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hugo strange in arkhamverse.
when arkham city came out in 2011, i watched the promo videos eyefully, but i filed him away for later, for safekeeping. still a teen and not really aware of myself, i was frightened and captivated by his unusual, imposing appearance and his propensity for mind control. i was hardly strong enough to appreciate him back then.
arkhamverse hugo is weird for me. he is one of the hottest hugos because he says things like:
oh, you are a truly extraordinary specimen. I look forward to breaking you.
and:
i will march to wayne manor, i will drag your faithful butler through the streets of gotham and i will make him tell the world how you have failed. my arkham city experiment is a success and you… you will kneel before me, begging for your life.
and:
i will enjoy dissecting your brain, ms. kyle.
(did i mention that the third quote is a pov shot from the game over screen? ugh. UGH.)
i think he draws a lot from that golden age hugo in ways that i’m not sure i like as much. it’s a tricky balance to strike when you have a character who represents the establishment in all of its force and annihilation. in some ways he is a bolder representation of this theme than other hugos, who are typically ‘bad apples’ in a carceral system that goes unquestioned, he just needs to be ousted and the problem is fixed, right! here his influence spreads everywhere, literally enclosing a part of gotham because people just stood by and let it happen. sometimes the vibes skirt too close to all that intergenerational trauma and it gets icky for me, but also he’s soooo pretty and i go starry eyed looking at his propaganda posters demanding compliance and the amount of black leather he wears in the arkham city comics. yes, sir. ah. what the hindbrain wants is complicated.
you know what? it sucks that we get so much foreplay in this game but then ra’s al ghul is the real villain and hugo’s entire grand gesture is just his attempt to prove himself worthy of immortality, to ride ra’s’ coattails. i like the eroticism between hugo and ra’s, i do ship it and think it makes sense because of hugo’s love affair with power and control, but it feels like such a missed opportunity. let him be his own fucked up thing! he deserves it!
arkham city is a weird plot and i don’t think it coheres super well, though i am very fond of the collectible tidbits of lore from hugo’s interviews with his patients, and of course the amazing batjokes moments. i think what hugo represents in this game does not work with the secondary (or tertiary, i guess, if hugo is the secondary antagonist) antagonist being joker who is depicted as being physically and morally diseased. with the amount that joker flirts with batman, it feels very regressive. a soup of anxieties from lots of different eras that also happened to contain batman.
hugo’s depiction in gotham (the tv show) is indebted to arkhamverse hugo. they made him more fun and less uncomfortable. but when i want to be uncomfortable, i fantasise about arkhamverse hugo.