisted director attempts to bribe him with girls to kill, only to have his stomach sliced by an enraged Cash.

Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors
He has no Freudian Excuse. Starkweather is a repulsive bastard through and through who only cares about making the most disturbing movies possible. It's even mentioned in his official background that he turned underground pornography, which makes him even more unlikeable than he appears in the game.

Regarding the Mitigating Factors, freeing Cash wasn't one, it was just so he could turn a real Manhunt with lots of gruesome murders all recorded for his sadistic pleasure. And remember that he didn't intend to honor his part of the bargain by letting Cash lives since he intended to kill him in the prison level. Also, he asks Cash to escort a homeless man to safety, although the path was filled with criminals and all of this was recorded as well so it was just another part of the film to make things more "interesting". (It's not even sure the homeless man survived afterward.)

Overall, the villain is taken seriously, even though Starkweather has very few darkly humorous moments, especially when he's heard "pleasing himself" over the earpiece after Cash killed a thug.

He definitely crossed the Moral Event Horizon when he had Cash's family kidnapped and brutally murdered, only to show the footage to Cash. He crosses it again when he betrays Cash in the penitentiary. And of course, the fact that he leads a snuff ring with dozens, if not hundreds of victims at his name is a deep MEH crossing as well.

Heinous Standards
Manhunt is a very dark series known for its extreme violence, especially the second one. Starkweather still widely stands out as the founder and leader of a snuff ring, with countless victims, many innocents, at his name. To put into perspective, Cash was planned to kill at least a hundred people, and that was just a single movie.

Final Verdict
There's no doubt that Starkweather is Pure Evil and should remain under the category.