TLTR：Whether Alex actually killed Karen was deliberately left open to interpretation.

The writers specifically chose not to show the most important part: Alex actually killing her and there isn't even a Karen memory in the Web of Intrigue confirming her death. You can believe Alex killed Karen, and you can also believe he let her go. That's the whole point of leaving it ambiguous.

What I don't understand is why "Alex killed Karen" is now treated as confirmed canon, while saying he might not have killed her is somehow considered "whitewashing Alex."

And honestly, I think this points to a much bigger problem I've noticed in this fandom: people keep looking at P1 Alex through the lens of P2 and retroactively pushing his character further and further toward "evil." And yes, I've noticed that the people doing this are very often Heller fans who constantly defend P2.

This is one of the reasons I've made so many posts about P1 and P2. I've seen way too many people, especially P2 fans, constantly try to make P1 Alex look worse than he actually was just so his characterization in P2 feels more justified. That's the sad part: if you have to reinterpret the previous game and make its protagonist more evil in retrospect just to prove that the sequel's characterization makes sense, then the problem lies with the sequel's writing.

And I'm tired of watching people constantly drag a character I like for that purpose. I won't name anyone, but I've noticed the same pattern over and over again: the people making subtle comments about how P1 Alex was supposedly always evil also tend to prefer James Heller and defend P2 whenever this topic comes up.

There's also a ridiculous double standard when it comes to killing.

I follow another antihero protagonist whose game literally has an enemy state in a cutscene that everyone on their side was killed, and I've still seen people defend that protagonist by arguing that he only explicitly kills a handful of people in the actual story.

But Alex? Suddenly every NPC you can kill during gameplay counts. Every civilian casualty counts. Every gameplay action becomes evidence that Alex is a mass-murdering psychopath.

Can we stop with the double standard?

When other protagonists kill NPCs, people understand the distinction between gameplay and canon. When Alex kills NPCs, suddenly it's "Alex kills countless people." When another antihero's kills aren't explicitly shown, people demand direct canonical evidence. But when Karen's death is never shown or confirmed, suddenly an interpretation is treated as fact.

Pick a standard and stick to it.

I keep seeing people ask, “Why does Prototype 2 get so much hate? Is it really just because Alex Mercer was killed?”

Yes, Alex is a part of it, but the problem goes deeper than simply killing a popular character.

Imagine that everyone goes to the same restaurant, pays the same price, and gets a decent meal. Then the restaurant decides it wants to serve some new, supposedly sophisticated creative dish. To do that, the chef walks over to the returning customers, the people who supported the restaurant in the first place, and spits directly into their food.

Then the chef expects everyone else in the restaurant to enjoy the new “premium” dish as though nothing happened.

That is what Prototype 2 feels like.
First, the people whose food got spat in were the loyal returning customers. Of course they were angry. If you treat part of your customer base like that, you cannot expect them to stay quiet and let your restaurant’s reputation remain untouched. If they drag it through the mud afterward, you brought it on yourself.

Second, how is anyone else supposed to enjoy their meal after watching the chef treat loyal customers like that?

And that is before asking whether the “premium” dish was even good. It wasn’t, it was generic, cartoonish, and painfully conventional.

People keep answering a different question. I’m not asking whether they personally felt offended. My question is why the developers deliberately chose an option they already knew would offend and alienate a large portion of the existing fanbase.

They themselves admitted the reaction was roughly 50–50 and that some fans were so upset they refused to buy the game. They knew this decision would hurt and alienate a large number of fans, yet they went ahead with it anyway because they believed their “bold idea” mattered more than those players’ feelings. To me, that shows an extreme lack of empathy and a deeply narcissistic attitude.

I've actually seen people compare the heroic climax of Prototype 1 to a joke scene from Prototype 2, then say both James and Alex are equally fool.

First of all, Heller couldn't use the computer. A priest told him to calm down and showed him how to operate it. That scene was purely a joke designed by the developers to make players laugh, because they had received complaints that the first game was too serious. They added a lot of jokes to Prototype 2 and were proud of them.

Alex's situation is completely different. If he had any way of knowing the launch code, would he have chosen to sacrifice himself? The story itself makes it clear that he either didn't know the code or simply had no way to stop the explosion.

