An intriguing, thought provoking article recently surfaced over at Destructoid. It begs the question if Dr. Wily, arch-nemesis to Mega Man, is really as bad as he seems. In actuality, is Wily trying to save the world? His actions simply misinterpreted?As the story goes, Wily and Dr. Light, the greatest minds in the field of robotics, had two very distinct philosophies towards the future of machine. Wily saw robots as mere tools with specific directives and purposes, while Light believe they had the capacity to be equal to man -- they could be our friends and family.
This, as Tony Ponce points out, is Dr. Light's big mistake....
"What would happen when these new lifeforms, possessing not only complete logic but complete emotions as well, grew tired of judgment from the segment of the population that never accepted machine independence?
His pleas fell on deaf ears. Rather than scrutinize Light's research, the community questioned Wily's motives. It wasn't hard to build a case against Wily -- though his skills were on par with Light's, it was the latter who earned all the accolades. It was concluded that Wily was acting out of pure jealousy and carried intent to sabotage Light's work. Thus, he was blacklisted and forced into seclusion."
Wily foresaw a robot uprising, apparently; an uprising One driven by the very elements that made Light's robots so human. In an effort to downplay the public's opinions on friendly, helper Robots, Wily took action:
"Wily thought, what if there was a way to sow distrust, to turn public perception of robots completely around? Nothing short of a global calamity would do the job. But how to regulate it while minimizing collateral damage?
Wily was fortunate enough to discover Light's lost first creation. By studying Proto Man, Wily was able to learn much about how the Robot Masters AI operated. He could then capture the robots and rewrite their code to only follow his commands. No one would believe his actions were just, so he'd have to conceal his true intentions behind a global domination ruse."
That is just the tip of the iceberg of this theory. Tony's article certain puts Wily's antics in a new light, one that, really, seems quite plausible.
You can read the full post over at Destructoid. Afterwards, feel free to sound off in the comments. It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on this one; has this changed YOUR perspective on Wily?
Wily doesn't really wants to conquer the world, he only wants to show off that his robotics skills are superior to Dr. Light's. And as he said in Super Adventure Rockman, he loves his machines. His robots also have personality, so if he was like in the theory, why bother giving personalities them?
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of that The The Megas/Entertainment System song about Megaman being the villain.
ReplyDeleteAnd if there is any merit to this theory, we can look at the events of 21XX and beyond as examples of how right Dr. Wily may have been. Regardless of his intentions, if he did see Light's intentions as possibly creating chaos in the future, then he was certainly correct.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great read!
wily could be good..........nahh
ReplyDeleteNow you see, everyone. This is where the X Series story comes in. Sigma has the right idea, just the wrong way of going about it, focused more on superiority rather than equality. Still, are the hunters doing what's right? Halting evolution? One could say you play the villains in the games...
ReplyDeleteHopefully the next set of Megaman games (whether Classic or X series) will shed light upon the matter. I wonder what will the player's reaction to the sudden plot twist though.
ReplyDeleteWhat an awesome, well-thought out article. I don't necessarily agree, but it's a great read nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteMan, something like this would be an awesome concept for story in MegaMan, but.. I don't think Capcom would ever go for it.
ReplyDeleteI mean, it'd be like if - after 10 games of 4-sentence stories - the writers for MegaMan suddenly said "alright, time to JACK THIS UP TO 9000" and injected polemics and went for thought-provokind debate in the classic series. I'd love for something like that to happen, but I can't imagine the writers going for it, and I'm not sure if it'd sit well with some fans. I'm sure to some non-hardcore fans it'd be a turn-off, like trying to inject real emotion and drama into a Mario game.
Frankly, I have always believed that Doctors Light and Wily had both caused the end of the world. Classic started all cheery, but from the X series and down the rest of the timeline, that future started to become more bleak.
ReplyDeleteIt, in some ways reminds me of Astro Boy, how the humans fear the raise of robots and want to get rid of them, whereas the robots want to stay and feel forced to fight the humans as a result.
But, are robots really just tools, when they feel and think like emotions, and want their own rights and opinions? That's completely different from being a mere machine.
Actually, Allahweh, Wily's creation Zero caused the maverick outbreak due to the Zero Virus infecting Sigma when they were battling (as shown in X4). X was created to combat any future threats Wily would create and hide away, or usher in a new age.
ReplyDeleteLet's also not forget that Dr. Light took precaution in the form of sealing X up to run tests. It was Dr. Cain's Reploids that turned Maverick (with or without the Sigma or Zero Virus) and caused the wars.
ReplyDeleteEither Dr. Cain didn't understand Dr. Light's design of X to the fullest or he took Dr. Light's precaution for granted and churned out Reploids with out the necessary tests.
@markdude_93: That is correct, I suppose. The virus that infected Sigma was from Zero, and hence Wily, though I remember reading that it may have been something accidentally stored in the capsule computer that Wily sealed Zero in, and thus may not have totally been his design all along.
ReplyDeleteIn either case, though, didn't the virus merely awaken Sigma to making the choices that he did, as I think Lumine or someone suggests in X8?
And yes, Dr. Cain is a fallen figure (hence his name), as he basically replicated a race of beings with no real expertise on the matter, and everything he tried to do to offset his failures (Dopper, the Repliforce, etc) only seemed to make matters worse. :/
Damn. Straight. I've always sympathized with Dr. Wily being "the bad guy", since he was just as talented and smart as Dr. Right. But here's the thing... Dr. Wily didn't have to go the path he did. Rather than steal Dr. Right's robots and aim for global domination, he could have gone another route and instead simply made Dr. Right out to be the bad guy. Being subtle about it, making his robots attack the city without particular allegiance, would have worked much better than his current plan. See, Dr. Right seems the type to let little things like all his robots trying to kill people get to him. So, once Dr. Right saw his life's work go up in smoke, Dr. Wily could have stepped in against him and become the #1 scientific mind in the field of robotics. Simple as that. Even if Dr. Wily was found out, he could explain it away easily enough by saying, "I was simply showing you what could happen. Think about it. Thinking robots acting on their own. Malfunctioning and doing things they're not supposed to. Do we really want that?"
ReplyDeleteBut that's just how I see things. Or rather, how I see "what could have been".
Yep. If anything, in truth it's Dr. Cain who's responsible for setting the world on its path to destruction, as he replicated a being he hadn't even come close to fully understanding and, as a result (along with Wily's Zero Virus), created the Maverick Wars and Elf Wars. Good going there, Dr. Cain.
ReplyDeleteThat was a damn good read!
ReplyDeleteI only read the short version as I just saw this now, but personally what was summarized so far was one of the things I myself kind of believed.
ReplyDeleteI refused to think that Wily is just a 'bad counterpart' for Light and he's always been the only professor ever showing up in the games that I liked :3 Thanks for posting this and bringing it to my attention, going to read the long version ont he weekend.