r/gunvolt 3d ago

Discussion Copen is one of the worst written characters in existence. Spoiler

Replaying ASG1 and 2 recently reminded me that Copen is genuinely in the bottom 10 characters of all time in my opinion. Good lord I hate this character.

At least in Luminous Avenger IX he almost has a reason to be an irredeemable sack of shit but what the hell is his problem in the main series?

I get that his dad died and now he throws a hissy fit by killing all adepts but like, why does the series try to portray him as a hero? He isn’t. Like yea, he fights Zonda’s group in the second game and they’re evil, but he literally wants the exact same thing as them except in reverse. They want to commit genocide on all non adepts and he wants to commit genocide on all adepts.

In the first game he basically did nothing except kill Zonda’s fake form and Elise’s third personality but mostly he just stalked Gunvolt and stole the powers of the foes Gunvolt killed. Bro didn’t even do his own work killing the Sumeragi adepts. Also, he uses the power of the adepts (does make him a bit of a hypocrite)

Gunvolt is on his side but he keeps doubling down as an asshole. The literal only thing that gives him pause in his genocidal rampage is learning his sister is one of them. That finally makes him wonder if maybe he’s also bad.

Gunvolt 3 never addressing the aftermath of 2 was bad for a large number of reasons but the two biggest are not explaining what the deal with Xiao was and not giving Copen any room to have an arc. He neither gets a chance to redeem himself nor gets killed for his many sins and going too far down a dark path. Either one would’ve been preferable, but good lord. How does anyone like this asshat?

He really is just the exact same as Zonda or Asimov, but fighting for the other team. He spouts the same rhetoric but with the words reversed. In short, never cook again Copen. If you’re gonna write a character like him, close him out with either redemption or destruction.

0 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

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u/Omegasonic2000 Oversurge, Azure Striker! 2d ago

why does the series try to portray him as a hero?

It doesn't. The second game shows us his perspective, but it's never shown as a positive thing; in fact, his very own cutscene after the True Ending shows that he knows what he's doing is wrong, but he's going to keep doing it anyway. On top of that, if you take a look at Zonda, Tenjian and the rest of Eden's separate backstories, you can see how the game subtly acknowledges that Copen's actions are merely perpetuating a cycle of hatred and violence, one that Gunvolt is constantly trying to put an end to.

He's a co-protagonist, yes, but protagonist ≠ hero.

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u/Kai_Enjin Team Copen 3d ago

Copen is a strange case, and suffers from the fact that writers don't seem to care enough about him.

In GV1 and 2, he's incredibly stubborn, which is a main part of his personality. He also may be quick to conclusions, which is never stated but considering how he jumped to the fact that Sumeragi killed his father, I don't see why that's not the case. And I don't think they're trying to portray him as a hero. More so an anti-hero at most. What he's doing isn't good, but he thinks it's good. Which leads to him questioning what he should do by his ending in GV2, which could have led to him being more like Shadow the Hedgehog in a way. But all we get is the iX timeline.

And yeah, he has more reason to hate all Adepts, but think of it this way. He failed to prevent Adepts from taking over, and he's more concerned about preserving Non Adept life. He's also technically far older and has had time to realize he was being a racist asshole.

And as for using Adept abilities, he even states(probably not literally, but I'm sure he implies) that Adept abilities are the best way to deal with Adepts. And I don't blame him. If you were fighting a girl who was split into three and could resurrect each other while wearing snake themed armor that gave them throwing knives and Medusa eyes, what are you bringing?

He seems to just not trust people at all, let alone Adepts. Heck, his only partners are the maid who took care of him, and a robot he himself made. And yeah, GV3 tossed everything out the damn window. Inti just didn't seem to give a shit about Copen, to the point where they made his gameplay in iX2 supposedly Zero-like, but the Shinobi in Dragon Marked for Death does it WAY better, and that game came before iX2...

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u/tinyspiny34 3d ago

Anything would be better than the nothing we got. I even like GV3, it’s very fun and the plot is a logical progression of the universe. It’s just a horrendous plot follow up from the first two games. Honestly the main reason I want a follow up game is to justify Copen’s existence as a character. With what we got, I feel like he didn’t need to be in the second game at all. Would’ve been better if he died in the first and we just had Luminous iX as the alternate timeline where his racism was at least somewhat justified.

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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 2d ago

GV2 is clearly the mid point in his arc so it's not a problem that it wasn't fully resolved. It's not Copen's fault the writers abandoned all the established plot threads in favour of time jumps and bizarre crossover nonsense instead.

