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| “ | Alright boys! This is it! Tonight we'll be rich! We can do anything we want! The Colombians will have nothing left! They'll learn to fear us! A toast to our new lives! As kings of the street! | „ |
| ~ The Son shares a toast with his men prior to robbing a bank. |
| “ | After my father died, they went in and stole our territory, our business. You think I'm just gonna let that slide? | „ |
| ~ The Son explaining his motivation behind going to war with the Colombians. |
The Son is one of the playable protagonists in the top-down shooter video game Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, serving as the main protagonist of "Act 6: Catastrophe" and the main antagonist of The Fans' storyline.
As his name suggests, he is the son of the Russian Mafia boss from the first game, having taken over the business since his father's death at the hands of Jacket. Due to 50 Blessings nearly destroying the Russian Mafia, the Son ambitiously sought to bring his father's legacy back to life by taking on the Mafia's rivals, the Colombians.
Personality
The Son is a short-tempered, but bold and ambitious crime lord who seeks to continue his father's legacy in any way he possibly can while getting ahead in life. Unlike the Henchman and many other characters, the Son lives a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle despite the weakened status the Russian Mafia is in, and is frequently shown to spend time with women while taking drugs. After the Colombians had stolen the Mafia's territory, the Son held a grudge towards them which only escalated to the point of a gang war which effectively destroyed the entire Colombian crime syndicate, proving his notoriety as a crime boss. The Son is also very bloodthirsty in combat and is shown to be somewhat of a sadist when he shown using a chained-up, naked Colombian as a makeshift punching bag and while intoxicated, appears to laugh maniacally after killing Ash Davis. His potential sadism is perhaps a trait he inherited from his father.
Despite his more unhinged aspects, the Son still treats the Henchman as a friend of his than just a simple employee, giving him advice and showing concern towards the Henchman's nervous attitude when he wants to quit. The Son is also shown to have loved his now deceased father, as he is still involved in a criminal lifestyle to make his father proud. His vision of his father in the bank's vault also shows that the Son may also be worrisome about following his father's footsteps to his death, which Richard tries to dissuade from. In the end, the Son's wealthy lifestyle and continuation of his father's legacy never made him happy once he was on top of the game again and ended up destroying his own criminal empire during a severe drug overdose, accidentally killing himself in the process by walking off his own building and falling to his death.
Appearance
Similarly to many of the other Russian mobsters, the Son wears a full white suit with a cyan shirt underneath his short-sleeved jacket, and also appears to wears a pair of red fingerless gloves at all times.
However, the Son has a unique physical appearance in general to help him stand out from the rest of his men. He is a muscular man in either his late twenties to early thirties with long black hair which he keeps tied up in a ponytail and green eyes. He also appears to have at least one of his ears pierced, where he keeps a golden hammer and sickle earring attached to his ear. The Son's most prominent physical feature is a large scar running down the left side of his face from his eye down to the side of his mouth, with the origins of where his scar came from remaining ambiguous. Because of his scar, the Son is notably unable to blink properly with his left eye, as the damage caused to his upper eyelid appears to have rendered it paralyzed. During "Blood Money", the Son wears a black balaclava to conceal his identity while robbing a Colombian-owned bank.
Biography
Background
In 1989, an ultranationalist terrorist organization known as 50 Blessings coerces many individuals in Miami into raiding criminal operations owned by the Russian Mafia, which dealt heavy blows to the crime syndicate and severed political ties with the Russo-American coalition. One of the masked killers in particular, Jacket, ends up killing not only the current heads of the Russian Mafia, the Father and the Grandfather, but also killed the Father's personal bodyguard and his pet panthers.
During the aftermath of the 1989 massacres, the Father's son has since inherited the crime syndicate by 1991, which has effectively fell apart and has since been weakened. The state of the Russian Mafia's decreased power is further emphasized by the rise in prominence for petty hoodlums in the criminal underworld of Miami, and the Colombians becoming the dominant criminal power in Miami after they seized a large portion of the Mafia's territory for themselves. Having watched his father's criminal empire crumble before his eyes, the Son becomes determined to bring the Russian Mafia back to its former glory and continue his father's legacy.
