What a surprise, an admirable veteran zombie?
| “ | Me Elder Hailstorm! I order writing and delivering of this letter! The attack from yesterday not from us. Me find you not as prey anymore. Me apologize for attacking. Me respect you when find who you are. We have problem in tribe! Our old bad leader return. Divide happen. Me stand by my people. We not allow big brain zombie to retake leader. Cowards from tribe joined his side, rest of us hiding. Attacks for you continuing from them. Help the tribe Me ask. We not want serve bad leader again. | „ |
| ~ The quote of redemption of all time. |
You know, when it comes to PvZ, I really did made kinda questionable stuffs back then and I admit that yeah, my fault and mistakes. To be honest Pure Good and other scalings aren't toys to fiddle around, and as for this candidate, I can prove you why.
Copied from the original page because I wrote it myself.
What's the work?
Plants vs. Zombies 2 Reflourished is a fan mod of PopCap and EA's 2013 sequel of Plants vs. Zombies, serving a What Could Have Been (pun intended) for PvZ2 if it wasn't all about gacha. It features revamped expansions from the original worlds, new eras such as Steam Ages, Holiday Mashup, and upcoming Caliginous Carnival. It also features side contents such as Epic Realms, Quests, and more.
This Epic Realm is Hypothermic Hollows, where our heroes returning to the harsher Frostbite Caves while facing new threats, and met an unlikely ally.
Who's the candidate?
The Elder Hailstorm is a major character of this realm. He is the leader of his tribe of Frostbite Caves Zombies, who sought to reclaim his tribe from the wrath of Dr. Zomboss with help from the players.
What has he done?
Elder Hailstorm appeared as a mini-boss in Level 12 of Hypothermic Hollows Epic Realm, with Penny warned his presence and attack to acquire our brains. After reaching to the final wave, he remains stationary after walking to column 9, constantly attacking the heroes nonstop with his powers, including Frost Winds to aid his zombies' toughness and freeze plants in his way, to zombie summoning.
When Elder Hailstorm's first phase is depleted, he starts walking forward and continued to attack the heroes with the same abilities, while also having a high eat damage. After his defeat, he retreated back to his cave.
Level 13 is a zombie attack from the Frostbite Caves, but in the next level, Elder Hailstorm revealed to the heroes that the attack was not from him, but rather from his former leader Dr. Zomboss, who tried to reclaim his tribe under his iron fist. He wrote a crude letter to Dave and Penny, with the latter translated. Despite how primitive his language was, he managed to convince both Dave and Penny that he genuinely needed help to reclaim his tribe, as it became divided thanks to Zomboss.
Dr. Zomboss revealed that he elected chief-type zombies into sub-leaders, or better known as Chief Hailstorm Zombies (the veteran variant of Chief Ice Wind Zombie), as they mimicked the look of Elder Hailstorm as an act of spite.
In Level 19, Elder Hailstorm wrote a letter to our heroes that he respected them, willing to join the final frozen battle with Dr. Zomboss. It is confirmed that if our heroes remain victorious, Elder Hailstorm and his tribe will break the ice with us and no longer will go after their brains.
In Level 20, Elder Hailstorm joined the boss battle as an ally to the plants. He helped us by sending his friendly zombies to aid us, including the use of the Frostbite Caves basic trio and Shellshock Hunter Zombie. He also has a chance to drop plant food, allowing some advantage to the heroes from the hectic pressure of the upgraded Zombot Tuskmaster 2.0.
After the Zombot is defeated, Zomboss became furious that Elder Hailstorm managed to reclaim his tribe back, with him decided to give up on them, as he has many other zombies left to rule over. Zomboss claimed that he took out Elder Hailstorm with the Zombot's explosion, but according to Penny, he is revealed to be alive and well. Zomboss retreated, and Elder Hailstorm thanked the heroes for the protection of his tribe.
Mitigating factors?
Yeah, this is a tricky part. Zombies, they go for brains, day by day, and Elder Hailstorm is no exception, even targeted the players. But for a family friendly media, it is not too gruesome plus he only eat brains out of survival instinct rather than eating everyone out of malice. He showed remorse and kept his promise of not eating the players' brains, meaning he will never go after innocents and plants even after the event. Even if he ate plants in his boss fight, it is game mechanic and damages by him is not permanent in any shape or form. Additionally, his brain-hunting is off-screen so it's not that detailed.
For moral agency, look at the quote. This confirms Elder Hailstorm knows the basic awareness of morality, he is able to redeem himself and stopped harming the players.
For his almanac where it said Elder Hailstorm is feared by his people, it is likely an exaggeration about the part of crushing the balloon, plus in-game, he stated that he stands by his people, which means he cared about them rather than being a malicious of a leader.
Admirable Standards?
Sure, Plants vs. Zombies Reflourished has our main heroes stopped Dr. Zomboss from destroying the universe with Holiday Mashup. So what does Elder Hailstorm have? He simply has his skills and his tribe, and does not have accessories to time travel like Penny to directly stop Zomboss.
Okay, actually, they don't need time travel to stop Zomboss, but Elder Hailstorm wasn't there because he has less screentime than others. He only appears in Hypothermic Hollows and that's it (if you see many of him outside of Frostbite Caves, those are Chief Hailstorms, not Elder Hailstorm himself), and he also kickstarted the saving of his tribe by asking our heroes for help, and actually did took part in the final Hypothermic Hollows battle by aiding us with Plant Food and zombies to damage Zomboss. So to conclude, he has less screentime, and kickstarted in saving a tribe from the tyranny of Zomboss is unique enough in my eyes.
Verdict?
If you say so.