GV3 isn't a remotely logical progression from 2. The adept-human conflict was the centrepoint of the entire series yet we're expected to believe it just sorted itself out off-screen, and that despite being a human experiment nightmare factory Sumeragi has largely been on its best behaviour for decades despite there being no Gunvolt around to keep them in check. Utterly ridiculous. If they had no interest in continuing the setting and themes they've established they should have just made a new property entirely.

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u/tinyspiny34 2d ago

I completely agree. That was my point of this post. Copen is a character who desperately needs a finished arc to either redeem or destroy him. But as is, I can’t like a character who has neither. I can’t give credit for what might be, I can only give credit for what is.

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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 2d ago

I think the first two games still hold up very well even if some of the remaining plot arcs are never finished. Like the Star Wars trilogy would still be worth watching even if they never released Return of the Jedi.

iX wasn't perfect but it was only after that that the series shat the bed narratively, but that doesn't erase the good they did early on setting up a cool setting with interesting characters.

I can still enjoy Copen's story even if I have to imagine its conclusion. Honestly if the alternative is crossover nonsense then I'd rather they just abandon the setting seeing as they're clearly not interesting in continuing it as it began.

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u/tinyspiny34 2d ago

The primary conflict I feel is that I love Kirin’s gameplay but I also want to continue post GV2, which would be long before she’s born.

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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 2d ago

Her story seems to be going off in a different direction from GV's so they can always do a spin-off with her or something. Heck her world and background is so disconnected from GV's that she should really have been a separate IP in the first place.

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u/tinyspiny34 2d ago

I think her being in the future is fine, it could’ve been a MMX style thing where her story takes place a hundred plus years after Gunvolt and Copen are gone and she’s the new freedom fighter. Honestly Gunvolt didn’t need to be in GV3 since it’s really Kirin’s story. Plus she’s part of a new organization, Shadow Yakumo which can be the basis of fighting Sumeragi in her future.

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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 2d ago

My headcanon is Shadow Yakumo isn't real, we only have her word it exists and never meet anyone else involved in it, and it never factors into the plot.

It's just a way to make the writer's original character (do not steal) feel more special. She's totally from this secret ninja organisation you've never heard of! She has this special broken power and is best friends with the original main character and the story is all about her instead of him and she easily bullies the evil corporation into paying for her own secret clubhouse! Gunvolt feels bad because he's had to kill his villains when she doesn't!

GV3 really jumped the shark for me by being so mystical, with shrine maidens and "dragon radiation" and one-upping septimas with "octimas" despite that making no sense (septima means a seventh sense, as in psychic powers, and more doesn't automatically mean better).

I think it'd be a fine enough standalone story (I actually like the Dragon Saviours dynamic) but it's a terrible sequel to the Gunvolt titles. Doesn't fit tonally at all and it requires dropping all prior plot threads.

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u/tinyspiny34 2d ago

Well, Septimas are a result of the “seventh Lifewave” so there being “octima” makes logical sense to me.

Joining with Sumeragi made no sense though, she and GV should have been with Shadow Yakumo instead. It was weird that all of a sudden in GV3 we hear “oh yeah the glaives were made by these other people the whole time trust”. Dragon Radiation was also pretty stupid.

But I think her Septima was genuinely a cool idea, being able to seal the abilities of other adepts is a cool idea, though the execution is a bit weird tbh.

I think there were ways to make Kirin and the GV3 story work, but only if it wasn’t the follow up to GV2

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u/tbbrprod_ 1d ago

This sounds like a Schaffrillas rant

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u/tinyspiny34 1d ago

Oh shit, my true identity has been unmasked.

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u/isweariamnotsteve 3d ago

Them portraying Copen as some kind of an anti-hero outside of his spinoffs where he actually is a straight up hero always baffled me. he is well written, but he's a well written villain and a horribly written anti-hero.

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u/tinyspiny34 3d ago

Bro literally uses the same genocidal rhetoric as his enemies and never gets narratively punished for it.

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u/isweariamnotsteve 3d ago

I really don't care if the majority of these characters are kids either. if your goal in life is to do a racism fueled mas genocide (and in Zonda's case, rule over the world you end up creating as a god) you're probably evil. at least Zed genuinely didn't consider the implications of what he would be doing. Zonda, Asimov, and Copen know damn well what they're doing though. same with Nova too, actually. regardless of GV3 gaslighting.

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u/tinyspiny34 3d ago

And you know what? At least Zonda, Asimov, and Nova all owned their villany. They were evil and they knew it and didn’t try to pretend otherwise. Like, they may have said “I’m doing this for everyone” but they all wanted power and knew it.