November 11th
Chronologically, the Son makes his first appearance on November 11th, 1991 as a cameo in Hank's bar alongside many other playable characters. There, he is seen having a drink with his closest enforcer the Henchman, who regularly refills the Son's shot glass.
November 18th
On November 18th, 1991, the Son is seen furiously training on a punching bag at his headquarters while waiting to give the Henchman a briefing. The Henchman soon enters his room, asking the Son what he wanted to speak to him about. The Son informs him that the Colombians have recently opened up a strip club and has invited the Son over for their opening party for VIPs only. He has different ideas in mind for the Colombians however, and orders the Henchman to gather their weapons to prepare an attack on the strip club. Immediately hesitant about the idea of starting a gang war, the Henchman reminds the Son that the Colombians are exceptionally more powerful than the Russian Mafia, but the Son remains firm about his plans. He angrily tells the Henchman that he won't let the Colombians get away with stealing his territory the moment his father passed away in 1989. Although the Henchman thinks this might not be the best time to for them to start a war with the Colombians, the Son is indifferent about the idea, declaring that if they don't strike now, the Colombians will keep expanding their business. The Son then asks the Henchman if he has any more objections while reminding him that he is the one in charge. The Henchman simply replies with "You're the boss. I'll do whatever you'll tell me to." The Son then leaves his headquarters to his Pontiac Firebird and drives to the Colombians' strip club.
The Son finds that the Colombians have already armed themselves and fortified the strip club; the so-called invitation was actually a trap set up for The Son. Regardless, the Son storms the building and slaughters all of the Colombians there unscathed, singlehandedly succeeding in his assault. To celebrate, he brings three strippers back to his HQ and sets out packs of money and cocaine on his table. The Son tries to invite the Henchman, who clearly isn't eager to party and tells the Son that he wants to head back home to his girlfriend, Mary. The Son immediately notices that his friend has gotten himself attached to Mary and tries advise him that a real man doesn't necessarily need to rely on a woman to live his life. He sharply tells the Henchman that getting too attached to Mary will be the end for him, warning him that Mary is "too good" for him, and that she will eventually come to her senses. Regardless, the Son shrugs it off, saying that it isn't his business in the end. The Son leaves the Henchman some money on his desk in the other room, suggesting that he should use it to buy Mary something nice. The Henchman then takes the money and leaves.
November 21st
On November 21st, 1991, the Son is nervously approached by the Henchman, who tells him he is grateful for everything the Son has done for him over the years. The Son insists on him cutting straight to the point instead of being polite about it, to which the Henchman replies that he wants to leave the Russian Mafia. The Henchman feels as though he might not last much longer, especially during another gang war and has had discouraging nightmares. The Son simply dismisses what he says about his nightmares, and says he will let the Henchman leave the Mafia on one condition: he wants the Henchman to attack a chop shop full of hoodlums who withdrew their payment owed to the Mafia and are now backing the Colombians. The Henchman agrees to it, with the Son reassuring him that if he changes his mind, he can rejoin the Russian Mafia at any time. Before he lets the Henchman go, the Son gives him a sample of his new drugs (green and purple pills) to help the Henchman spice up this "new boring lifestyle" the Henchman has chosen as a parting gift. The Henchman takes a handful of pills and sets off to complete his final job.
The Henchman successfully completes his job and steals the chop shop's money for himself. However, unbeknownst to the Son, the Henchman is abandoned by Mary, who in turn has stolen the money and the Henchman's car. Heartbroken, the Henchman overdoses on the pills in a drug den, where he is then brutally killed by the Fans as a favor for the one surviving employee of the chop shop, Andy.
