mould

SPECIAL: Elite Organisations
"At the end of four years as a Management Associate, you would have been groomed in a leadership and management programme which rivals the best offered by top MNCs. You should also emerge with a sharper sense of the interest of the nation, and can look forward to a challenging and fulfilling career with the public service..." (PM Lee at 2002 Awards Ceremony)

Yes, when I say Elite Organisations, what comes first to mind must surely be...No, not any scholarship thingy unfortunately. The type of organisation I'm gonna talk about today is usually composed of more than 5 but less than 20 individuals. 10 seems to be a favourite number. So that's very different from scholarships I know about. It's also usually a bad-guy organisation, so again, uh...different? Or maybe not. Most importantly, as can be seen from the word elite, such organisations are high up in the hierarchy of power (usually raw, and not just bureaucratic or institutional), normally reporting directly to the big boss himself. They're used mainly as plot devices, people that appear at the start to be insurmountable hurdles the main character can never hope of overcoming but who rapidly become more and more achievable targets as the story progresses. When one of them is defeated for the first time, it usually signals a shift to the mid phase of the story, and when the next few are defeated, it's usually mid-late or late phase, as the main character (and his party of allies, each of whom usually get to face off against one of the elites in the invasion of the final dungeon) systematically plows his way through them to get to the final boss.

Each of the elites are usually given quite good characterisation, though the story will involve only 3-4 of them to a heavier extent (in the sense that their place in the main scheme of things is not very replaceable, unlike their comrades, who could easily be substituted for other types of action enemies with different skills etc). Examples include Seta Soujirou of the Juppongatana or Uchiha Itachi of Akatsuki. For the less important elites, there will be superficial individualisation by giving them very interesting types of attacks or skills, and perhaps a background story. But with these organisations, apart from the important figures within them, it is usually the organisation that gets the limelight rather than its individuals. This will come across in the form of a almost legendary reputation for power/strength, perhaps ruthlessness and viciousness etc. It is usually also quite standard to introduce the important individuals in the organisation as a lead-in to the org, then show a mysterious scene where their faces are blurred or shrouded in shadow or action-looking costumes.

As for the group dynamic, there's usually a nonchalant guy who is what I would call mid-level but who doesn't take his place quite that seriously; a brutal, unsubtle, bad-tempered guy who is usually low-level (keep in mind all relative to the organisation); a quiet thinker who calibrates his actions and attacks properly and who is high-level, though he usually enters actual combat only quite late...maybe a few more that I can't quite think of now. The team usually has some vague form of camaraderie that is underlined by either personal or professional animosity - they are usually exceptional individuals gathered by the main bad guy, invariably a superbly charismatic figure who can hold all of them together, so that means they have big egos which can get in each other's way.

Like I said, they are used as a gauge of the main character's progress - at first he'll be utterly decimated by them, saved only by the neck of the skin (is there such a phrase?). Later on he'll manage to defeat one, shocking the entire world. Then he'll make his way up to the strongest amongst them, the penultimate bad guy. They're useful because they allow one to lengthen the storyline, give depth to the character AND his allies as each of them fights these top people, give more weight to the bad guy/s by giving the appearance of institutional organisation in a systematic bad-guy effort (so it's not just a chapalan thing), provide plot devices as they go about their generally mysterious or shady business and lastly, I believe, just because the concept is quite action. When they appear for the first time, the viewer/reader usually is led to think: Oh man, how is so-and-so ever gonna defeat these monsters? through devices like, even THE so-and-so was defeated by just one of them so easily. They're usually included in the opening animation as well.

Ok now my list! The action organisations whose names, when I read or watch or think about them, are always voiced mentally in a deep, ominous tone:

Akatsuki, Naruto. One of the archetypical organisations. Features cool costumes with slightly faggy rings and purple nail-polish. 10 people, including the legenday Uchiha Itachi and Orochimaru (formerly). Their agenda is to collect the tailed beasts for some as yet unknown purpose.

Espada/Vizard/Captains, Bleach. The Captains were seriously cool when they first appeared. Apart from (what I felt to be) the cumbersome number of 13, I was fascinated by them and how Tite Kubo was going to flesh them out. Their coolness came from their uniforms and...yes, Bankai. But later on their power appears to have been overshadowed by action quats like the Arrancar Espada and the Vizards (7 I think?). Of the two, the 10 Espada are the more hierarchical and therefore cooler ones. They wear white, individualised uniforms that can get slinky at times. I think Ulquiorra is quite cool...and that weird little guy too.

Juppongatana, Rurouni Kenshin. Shishio's personal henchmen. 10, of whom maybe 3-4 are important. Seta Soujirou is definintely important, as is Yumi (is she part of the gang?). Maybe Hoji or Houshi, that gun guy, too. They're all a bit weird-looking, but Watsuki is good at using them to flesh out Kenshin's allies.

