|
|
"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | I'd like to take a moment to address you directly, Dr. Freeman. Yes. I'm talking to you, the so-called One Free Man. I have a question for you. How could you have thrown it all away? It staggers the mind. A man of science, with the ability to sway reactionary and fearful minds toward the truth, choosing instead to embark on a path of ignorance and decay. Make no mistake, Dr. Freeman. This is not a scientific revolution you have sparked...this is death and finality. You have plunged humanity into freefall. Even if you offered your surrender now, I cannot guarantee that Our Benefactors would accept it. At the moment, I fear they have begun to look upon even me with suspicion. So much for serving as humanity's representative. Help me win back their trust, Dr. Freeman. Surrender while you still can. Help ensure that humanity's trust in you is not misguided. Do what is right, Dr. Freeman. Serve mankind. | „ |
| ~ Breen attempting to convince Gordon to surrender. |
| “ | Dr. Freeman. You really shouldn't be out there. At the moment of synapse, as I teleport, this chamber will be bathed in deadly particles that have yet to be named by human science. Perhaps when I have the leisure to do the work myself, I'll name one after you. That way you won't be completely forgotten. When the singularity collapses, I will be far away from here. In another universe, as a matter of fact. You, on the other hand, will be destroyed in every way it is possible to be destroyed-and even in some which are essentially impossible. | „ |
| ~ Breen to Gordon during their confrontation at the Citadel's Dark Fusion Reactor. |
Dr. Wallace Breen is the secondary antagonist of Valve Corporation's Half-Life franchise.
He was the former administrator of Black Mesa prior to the Black Mesa Incident and the Seven Hour War. Following the Combine's subjugation of Earth, Breen managed Earth's surrender in exchange for immunity from the Combine, but at the cost of human enslavement.
He was voiced by the late Robert Culp.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General:[]
- Though Breen initially appears to be an extremist trying to help humanity to evolve through his alliance to the Combine, in reality, he is nothing but a tyrannical misanthropist who doesn't care about humanity but only himself.
- Seemed to show no remorse for the deaths of millions that his collaboration with the Combine has brought, and he seemed to enjoy the luxury the Combine has given him as Earth's Administrator.
- In most of his Breencasts, instead of answering the question, he discussed unrelated topics. Through these same Breencasts, he attempted to manipulate the citizens into believing that the Combine was here to help humanity advance far beyond its current capabilities, which Breen himself knew was false.
- Though some argue that Breen had no input on the Combine's operations on Earth, he actively gives out orders towards Civil Protection and the Overwatch soldiers, showing he clearly has power.
- Simply put, overall, Breen only cared about himself and his own personal power, and whatever he claimed that he was in it to help anyone else otherwise was mere propaganda.
- Overall, he’s a very hypocritical, very egotistical, and very traitorous man who deserves no sympathy, has no redeeming qualities, and he undeniably deserved to perish after Gordon Freeman sabotaged his escape.
Background:[]
- As Black Mesa's administrator, he is completely ignorant of the many dangers of the facility.
- Indirectly responsible for the death of members of the survey team that were sent to collect Xenian resources, and seemingly, despite their deaths, he would continue to send more through.
- These trips into Black Mesa also brought Xen wildlife into the Black Mesa, which would then be experimented on by the scientists.
- He pressured the Black Mesa Staff into putting the Anti-Mass Spectrometer above safe levels despite the pleas of Dr. Rosenburg and other high-ranking Black Mesa scientists, indirectly leading to the Resonance Cascade and being partially responsible for all the deaths we see Post-Black Mesa Incident.
- It's heavily implied that he knows a lot about the G-Man, and even possibly interacting with him. Seeing that the G-Man orchestrated the events leading to the Resonance Cascade, this implies that he knew about the impending Cascade, yet still pressured the scientists, possibly meaning that he wanted the Cascade to happen. If this is true, this makes him even worse than initially perceived.
- It was also implied that he was the naysayer who suggested to leave Alyx Vance to die in Black Mesa, which the G-Man ultimately ignores.
- It's heavily implied that he knows a lot about the G-Man, and even possibly interacting with him. Seeing that the G-Man orchestrated the events leading to the Resonance Cascade, this implies that he knew about the impending Cascade, yet still pressured the scientists, possibly meaning that he wanted the Cascade to happen. If this is true, this makes him even worse than initially perceived.