December 7th
A few weeks later on December 7th, 1991, the war with the Colombians has since become more heated over time and has garnered media attention, judging by a newspaper found in the Russian Mafia HQ. In hopes of crippling the Colombians' finances, the Son plans an assault on a bank which the Colombians use as a front to launder their money. The Son confidently declares that they will finally be the "kings of the street" once again to two of his men accompanying in the heist and shares a toast with them. The Son and his men then step into a black van outside their headquarters and drive to the bank. The trio walk into the back and stop just before reaching the reception desk. One of the Son's men drops a gun bag on the floor and opens it up and all three of them put on balaclavas. The two mobsters arm themselves with an Uzi and shotgun, while the Son grabs a Mendoza, beginning their heist. The Son guns down several security officers and fights his way through the bank with the rest of his men, while also encountering Colombian mobsters inside along the way. After clearing out an area of the bank, one of his men hacks into the bank's security system and disables it, opening up the bank's vault. The Son makes his way to the bank vault, killing all of the Colombians and security guards in the bank along the way.
When the Son enters the vault, he finds that one of his men has been killed during the assault. Just in front of the dead mobster, the Son then sees a vision of his father, grandfather and the Bodyguard. Bewildered, the Son asks the Father what he and the Grandfather and Bodyguard are doing here. The Father simply replies that he is not here at all as he has been long dead since 1989, and asks his son the same question. The Son says that he only wants to make his father proud by continuing his legacy. The Father dismisses him, saying that it won't matter as the Son hasn't changed and warns his son that he will not understand until it is too late, just as he did in 1989. At that moment, the Bodyguard pulls out a rooster mask and puts it on the Grandfather. Speaking through the Grandfather, Richard tells the Son that his father is right, explaining that what the Son is doing won't matter at all in the end and there is nothing he can do about it. The Son tries to speak to his father once again, but Richard cuts him off once again, reiterating that his father isn't actually there, and neither is the Son. The scene then abruptly fades to black.
December 14th
Prior to December 14th, 1991, the Miami Police Department has gotten involved in the drug war and has started cracking down on several criminal operations, one of which being a cargo ship owned by the Colombians. Detective Manny Pardo visits the Russian Mafia's headquarters to try and have a meeting with the Son, presumably about the gang war. The mobster at the reception desk turns Pardo away however, saying that he did not organize an appointment and tells him that the Son isn't actually in. Pardo says he will be back eventually however, and leaves. Contrary to what the receptionist said, the Son is actually in, and is currently busy torturing a chained up and naked Colombian by using him as a punching bag, while another captive Colombian lies dead at a table. He plans on ending the war with the Colombians once and for all by attacking the Colombian Boss' mansion itself to reclaim the Russian Mafia's former prestige. The Son orders the rest of his men to arrive at the Colombian headquarters on time, otherwise they are "toast". The Son then gets into his car and drives to the mansion alone.
The Son makes it to the mansion, which is heavily armed by Colombian mobsters. He attacks the Colombians there and makes his way through the mansion all on his own. The Son eventually makes it to the third floor of the mansion, having killed every single Colombian he came across and finally confronts the Colombian Boss in his office unarmed. The Colombian Boss is heavily guarded by many other Colombians, including his own personal bodyguard, who is holding back two guard dogs on a leash. As the Son is outgunned, the Colombian Boss orders him to drop his confident act and stand down. Regardless, the Son angrily gives the Colombians ten seconds to surrender, with the Colombian Boss finding his demands ridiculous. The Son begins to count to ten as a large group of Russian mobsters begin to surround the Colombian Boss' office from the outside, all armed with guns. Once the Son says "Ten!", the Colombians are all gunned down and killed right in front of him. With the Colombians wiped out, the Russian Mafia had finally won the gang war and are now the most powerful organization of the criminal underworld of Miami once again.
