As much as I love a new lore for Mercy, but it really bugs me that Pharah wasn’t mentioned at all, except one part which indirectly mentioned her (“I could see the jets of their armored Raptora units being deployed.”).
When it comes to lore, Pharah doesn’t get much love. True, this story focused on Mercy and realistically Pharah had orders to follow where her primary objective was to defend the Anubis from Talon attackers. Thus, Pharah wouldn’t just abandon her squadmates & objective just to see Mercy.
I feel like Angela was going to be written that she didn’t remember or even know Fareeha at all. Somehow Fareeha was mentioned in Bastet (Ana’s short story), it took place after Reaper’s encounter in Egypt where Jack found out Ana was alive, he asked her about Fareeha twice while resting & preparing to leave her hideout.
Back to Valkyrie, Angela realized that Jack & Ana were alive as they came to the aid camp for medkits. Unlike Jack, how come Angela didn’t ask Ana about Fareeha? Also, Angela was working at the aid camp in Cairo, Egypt and how come she never thought of Fareeha? It’s also written that Angela was aware of Brigitte, non-Overwatch member who was travelling with Reinhardt across Europe, but Fareeha? None.
Angela & Fareeha should know each other alright based on a group photo appeared in Ana’s story trailer video. Surrounded by Overwatch members, Fareeha grew up and even dreamed of joining Overwatch. Even in gameplay, she had interactions with Overwatch members except Genji & Reaper.
It’s quite disappointing that Pharah wasn’t mentioned, while the story took place in Cairo, featuring Ana Amari & Helix Security.
For all we know, they could be complete strangers. Idk why everyone assumed they’re close friends. Mercy is aware that Fareeha exists, but that’s about all we know. She might not know where Fareeha is now. She might not know she is with Helix.
The reason she knows about Brig is because she’s close to Torb and his family.
From the Overwatch 2 Mission with Lucio, Rien had no prior relation to Lucio nor recognized him from his music. The same might have applied to Mercy and Pharah and Pharah is just one of those Helix people that doesn’t care to protect. Most of the interactions in game from the voicelines that plays in the spawn room might have been soft retcon’d in terms of OW2’s development.
Voicelines were never supposed to be canon. In terms of lore, Lucio and Rein have never met and we had nothing that would lead us to believe otherwise.
Hell, even when it comes to voiceline interaction, Pharah and Mercy barely have any.
Them not knowing each other isn’t really a reason for Pharah to not be mentioned even once. Of course this was supposed to be Mercy’s story but Fareeha could have also been a side character just like Jack and Ana were.
Her absence was both disappointing and surprising to me. While reading it I was expecting her to appear at any moment. For example when Mercy was saving the kids she could have helped, which in turn perhaps would slightly change Mercy’s views on Helix. I didn’t expect them to have known each other, it would have been fine if they were complete strangers, but then why not use this opportunity to introduce them to one another?
Not only has Pharah lacked any significant lore, but with OW2 coming out I feel like her having some connection to the new team would really benefit her in terms of what’s to come and how they’ll fit her in the story. Having her meet an ex-agent that’s still not sure about responding to recall herself would have been the perfect opportunity for her to want and to try to join, being her childhood dream at all.
I would have also been happy with her being mentioned at the end and setting up a sequel kind of like the Baptiste short story did (and actually FOLLOWING UP ON IT). For example Fareeha rushing in Mercy’s camp with a wounded comrade asking for help. Something simple like that. I didn’t really want to see Pharah or Ana talking about one another, Mercy recognizing that girl she met 20 years ago or her being given a prominent role (even though it would have been nice). I just wanted to see her acknowledged, her character developed and a reason for her to be present in OW2.
I’ll never not be salty about this. Pharah is one of my all time favourite characters and at this point I feel bad for her, as this story leads me to believe the writers don’t care about her. I’ve always thought that she’d be perfect for the new Overwatch team and would love more than anything to have her join Winston and the others. There’s so much potential for good story-telling for her.
I am still hopeful that those “big plans” for Pharah Jeff was talking about will be realised in the near future.
They used to have one where they talked about clearing the skies together but Blizzard never fixed it. There was another one but removed after Ana came to live servers.
One interaction which isn’t bugged: Mercy: Pharah, If your mother could see you now I’d think she be proud of you! Pharah: There’s a first time for everything, I guess.
100% agree with this. Pharah was one of the earliest heroes along with Tracer, Reaper & Widowmaker, now she often get shined by Ana instead. The community loves Ana more than Pharah now, well healers tend to get love more than DPS.
Wouldn’t you want your fave to be in her own story instead of being a prop in someone else’s? I understand, it must be annoying not having any major lore with your fave for so long, but hey, at least she’s closely connected to Ana, so there’s a very high chance she’ll get something big.
From what i got from short story Mercy hates Helix so i would assume she might know pharah but because she joined Helix Mercy wants nothing to do with her thus she doesnt talk about her
Mercy dislikes any conflicts and I think it was Jack who believed Helix protected governments’ interests more than people. Well Jack infiltrated some government facilities, former Overwatch bases to get his equipment, information for his personal war, thus governments would have wanted Helix to capture him.
As far as we know, Pharah could be deployed in any another continent - the Anubis mission she led during the comics seems to be set in a different time and is not the same one Talon and Reaper is leading in Valkyrie.
But I like to think that during Valkyrie, she is spending time with her dad in Canada , like it’s shown in Reflections comic - where Soldier and Ana are waiting to get to Hakim - Mercy in her tent near Gizeh - and Pharah at a dinner with her dad.
Because Pharah isn’t important to Mercy’s character, nor to her story, Valkyrie, so she shouldn’t be brought up.
Ana barely had any lines in Valkyrie, so why should Pharah be mentioned when it’s MERCY’S story? Why shoehorn in a character barely relevant to the overall story? They spent less than a paragraph on Helix. It was all about Mercy doing her own heroic acts.
It feels like some of you people wish Mercy was as close to Pharah as Mercy is to Brigette, but that clearly isn’t the case. She’s intimate with Torbjorn’s family, not Ana’s.
I would rather Pharah get her own short story tbh, than a cameo in one that doesn’t matter to hers
i’ve always thought interactions were similar to how the characters would interact with one another if they ever met (or in ow members cases met back up) but aren’t canon
(like mccree and mercy, their interaction seems more joking and playful, that they’re on good terms, or were and still are friends, compared to mccree and moira, in which mccree borderline hates moira)
Lindholms are Angela’s (not related?) family.
Reinhardt, Genji, Lena, Winston are Angela’s close friends.
Ana, Jack, Gabriel were Angela’s bosses, nothing more.
Any other was Angela’s coworker (e.g. Baptiste) or person whose she barely met (e.g. Fareeha).
That’s how I see Angela’s relations with other people now.
Agreed, except I think there are two other people who were Mercy’s close friends, the two doctors who she kept a photograph of near her seat as seen in Zero Hour.
I think one of them was Dr. Chao, and the other an unnamed doctor.
Well…
Dr. Chao and Dr. Ziegler were studding different science branches. I can’t be so sure if that’s Dr. Chao in the picture of Ziegler but I can be wrong.
But it’s possible that these two at least were going to the same engineering lectures. Then Ziegler was going to medicine, Chao to astronomy lectures.
This was probably the only time they’ve met, and teenaged Angela was probably more interested in talking to McCree (who is the same age as her) or Torbjorn (a family friend) than the kid daughter of one of Torbjorn’s coworkers.
