Pharah is a lesbian. One of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Overwatch’s most beloved heroes has been the intense focus of queer pairings and headcanons since the first game’s release in 2016, and Blizzard has now confirmed our long-held sapphic suspicions as part of an upcoming Pride event. Pharah sits alongside Tracer, Soldier 76, and Baptiste as one of many queer characters, although some of them were retroactively blessed with this queerness instead of it being part of their origins.This brings up an interesting debate, and the community has been hashing out the value of LGBTQ+ representation which didn’t exist when the foundations were built, but was subtly added through future updates and multimedia stories that don’t even exist within the game itself. It can be easy to label Overwatch’s handling of queer characters and themes as hollow rainbow capitalism, even more so when Activision has a habit of dropping huge revelations like this alongside evolving workplace scandals or big stories that it wants to distract you from.Pharah feels like an unfortunate coincidence, but it’s hard to forgive its awkward timing when it’s flanked by a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:damning Bobby Kotick article that brings years’ worth of scandals screaming back into the headlines. It’s gross, and puts an unfortunate spin on a big reveal that fans have a right to be excited about. I used to play Overwatch every day. It wꦜas a game that defined my time in university. My flatmates and I would often pl🎶ay games in the evening or speculate about future seasonal events and loot drops.
New heroes were a major event, and I can still remember the bitter looks of jealousy on their faces as I attended BlizzCon and got to try out all the new things before anyone else. Before the live-service rot began to take effect and a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:needless sequel reared its head, Overwatch meant something to me. This investment also factored into its💦 queer community at a time when no representation was confirmed in the game itself. It was all fanart, fanfics, and pairings birthed from our own imaginations. But we wouldn’t care so much if the game itself wa𝓰sn’t brimming with potential.
Pharmercy - a romantic pairing consisting of Pharah and Mercy - was an early development which the game itself seemed to emphasise. The airborne rocket trooper was incredibly fast and deadly, although her small amount of health meant that getting into risky scrapes would often result in death. But with Mercy by her side, who clings onto allies to heal them in a pinch or zoom into the fray, Pharah becomes an airborne killing🐟 machine capable of wiping out entire teams. Matches would always be populated with the combo as two feminine spectres flew through the air, raining hell down from above while never accepting death. Their mutually-beneficial partnership created a mechanical bond that q👍uickly morphed into an emotional relationship.
Voice lines and emotes sparked a flame of romance, and fans wasted no time turning this into something special. It warms my heart to t✤his day, and Pharah’s reveal as a lesbian has already seen countless comics and pieces of art resurface that solidify how much this confirmation means to us. But thanks to Activision Blizzard being a heartless corporation that relies on LGBTQ+ representation to wash over its sins out of convenience rather than progress, our adoration has already been euthanized.
The critics are justified - queer representation in a game as globally recognised as Overwatch 2 shouldn’t become a political scapegoat as its publisher fails to cover up its own corruption. The conspiracy that characters in this game are assigned queer identities out of desperation as opposed to excellent writing and realistic dynamics isn’t that far-fetched. We can’t trust Blizzard enough to believe that it was always the plan to reveal Soldier 76, Tracer, or Pharah as queer, even though it might be true. It doesn’t deserve that trust anymore, but this shouldn’t negate what personal value we assign to characters who are now ca🐽non in their identities, especially after years of projecting ourselves onto them with stories and ideas that outgrow what the game is capable of. Feeling pride in Pharah&r♛squo;s reveal as a lesbian is valid, I just wish it wasn’t sullied.
Overwatch has flirted with Pride before, but this will be the first time it celebrates with a full seasonal event, altered maps, cosmetics, and more which is clearly going the extra mile to make LGBTQ+ fans feel welcome. Bigots are going to complain, and the event is set to be censored in certain territories which a𓄧ren’t quite as progressive, although this still feels like a promise from the development team to do better by its queer players in ways which are no longer confined to webcomics only a tiny percentage of the audience are ever going to read.
Make the queerness of specific heroes and parts of the world unavoidable, an element of the future narrative in ways that provide them witওh new relationships or developments which act as more than diverse window dressing. Progress like this could well be in the works, and the twisted methods in which Activision seeks to salvage its own image shouldn’t tarnish a piece of media that for years has played a part in LGBTQ+ people feeling seen, heard, and confident that things can get better.
To see Overwatch’s representation grow more explicit and honest in its execution can only be a good thing, and there’s no shame in valuing these steps forward even as the game struggles to find a purpose. We can’t trust corporations to tell queer stories and champion queer charactersꦑ, but this doesn’t take away from everything these characters might have done for us in the past, canon or not.
We merely need a critical distance to recognise what this sort of representation actually means for the landscape, how it came about, and whe🔯re it could go in the years to come. I’m delighted to see Pharah confirmed as a proud lesbian woman, regardless of the context in which it exists.