December 20th
By December 20th, the Son has moved the home for his criminal operations to a brand new skyscraper and has since started mass distributing his drugs throughout Miami, completely dominating the drug trade in the city. Celebrating with several of his men, he calls the Henchman's cell phone and updates him on what he has accomplished: "We're calling the shots now. Top of the game, no one can touch us." Giving him the address of the building, he tries to invite the Henchman to the building so he can check it out for himself, but he doesn't receive any reply on the other end of the phone. Unbeknownst to him, Ash Davis, one of the Fans, has been listening to him on the other side of the phone, having stolen the cell phone ever since the Fans killed the Henchman. Frustrated over not getting an answer from the phone, the Son hangs up, tosses his cell phone aside and starts indulging in his own drugs. Having already consumed a hefty amount of pills, one of his men tries to warn the Son not to take too many. The Son simply ignores him though, and keeps consuming pills to the point of falling into a drug-induced stupor.
Some time passes and every other mobster has since left the room. The Son gets up and heads over to a nearby sink and turns a tap on. However, more time has unexpectedly passed and the sink has overflowed with water and is starting to flood the room. A mobster runs into the room and tries to speak to the Son (likely trying to inform the Son about the Fans attacking the building), but the Son is too high on his own product to comprehend what the mobster is trying to tell him and instead sees the mobster rapidly change poses as he speaks. The screen wildly shakes, which is followed up by a flash of light, with a trail of blood leading out of the room while the Son is suddenly armed with a shotgun. The Son exits the room while suffering from extreme hallucinations: he sees one of his own men cannibalizing a dead mobster, who then transforms into a demonic being with a head completely engulfed in blood red flames. Seeing every single one of his men as demons, the Son goes on a drug-induced rampage and kills any Russian gangster he comes across. During his rampage, he crosses paths with Mark, who he perceives as a bear feasting on one of his men. The bear gets up and roars loudly before trying to attack the Son. The Son runs around the room and, arming himself with a golf club found in a golf bag, bludgeons Mark to death before moving on.
The Son comes across an ordinary mobster, who tries to hand the Son a shotgun to defend himself. Instead, the Son grabs the shotgun and immediately shoots the mobster in the stomach. Bizarrely, the dead mobster wriggles himself into the room behind him while his intestines have spilled out from his abdomen and slithers underneath a table. The Son enters the room to find four mobsters sharing a toast with each other in front of a table with money on it. A flash of light then reveals that the Son has killed all of them with his shotgun. Trying to snap out of it, the Son tells himself that he needs to "get a grip", but at that moment, the Son's own face in the dialogue box hideously distorts itself by stretching it's mouth wide open and rolling his eyes back. The Son is then inhaled and consumed by his own face, in which he is then transported to a dark room with a revolver lying on the ground. The windows in the room suddenly shatter as Corey, who is perceived as a demonic zebra wearing a green jacket, dives back and forth through the room trying to kill the Son. Grabbing the revolver, the Son shoots Corey, which causes her to explode in a bloody mess.
The room is engulfed in a black void before re-lighting itself again, showing the room to be full of dead mobsters with a single zebra mask lying in the middle of the room. The Son leaves the room and encounters more demonic beings which he has to fight off: three-headed dogs and large, cloudy and gelatinous humanoids which gorily explode whenever they are killed. The Son then finds himself in a hallway full of jungle trees, as well as a large pile of dead mobsters in the middle of it. In the hallway, the Son grabs a shotgun and makes his way to the end of the hallway, where several skeletons lie. Tony, who is represented as a giant, anthropomorphic tiger with an eye in his mouth, emerges from the darkness and lets out a roar. Tony then lunges out and tries to crush the Son with his bare hands, but the Son fires at him with a shotgun, causing the tiger to explode in a rainbow of light and vanish. The Son continues onward, finding more of his fallen comrades who writhe on the floor unnaturally, with their wounds re-healing and reappearing over and over again.
