The Oddworld Quintology is primarily the story of Abe's journey from the 'diamand mines' to the 'consumer cities', so Havoc does have a point. The other characters do indeed have their own importances, equalling Abe's, but the story as a whole is Abe's, even if he steps back into the shadows for large chunks of it.

And Alcar has a good point. Mudokons have a far shadier history than we or even they realise, so I wouldn't be surprised if their ancestors are partly responcible for their downfall in ways other than their arrogance.

Oh that would be a realy interesting twist! The glukkons being the good guys eventualy! :S

I think the implication was that the Glukkons are not so much bad as misunderstood. After all, they have to pay the rent and feed themselves, as does anyone. The means by which they acquire that money is merely born through the identities society puts into them, as is their drive towards greed and reputation. Oddworld is meant to be about blurring the lines between good and evil, while providing some pretty good parodies of contemporary issues such as consumerism, the environment etc.

no one is bad or good on Oddworld
they just have different views and oppinions

Chopping up your workers isnt bad you say?

maybe it's bad on your point of view and not for the Glukkons...

Let it be me... but I think - even in oddworld - that chopping up your factory workers for profits is just bad. I don't think OWI would make Oddworld that extreme so they can say something like that is a good thing.

That is generally bad. I completely understand the point Xavier was trying to make but it just collapsed on it's spindly wooden legs with:
The majority of bad guys believe what their doing isn't bad in their point of view. Therefore, it isn't so unique.

point taken... point made :D

Except that the Lorne originally planned for the first game to be Squeek's Oddysee, in which case Abe would be a secondary character by comparison. So the quintology is about the journey from the mines to the cities but for all the 'Quints' (if I may coin a term for all the heroes) together, not primarily Abe.

If abe stays hanging around in all future games while all other heroes like munch are not around anymore then Abe is the main character. But Its kinda stupid to start speculating about that now since the quintoligy isnt complete yet so we won't know a thing about the on going story.

You can't know or Abe is or isn't the leading character in the quintoligy.

You can't know or munch and future heroes will keep their important part in the games.

And you can't know how the story is going to end since we still have three games to go (AE was conciderd a bonus game right?) before the quintoligy ends and within those three games the story might take an unexpected turn becouse OWI found it better fitting...

So, conclusion: We don't know for sure or Abe is the main character or not... we actualy don't know anything for sure concerning the quintoligy (unless your working at OWI :)).

Ok, I made my statement... anyone care to take it apart?

Squeek was the project LL showed at first to SMcK to convince her to do oddworld whit him...

the Quintology IS Abe's journey, Havoc, I can assure you
and since LL loves the stories of the Quintology so much I doubt he will change them, remember changing Munch was an hearbreaker

Lorne said that he had originally planned for squeek to be the first game but changed it to Abe bcos he figured that players would be able to relate better to a human-shaped creature and that is important for a game from a new company.

Also Lorne said that in future Oddysees all the quints will be together and work together. Thus both Abe and Munch will be in Squeek and all three will be in Forte's Oddysee

I've never heard of "Forte" :fuzconf: And as Xavier said, Squeek was merely the first character he pitched to Sherry in a bid to win her over ;) Squeek was also Lorne's favourite.

Alcar...

No, Squeek's Oddysee was merely, as Xavier said, the first character he used to convince Sherry McKenna to fund Oddworld Inhabitants. Unless you can provide the interview or article in which he says this, which I have always been intrigued about, I'm going to have to take it as a misunderstanding somewhere along the line. Now I'm dreading my next paragraph, because it makes me the biggest hypocrite the Forums have ever seen. :p

I've never heard of 'Forte' either. However, I have heard of 'Nod', the fourth hero. I don't have evidence, though, as the Inhabitants Interview in which he was mentioned has long been lost. A few other fans could back me up, but I'm positive most, if not all of them are no longer interested in Oddworld, and are certainly not frequenters of the Forums anymore. Forte is an interesting name, though, especially since it contains the syllable 'four'. :p

And Squeek was Sherry McKenna's favourite character... until she was won over with Abe.

EDIT: In my excitement, I missed a couple of points. The first was simply that even if Lorne had originally intended Squeek to come first, Abe is first now, and it's the Quintology now we still follow. What's more, character design isn't determined until the game is under production - thoughts were put into making Munch a flying creature, for instance. It makes you wonder what precisely Lorne's original ideas were. However, what you say about putting Abe first to have audiences hooked on a more humanoid character does ring a very quiet bell. Maybe it wasn't so much a humanoid character as a very human-based situation. Not many of people have had their species hunted to near extinction, for example, so the empathy just gets lost.

I'd investigate more, I really would, but I don't have any time at all.

The other point goes back to Oddworld blurring the lines between good and bad. Clearly chopping up your workers is a bad thing to do, and it's silly saying that Oddworld wanted to justify that - but the needs and nurturing of all characters bears through their actions. If what I posted in the other topic about Khanzumerz being the true evil is accurate, then Glukkons are under even more pressure than we thought. These pressures have been exentuated (sp) over literally hundreds of years on Oddworld. It's important to remember two things also:

1) Oddworld Inhabitants are highly resiliant to change. That's not to say they cope with it well, that's to say they don't do it very much. The ideologies of the native races of Oddworld are simply not programmed into Glukkon minds, and it's not fair to assume they can change their minds at all, because...

2) Oddworld characters are certainly not humans with exagerated personalities. The Glukkon mind works very differently to ours. Fresh ideas, when presented to them, like eco-friendliness and worker rights, cannot worm into their conscience, because their minds don't work like that at all. This makes their opinion of themselves not being evil all the more justified.

With Glukkons and Vykkers, it's not a case of having an outlook on life that's very wrong, but which they consider good. One character's experiences are irrelevant at this point. What the Quintology shows are entire species who very basic and instinctive natures demand certain things from them: eg a subconscious desire to be at high altitudes, or a subtle but fundamental hatred of Mudokons. It's not quite the case of the regular Evil Genius with a traumatic childhood.

where the hell do you get all this info on new characters... its not on the OWI site so it can't be official... or is it on a part of the site I didnt found yet?

<heavy accent> Ve have our vays, Mr. Bond. </heavy accent>

Seriously, we look to old websites, interviews, images, etc. Paul O'Connor, who frequented a mailing list when he was still employed at Oddworld Inhabitants, hinted and let out a few secrets.

Alcar...