Thread:LucidPigeons/@comment-1396848-20150615165253/@comment-1396848-20150620135212

Here is a better description much like the subpages on TV Tropes, I have just replayed Star Fox Adventures

Who is he?

General Scales is the leader of the Sharpclaw tribe, a reptilian band of militaristic pirates who have sought to take over (Sauria) or Dinosaur planet many times but failed. That all changed when he came across the disembodied spirit of Andross (though Scales was unaware of his prescense) who gave him power and knowledge to conquer Sauria. Scales quickly utilized his own agenda unknowing that it would indirectly help revive Andross in the process. In terms of heinousness Andross is probably hard to top in the series as a whole but read on.

What has he done?

1. Before the plot even begins Scales uses the power he recieved from Andross and breaks Dinosaur Planet apart by removing the planets spellstone's (objects made of dark matter that hold dinosaur planet together) severly damaging it environmentally to the point where it could possibly explode prompting the Star Fox team to intervene. 2. Later for his first appearance as a young vixen named Krystal searches for awnsers on the destruction of her planet he ambushes and attacks her, when she boards his galleon and tries to free a dinosaur he picks her up by the neck and attempts to murder her by throwing the young vixen into an abyss (fortunatly she was saved by a cloudrunner). After taking over Dinosaur planet Scales imposes dictatorial rule on the population. His first major act was enslaving the Snowhorn (Mammoth) tribe to work in Dark Ice Mines by threatening them with genocide if they resisted. 4. He also takes over Cloudrunner Fortress and imprisons the cloudrunner members living there when the Queen arrives he captures her and has his men beat her to mincemeat (much like Prince Tricky earlier), when Fox tries to save her he orders his patrolling robots to electrocute the hero into submission and capture him. 5. Later in Cloudrunner Fortress Scales shows a complete disregard for the well being of his own troops  (as shown when he uses one of his soldiers as a human shield and throws him head first at fox severely injuring or perhaps killing the soldier) just to keep the hero from reaching a spell stone. And finally on the desolate land known as Dragon Rock, Scales is known to have experimented on several prisoners and turned them into killing machines one known as Drakor Fox has to fight for the fourth and final spellstone.

Any Mitigating factors or redeeming qualities

As usual lets talk about the heinous standard, Scales major contenders in the Star Fox series include Andross himself, Pigma Dengar, and the Aparoid Queen. The series in general has a surprising number of Knights of Cerebus despite being light hearted in general. Like this wiki states, Scales is similar to Zant from Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess. Both are tyrannical minions who got power from the arch nemesis of the heroes but had their complete own agenda and utilized it to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible. Zant and Scales share several similar crimes, including enslavement, murder/attempted murder, environmental damage to the games overworld, and harming/dealing damage to their respective lands royalty. While Zant was sucessful in a couple of areas Scales was not including murder of royalty and attempted genocide, Scales was trying to do similar things over the course of Adventures. And had the Snowhorn tribe not surrendered, nor had fox Intervened and saved the Cloudrunner Queen he surely would have killed them. And once the Snowhorns put their hands up that still did not stop him from putting them in a fate worst than death to work in the scalding conditions of Darkice Mines.

Comparing the character to Andross is sort of like comparing apples to oranges in a way that they are somewhat different style villains despite being linked in the same game. Andross is an omnicidal maniac whose actions over the course of 64 and Adventures have solidified his status as a CM. Scales on the other hand is nearly on the same level of heinousness despite being only a one shot character due to the fact that he has committed a large number of atrocities with fewer resources and just has not sucessfully commited omnicide or destruction on the same level as Andross. Pigma Denger and the Aparoid Queen pale in comparison to the other two as Pigma is a greedy treacheorous pig, and the Aparoid Queen is made of evil and therefore cant qualify.

Aside from that Scales had zero empathatic or redeeming qualities. He was not played for any comedy what so ever, and was taken very seriously at all times. Fox, Krystal, Prince Tricky, and the rest of the cast view him as a very dangerous and serious threat to dinosaur planet's existance. He also shows no remorse for his violent and destructive behavior.

Conclusion

Scales is an iron fisted dictator, an attempted murderer in several cases and possibly sucessfull in one of his own soldiers, a sociopath, and a bloodthirsty warmonger. Even in the face of the omnicidal maniac that is Andross, and the treacherous swine that is Dengar, Scales manages to stand out fairly well both in the game and the series.

Now that I have that off my chest, I think we should do a poll on the talk page for the character. Any other thoughts please leave them here. Thanks, Xmike920