You have to think about why Talon would even leave Amélie with any memory of her past if they can successfully break everything else about her for their use. Memory suppression is a thing already, and in this futuristic game, it’s not out of the question that they know how to drain someone of their memories.
So why would they even let her be able to think of what happened and take the chance?
My first thought when I realized she even remembers these things was ‘Amélie probably isn’t completely gone, or maybe, instead, she just had her own change of heart for the worst, when she was forced to kill an entire half of her life already, you can’t blame her for turning to the dark side for comfort’.
Half of her brain-drain was done before killing her husband. The other half, which was what took away her ability to feel emotion (remember that ‘change of heart’), completed after.
We were never told if Talon told her to return, or just die out there. She still went back, even if her mission (possibly the only thing they told her to do), and only reason to live, was completed.
We don’t really know the scope of her brainwashing, but we do know she has enough free will to visit her husband’s grave, move into her family’s estate, and go on vacation in Greece.
We don’t have enough information to know for sure. But my guess is she can leave Talon whenever she want’s but she simply don’t do it. After killing Gerald and That Ominc Monk, almost killing Ana. I think talon is fully convinced she is on their side and whatever they did to her worked. Releasing her to kill Gerald was their final test I think.
But having all that said it is really f****** hard to mess with the core of a person. So it is still unclear what are her motives are. I believe she has an other motive in her mind.
And there was an another post here saying that Gerald might be alive.
So who knows, these are just theories at the moment.
Amelie killed Gerard before she did anything else, and before most of her conditioning was completed.
Based on what she says in Alive, Widowmaker only truly feels when she is killing, and Talon facilitates that. That, plus the fact that she would be arrested for all the murder she’s done, means that she doesn’t really have a reason to leave Talon.
Gerard is not alive. That would ruin Widowmaker’s whole story.
“Talon operatives kidnapped her and subjected her to an intense program of neural reconditioning. They broke her will, suppressed her personality, and reprogrammed her as a sleeper agent.”
According to official lore, they conditioned her to the point of breaking her will. And killing Gerald was their mission and final test.
After she killed him they fully transformed her into a living weapon.
Enjoying hunting live people doesn’t always mean she is doing it for her enjoyment alone. And a lot of Overwatch characters are hiding from the law. She doesn’t necessarily need to associate with a talon to protect against the law and furthermore associating with talon just only paint a bigger target on her back.
It is just a theory. It can be right or wrong. There simply isn’t enough data to prove it right or wrong. And I disagree with ruining her story. It all depends on the way a story was told not the end result.
And my personal theory is there is more to her story than what we already have known. And I don’t think her role in the future would be limited to act as the talons puppet.
I was referring to the rest of her bio, and her missions against Ana and Mondatta, which you seemed to be implying happened before she killed Gerard. I must have misread.
As someone previously stated even with Her talon doesn’t really seem to be too restrictive over what their agents do as long as it generally doesn’t go against their ideals hardcore.
Sombra was allowed to sabotage a missing with absolutely no repercussions because doomfist also preferred Katya alive. Hell it was such a non-issue that he even made snarky remarks just to dig at her over the comms.
If something like that was let go because it didn’t interfere with their main plans I assume that they are ok with most things.
Even Baptiste unknown outright traitor isn’t wanted dead but it’s wanted to be brought back alive because of just how useful he is showing they plan to reintegrating him whether it’s forcefully or not is unknown but still.
A part of me thinks there’s a good possibility that Amelie wasn’t entirely a good person before becoming Widowmaker. Maybe she wanted to be conditioned by Talon beforehand.
the most effective way to control someone is to make them to most of the work or ingraned instincts…
like with child abuse…a abused child will be more likely to beat their own children to vindicate the actions of their own parents because the idea that their parents has done them hard is a pain point and goes against the unquestioning love of a child towards a prarent…
it could be that their brain washing uses one of more such effects…
the fact that she killed her own husband means she has a pain point putting pressure on her to self supress… they may have used temporary strong brainwashing to compel that action then used the burried guilt and fear of the assosiated pain to have her self supress…
All hypnosis is self hypnosis… brain is more then that… but i can begin to see how they could do it… possibly…
but yeah the sci-fi aspect comes into play… MK ultra never worked as far as anyone knows
though with the right pre-existing psychological make up in place i can see something working… possibly…
like with hypnosis you cant get people to do things they would not normally do… but alcohol makes people act like they would not normally do at least temporarily…
if you can use a temorary indoxication to build up a controling pain point of guilt then you may be able to get some to keep acting according to programming rather then having to face up to their actions…