So comparing the climactic heroic moment at the end of Prototype 1 to a scene that was deliberately written to make players laugh at the protagonist, then calling them the same kind of fool......... Apparently, an intentionally comedic scene and the heroic climax of Prototype 1 are the exact same “fool” thing to some people. If they're both just "fool," then I guess Prototype 1's biggest moment was nothing more than a joke. I genuinely don't understand how anyone can make that comparison.

For people who think this post TLTR, here's the summary:

1. There is objective evidence that the author of the Anchor comic never played Prototype.
2. From the perspective of literary writing, the "reason" the comic gives for Alex's villain turn is completely inconsistent with Alex Mercer's characterization.

Below is my argument for these two points.

1. Why I firmly believe the person who wrote this comic never played Prototype.

At the beginning of the comic, it says:

>The virus … CHANGED me

The word CHANGED is even bolded on purpose to emphasize that Alex is a human who was simply changed by the virus.

Then, when Alex subjectively believes that the woman in the comic is treating him well, his thoughts are:

>I NEVER REALLY HAD TIME
FOR RELATIONSHIPS.
TOO BUSY WITH SCHOOL,
TOO BUSY WITH WORK.

In the comic, Alex still tells his own story with the human Alex Mercer as the subject of his narrative.

In reality, the climax of Prototype is the moment Alex says that he is not the human Alex Mercer, but the virus itself.

The original lines from the game are:

>I'm not human. The revelation. It freed me. It killed me.
I'm not human. Alex is just a role I play.
Part of me was relieved. Part of me died.
Just another disguise, right? So ingrained, so real even I believe it.

There is also another objective and very obvious mistake.

Anyone who has played the game knows that the human Alex Mercer did have a romantic relationship. It was with Karen Parker. A large part of the game's missions comes from this ex-girlfriend. Yet the comic writes that Alex "never really had time for relationships."

This is very clear evidence that the writer never played the game.

I decided to make this post because I've seen a lot of people tell others, "If you don't understand why Alex became evil, go read the comic."

But these people never give any actual reasoning. They simply say, "Go read the comic."

If that's your response, all it does is show your lack of knowledge about Prototype's story, which is why you think this so-called bridge comic makes sense.

For people who don't have access to the comic, or simply don't want to read it, but still believe Alex's villain turn is unreasonable, I can tell you that your opinion is correct

I've read the comic, and there are enough objective reasons in it to show that the writer didn't even play the game. The characterization he wrote to connect the two games simply does not make sense.

If the writer really played Prototype, then these contradictions are even less excusable. At that point, it's no longer a lack of knowledge, it's professional negligence.

2. Why Alex's reason for becoming a villain is unreasonable from the perspective of literary writing.

In the comic, Alex sees some evil things that humans do, then concludes that humanity as a species is hopeless and decides to create a new world.

However, the Alex in the original game had already seen the highest level of human evil.

The highest authorities among humans deceived the public with carefully constructed narratives, carried out human experiments on innocent people, and justified all of it with grand ideas like "a better future."

Compared to that, the comic only shows relatively small-scale examples of human evil, such as people littering, abandoning their own family members or using violence to oppress others. Those things are insignificant compared to organized deception and large-scale crimes against humanity.

Alex thinking that humans are selfish is nothing new.

He had already seen countless selfish people and selfish actions throughout the game.

One example is Randall. Alex had already seen Randall's selfishness. Other people's lives meant less to Randall than his own promotion.

Alex had already seen how selfish humans could be.

After seeing all of that, he still made a very clear moral choice.

Even after witnessing selfishness at every level of society and every kind of institution, he still firmly chose the simplest moral value: if he could prevent more people from suffering, then that was what he would do.

In the comic, the biggest emotional blow Alex suffers is believing that a woman he trusted had deceived him.

But even that doesn't fit the Alex from Prototype.

Throughout the game's story, Alex is deceived over and over again by different people. He is manipulated, lied to, and betrayed multiple times, yet he never has a psychological breakdown because of it.

The biggest blow he ever suffers isn't being deceived by someone else. It's discovering that the identity he had always believed in is completely false. Everything he thought he knew about himself collapses.

