Talk:Proteus Ridley

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Ridley as Proteus Ridley = First Final Boss in a Metroid game?

If Samus Returns marks the first time Ridley (as Proteus Ridley) being a final boss in a Metroid game, is the Ridley Robot from Zero Mission not counted despite being a mechanical being with Ridley's likeness? Pat141eliteTalkRangerWikiKamen Rider WikiNarutopediaSuperpower WikiStreet FighterWikitroidMMKBPR Fanon12:43,9/18/2017 12:43, September 18, 2017 (UTC)

Pretty much, since while made in Ridley's likeness, it's not the same thing as fighting the actual Ridley. Weedle McHairybug (talk) 13:47, September 18, 2017 (UTC)

Deceased category

Should Proteus Ridley's article be in the "Deceased" category? I say no. While it may be pedantic, Proteus Ridley is merely a form of Ridley, not its own distinct character. Proteus Ridley ceased to exist once he became normal Ridley. Ridley died, Proteus Ridley did not. --PeabodySam (talk) 02:28, April 29, 2020 (UTC)

Bump. --PeabodySam (talk) 01:51, June 26, 2020 (UTC)

Critical Trivia

I noticed that this was recently added to Trivia:

• The end of the battle with Proteus Ridley is the first and only time that Samus removes herself from the premises and willingly leaves the body of her nemesis intact. This course of action is rather uncharacteristic of her, especially when taking into account their violent history together. Nearly all other encounters between them conclude with Samus destroying Ridley's body, with a few instances where he falls into a chasm beyond her reach. In particular, his first defeat on Zebes was severe to the point of taking him three years to recover.
  • As a result of Samus leaving Ridley intact on SR388 before heading to the Ceres colony where she leaves the last Metroid to a group of scientists, some Metroid fans have pointed to her being negligent and indirectly responsible for the tragedy that transpire in Super Metroid where Ridley follows her to the colony and kills everyone onboard. The retcon thus portrays her as an incompetent individual, causing further displeasure to fans who already dislike Ridley's inclusion in Samus Returns for other reasons such as his battle removing the tone and atmosphere present in the original ending to Metroid 2.

Simply put, I strongly disagree with the argument presented in this, but I'd like to see what others think before I go ahead and remove it.

First of all, the starting claim that this "is the first and only time" this happens is actually incorrect. We've seen this once before in Other M: Samus fights Ridley, he goes down, she takes a moment to inspect his unmoving body, and then she turns and walks away. Yes, Ridley gets up and flies away before she can leave the room, but this shows that Samus doesn't end every single fight by completely and utterly destroying Ridley. She defeats him and then moves on instead of verifying that he's dead, which is essentially what happens in nearly every game when you consider Ridley never died until Super Metroid.

Now, before you say Other M isn't the best example of Samus's character, I would like to go back to Metroid and specifically Zero Mission. When they created Metroid, they probably weren't planning on having a sequel featuring Ridley and Kraid, so they both explode into meaty chunks upon their defeat. While Ridley was retroactively given a healing factor showcased via Meta/Omega/Proteus Ridley, Kraid has never received a canonical explanation for his recovery, so clearly that's not meant to be canon. The remake, Zero Mission, has Ridley and Kraid go down in a series of small explosions and then vanish in a bigger explosion in the same style as other bosses, but this time they are not shown exploding into gibs like in Metroid (or Ridley in Super Metroid, which should be noted to be the first time he canonically dies). Once again, no explanation given for how Kraid could possibly recover if he literally exploded... therefore, I'm strongly inclined to believe that these aren't literal explosions, just the game illustrating that the boss is defeated in a flashy fashion. In actuality, what is more canonically likely is that Kraid and Ridley are left intact enough to survive. So, regardless of however much Ridley was "destroyed" in Zero Mission, Samus made a mistake in leaving him for dead in that game, just like she does in Samus Returns with Proteus Ridley.

With that said, note that Proteus Ridley's defeat animation shows him engulfed in a series of small explosions, much like his defeat animation in Zero Mission. The only difference is that Zero Mission simply removes his sprite from the screen after he's done exploding, while Samus Returns has the graphical fidelity to show Proteus Ridley's body as he collapses to the ground. Again, this supports the notion that Ridley didn't literally explode into nothingness in Zero Mission.

One last counterargument: the claim that Ridley needed three years to recover from Zero Mission is dubious. Nintendo has a really poor track record when it comes to dating anything after Zero Mission, with one Samus Returns commercial stating that it takes place only one year later.

Now, onto the second point. I feel like this is really unnecessary. While it's fair to mention fan criticisms of Samus Returns in the reception section of the game's article (as Latinlingo has already done), the way it's presented here comes across as really biased and one-sided. Yes, there's a vocal faction of fans who dislike Proteus Ridley's role in Samus Returns, but there's at least just as many fans who love Proteus Ridley for being a fantastic final boss, rectifying Samus/Ridley's relationship after Other M, and firmly establishing Metroid Prime's placement in canon (after some mistranslated comments caused fans to fear it was deemed non-canon). This isn't like Other M criticisms where at least there's a solid majority opinion formed in the fanbase over a decade of scrutiny.

But calling Samus "an incompetent individual", "negligent", and "indirectly responsible" for the Ceres incident is a step too far. I mean, if we're going to blame her for not doing a good enough job killing Proteus Ridley, why not blame her for everything else, starting with not doing a good enough job killing Ridley, Kraid, and Mother Brain in the original Metroid? Even if we take Proteus Ridley out of the equation, Samus leaving the baby Metroid at Ceres while fully knowing that the Space Pirates are still out there and still want Metroids is a bad decision with tragic consequences, and it's been that way long before Samus Returns came out. Blaming Proteus Ridley for this supposed Samus character derailment just feels like a real stretch to me. --PeabodySam (talk) 01:51, June 26, 2020 (UTC)

Fully agreed, and besides, we still don't know HOW Ridley tracked Samus and the Baby over to Ceres anyhow. Maybe if had it ended in a similar manner to the 100% ending for Corruption where it shows a ship ominously following Samus's ship as she warps out, we could reasonably assume Ridley stalked her to Ceres and stole the Metroid. But as it is, the only thing we can definitely say is that Ridley was at least aware of the Baby being in Samus's possession. For all we know, planted agents within the Federation merely leaked the location to Ridley and Mother Brain. So we really can't hold Samus responsible for Ridley raiding Ceres later on (which is a significantly different situation from, say, the situation in Other M, which DEFINITELY was all on her and not one of the game's better moments). If we really need to address those kinds of criticisms against Samus Returns, we should at LEAST wait a decade before doing so, to see if they pan out or if public opinion DOES in fact turn against it. Weedle McHairybug (talk) 11:28, June 26, 2020 (UTC)

Whoa, I didn't think he'd go that far. I was advising him on how to phrase fan criticisms of the overall game. Regarding "three years to recover", he's probably going by the Prime Trilogy art booklet which says Metroid Prime 1 takes place 3 years after Zero Mission, but later media has really thrown that for a loop. RoyboyX(complaints/records) 18:19, June 26, 2020 (UTC)