Phillipe Loren

Phillipe Loren is a character in Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV.^[6]

I am Phillipe Loren, chairman of a multi-national organization called the Syndicate. I am offering you the chance to leverage your assets against your lives.

— Phillipe Loren^[7]

Overview

He calls all the shots, he directs everybody, he's the guy that you just don't want to fuck with.

— Steve Jaros, lead writer of Saints Row: The Third

Phillipe is the leader of both The Syndicate and the Morningstar division.^[4] He is a tall man of average weight with white hair, and has a habit of chain smoking cigarettes. Wherever he goes, he is frequently accompanied by his two lieutenants and protégées, Viola and Kiki DeWynter. Phillipe has expensive tastes in clothing, wearing a fancy, red and black suit complete with a red scarf around his neck. He has a great deal of money behind him and owns a private Gawalek A36 as well as one or two skyscrapers in the city of Steelport.

Steve Jaros, lead writer of Saints Row: The Third, describes him as "kind of like a Bond villain. He's statuesque and poised and elegant, and he's a total gentleman [...] he's not effeminate [...] and he's not going to play to that European stereotype. He's coldly logical and dangerous and very savvy."^[4]

Biography

Phillipe Loren is of Belgian origin. The Syndicate began in Europe and featured people of many different nationalities, with few ties to any specific country.Template:Fact It expanded to the United States at a later time. While he had a much longer partnership with Kiki DeWynter and Viola DeWynter, having taken them under his wing as proteges, Killbane and Matt Miller were recruited only after they had already built influential gangs of their own.^[8]

Saints Row: The Third

At the start of the game, Phillipe Loren has The Protagonist, Johnny Gat, and Shaundi bailed out of jail following a failed, botched bank robbery at the Stilwater 1st National Bank.^[9] The Saints are restrained and brought aboard Phillipe's private Gawalek A36, bound for Steelport, where he offers to let them live if they agree to the terms he presents them. After Gat and The Protagonist blankly refuse, a firefight breaks out, during which Gat smashes Phillipe's face into a window, ultimately causing permanent damage to his left eye.^[1]^[4]^[10]

It turns out that The Protagonist has made a powerful enemy in Phillipe, who's far more powerful than those he faced in Stilwater. He's a successful international arms dealer and essentially the leader of the criminal underworld in Steelport.^[4]

Shortly after the Saints' arrival in Steelport, Phillipe has to wear an eyepatch to cover his injured eye, and he calls upon the other leading members of The Syndicate: Killbane of the Luchadores and Matt Miller of the Deckers, in destroying their new enemy. Matt is tasked with bankrupting the Saints by hacking into their accounts, and stealing all their money. Killbane is tasked with gathering up his forces, and bringing Phillipe the head of The Protagonist.^[1]

While assaulting Phillipe Loren's base of operations at the Syndicate Tower, the Saints meet the giant Oleg Kirrlov, whom the Morningstar is using as a patron to create an army of brutes. Oleg offers to help the Saints take down Phillipe, and they free him from captivity. In the ensuing chaos, Phillipe tries to escape via private elevator. In response, The Protagonist hops onto a large counter-weight in the upper atrium of the building, and has Oleg detach it from the ceiling; riding it all the way down to the parking garage in the basement. As Phillipe walks out of the elevator, he gets crushed beneath the Ball and is killed.^[11]

After Phillipe's death, Killbane assumes control of the Syndicate, despite objections from Viola and Kiki DeWynter.^[12]

Saints Row IV

Phillipe Loren is featured in a flashback when Johnny tells his account on how he survived. While fighting Morningstar, Loren fires a machine gun at Johnny but ends up being knocked to the floor by him and punched repeatedly in the face and knocked out. When unconscious, Zinyak arrives and abducts Johnny.^[13]

A simulation of Loren is created by Matt Miller for The Protagonist and Johnny to vent their frustrations on and kill during a simulated Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax course. He is eventually defeated, with Johnny finishing him off.^[2]