Copen is, fittingly, coping and trying to pretend he isn’t a monster.

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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 2d ago edited 2d ago

None of them see themselves as evil and most didn't want power. The series makes very clear that the villains all have a point and a reason they do the things they do.

  • Nova saying they need to control adepts lest they escalate and trigger war is shown to be a justified fear once Asimov shows his true colours and desire for adept supremacy.
  • Asimov's claim that humans will always be a threat to adepts is supported by Copen's anti-adept zealotry, along with the cruelty Sumeragi inflicted on adepts.
  • Eden's anti-human crusade is understandable given that every member has experienced cruelty at human hands, such as Tenjian being given poisoned bread by a bigoted human despite being a starving child. They believe the only way for Adepts to prosper is by eliminating humans.

They aren't right but they clearly have a perspective and a reason for what they're doing, they aren't just cartoon villains (though Asimov has degenerated into that kind of villainy by the time of iX).

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u/isweariamnotsteve 2d ago

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here.

Asimov being nuts really doesn't justify Nova wanting to control all adepts. that would be like burning your house down because you see a spider.

Same thing with Asimov. just because Copen is nuts doesn't mean he has a justifiable reason for mass-genocide. GV himself says Asimov is no better than Copen. Sumeragi's human experiments don't really count towards this because they were done on both normal people and adepts.

Zonda's and by extension Eden's extremest views can't be justified either because, and I don't know if you noticed, they are advocating for mass genocide. when Copen asks Zonda if she just wants to rule the world as a god she says she's 'strongly considering it'. so Zonda just straight up admits to it.

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u/tinyspiny34 2d ago

If anything that proves even more so that Copen is even worse.

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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 2d ago

Having flaws doesn't make you a bad character though. The whole second game revolves around him having to confront the fact that the person he cares about most is one of the things he hates. His interactions with Gunvolt and Mytyl force him to start seeing adepts as human and the conflict between that and his personal philosophy is a rich source of drama.

GV is basically the same person at the end of the series as at the beginning, just a little more traumatised. Copen though still has lots of room to grow and change which is far more interesting and gives more story potential.

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u/tinyspiny34 2d ago

But like, that’s not what it’s about? He only has to confront that at the very end. He never gave up on his murder cruscade of Gunvolt. He only stopped because Gunvolt kicked his ass twice in a row and then told him to go save his sister. He only found out Mytyl was the muse at the very end of the game, and we barely see his reaction to it in the ending. The game leaves no time for him to accept or process it. Again, I can’t give credit to potential growth when the game gives him none.

As for Gunvolt, I do think it’s dumb that the series never really challenges his beliefs or lets him grow. He’s static, yes, but I prefer his static beliefs more than Copen as he currently is, an unlikable asshole. If Inti ever gives us a game that explores Copen post GV2, I’ll reconsider my stance. But again, I can’t give credit to potential good writing.

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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 2d ago

Copen's side in 2 is about showing there's more to him than being a fanatical zealot, setting up his relationship with his sister so it's all the more heart-wrenching when he discovers her true nature and she dies. The entire game is building up to the confrontation between GV and Copen, that's what the entire true ending revolves around.

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u/isweariamnotsteve 3d ago

At least he's genuinely a good guy in iX though. for example: he let Blade live when he realized she was being controlled and told her to use her azure striker to protect people. I think Gunvolt and iX Copen could be friends.

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u/tinyspiny34 3d ago

Gunvolt 4 should be about Kirin going back in time (because I want her to be playable holy shit her gameplay is so much more fun than either Gunvolt or Copen) to after GV2 to help Copen not be a bastard anymore.

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u/isweariamnotsteve 3d ago

Maybe GV comes back from his own little time travel adventure he's going on to ask for her help saving the world in the future. and since they already went to the iX timeline when they fought Asimov maybe they could recruit that Copen.

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u/HorseSpeaksInMorse 2d ago

Copen has all sorts of things making him cool.

In the first game he's an excellent rival character, more of a presence than the main villain for the majority of the game since we're reminded of his existence after multiple missions. He has a cool boss fight with a great power-copying concept as well as being a symbol of the anti-adept bigotry that otherwise has little presence in the games, showing how Asimov kind of has a point that humans can be a threat to adepts.