Even after that, and even after witnessing the worst of humanity, none of it breaks him.

He simply accepts the objective truth. Emotionally, he rejects it and expresses his grief and denial, but he never abandons his moral principles. He still firmly believes that sacrificing some people for a supposedly greater cause is wrong. He never accepts that way of thinking, and that is exactly why he chooses to carry the nuclear bomb away from Manhattan.

In Summary

Game:

Suffers the greatest possible psychological blow + witnesses the worst of humanity → still holds on to his moral principles.

Comic:

Suffers a relatively minor psychological blow (being deceived by a woman) + witnesses much smaller examples of human evil → abandons those principles.

Compared to the game's characterization, the comic makes Alex's way of thinking much more juvenile and cartoonish.

On top of that, once you examine this characterization more closely, it completely falls apart.

Alex constantly condemns other people for deceiving him or committing morally reprehensible acts, and therefore concludes that they are wrong.

But wasn't he himself deceiving everyone by using Jack's body? Hadn't he himself killed countless people?

This makes Alex look extremely hypocritical and even ridiculous, like an edgy teenager who keeps judging everyone else while having even worse flaws himself.

I know some works intentionally write characters this way to portray hypocrisy.

But this comic is obviously not doing that intentionally.

It simply has too many logical flaws because the characterization is too shallow to stand up to closer examination.

There is also another major problem with the story itself.

Throughout Prototype, Alex always believed that he himself was wrong, that he should not exist, and that he was symptomatic. He hoped that one day he could be cured.

Even his final monologue makes it clear that he will forever bear the cost of having taken other people's lives.

Because of this, Alex would never regard himself as morally superior to other people. The comic, however, presents him as someone who implicitly sees himself as above humanity. That represents a fundamental change in the character's psychology and characterization.

Honestly, I find Heller's reaction far more unsettling.

Alex isn't really a human being in the conventional sense. He wakes up with no memory of who he is, no understanding of what he is, and no real grasp of human social norms. His first consumption happens while he's being attacked, and the ability appears to function as an instinctive biological response. His conversation with Dana even suggests that he doesn't fully understand how horrifying his consumption ability looks from a human perspective.

Heller is different. He has all of his memories, his upbringing, his education, and a lifetime of human social conditioning. He knows exactly what human beings are and how humans are supposed to relate to one another. Yet he adapts to consuming other people remarkably quickly and even takes pride in his powers.

That's why I don't find the comparison straightforward. Alex is essentially a newly born Blacklight organism trying to understand itself. Heller is a fully formed human who accepts cannibalistic behavior with very little hesitation.

Alex even explicitly says that he should be dead. The game repeatedly raises questions about whether he's human at all. Judging him by the exact same moral framework as Heller ignores that fundamental difference.

And people keep saying Heller is the one with humanity. Apparently "having humanity" means adapting to cannibalism with almost no hesitation.

"I have all my human memories, decades of life experience (35 years vs 2 weeks), a complete understanding of human society and morality, and I'm literally eating people."

"Don't worry though, I'm still the more human one."

LOL.

If Heller is truly the more human one, why is Alex the character who spends the entire game wrestling with his identity, while Heller adapts to eating people with almost no existential struggle at all?

Who's the real monster?

Alex is a remarkably simple being. His goal is straightforward: to find himself. When Ragland gives him the map, he immediately follows the instructions. Most people would assume it's a trap and realize their location had been exposed. Alex doesn't. He's focused on his objective and follows the lead.

The entire script reinforces this. Cross repeatedly questions him, and Alex responds with complete honesty. Cross asks one question and gets ten answers. Alex doesn't think like a normal human. He doesn't constantly calculate, manipulate, conceal his motives, or play psychological games. His thoughts and emotions are usually right on the surface.

Calling Alex a sadist means you're projecting human emotional complexity onto a mind that's far simpler than that. The text doesn't really support that reading.

If Alex were really a sadist, that creates a contradiction. At the end, Alex says he experiences the memories of the people he killed. He doesn't just kill people and move on—he consumes them. Their memories, including their fear and suffering, are forced into his mind. If he first inflicts pain and then has to relive that pain himself, isn't he ultimately torturing himself as well?

