9th NPG Proposal. With Days Gone being removed from the NPG blacklist after I stated the reasons why there's a potential candidate, we're proposing Derrick Kouri for the category. Special thanks to ZorLink21 for removing the series from the blacklist.
With that, let's begin!
What's the Work?
Days Gone is a 2019 video game created by Bend Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game focuses on Deacon St. John, who travels around the post-apocalyptic Oregon, in search for his wife Sarah Whitaker. Along the way, he battles through an army of feral zombies known as Freakers, as well as hostile bandits and various factions around the broken road.
Who is He? What Has He Done?
Derrick Kouri is a major character in the 2019 video game Days Gone. He is a member of the Deschutes County Militia, who served as Colonel Matthew Garret's second-in-command over the events of the game.
However, after Garret's descent to madness, following the tragic death of Arturo Jiminez at the hands of Wade Taylor, Kouri and the rest of his subordinates would desert the Colonel and the Militia, as a whole, and leave Oregon to visit Reno, Nevada.
What Makes Him Close to Pure Good?
Days Gone has a moderate admirable standard in that there are a few heroes who have done admirable acts. Kouri can be compared to a few heroes within his resource level including:
- Iron Mike, who is crucial to Deacon's character development, as he serves as a positive influence to him due to being a pacifist over not wanting to repeat the same mistake again like the incident at Sherman's Camp. Mike gave shelter to everyone else after the apocalypse by building Lost Lake Camp, made a truce with the Ripper cult (prior to Skizzo's actions) through a peace treaty, as well as motivating Deacon in his literal deathbed once Deek came back to Lost Lake and halted the Militia's attack.
- Sarah, who played a vital role in the Militia's downfall and defeat by poisoning Colonel Garret through a water hemlock laced in his tea, thus ending his reign of terror for good upon his death and signalling the end of the militia, as well as with Wizard Island being reformed into a survivor camp led by Weaver.
Kouri, on the other hand, despite being comparable to Mike as he is also a camp leader like him, also has his fair share of admirable acts. This helps the fact that unlike Mike who had slightly more screentime and thus had more admirable acts, Kouri has lesser screentime than him. However, Kouri had done some crucial admirable acts including:
- Creating the Diamond Lake camp by himself with his own resources, which how similar to Mike creating Lost Lake camp, gave the rest of the (later former) members of the Deschutes County Militia a home to live.
- Saving Deacon from being executed by Colonel Garret after Skizzo lied everything about him, where Kouri would knock him out and with him defecting from the Militia after Garret went completely insane following Dr. Jiminez's death. While similar heroes like Addy did save someone from a certain death, which is Boozer, Kouri's act of saving Deacon is a crucial act for very important reasons. One, as mentioned earlier, he knocked Deacon out who was about to be executed, which is significant as Kouri and three of his ex-militiamen smuggled him out of Wizard Island along with his possessions. Not only this makes Kouri stand out within the game's in-story Admirable Standard, but Kouri is essentially the reason why Deacon was able to halt the Militia's attack at Lost Lake, knowing that had it not for his actions Deacon would never survive Garret and with Lost Lake being almost destroyed again by the Militia, considering that the camp was already attacked by the Rippers.
What Prevents Him From Being Pure Good?
Lethality?
Kouri, like Mike, has never shown to be lethal, considering how against he is towards lethality and needless killing. In fact this is one of the key reasons why Kouri defected from the Militia. While it can be said that he served Garret, he willingly turned on him after the latter went completely crazy, with the colonel himself wanting to exterminate survivors up north, and rescued Deacon from him. Even more so Kouri showed complete disgust over the colonel's so-called "Holy War", showing that he has standards regarding murder and stayed true to being a pacifist. So lethality is not a problem here.
Jerkishness?
However, Kouri has one actual prevention: minor jerkishness. This is due to his first interaction with Corporal Russell, when Deacon firstly entered Diamond Lake. In fact he showed some rude behaviour to Russell when the latter expressed joy as to how Deacon saved his life with Russell promising Deacon shelter and food. However, Kouri instead told Russell to "Get the fuck outta here", which is a behaviour too corrupting for PG.
While he didn't become overtly rude towards Deacon later on, as he willingly saved his life from Garret, Kouri never subverted that jerk moment with Russell, thus the minor jerk prevention still sticks.
Verdict
Yes for Kouri.