Carter Blake (Heavy Rain)

"Blake...You are an unbalanced, psychopathic asshole!"

- Norman Jayden

"Strange seeing Carter after all these years... Hasn't changed a bit...he's still a twisted fuck!"

- Scott Shelby

Carter Blake is one of the main characters in mh:awesomegames:Heavy Rain, he is a police lieutenant and a major antagonist. As the investigator in charge of the Origami Killer case, he works alongside FBI profiler Norman Jayden throughout the game. He is voiced by and modelled after Mike Powers.

Why He Sucks

 * 1) The biggest problem with the aspects of Blake's character is how much of a terrible person who he is to everyone around him, even to his co-workers, he may not be the main villain or be a completely evil person, but he's also pretty much shown to be an aggressive, hypocritical and an arrogant control freak who is somehow even more unlikable and psychopathic than the Origami Killer himself and is willing to break the law just so he can get through his own way.
 * 2) *Even though he does good intentions since he wants to find and track down the Origami Killer to stop him from killing more children, but at the same time, Blake doesn't across as any better either, as most of the crimes that he commits are just as bad as what the killer does.
 * 3) *It's true that the Origami Killer may have kidnapped eight children, killed them, collected evidence so he could destroy them and killed people that knew who he was, but at least he can be treated as sympathetic as he has a tragic back story about him losing his twin brother, as a matter of fact, he puts orchids on the dead children's chest as a sign of regret for what he has done, but Blake on the other hand has no empathy or light-heartedness at all and is so unlikable that it's really hard to get engaged with his character.
 * 4) *Even if he is supposed to be a character that you're not supposed to route with, his character is completely pathetic when you compare him to other characters like mh:greatcharacters:Eric Cartman who is written as a jerk and a character you are not supposed to route for, but he is still generally enjoyable despite his psychotic personality, but Blake is written in way where his unlikability and psychopathic actions are just sad and cruel rather than funny and entertaining.
 * 5) Another problem is how unexplained his character is, as he is never given any form of a back story or any simple explanation at all in the game as to why he acts like such a jerk to the people around him, thus making him undeveloped.
 * 6) *Because of it, it confuses the players of the game as to why Blake acts the way he does.
 * 7) He is incredibly delusional, as he often jumps to conclusions way too much and will always sticks with his beliefs no matter what, even when they are proved to be wrong. For example, he believed that Ethan Mars is the Origami Killer and he refused to believe that anyone but him was the killer, so he never simply bothered at investigating more suspects of the Origami Killer. In fact, he only believes that Ethan Mars is the Origami Killer because Ethan's ex-wife Grace Mars told the police that Ethan once went out late at night and there was news about another victim of the Origami Killer when Ethan came back home, as well as the fact that Ethan Mars' psychologist Clarence Dupré found an origami figure when Ethan left his building.
 * 8) *Even though Grace Mars' story and the origami figure that Clarence Dupré found was suspicious, believing that Ethan was the Origami Killer all because that is a rather dumb thing to do.
 * 9) **What makes it even more incompetent on Blake's part is that he should have simply questioned Ethan about the evidence that was provided to him, which could of possibly lead to Ethan giving him the answers to the questions and therefore finding out if he was a serial killer or not, but instead of doing that, he just decided to force every cop in the city into doing a citywide manhunt towards Ethan Mars.
 * 10) To furthermore show how delusional Blake is about his accusations against Ethan Mars, near the end of the game, he will try to make Norman Jayden end his investigation with the Origami Killer, claiming that he found who the killer was and that "everyone's happy".
 * 11) *Norman Jayden even goes as far as to call him an "unbalanced, psychopathic asshole", but Blake just takes it as a compliment and leaves.
 * 12) *When Madison tries to tell him she has prove that Ethan is innocent, Blake ignores and brushes her aside, telling Ash to "get her of his face", showing that Blake will brush off anyone even with prove, also shows how further stupid and delusional he is.
 * 13) Many of his relationships with the other characters in the game are absolutely atrocious and treats everyone around him like garbage (except for Perry, Ash, Grace and Scott):
