Our business in Holland has been completed, and we’ve made contact with the Panda King. If we want his help on the Cooper Vault job, then we need to save his daughter from an illegitimate marriage to a corrupt and egomaniacal feudal lord.
So we have no time to waste and plenty of work to do.
In a game, and arguably a series, that tackles the theme of the past, legacy, and how they affect the people caught up in them, General Tsao makes a very compelling villain. He’s obsessed with both his family’s legacy and his own, attempting to wed Jing King only so that he can add the Panda King’s genetics to his family line in a vile, eugenicist worldview. And naturally, he also believes himself entitled to whatever he wants because of his family line’s alleged superiority.
He’s a cautionary tale about what can happen when someone buys so heavily into the myth that they’re special or unique due entirely to the circumstances surrounding their birth. And yet, in that respect, he and Sly are similar in that they both venerate the families they were born into and strive to be credits to their respective lineages. The difference is that Sly doesn’t assume that he’s a good thief because he’s a Cooper: Rather, he strives to be one of the best thieves around because otherwise he may not stack up to the ones who came before.
As much as it is an honor for Sly to be in the Cooper family, it is just as much of a weight due to the expectations that come with it.
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