It's time to prepare yourself for a ranting tangent on Handsome Jack. As none of you may know, I have always been a staunch defender of Handsome Jack. I somewhat controversially played Borderlands The Pre-Sequel to it's completion before Borderlands 2, I've finished both now. Seeing how he first descended into who he is before seeing him as an anti-hero in Borderlands 2 was a game changer for me (forgive the pun). Contains medium-heavy spoilers for Tales From the Borderlands, Episode 5, first hour and a halfish.
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An Obituary
Jack's decisions have always been controversial but from some capacity I've always been able to argue for him, but as I finished Tales From The Borderlands I had an epiphany that he cannot be saved, no matter how nice I am to him. In Tales I really did want to help Jack, thinking that his evil would be kept in check by Rhy's good. I always told him what he wanted to hear while still being an overall good guy to everyone that I met on the adventure we had, striking the balance that I thought could stick. I 'Trusted Jack' at the end of Episode 2, and did so again at the end of Episode 4, and yet it was all for not. Because, in the end, once Jack has power he becomes Handsome Jack. I always believed the he had his reasons for the things he did, but with his plan to make an army of Handsome AI cyborg meat suits, I knew that there wasn't a shred of heroism left in him, no matter what he said. He just wants carnage for his amusement. In the end, it was with great regret that I told Rhys, possibly Handsome Jack's best friend, to kill him once and for all, crushing his own optical core, banishing the Handsome AI from our plane of existence. The saddest point about that is that after all he had done I said sorry to him, and meant it, as Handsome Jack died for the second, and most likely last, time.
Goodbye Handsome Jack, even after all you did and said I still won't call you a monster, but your not the man that Pandora needs, deserves, or is going to get.
You are not the hero of this story.