七武海, CP9, the top of the Marine hierarchy, maybe Baroque Works, One Piece. CP9 has just been trashed by the Strawhats. At first, even Luffy was pwned by them in a very cool plot twist; later on everyone seemed to gain crazy amounts of power within a short train-ride and defeated the Cipher Police (7 of them plus 1 useless commander) with their new-found skillz. I think this was the least satisfying of Luffy's battles actually, because Lucci is actually quite cool. I also found Kaku, the pinnochio looking swordsman quite cool too - I thought he would be joining the Strawhats as the ship-builder at first. As for the other two, not much is know about them yet, other than that between the both of them they basically control the world. Shanks is in the Seven Martial Ocean, as is Usopp's (dad?). Of the Marine generals, the frosty Jimi Hendrix guy has appeared quite a lot and looks like quite a nice guy actually.

F, Tenjo Tenghe. Oh man. These are the most crazy bastards anyone has ever seen, particularly the spider guy. His intro was particularly perverse and violent, but his skills are actually quite cool - a set of 6 extra additional mechanical arms controlled by some power AI thingy. But he got totally pwned by Nagi Souchirou in his black-hair mode. The other guy was damn scary too, the one who has ALL the skills of the various families. And of course the little girl is very cute. There're 6 of them, led nominally by the head of the EXCO (I really dunno his Jap romaji name and I'm too lazy to type his Chinese one) but in truth by Souchirou's dad. Crazy people, these.

Forsaken, Wheel of Time. Ok, a quick wikipedia reveals there're 13, of whom a number have been killed and resurrected. They're supposed to be very powerfu, answering to Shaitan. Some are only slightly less or even as powerful as Rand, who is responsible for the deaths of most. Next on the kill count is Moiraine (1.5?). I think they got a bit dragged out, otherwise the impact would have been quite cool. But I only read till book 4 anyway, so who am I to speak?

The Generals, Suikoden. I think there're 5 but I can't really remember them. Anyway the game was quite easy, so they didn't seem so awesome. Likewise with

The Turks/Shinra, FF7. Again, too easy, though the Turks' uniforms and characterisation were both excellent.

Acacia Dragoons, Chrono Cross. Too easy too. I think there were 4 of them, but they didn't end up being that memorable...Possibly they weren't elite enough.

Lucavi, FFT. These were quite cool, because they could be difficult and they looked really monstrous. Their HP were usually question marks, always a good way to scare players. I think there were 12 or 13 if you include Serpentaurius. Or maybe less - you didn't have to fight to get all the Zodiac Stones I think.

Quarter Knights, Wild Arms. I actually came back to edit just to include them - that's how important they are! Okay, maybe not - it's just that I wanted to give the RPG side of things a better representation. You kill Belselk at first, and he's a bit of a wimp, and Zedd is a bit of a cock though his theme song is cute. But Alhazard of the Khhk, khhk fame is cooler though he looks a little weird. And of course, Boomerang! With the coolest battle speech ever! It went something along the lines of dancing back from the depths of hell to fight you again (in the arena). Plus you get Rudy's strongest weapon from him I think.

THANKS TO EIKFENG FOR REMINDING ME
Organisation XIII, Kingdom Hearts 2. Yeah I can't believe I forgot this one right after I mentioned it in earlier posts. Anyways, in my opinion these guys have possibly the coolest costumes. The raincoat thing is just quite neat...though I sometimes wondered if they were wearing anything underneath. Must be really slinky, the nylon or lycra or whatever. Or rubber. If you notice, the basic Nobodies that you fight appear a little like the Org13 members, with their 'mouth' thingies unzipped. Ok the Organisation itself is composed of 13 Nobodies - husks of Heartless with strong personalities. Roxas, Sora's Nobody, was a member, as was Xehanort (or Xemnas?), Ansem's disciple (the main bad guy of KH1, basically)'s Nobody was as well. You don't get to fight all of them in KH2, so I'm assuming you kill off a few in Chain of Memories. They aren't that difficult...or maybe it's because I powerlevel a lot. Maybe. I think KH2 failed to flesh their personalities, apart from Axel's, out sufficiently, apart from briefly showing them up to no good in various worlds - otherwise they would have made pretty cool villains. But one thing - they did have a really cool area dedicated to them, called Proof of Existence. Yeah, it's a graveyard with all the fallen Organisation members. Cool beans. This makes me think about doing one for cool RPG dungeons next time.

At the same time, I decided to include the Elite 4 from Pokemon too. I don't know much about Pokemon but yeah, these guys must be quite cool too.

SEELE, Eva. Not really I suppose. Cos they didn't pilot Evas.

Canis Exco, Pig Elders, SR. Haha. I'm still thinking about the Canis Exco - should I have them by Areas (and how many? 0-9 or 0-6?) or by departments, like discipline, spellcraft etc.? It's all quite muddlesome but very exciting.

Ok that's it. I guess the important thing to note is the kind of awe and respect you're supposed to have for these people. And for that, you need a common scale against which ALL characters in the story can be measured and assessed. And they have to be way way above to have that kind of EO effect.

Anyone who has any I can add please tell me!