 * 14) *He has a horrible relationship with Norman Jayden, as he often acts like a complete jerk to him for absolutely no reason, even when Jayden is acting calm and is willing to work together with him.
 * 15) **In fact, there is not a single chapter in the game where Blake acts nice to Norman Jayden and is willing to help him, in most of the chapters that involve him and Norman Jayden, he often insults Norman for seemingly no reason and brags about how he can do much better than him.
 * 16) *His relationship with Ethan Mars isn't any better, as he is extremely aggressive towards him and throughout the entire game, he believes that Ethan is the Origami Killer.
 * 17) *Even though Carter Blake and Scott Shelby are show to have a good relationship as seen in the "Manfred" chapter (which happens if Scott forgot to clean all the evidence), but even Scott himself admits that Blake is a horrible person as shown in "Eureka", as he claims in one of his thoughts that Blake is still a "twisted fuck".
 * 18) He manipulates people that he knows into believing what he says, for example, he manipulated every police officer into thinking that Ethan is the Origami Killer and eventually caused every single police officer to be brainwashed into believing everything that Blake says.
 * 19) *Because of that, the other police officers (including Captain Leighton Perry and excluding Norman Jayden) never seemed to realise that the stuff that Blake does is wrong and often defended him no matter what, whenever someone tries to report him.
 * 20) His aggressiveness even leads him to ignore protocol and to engage in police brutality, which means that he goes as far as to beat up innocent civilians just so he could get an answer from them, which basically shows that he is willing to break the law in order to spread his word to the civilians.
 * 21) *Aside from Norman Jayden, no one ever calls him out for his actions and neither is he punished for his brutality, making him a "Karma Houdini".
 * 22) **Even when Norman Jayden reports to Captain Leighton Perry about Blake beating up Ethan Mars in "Under Arrest", Perry treats it like it's no big deal and claims that "you can't make omelettes without breaking a few eggs", which goes back to WHS #6 with everyone brainwashed into believing what Blake says.
 * 23) *It actually seems that Blake enjoys beating up innocent suspects and even killing them, an example of this is when Blake asks Norman Jayden if it was the first time he ever killed someone if Jayden ends up shooting Nathaniel, which is a very psychotic thing for him to say.
 * 24) His character does not do a great job at advancing the story in any way, as the only reason why he exists is that the game creators needed Norman Jayden to have an antagonist in his parts of the story, however, Blake doesn't contribute that much in the story, aside from a few chapters where he tries to track down and frame Ethan Mars, you could literally take him out 90% of the game and it probably wouldn't that much of a difference, with a few exceptions.
 * 25) *One example of him not contributing very well is in the chapter "Covered Market", where both he and Norman Jayden try to interrogate Miroslav Korda, who tries to run away from both of them, Norman Jayden of course chases after him but Blake does absolutely nothing to stop him, aside from telling Jayden to chase after him.
 * 26) *Another example is in the final chapter "The Old Warehouse", as Blake doesn't even bother to come and follow Norman Jayden to the warehouse, even though he clearly sees him walking out of the building if Norman solved the location in the chapter "Solving the Puzzle" (though, this only applies if Norman Jayden goes alone, goes with Madison or goes with Ethan as he does follow him to the warehouse if all characters are there).
 * 27) Much like Mr. Goodman, he is also extremely heartless and he lacks empathy, since he doesn't care at all for when people around him or people that he knows in general die, examples of this are shown when Nathaniel gets shot by Norman Jayden in the "Nathaniel" chapter, claiming that he "can't say he'll miss him", and in the ending "Uploaded" (Which happens if Norman Jayden ends up dying at any point during the game), where he declines to go to Norman Jayden's funeral all because he "didn't see eye to eye" with him.
 * 28) *Not only does he not care about the deaths of other people around him, but he also doesn't exactly care about when someone is reported as missing, an example of this is shown when Ethan Mars tells the police that Shaun Mars has gone missing, but Blake assumes that "he probably just ran off somewhere", showing that he has no concern at all for when someone goes missing.
 * 29) *This also applies to him beating up innocent suspects, as he never feels any form of sympathy or regret for beating them up and neither does he apologize either.
