Handsome Jack – The Best Game Villain Ever?

Potential spoilers for any who have not completed Borderlands 2.

So I will just admit right off the bat that I am a big fan of Handsome Jack (edit: very big understatement, consider revising at a later date). It makes me seriously question my morality, but I can't help but adore this guy - sure, he might have an ego the size of a small moon, he might be a bit of a sociopath and he has a penchant for choking people (oops, sorry — I meant strangling — big difference).

But he is also an immensely layered and human character. What do I mean by human? I will get into that a little later.

I digress — you can love him or detest him. The real question here is whether or not he deserves the title of 'best video game villain.' To save time, I will answer this question for you (I know, aren't I so considerate?) — Yes, he does. Here's why:

1) His voice

It accompanies you everywhere you go. Recovering from a tragic train crash? Handsome Jack advises you to 'off yourself.' Turning a Psycho into a red mist? Bam, Jack is divulging the true evil of Pandora — the total absence of decent pretzels. Watching a Bandit Technical wagon get blown to bloody bits, metallic debris and body pieces decorating the sand dunes? He says...well come to think of it, he grows quiet in these moments.

He's probably too busy eating popcorn and slapping his knee every time you slaughter some bandits in ever more grotesque fashion.

The thing is, his physical presence simply isn't required for him to make an impression. He is overlord of this nacho-flavored planet and he damned well knows it. Even in the heart of Sanctuary, 'the last stronghold of the resistance,' (AKA 'Banditville') his decrees are heard in the streets and alleyways as he makes an appeal to the locals to hand you over to Hyperion. You would think this is the one place where the protagonists could block out Jack's propaganda. Instead, they actually hand out Echo logs containing Jack's recordings, in an attempt to better 'understand' their opponent.

Nothing could more amply demonstrate how seriously Handsome Jack's voice is taken, and how badly it ruffles everyone's feathers (pardon the pun, sorry Bloodwing). Despite the fact you don't meet him face-to-mask until the endgame, his vocal dominance brings him closer to you than any other character. In pretty much every game I have ever sat down and played through, no other antagonist is so interlinked with your journey.

Without this constant personal interaction, it would just be another example of a 'kill the bad guy' plot line, where you spend hours hunting down someone you haven't seen a whole lot of and then terminating them.

2) His power

You are forced to acknowledge it throughout the entirety of Borderlands 2. Every time you look up to the heavens, there it is — the space station known as Helios is staring right back at you, an omniscient, all-seeing eye. Jack doesn't need to be standing in front of you or even prank calling your Echo Device to remind you he is in charge here — this is is his Kingdom and you are the little ant scurrying beneath a gargantuan magnifying glass.

He always wins. He annihilates New Haven, tricks you into bringing the shields of Sanctuary down, and manipulates you into a range of near fatal traps. Even once you defeat him one-on-one at the Vault of the Warrior, he accomplishes his singular goal to wake the Warrior. The only reason he loses at this point is that he is up against the player...

...you gotta love plot armour.

3) His vulnerability

For all his bravado, Handsome Jack demonstrates moments of weakness which set him apart from the typical antagonist, who more often behave like emotionless fanatics who wield power for its own sake.

Normally villains only have their own life or cause to lose — Jack is all the more human because he has loved ones to lose too. He has been betrayed by everyone he has ever cared about. His ex, his own daughter, the Vault Hunters Roland, and Lilith. Doesn't leave much room for being 'nice' to other people along the way, does it?

And it all begins with his roots. In the mission 'To Grandmother's House We Go,' it is pretty heavily hinted that little Jack was beaten senseless by his dear old nan, after being abandoned by his mother.

Thank goodness — a villain who does bad stuff because of an abused heart, rather than a cartoon with a compulsion to be a monster because why the hell not.

4) His 'Hero Complex'

All too often, a story involves a black and white battlefield, where the pure and plucky forces of good duke it out with those evil devil-sons on the other side. Handsome Jack does a great deal to challenge this rainbow world when you really think about it. Consider what he says just before he is executed by the Vault Hunters:

"I could have saved this planet! I could have actually restored order! And I wasn't supposed to die...You're a savage! You're a maniac, you are a bandit, AND I AM THE GODDAMN HERO!!

"You idiots! The Warrior could have brought peace to this planet! No more dangerous creatures, no more bandits, Pandora - it would have been a PARADISE!!"

He calls you a bandit. What? How dare he accuse you, the one playing, of being the baddy? Is he right?

Well, let's see here; the Oxford dictionary defines the term bandit as a 'robber or outlaw belonging to a gang and typically operating in an isolated or lawless area'. Let's break this down:

• 90% of your downtime on Pandora is spent looting everything from corpses to toilet bowls — check.
• Belonging to a strongly affiliated group of Vault Hunters — check.
• Operating in a lawless area? That's a pretty resounding — check mate.

We can safely agree that we, as the player, are self-centered marauders. Handsome Jack forces you to realise that whilst his means are pretty horrendous at times, his intention is actually a necessary progression for civilization. The Vault Hunters, on the other hand, could give less of an Eridium nugget for the state of the planet. It suits them just fine. They are here for one thing only — wealth.

Jack has a great deal of wealth already, but rather than buying up real estate in a nice corner of the galaxy and taking it easy, he dedicates himself to taking over an entire monster-ridden planet and modernising it. Sure, he goes about it ruthlessly, but which one of our own nations and states have not been born in bloody and ruthless conditions?

I don't know about you, dear reader, but if I had to pick between living in Opportunity, and living anywhere else on Pandora, I know which I would choose. Having a futuristic house in a brand new frontier city sure beats getting diced up by Psycho's and cooked into a stew.

Handsome Jack redefines the perfect video game opponent. He isn't some push over with ridiculous motives. He is a tactical genius with unrelenting dreams and no shortage of charisma. He is the soul of the franchise, the reason Borderlands 2 is such a blast to experience. What earns him a place in the Game Villains Hall of Fame is his ability to make you laugh one moment and to cause intense resentment the next.

Am I a fanboy? Yes.

Yes, I am.