The text repeatedly emphasizes the same point: Alex is the killer, but he is also the people he killed. That idea is reinforced over and over again throughout the story. He doesn't simply consume others; he experiences them. Their memories become part of him.

A sadist takes pleasure in other people's suffering. Alex doesn't. He chooses to stop the virus from spreading because he knows it would cause immense suffering. He also deeply dislikes Green, yet still confronts Randoll on Green's behalf at the end. The text portrays Alex as someone who wants to end suffering, not enjoy it.

I asked for actual "Alex is a sadist" evidence from the text, people said, "That's the feeling I got."

I think that feeling comes from trying to fit Alex into a familiar character archetype.

The problem is that Alex isn't that kind of character. He isn't written with normal human psychology in mind. His thinking is remarkably simple and direct.

Start with the text, not the archetype.

UPDATE

I've seen the so-called "evidence" people use to claim that Alex is a sadist.

Some people really do showcase bias and double standards to the fullest extent.

who is the REAL Sadist?

Heller literally dismembered Alex and explicitly said, "I am gonna enjoy watching you die." Yet somehow, in the eyes of certain people, that's merely an expression of rage and hatred.

Meanwhile, Alex never once said anything remotely suggesting that he enjoyed killing. The only thing he did was delay the kill, and somehow that alone is enough for them to label him a sadist.

There are many possible reasons for delaying a kill. Alex wanted answers. He wanted to know the truth. He wanted an explanation. He didn't laugh, he didn't make any sadistic remarks, and he never expressed pleasure in what he was doing.

Yet some people insist on inventing motives that were never shown, while dismissing an actual on-screen dismemberment of a living person as nothing more than rage and hatred.

That's a remarkable display of selective interpretation and double standards.

I want to discuss something very specific about Prototype 2’s final scene, and I’m genuinely curious if others felt the same way.

My question is: was the way Alex Mercer is killed intentionally designed to provoke or unsettle fans of his character from the first game?

Let me explain why I’m asking this.

First, the way the scene is staged feels excessive. By the time the final sequence happens, Alex is already visibly beaten covered in blood, on his knees, and no longer able to fight back.

https://preview.redd.it/5fbyj9fs52zg1.png?width=760&format=png&auto=webp&s=7df4ad2359b60708e82dbab939892011bdcece5f

At that point, the game could have transitioned directly into the absorption animation. Instead, Heller continues to attack him repeatedly, over and over, more than 10 times. what feels less like necessary action and more like prolonged, almost venting-style violence design.

Second, and more importantly, the camera perspective during this moment stands out in a way I rarely see in games.

https://preview.redd.it/4pnlgsv372zg1.png?width=484&format=png&auto=webp&s=76cf408e33fb77851725e3964ce6007c05dc8033

There’s a shift where:

• The color grading and visual tone noticeably change
• Alex is no longer visible in the frame
• Heller’s attacks are directed straight toward the screen (toward the player)
• The framing strongly suggests the camera is positioned roughly where Alex would be

Even if it’s not literally a first-person POV, it feels extremely close to one, especially with the claws coming straight at the “viewer,” the blood splashing across the screen, and the impact sounds being so direct and visceral.

That kind of “attack toward the player” framing is uncommon, especially in a final execution scene. It actually resembles how first-person games depict the player being attacked.

And this is where it gets uncomfortable for me.

Players of the first game spent a lot of time identifying with Alex. So when the sequel suddenly places you in a perspective that resembles his position, and forces you to watch him get violently finished off from that angle, it can feel… deliberate. If I were them, I would’ve avoided that angle.

I’ll be honest: that moment genuinely upset me. It didn’t just feel like “the story killing a character,” but more like being made to experience that killing from his side.

At the same time, I want to be self-aware here:

• I do sympathize with Alex
• I don’t like how Prototype 2 handled his character
• I’ll admit I get pretty easily provoked by stuff like this.

But let’s be real, it’s pretty rare for a final scene to switch to a perspective facing the protagonist while they’re the one doing the violence, especially when the one on the receiving end is the main character players followed in the previous game.