 * 30) His anger control is just non-existent, as he often gets incredibly mad at other people for seemingly no reason at all and he always resorts to anger for when something doesn't go his way or if someone else tries to criticize him for his actions, even if the person is giving calm criticisms to Blake.
 * 31) In addition to the previous pointer, he is unable to take any form of criticism from Norman Jayden, when Jayden does criticize Blake for his irresponsible actions, he just poorly defends himself by claiming that he can do a much better job than Jayden, it also shows that Blake is very egotistical too.
 * 32) Unlike Norman Jayden, he completely sucks at trying to find the Origami Killer, as a matter of fact, he has been trying to find the killer for almost two years but he still didn't find anything, it's almost like he is not even trying to find the killer.
 * 33) *In fact, Norman Jayden is able to find the Origami Killer in less than five days, which makes Blake look ultra pathetic in comparison.
 * 34) *What's worse about this is that despite his laziness at trying to find the killer, everyone praises him and treats him like a hero, while Norman Jayden doesn't get any credit at trying to find the killer at all.
 * 35) (SPOILERS) Depending on how you played the game, an ending can occur if Ethan makes it to the warehouse alone/all the main characters reach the warehouse but Madison fails to warn Ethan, which involves Blake ordering his men to shoot and kill Ethan Mars right in front of his son's eyes.
 * 36) *This is not only cruel and heartless for him to do as he literally killed an innocent man, but it is also highly incompetent for him to do that as you are not supposed to kill a man who is believed to be a serial killer before you investigate him.
 * 37) *What makes this ending even worse is that if Norman Jayden died at any point during the game, Blake won't get any comeuppance for it at all and will get away scot-free for killing an innocent man.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Depending on your view, his sudden rage moments can be funny at times, such as the scene in the "Kick-Off Meeting" chapter where Norman Jayden claims that his vast experience hasn't prevented eight victims from being murdered, which then Blake proceeds to scream "FUCKING ASSHOLE!!".
 * 2) As psychotic and mean-spirited as he may be, he does have good intentions, since he's at least revolted at the fact that the Origami Killer is killing innocent children and does care about trying to catch the killer, despite what we said in WHS #12 with him not doing a good job at trying to find and hunt him down.
 * 3) (SPOILERS) Even though Blake barely gets any comeuppance throughout the game, there are a few endings in the game where he does get his comeuppance:
 * 4) *If Ethan died from Blake in the warehouse but Norman Jayden is still alive, Carter Blake will get his comeuppance by getting suspended along with Captain Leighton Perry for an indefinite period.
 * 5) *If Norman Jayden died at any point during the game, the ending "Uploaded" can occur where Captain Leighton Perry offers Blake to go to Norman Jayden's funeral, but he declines the offer, Perry lets Blake keep the ARI glasses, telling him Jayden doesn't need them anymore. Blake starts to put the glasses on, but hesitates and sets them aside. He soon gives in to temptation and puts them on, which he enjoys at first, then suddenly an illusion of Norman shows up, frightening him in the process. Although Blake doesn't get fired or straight up punished in this ending, it implies that he will be haunted by the illusion of Norman Jayden for the rest of his life even without the ARI.

Reception
Carter Blake is one of the most hated characters in mh:awesomegames:Heavy Rain, mainly due to the fact he is incredibly unlikeable towards Norman Jayden, the poorly executed way how he was supposed to be treated as a character that is not supposed to be rooted for and the fact he is a "Karma Houdini" who gets away with engaging in police brutality. Along with Grace Mars, he is considered to be one of the worst characters in the game.

Trivia

 * He is one of the few non-playable characters who doesn't die at my point during the game.
 * He has the most appearances out of any non-playable character in the game.
 * It's unknown why Blake tries too hard to arrest Ethan Mars, but a theory suggests that Blake is actually helping the Origami Killer. In the chapter "Manfred", if you don't end up cleaning all the prints in Manfred's shop, Scott Shelby and Lauren Winter will be sent to the police station who get investigated on what happened to Manfred, Carter Blake ends up talking to Scott Shelby and they have a surprisingly good relationship with each other. (SPOILERS) It is revealed at the end of the game that Scott Shelby was the Origami Killer the entire time, so this could suggest that Blake knew who the killer was the entire time and was actually trying to frame Ethan Mars as the Origami Killer to help Scott with his killing sprees.