Trivia

Phillipe smokes a cigarette in both the Power CG trailer,^[14] and certain promotional artwork for the game.Template:Fact
Unlike many gang leaders, Loren does not have a personalised vehicle.
The Power CG trailer,^[14] as well as promotional material for the game, showed Phillipe with brown or dark blonde hair. The Syndication trailer^[7] shows him with lighter, almost white hair, and looking much older than earlier appearances.^[15]
During the 3rd Street Saints' escape from Loren's plane near the beginning of the game, Johnny Gat smashes Loren's face into a window, decompressing the plane.^[10]
Despite being advertised as the main antagonist, Phillipe is killed at the end of Act 1. Instead, Killbane takes the role as the main antagonist.
Since he is killed off so early in the story, Phillipe Loren is very much like Hector Lopez from Saints Row. Other similarities include the use of the color red, arms dealing, and an injury sustained to the eye.
During the mission "Zombie Attack", Viola DeWynter reveals that Phillipe had worked with the mayor of Steelport, Burt Reynolds for a number of years. Later in the mission, The Protagonist asks Viola if Phillipe had ever considered running for mayor himself. Viola explains that the job involved too much politics, and that Phillipe figured he wouldn't stand a chance against someone like Burt in a mayoral election campaign.
In Saints Row: The Third, Phillipe only appears in cutscenes, although there is footage of him in Steelport in the Saints Row: The Third launch trailer.^[16]
Phillipe is mistakenly referred to as French by multiple characters, when he is actually Belgian and states so, with annoyance in his voice.
- In Saints Row: The Third, Phillipe is voiced by Jacques Hennequet, a French-born producer at Volition.
- When Burt Reynolds and Viola are both Homies, Burt says: "That Frenchman sure knew how to tell a joke", and Viola responds with "He was Belgian".
- This trait is similar to Agatha Christie's detective, Hercule Poirot, who is often referred to as being French, and always protests he is Belgian.
- Belgium shares its largest border with France and has many French-speakers. Loren is Wallonian (French-speaking Belgian), although a greater number of Belgians are Flemish (Dutch-speaking Belgian), with a German speaking minority.
Similar to a number of antagonists before and after him: Tanya Winters, Hector Lopez, Warren Williams, Kazuo Akuji, Maero, Shogo Akuji, Dane Vogel, and even Killbane, Phillipe Loren's biggest fault is that he has a huge superiority complex, and supreme arrogance in himself. Both of which cause him to badly underestimate the 3rd Street Saints and their leader. Even after the Saints completely trash the Stilwater 1st National Bank, escape from Phillipe's plane in the most spectacular manner possible, which in the process cost him an eye, and stole a massive bomb from the heavily fortified SNG base at Sierra Point, Phillipe still considers them to be little more than a minor annoyance. That is until after the events of "Party Time" when Matt Miller gives him a cell phone containing some surveillance footage of The Protagonist taking control of a Morningstar-owned penthouse in Sunset Park. Unfortunately by that time, it is already too late.
Phillipe stabs someone in the stomach twice. The first time is the bouncer in the Power trailer^[14] and Johnny Gat.^[1]
Despite being the leader of an entire Syndicate, Phillipe Loren has done the least amount of damage to the 3rd Street Saints compared to any other major antagonist in the series.
- Phillipe bails the Saints out of jail before kidnapping them, stabs Johnny Gat with a knife and later attempts to shoot him, and gives orders to have The Syndicate go to war with the Saints.^[1]^[13] Other than that, he himself does little to stop them.
The retaliatory killing of Loren is a common theme in the series: All characters who are involved in the death of Saints allies are killed retaliation mid-way through the story, which in turn angers the surviving members of their gang.
The Saints Row website fraudulently attributes Viola DeWynter's line "It is always about the money, Mr. Gat." to Loren.^[17]^[18]

Saints Row IV

In Saints Row IV during Gat's loyalty mission^[2] Loren is voiced by JB Blanc, who also voices Zinyak.
Phillipe was intended to be a homie in Saints Row IV, and has a cellphone recruitment lines, and Homie conversations.
- Roddy Piper is the only homie in Saints Row IV whom Phillipe does not share a conversation with.

Quotes

These visions are Viola and Kiki. And I am Phillipe Loren, chairman of a multi-national organization called the Syndicate.

— At the beginning of "I'm Free - Free Falling"

Like it or not, Mr. Gat, our organization is expanding into Stilwater. I am offering you the chance to leverage your assets against your lives. Ladies?

— Phillipe before Viola and Kiki show the percentage of money that the Syndicate will get from the Saints/Ultor media group's monthly gross revenues in exchange for their lives.

Gentlemen, negotiations were... less than successful. ...Viola and Kiki will spread the word: Steelport belongs to the Syndicate, and the Saints are not welcome. Mr. Killbane, gather your Luchadores and bring me their leader's head. Mr. Miller, hack into the Saints' accounts, and leave them nothing.

— At the end of "I'm Free - Free Falling"

The body of Mr. Gat will be a message for all who oppose The Syndicate. There is no mercy...only death. Don't mourn your friend. You'll be joining him soon.

— At the beginning of "We're Going to Need Guns