Most games have some kind of enemy that the player has to defeat in order to be victorious. Some are the literal evil (e.g. the enemies in the DOOM series) others are our basic villain that wants to rule the world (e.g. Handsome Jack from Borderlands) or we simply defeat the nazis in some World War 2 shooter.
But there is another category of villains that we somehow ... like. That we sympathize with. One good example is GlaDOS from the Portal games or Sarah Kerrigan from the StarCraft universe for who this post is dedicated.
Who is Kerrigan?
The story of Sarah Louise Kerrigan - also known as The Queen of Blades is long and interesting. Whole books about her are available in the stores. But let me give you a quick summary of her bio.
She appeared first in StarCraft (the RTS from Blizzard) as a 26 year old Ghost (basically a human with psychic skills).
During her fight against the Zerg (an alien species) she got captured and infected by the Zerg Overmind.
This infection slowly mutated her to a human-zerg hybrid ultimatively defeating the former leader of the Zerg and taking over the leadership of the Swarm.
Step by step she turned away from here human appearence and dismissed her human contacts. Especially her long term friendship with Jim Raynor (a confederate officer) made her make tough decissions.
At the end, Sarah completely turned into the "Queen of Blades" leading the Zerg against the Terrans and Protoss.
Sarah as Ghost, as shown in the ingame cinematics Source
I am the Swarm.
Armies will be shattered.
Worlds will burn.
Now at last, on this world, vengeance shall be mine.
For I am the Queen of Blades.
– Sarah Kerrigan – StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Opening Cinematic (January 2013)
If you're intested in reading more about Sarah, I recommend reading the Fandom article, which may take a while due to it's impressive length, or grabbing one of the StarCraft books, if you're more into actual books. (special recommendation "Queen of Blades" by Aaron S. Rosenberg)
Facing Kerrigan during the game
You, as the player often face Kerrigan and her Zerg pretty often during the game. Especially in StarCraft2, when she appears as the queen of blade, she gets more or less displayed as the enemy of humanity (and of the alien race Protoss as well).
Another major story point (especially during the first StarCraft game) is the fight of Jim Raynor against the mutation of Sarah itself.
Initially Jim and Sarah tried to battle the ongoing transformation and even after becoming the leader of the swarm, Jim tried to turn Sarah back to "the good side".
But as you already know, they kind of lost the battle.
Other than that, the player gets to play from the Zerg point of view as well during the first addon of StarCraft 2 - "Heart of the Swarm"
During this addon, you play through the rise of the Swarm and Kerrigan itself. You also face the battle that is still ongoing in Sarah herself, facing her Zerg and Human side and the conflicts that are caused by her hybrid beeing.
The Good<>Evil controversy
From a human point of view, she is obviously evil.
Leading hordes of raging, poison spitting toothed aliens against humanity and everything that is not a Zerg (actually sometimes even against other Zergs) is not exactly something that one would appreciate. Right?
On the other hand...
Sarah gets corrupted. She did not get the Queen of Blades by decission.
She event tried to stop the process and after that, many of her human feelings still took control.
In her final position as the leader of the Zerg she simply did what one would expect from a real Queen which is leading her Swarm.
Furthermore, at no point, she went on a full-destruction trip or anything similar. All her decissions were reasonable and server the greater good of "her" swarm. Exactly like a real queen.
Which makes it hard to actually see her as "the big enemy", at least for me (and many others), there was no point ingame where one would say ... "Damns, lets kick her ass!"
Kerrigan was multiple times ranked among the best villains in gaming like:
Bad Girls Club
IGN Most Memorable villains
Afer all, even though her attitude towards non-Zerg species is rather destructive than caring, we somehow like our Queen.
- Yes, she is kind of evil
- Yes, she is trying to kill us
- Yes, her swarm is an men eating threat
But still, her transformation, her inner battle and her climb to the "throne" of the Zerg gave her enough empathy to also become a bit of "our" Queen, at least during StarCraft...
Source: StarCraft2 Cinematics