This dude didn’t just “die,” he got fucking rocked, had his face beat in, and took three bullets to the head. It’s amazing that he survived, and after having gone through such a traumatic event is not only still physically and emotionally functional, but forgives So Mi and continues to serve the NUSA. Obviously his major flaw is that he’s loyal to a fault to people that wouldn’t bat an eye to sacrificing him, but damn is it hard not to want to side with Reed now after witnessing the brutality he experienced.
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I like the ending in which reed finds his way off his leash.
He was a well trained, faithful soldier who needs something to believe in, in a world that was far too artificial for someone like that to live happily.
I have no idea why people hate him, he’s such a nice guy. I hate having to kill him in order to get Quantum Tuner.
After I took out so mi for betraying me. There’s a pretty emotional meeting with reed afterwards. This game keeps messing me up.
He is not “loyal to a fault”. That’s just the most simplistic read by people mostly focused on “look how much V and So Mi are similar” part of the whole.
Having seen the trailer, wouldn’t you think Reed started working for NUSA again so that he’s no longer on the hit list?
Another thing most people overlook is that entire Myers-Reed exchange on the roof where she puts a hit squad on/with him to ensure he obeys orders.
I felt less sympathy for him from the trailer. He’s literally unchanged. He’s purposefully kept his decision-making and morality as simple as possible because it’s emotionally inconvenient for him to have to process complex scenarios – which is why the entire story, either choice you make is so hard for him because he is confronted by mind-less loyalty or the one person in the world he wants to have a better life.
He’s an interesting character, and an all around decent due when he has no reason not to be – but that’s the thing about him, he isn’t choosing to be good, it’s merely convenient for him at any given time – he would kill V in a heartbeat without blinking if he was given the order. Same with anyone not Songbird.
Given an alternative dogtown where Myers orders him to start killing as many innocents as possible just because he immediately become the most evil person you might meet in the whole story, simply because he can’t change. People point out Songbird and the Stadium but Reed isn’t going to object if he’s ordered to do exactly the same thing.
And worst of all he knows it – he’s a miserable wreck in 2 of the endings because he couldn’t face his demons, in another he dies, and in the only ending where he manages to change it’s because the 2 pillars of his entire existence are shattered to him. He’s a ghost when you find him and if you don’t free him by killing Song he’s a ghost when you end the story.
Had he been given the choices of the outcomes of the game, I believe his most preferred was for V to kill him and help Song get away. It’s the only clean way for him to not break his unfailing loyalty to the NUSA and let Song go.
Point is, the 2 main characters of PL are both super flawed and imo neither morally superior to one another(I’d take Songbird actually for moral superiority but this is already too long).