The Son makes his way to the roof of his building armed with a fire axe. Two bird-like creatures, Alex and Ash, fly across the screen and merge together at the helipad of the building, turning themselves into a massive two-headed swan monstrosity while letting out a loud screech. Together, they try to kill the Son, with Alex's head trying to split the Son in half with her chainsaw tongue, while Ash's head spits fireballs at the Son. However, the Son manages to kill Alex's head with his fire axe, and then kills Ash's head, which causes the creature to explode in a giant, bloody mess. The Son makes his way to the edge of his building to find a strange golden gate with a large rainbow bridge behind it. The gate opens up for him and the Son walks across the rainbow, disappearing into the void while the rainbow engulfs the screen. The end-game credits then begin to roll.
Death
In reality, after the Son had gone on his intoxicated rampage and killed the rest of the Fans (except for Tony, who survives his rampage), he confronts Alex and Ash on the roof armed with a revolver and immediately shoots Ash in the head, killing him. As Alex cries out for Ash, the Son leans his head back and cackles before aiming his gun at Alex. She furiously tries to goad the Son into killing her, but is interrupted when the Son shoots her and kills her. The Son drops his gun and walks past the bodies of Alex and Ash, where he walks off the edge of the building and falls to his death.
The police arrive to clean up the mess, covering the Son's mangled body with a sheet while the SWAT team corners Tony. Manny Pardo arrives at the crime scene, personally kills Tony and lies to the SWAT team about what happened between him and the last surviving Fan. With the Son dead and all of his men massacred in the chaos, the Russian Mafia once again dies alongside him, ending his father's legacy.
The Table Sequence
The Table Sequence plays out each time the player starts a new game after already completing Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. The Son is seen among the rest of the playable protagonists in the game, meeting with Richard in a dark room, who knows of each character's fates. The Son asks Richard why they have taken all of them to this place. Richard replies that he is telling everyone in the room that it is all pointless, as all of the wrong choices each of the characters have made throughout the series will get them killed anyway. The Son simply dismisses him, declaring that he isn't afraid of dying. Richard then asks: "You don't care what happens to your friends either, do you?" At that moment, the Henchman, who was sitting next to the Son, suddenly slumps over dead on the table with his head busted open. Richard tells the Son to keep following his father's footsteps, as Richard has already shown him where they will lead him. After a flash of light, the Son suddenly dies, with his limbs brutally mangled and his head split open due to falling to his death.
Abilities
On top of being the leader of a powerful criminal organization, the Son is easily the strongest combatant in the Russian Mafia due to his great physical strength, speed, versatility with weapons and extremely brutal nature. Like other playable characters in the series, the Son's strengths allow him to singlehandedly wipe out dozens of enemies in each level he is played in. As a downside, the Son appears to swing certain melee weapons (batons, golf clubs and machetes) at a much slower speed than they normally would when wielded by other playable characters. Despite this, the Son can perform a variety of unique ground executions on enemies:
- While unarmed, the Son will stomp on an enemy's head and grind their face in with his boot.
- With a knife, the Son will quickly jab an enemy in the side of their neck instead of slitting their throat.
- With a baton, the Son will bludgeon an enemy across the face three times instead of smashing their head apart.
- With a golf club, the Son will use a traditional golf-swinging posture to smash an enemy's head apart instead of bringing it down on their head thrice.
- With a machete, the Son will hack off an enemy's head instead of slitting their throat.
The Son's main strengths come in the three different "Styles" he acquires in his levels, each represented by his mementos of the Bodyguard, the two Panthers, and the Father from Hotline Miami's final battle. These styles allow him to start out his levels with abilities that are near identical to that of all of the Fans except Alex and Ash. In the main game, these styles are only usable in "Seizure" and "Take Over". To make up for this, "Blood Money" and "Apocalypse" change up the Son's playstyle slightly. In "Blood Money", the Son starts out the level with a Mendoza submachine gun with an ammo capacity of 32 bullets. In the second half of "Apocalypse", the Son's movement speed repeatedly changes from slow to fast during random intervals due to being intoxicated on his own drug product.
