Who Is Sam Fisher? A Splinter Cell Retrospective (Part Two: Double Agent(s) & Essentials)

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Published on August 27, 2023 5:17:58 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr2p0x_N4WU

Game:

Splinter Cell: Double Agent (2006)

Duration: 26:16

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The worst thing about Moss is his dumb idea to make a ladder for moths so they don't get stuck in the bathtub.

Part one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQtKyQue3OA

A few corrections/notes:
--I call a few levels by their locations instead of by their name. Chaos Theory’s ‘New York’ is actually called Penthouse, but I got it mixed up with Essentials, where the level is called Manhattan Garment District, New York City and I decided to abbreviate it and call it New York. So the name is technically incorrect but partially correct? Should I even be worrying about this?
--Also, I mention that Tom Clancy Games were once filled with technology that made you think of early fighter jets and night vision. The word I used to describe them was ‘inconvenient’, but I think I could’ve used a better word there, as it may not have been a great descriptor for early jet fighters.
-Am I cherry-picking certain things to make my version of Sam correct? That’s an interesting thought, but I don’t think so. While you can change Sam’s actions, I think there is a version of Sam that’s coherent and consistent across the games (at least the games I’ve discussed so far). That version of Sam (violent but not malicious) is the one that I think is the most interesting while discussing the games.
-On canon: The wiki says Version 2 and Essentials are not considered canon. I wasn’t sure if I needed to address this or not in the script and decided against it. Essentials still makes creative choices that are interesting, and as far as I understand, Version 1 being canon is only due to Conviction showing clips from that Version 1. This is actually a topic that I think is pretty complicated because of the commercial nature of games and how books/shows/games all end up smashing together trying to be a part of a story. I’ve always felt, with games, that games come first. This gets complicated by franchises that are split apart by different platforms and genres. So, again, it’s a complex topic, but what I’ll say for now is I believe Essentials and DAV2 have a right to exist and be analyzed alongside V1.
-You could read that being able to knock out dudes at JBA HQ is due to no one wanting to admit it, thus no one knows. If Montreal worked that into the script it might be interesting, but that’s something we can only assume. Even then, what if a guard finds another guard passed out? Why don’t they do more during alarm states? I’d assume Montreal didn’t want to deal with those questions and sided with just making fun stealth missions; which I enjoyed but, yeah, I wonder if that problem could be solved in a more creative way. (You could make this same criticism of all Splinter Cells but that conversation is much bigger and leads to other games. Maybe a discussion for another time?)
-In certain contexts, it might make more sense for Sam to kill Lambert. You may argue that Sam doesn't know if Emile will detonate the bombs the moment the JBA learns Sam is a spy, or maybe that Sam is in a position where if he doesn’t kill Lambert, he’ll be killed instantly. To read Sam NOT killing Lambert as an unnecessary risk is interesting, but it’s something the narrative doesn’t really consider and the moment is more about the choice Sam is forced into rather than the finer tactical details of the choice itself. Maybe the biggest problem of all is that Double Agent just isn’t well-written.
-When I say it’s hard to tell if certain plot points were intended to be resolved or if they were just dropped, one example is Lambert’s line saying prison is a hell of a place to save a man’s life. This line (kind of) makes sense when considering Conviction and Sarah’s fake death, but it’s hard to tell if that was always the intention from the moment that line of Lambert’s was written. My guess is that the line was used for dramatic effect and was later a bit of dialogue that retroactively made more sense because of how Conviction was written.

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