- He ended the Seven-Hour War by mysteriously communicating with the Combine and bargaining for peace, in exchange for the Combine to enslave humanity and place him as the Administrator of Earth. This would plunge the Earth into a brutal totalitarian regime built on genocide against the human race.
- Though it could be argued he was completely selfless in trying to save humanity, what happened to the human race under the Combine's occupation subverted that seemingly noble intent, with Breen alone benefitting from this arrangement.
- During the rule of The Combine, many intense regulations were put in place, with Breen being involved.
- The people were constantly relocated from city to city, train to train, etc. While they're separated from their friends and family, their luggage is confiscated and likely incinerated afterwards in order to prevent any sort of rebellion.
- Entire bodies of water were drained dry via the Citadel for resources, some even replaced with radioactive waste. Meanwhile, the drinking water got spiked with amnesia-inducing drugs.
- The cities were enclosed with suppression fields, rendering people physically unable to reproduce any offspring.
- Also in the cities, if the Overwatch A.I. detected even one more person than was previously expected in a certain apartment building, Civil Protection would kill everyone within said building, regardless of one's compliance.
- The only way to see someone's family or eat a decent meal was to join Civil Protection, and even then, it really all depended on how good of a job they did. If they're successful, they get to see their family and have a "non-mechanical reproduction simulation" with their spouse. However, if they failed or died in the line of duty, their family died too. Revolting was prevented via malnutrition.
- Furthermore, the only way to be promoted from Civil Protection to Overwatch Soldier was memory replacement. Basically, everything that wasn't useful in combat got wiped clean from their mind, after which they got a higher rank from a mere police officer to a full-on military soldier.
- He had pods filled with dangerous Headcrabs from Xen, sent into numerous populated areas such as the town of Ravenholm, subjugating the people caught near the pods to a fate worse than death in the form of zombification by different variations of Headcrabs. And seeing that he was the Administrator of Black Mesa while they experimented on Xenian life, he likely knew the horrific torture a Headcrab would inflict on its host.
- He turned a blind eye to the Combine lobotomizing and mangling people from Nova Prospekt into Stalkers, malformed cyborgs used as slave labor in Breen's headquarters, the Citadel, something which he personally benefited from and seems to have no regrets over.
- He manipulated the kind-hearted Dr. Judith Mossman into becoming a Combine spy, specifically to spy on his old co-worker Eli Vance, leader of The Resistance.
Half-Life 2:[]
- After Gordon Freeman teleported into his office, he set the Citadel on full alert and ordered the Combine army to hunt down and kill Gordon, ruthlessly killing anyone who got in the way.
- Ordered the raid against Black Mesa East and captured Eli without waiting for Dr. Mossman's signal to capture Gordon, betraying her trust and likely killing many resistance members.
- After failing to convince Eli to call off the Resistance attacks, He tried to banish Eli and Alyx through a portal to the Combine Homeworld, and then attempted to manipulate Gordon, seemingly planning to take him away from the G-Man and use him as his own pawn.
- After this failed due to Judith breaking Gordon free, he recklessly attempted to kill them using the overcharged Gravity Gun, which was a highly unstable and dangerous weapon, and ran away.
- He tried to teleport through a portal into the Combine Homeworld, gladly giving up on Earth altogether as he would soon join them by becoming a host for an Advisor and gain immortality, betraying everything he claimed to believe in, showing that in truth he never cared for humanity.
- Although he begged Gordon not to destroy the portal since it could bring the whole Citadel down on top of the people below, it was simply just to save his own skin as he mentioned earlier that the building would've fallen anyway due to a Singularity Collapse (the name of the achievement for stopping his escape) even if Gordon failed to defeat him the Citadel would still fall.
Trivia[]
- To date, Wallace Breen is the first (and so far, the only) Half-Life villain to be Pure Evil, and therefore the only official Valve villain to be Pure Evil.
- Due to him betraying humanity he is the most evil Valve character created by Valve.
- In Marc Laidlaw's "fanfic" for Half-Life 2: Episode 3 , Breen was originally intended to return and would have had a rather sympathetic fate, stating that he took no pleasure from his action in Half-Life 2 and hated his current grotesque existence. Had this been canon, Breen's status would definitely not be Pure Evil however this is unknown.
- It is unknown if a possible upcoming Half-Life game could change his Pure Evil status.
External Links[]
- Wallace Breen on the Villains Wiki
- Wallace Breen on the Half-Life Wiki