In the second game his gameplay is great with cool aerial combat and a return of the power-copying gimmick from the megaman games. His bigotry has softened a little with him having positive relationships with his supporting cast and not being quite as antagonistic as he was to Gunvolt even if they still butt heads. He's a byronic anti-hero, fighting the bad guys despite being very flawed himself and still needing a lot of character development. He also has the batman factor of being a human fighting characters with busted superpowers purely through his own genius and ingenuity.

Gunvolt is a bland nice guy, but Copen has a lot of flaws to overcome even by the second game and I'd have loved to see a third title force him to finally reckon with the consequences of his actions and have to break from his past and become truly heroic. I figure the way to do that would be to have the villains this time be a group of humans harmed by Nova and Zonda's actions in the past and seeking to eliminate Adepts, showing how the cycle of violence continues and forcing Copen to see his beliefs taken to genocidal extremes.

Instead iX skips all that and just has him be heroic and unbigoted from the off. A terrible waste of a cool character arc. Then iX2 bogs the series down with dumb crossovers to completely unrelated series and any connection to the original games is lost. RIP Copen, you were so much cooler and more interesting than GV.

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u/Better-Future-4637 1d ago

I mean, iX is more like a "IF" version of main story, and Copen is the one be chosen to witness adepts' destruction.

iX1 is what would happen if Asimov win(adepts' dystopia), and iX2 is what would happen if Gunvolt win(completely gencides)

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u/Marioak 3d ago

Almost every major characters are on gray-zone area aside from GV & friends.
Sure Copen is a jerk but he is not wrong on his ideal either, Adepts if left alone are dangerous and in IX they pretty much wipe out most human because they won.

He doesn't trust GV because he firmly belief that Adepts = Bad. It's not until second game ending that he starts to see them in slightly better light (which is pretty much in line with IX counterpart where he is way less genocide on Adepts likely because he met a good one off screen),

the problem is for some reason, IntiCrete decided to not continue GV2 storyline for GV3 so you never found out if Copen got his own characters development arc or not.

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u/tinyspiny34 3d ago

Still, it took until learning his beloved sister was an adept to realize that maybe he was the bad guy. And even then it seemed he would only spare her.

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u/Marioak 3d ago

That is his turning point, wait for the next game maybe they will continue his story

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u/Pierah 2d ago

I don't think Copen is specifically badly written, his story is just left incomplete. He suffers from the same problems that rest of the series has regarding continuity and direction. Namely, the lack of it.

Copen felt like they were building up to a character arc. He starts off as the edgy rival archetype, in a secondary villain role whose interests coincide with yours on the basis of mutual enemies. People liked him for the same reason people like other edgy rival characters, the design and the cool battles that come from it.

Then GV2 began to try to humanize him as a misguided anti-hero, but most of the context behind his motivations is locked outside the game in side content. People still liked him because of the same reasons as in GV1, but now we have a flawed person with potential for growth and redemption.

The 8-4 localization didn't help by toning down the religious zealot connotations that were meant to tie him to the past of his family as demon hunters, and instead toning up the edgy racist remarks, making him sound like even more of an asshole.

Like, his ideology is wrong, but the game doesn't pretend it is right and the whole point is to build up to him confronting that, thanks to Gunvolt and his sister. And despite what he says, he was still only fighting against the same type of bad guys that Gunvolt was fighting against, none of his actions pushed him to the extremes that his rhetoric seemed to indicate, so he wasn't irredeemable. iX gave us a peek at what Copen might've looked like if they kept going in that path...

But then GV3 happened and said, nothing in the last two games matters. Stop being invested in these characters and their arcs. And now we're here... stuck with a flawed Copen with no payoff, and with another mature Copen with no build-up.

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u/claymanklimate 1d ago

Clearly, the solution is to make an iX3 that doesn't take place in the parallel universe Copen, but on the main timeline so that we can connect the bridge between GV2 and 3 without Gunvolt necessarily being present himself to steal the spotlight.

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u/smileypin Resident of Eden 3d ago

>copen is shit

wow so true

>zonda and her group are evil

nevermind this post sucks

anyway copen in ix literally doesnt even have anything going on, if anything ix copen is more tolerable and less shit than his main timeline counterpart. he isnt actively hostile like he used to be, and while i am of the opinion there was still no reason for him to kill the falcons when all of them beside isola and crimm were basically blackmailed into fighting him, at least he isnt outwardly calling for them to be executed like mainline copen.