So I’m asking this genuinely

Did anyone else feel uncomfortable with that perspective shift?

Do you think this was an intentional provocation toward Alex Mercer fans? Because to me, it honestly feels like one.

Written by me, word for word, translated into English.

Prototype 2 might be the only game that has ever “broken the fourth wall” for me in a way that felt genuinely offensive. Normally, no matter how extreme a piece of fiction gets, it doesn’t affect me in real life—I understand it’s deliberately written that way to express a certain critique. But Prototype 2 unintentionally constructs a kind of ironic moral dissonance. It is so absurd that, in my view, its narrative ethics are fundamentally flawed. I want to break down how exactly it creates such a strong sense of discomfort for me.

This is not about judging the plot itself. It’s about where the narrative ultimately assigns responsibility. It’s not about what is told, but from which position it is told.

The game swaps the roles of victim and perpetrator, then places the victim in a morally inferior position—granting the perpetrator the legitimacy to criticize, attack, and ultimately eliminate that victim.

In the original Prototype, the gameplay is a power fantasy, but the narrative is fundamentally anti–power fantasy. The story critiques the very origin of that power. It satirizes human aggression, the cruelty inflicted upon its own kind , and the way collectives crush individuals—while using grand narratives to justify their own violence. Prototype is, at its core, anti-establishment, anti-instrumentalization, and even carries anti-war undertones.

--------------------------------------------

Alex Mercer is a victim produced by the very forces the story critiques. His existence is the result of humanity’s pursuit of biological weapons. He bears no responsibility for his own creation. He is not the one responsible for releasing the virus and causing mass death—that responsibility lies with humanity itself.

Its narrative stance is very clear: it does not recognize the act of “human Alex” releasing the virus as its own. It rejects the consequences brought about by the outbreak. It does not want to be the virus; it defines itself as the product of a wrongful act.

From a causal standpoint, the original cause was not set in motion by it, yet it bears and repays the consequences through its own existence.

In the story, humanity has multiple opportunities to correct its mistakes and contain the virus, but history repeats itself, because human nature does not change. After Hope, Idaho is wiped out by a nuclear strike, they retrieve Greene and continue bioweapons research.

Humans tend to construct narratives to justify their actions, especially when they cannot bear the weight of their consequences. General Randall embodies this mindset at its extreme, he defines the nuclear destruction of Hope as “necessary cruelty.” In contrast, Alex is deeply remorseful about accidentally releasing Greene. In his dialogue with the Supreme Hunter, he explicitly calls it a mistake and tries to make amends. The act of “human Alex” throwing the vial to drag others down with him was not done by this Alex, yet he still says, “But he’s also a part of me.”

Prototype 2 flips this framework entirely. It legitimizes the power fantasy. The gameplay is power fantasy, and now the narrative rewards it as well. Power, in the hands of the “right person,” becomes justified as a tool for doing “the right thing.” The protagonist is no longer a being tormented by the question of his own existence, but a human hero who declares: I am powerful, therefore I will deliver justice.

The logic is completely replaced: power is no longer an erroneous byproduct but something to be cultivated and utilized. Infection becomes a form of evolution. The narrative perspective shifts away from a non-human entity born of error and returns to a human-centered notion of justice.

-------------------------------------------

Responsibility for the disaster is reassigned. 

In Prototype 1, the source of the catastrophe is structural—human greed and the machinery of the state—while Alex is the individual who bears its consequences. 

In Prototype 2, the source of the disaster is re-centered onto an individual; the human-caused tragedy of Hope is obscured, and structural problems recede quietly into the background. The narrative shifts from “structural responsibility” to “individual blame.” The issue does not lie in this shift itself, but in the choice of who is made to bear that blame: the individual now framed as the source of the disaster is the very one who, in the previous game, carried the burden of humanity’s wrongdoing—a being tormented by the question of its own existence from the moment it came into being. 

An individual created by a system, forced to endure its consequences, is now redefined as the problem itself so long as he is eliminated, justice is served.

Is that really acceptable? From a narrative ethics standpoint, does this hold up?

