KOTOR: Calo Nord = Keyser Soze?

From the official Knights Of The Old Republic site:

Calo Nord

At first glance Calo Nord seems harmless enough. He is small in stature, a quiet little man who moves with a careful, almost deliberate precision. Yet the twin blasters on his belt give a hint as to the true nature beneath his disturbingly expressionless face. And among the criminals and scum inhabiting the Outer Rim, no name is more feared than that of the galaxy's most notorious bounty hunter.

Bought as a slave while still a young boy, Calo began his life of bloodshed on his sixteenth birthday by butchering his owners or so the legend holds. His next victims were the ones who had sold him into a life of servitude, his own parents. It was inevitable such bloody vengeance would bring retribution, and a price was placed on the young man's head.

But Calo had a natural instinct for survival, and for killing. He toyed with the bounty hunters who came after him, learning all their tricks and techniques before dispatching them with ruthless efficiency. Eventually the attempts on his life stopped, though not before dozens had failed in their efforts to collect the small fortune resting on his head. Those responsible for placing the bounty on him were the next to feel Calo's wrath. No longer a target himself, Calo became one of the hunters. With each bounty he collected, his reputation grew.

There are those who claim Calo is nothing but a myth, a story created to frighten would-be criminals. But the victims staring into his unwavering predator's gaze could testify that he is all too real... if any of them were still alive.

Now here's what Verbal Kint tells the cops about Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects:

He's supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody ever believed he was real. Nobody ever knew him or saw anybody that ever worked directly for him. But to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew, that was his power. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

One story the guys told me, the story I believe, was from his days in Turkey. There was a gang of Hungarians that wanted their own mob. They realized that to be in power, you didn't need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn't. After a while, they come into power and then they come after Soze. He was small-time then, just running dope, they say. They come to his home in the afternoon, looking for his business. They find his wife and kids in the house and decide to wait for Soze. He comes home to find his wife raped and children screaming. The Hungarians knew Soze was tough, not to be trifled with, so they let him know they meant business.

They tell him they want his territory, all his business. Soze looks over the faces of his family. Then he showed these men of will what will really was. (in flashback Soze shoots two Hungarians, then KILLS his own wife and children as the last guy watches in horror)

He tells him he would rather see his family dead than live another day after this. He lets the last Hungarian go, waits until his wife and kids are in the ground, and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids. He kills their wives. He kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in, the stores they work in. He kills people that owe them money. And like that, he's gone. Underground. Nobody's ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night. "Rat on your pop and Keyser Soze will get you." But no one ever really believes.

Calo Nord sounds fairly inspired by Keyser Soze. I wanted to say something funny about that and KOTOR's plot, but dared not spoil the ending for The Usual Suspects for anyone who hadn't seen it

 

I haven't seen it....

 

VERY good movie! Check it out sometime.

 

So Kevin Spacey is this Keyser Soze fella? Or is the guy never shown?

 

In the immortal words of Ernest T. Bass: "I ain't talkin' I ain't talkin'! The more you ask the more I'm balkin'!"

Seriously dude, watch it sometime, it's really good. I didn't finally see it 'til a few weeks ago and thought it was a great mind-bender.

 

Just saw it a little while ago, but it was too late. I had already been spoiled long ago on who the mastermind was. Still a good movie though.