The Son can use the following styles:
- Bodyguard (Sunglasses) - Roll Dodge: The Son's starter perk. Gives the Son the Bodyguard's katana at the start of a level and the ability to dodge gunfire by performing combat rolls. The lengths of these rolls are determined by how long the player's roll button is held down for. Aside from being given a katana, this ability is functionally identical to Corey's playstyle.
- Dirty Hands (Knuckledusters) - Killing Punches, No Weapons: Unlocked by completing "Seizure". Grants the Son lethal punches, the ability to knock down and execute fat enemies by kneeing them in the face, and the ability to perform standing executions on sprinting dogs. As a downside, the Son is unable to pick up any weapons. Aside from slower punching speed, this ability is identical to Tony's playstyle.
- Bloodline (Bullet Necklace) - Fire Power: Unlocked by completing "Blood Money". Allows the Son to start out levels with dual-wielded MP5s and two extra magazines, giving both weapons an ammo capacity of 128 bullets. The Son can also aim both MP5s horizontally and vertically in separate directions, allowing him to shoot at enemies adjacent to him or behind him in corridors. Aside from being named "Fire Power" instead of "Two Machine Guns", this ability is functionally identical to Mark's playstyle.
Styles
Trivia
- The Son is the final playable character available in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number and, by extension, the whole series.
- Behind Jacket himself and in front of Richter, the Son possesses the second highest body count in the series, having killed over 200 people.
- The items representing the Son's different perks are all references to the final battle in the first game:
- The Bodyguard style is represented by the Bodyguard's broken sunglasses. Additionally, choosing this perk allows the Son to start his levels with the Bodyguard's katana.
- The Dirty Hands style is represented by a paw-shaped brass knuckle, which is a reference to the Father's two pet panthers.
- The Bloodline style is represented by a golden bullet necklace, with the date "23-7-89" engraved onto the bullet itself. This date is the day the Father was killed by Jacket in the first game. As the perk allows the Son to start his levels with dual-wielded MP5s, it is all but stated that these MP5s are the same ones the Father used during his fight with Jacket, since the Son also seems to keep them preserved in a glass box in his headquarters until he needs to use them.
- The Son's car, a black Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, is a reference to the 1977 road comedy Smokey and the Bandit.
- Despite using a katana in the Digital Comic, Corey never uses a katana in-game, unlike the Son, who starts out levels with one when his "Roll Dodge" style is picked.
- Since the Fans die halfway through Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, Dennaton wanted to bring back their abilities by the end of the game and incorporated three of the four Fans' abilities into the Son's playstyle. According to Dennis Wedin, the Son's concept and backstory proved this choice to be easy to incorporate.
- The Son's battle with the Fans at the end of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is essentially a complete reversal of what happens during the ending of the first game: while the first game ends with a killer wearing an animal mask killing a Russian crime boss, the second game ends with a Russian crime boss killing a gang of killers wearing animal masks.
- The Son's "Gotta get a grip!" quote has become a meme within the Hotline Miami community due to the surreal nature of the final level in the game, and is always associated with the Son's distorted face which appears moments after he says the line.
- With the "Bloodline" style, there used to be a bug where if the Son aimed vertically, he would appear to have two upper torsos due to the animation sprites for dual wielding the MP5s seemingly breaking during Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number's development. Dennaton have since fixed this bug in a patch.
- For unknown reasons, in "Apocalypse", the Son can perform roll dodges in the first half of "Apocalypse" despite being given no option to select his styles.
- The Son's golf club ground execution is near identical to the animation used for Jacket executing Biker. Furthermore, his ground executions with a katana or machete are also identical to the animations used for Jacket's ground executions for each of those weapons in the first game.
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50 Blessings Russian Mafia The Fans The Colombians Gangs Prisoners Others | ||