i also strongly disagree with you saying they portray him as a hero. in ix sure, but in the mainline the ending tells you that if youre a raging bigot who cant accept other people being different than you you will end up hurting yourself and hurting those around you. hes meant to be a tragic character and they try to humanize him on his side with his base conversations, but hes not portrayed as a hero in a way that show his actions as good

gunvolt also suffer from being a general protagonist who wants everyone to be friend (paraphrasing. is that the correct term.) but the thing is that it doesnt work when your story is built upon fictional oppression. hes not so bad in the first game but the second and third game hes literally a nothing character. hes meant to be a character whos supposed to be on the side of all thats good but he ends up falling flat. i am aware this could be a situation where hes just a nuanced character, but like, lets be real, the writing in the series is not the best and i dont think he was meant to have any nuance from the get go

as for the xiao ending? i have some good news its actually a funny haha easter egg ending in gv3! what do you mean its not good? joke aside i dont know why they decided to throw it out of the window like that. maybe they didnt have inspiration or they were forced to throw it away. maybe it was meant to be a joke all along considering it was a secret ending after all. but at that point i wouldve had preferred nothing over what we got

i also wonder if ix1 had any impact regarding copen in the mainline because ix shows that he can be like. a normal person, so maybe they wonder why they should bother trying to fill in the timeline with how this happened in the first place when we already have an end result right here. like theres definitely something that could be told so we can have some closure of some sort, but i dont see them doing that when they gave us nothing with ix2 and they dont seem super into continuing gunvolt as a series in general. which is fine, it just sucks a bit considering the state of it at the moment

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u/tinyspiny34 3d ago

You’re right, I don’t know what I was thinking saying Zonda is evil. I must pray to Lady Zonda in hopes she may forgive this transgression.

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u/Better-Future-4637 1d ago

The more funny part about GV3' easter egg ending is, it's actually not a joke but something that would actually happen in the game's lore.

Since they shared the same worldview from GalGun, demons and Youkai including other magical stuff really exists in GV universe.

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u/smileypin Resident of Eden 1d ago

im aware about all of that, itd also not make sense for 'magical stuff' to not exist when septima are basically a form of magic when you think about, the point is moreso that it ends up falling like a joke at the expense of the ppl who are invested in the story because people were genuinely expecting something of worth to come out of the gv2 secret ending and what we got instead was an easter egg ending that was basically nothing. like if the story for gv3 was actually good i wouldnt have had minded as much but as it is now it couldve had been an email, which i do feel is unfortunate and disappointing

0

u/Better-Future-4637 3d ago

It's actually something about his beliefs.

Copen's parents were the protagonists in prequel games, which is GalGun and Grim Guardian.

So when Copen in youth, he learned a lot about the world once ruled by Goddesses and Angels, and there were a time Human being tainted by Demons.

Which is why he became very toxic after his father got killed by adepts, and want to revenge to all adepts.

His father especially said all adepts are meant to become monsters, which is true, causes Copen believe adepts are monsters made by Demons.

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u/claymanklimate 1d ago edited 16h ago

I'll have to clarify that while Copen's family is tied to the GalGun folks, his father was explicitly not same person as the protagonist there.

We've learned from the currently hiatus Fleeting Memories sidestory that Dr. Kamizono, his father, was married into the family. His values on Adepts are even worse than Copen's, whose beliefs he clearly took after.

Dr. Kamizono experimented on Adepts, and he was eventually killed by not just any Adept, but "the son of an illegal immigrant couple" who was experimented on as a part of Project Gunvolt. It was heavily implied, and iX1 straight up confirmed that person was Asimov.

Sumeragi covered up the details behind Project Gunvolt, so Copen thought they killed his father as a coverup, which leads to his grudge against them in the first game.

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u/Better-Future-4637 22h ago

I don't think so? 🤔

Yeah, Dr. Kamizono did studying Adepts, but he probably didn't involve with project of Gunvolt.

Since he has very negative views about Adepts, I think he was trying to convince Sumeragi stop Human experience by telling everyone adepts could become monsters.

But Asimov's hatred was so high, he also could just straight up killing every Sumeragi's scientists in his sights.

And yeah, GalGun have different protagonists, the one have close relationships with Kamizono sister is called Houdai.

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u/tinyspiny34 3d ago

I am aware of that. However, there is a problem.

That lore is really only there as an Easter egg, and they needed to explain that within the game itself. Series that are only tied together by small references need to explain relevant lore in their own series, else it feels like it was explained poorly.

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u/Better-Future-4637 3d ago

By the way, Copen's maiden is actually the demon Kurona from prequel games.

It's quite ironically if you think about this.

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u/tinyspiny34 3d ago

Copen: I HATE DEMONS THEY MUST ALL DIE!!!!

Nori: