Star Wars: Battlefront II (The villagers are outside with pitchforks and torches)

It's done in the dumbest, most Stupid Evil manner possible, as well. Basically the Empire start to glass its own worlds and citizens by the billions for no discernible reason whatsoever. Iden and one of her squad turns when they order her to help do it to her own home planet (which is a loyal Imperial world with several military academies that seemingly does nothing wrong).

The plot at this point becomes so asinine and ridiculous to justify her defecting that it honestly makes me wonder how it was approved. 


Operation: Cinder is among the most illogical plot devices I've seen. Picture the Nazis, who just lost at Stalingrad, deciding that there is but one way to break the will of the enemy, to make them lose hope. And that plan is... to bomb their own cities! That's right, to attack their own territory and people, because nothing strikes fear into the hearts of your enemies like destroying your own industry and killing all of your own citizens for them!



The justification by the Imperials is some cackling mad "hue we will make the Galaxy fear us again" nonsense, but why in the hell would the Rebellion be afraid of the Empire attacking their own planets? In fact, wouldn't they be shrugging at their good fortune of the Empire tearing itself apart for them, since the Emperor apparently went from cunning mastermind to For the Evuls moustache twirler between the films?

Oh yea, they ruined Palpatine too, as the whole plan is essentially his, a contingency he orders to be used upon his death. 

This is our impetus for Iden Versio, a hardcore Imperial loyalist, defecting to the Rebellion, and of course it makes sense in that light. The Empire is killing its own citizens for no good reason, of course any sane person would defect. But the written excuse for why this is happening, leading to her defection and the most overused plotline in all of Star Wars, is so absolutely predictable that it just becomes exactly that: an excuse. An excuse to have the main character join the 'heroes'.

Albiet, Iden and the other defector aren't written brilliantly either. For the first half of the game they basically talk about the Rebels like they're ISIS terrorists and gloat while slaughtering them by the hundreds, but after they defect there's no introspection. No moment of "hey, these men and women are just following their orders like I used to", or "damn them for forcing me to do this" when mowing through a bunch of Stormtroopers. It's kinda similar to Finn in that regard, except IMO worse because Iden & Co. are previously portrayed as dyed in wool Imperials, who suddenly are able to flip a switch and become exactly the thing they were programmed to hate and have been fighting to destroy for their entire lives, whereas Finn was a bit off from the beginning and defected on his first mission.

The antagonist is predictable too, he's a member of Inferno Squad who doesn't defect, gets promoted into Iden's previous rank and becomes "Imperial bad gai #6,754,988"

It's all pretty schlocky, even by SW standards.