It’s like pushing a creature into the water for no reason. It struggles to survive, and in that struggle, some people die, but it also prevents more people from falling in. In the end, those on shore point at it and say: you are the problem in the water. They call it a monster and drown it, claiming the water is now clean.

Or, to use a more blunt analogy: an innocent elven girl is infected by a disease caused by human actions. She remembers nothing and only wants to understand what happened. She kills many who are connected to the disease, but also prevents the entire island from being wiped out and works to eliminate the virus. Then people rewrite the story, declaring her the source of evil, claiming that killing her will end the plague. A righteous man who loves his family cuts off her arms and executes her while she kneels. Happy ending. The virus is gone.

The structure is identical. An individual who bears the consequences within a causal chain is redefined as the problem itself, then eliminated under moral justification.

 I changed the subject to make it easier to empathize, because Alex, as a non-human entity, is inherently harder for people to relate to. Replace him with someone more sympathetic, and the structural issue becomes obvious.

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Why distort an existing character instead of creating a new one? Was it because they couldn’t let go of Alex’s popularity? Was the shock value worth compromising creative integrity?

The narrative choices in Prototype 2 effectively sanitize the perpetrators while vilifying the victim. Under the logic of the first game, Blackwatch and the human system are the source of the problem. In the second, the military is reframed as part of maintaining order, and James Heller stands on the side of “human order.” Colonel Rooks, a Blackwatch commander, is portrayed as someone who cares about his daughter and his family. Former targets of critique are stripped of their problematic nature, while former victims are turned into the problem. Through narrative framing, a victim is distorted into a perpetrator.

This is not to say that stories cannot depict a character’s fall or corruption—they absolutely can, and you may even choose to withhold sympathy. But you should not invert right and wrong, blur moral boundaries, or use the narrative to guide sympathy toward perpetrators while simultaneously directing violence against the victims of human wrongdoing.

Games are fundamentally different from written media. In literature, the audience can maintain distance. In games, the player is forced to take a side. Every mission the player completes builds toward killing him. In the final battle, you strike him down blow by blow. How many players who loved the first game hesitated, unable to finish that fight?

Why give him such a brutal, dismembering execution? Did he truly deserve that?

And what about humanity, the ones who created him?

How did the original perpetrators become the righteous judges and executioners?

Even purely villainous characters are often granted a measure of dignity in their endings. Elizabeth Greene, a product of human wrongdoing, is treated with a degree of sympathy in the first game. Alex even says to Randall: “You took something from Greene.” Even a villain was given respect.

Alex was not born a villain. He was forcibly twisted into one through a worn-out narrative framework, yet he is given a disproportionately cruel, almost punitive death.

What a masterclass in narrative bullying against fans of the original Prototype**.**

In the real world, humanity has committed countless atrocities through the manipulation of narrative—distorting truth, justifying wrongdoing, and shifting blame onto scapegoats. Prototype 2 replicates this exact pattern. The very behavior that Prototype 1 critiques is realized in its sequel’s narrative choices.

In the first game, Cross tells Alex that McMullen wants him on the dissection table. Tragically, humanity ultimately succeeds in putting him there. The villains of the first game win. The protagonist of the second game completes what McMullen and Randall failed to do—erasing and dissecting the “mistake.”

Why betray the narrative of the first game in this way?

If you disagreed with it, why not create a new character instead of exploiting and distorting an existing one?

---------------------------------------

I usually regulate my emotional investment in characters, because emotions can interfere with interpretation. Over time, I rarely feel strongly about fictional figures. But Prototype 2 broke that boundary. It stood before me like a mirror, reflecting some of the worst tendencies of humanity, and it made me deeply uncomfortable.

I am extremely sensitive to the question of responsibility. I believe that those who cause a problem should bear its consequences. If you plant the cause, you must accept the result.

Alex did not plant that cause, yet he was made to bear the consequences and even the stigma that rightfully belonged to humanity. In the first game, that burden was part of his character. In the second, even his remaining narrative value is exploited to make him bear it again, this time through vilification.

True courage is taking responsibility for your actions, not retreating into the background and placing the blame onto an “unpopular” victim.

Humanity should have more courage to take responsibility.

Prototype 2 has no heroes, only a narrative execution of a tragic character.