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beardmasterlegham-blog · 7 years

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Why PharMercy is a valid ship

Brace yourselves folks, this is a long one.

I’ve seen a lot of posts speaking about “crack ships” that supposedly make no sense, one of which I hear a lot about is PharMercy. This ship often is pitted against the ship of Genji and Mercy, with many noting that the former derives solely from “aesthetic”, while the latter derives from lore and in-game interactions. I want to put out there that hating “PharMercy” does not inherently make someone homophobic, and conversely, hating “Gency” does not inherently make someone heterophobic. Personally, I subscribe to the notion that as long as the characters being shipped are consenting adults, antagonizing the person supporting that ship is not warranted.

Let me first get the short version of my opinion out of the way before I go into strenuous detail. When I say that I believe that PharMercy is a viable ship, I mean it in the sense that it’s just as based in pure fact as every other Overwatch ship, which is very little to not at all.

In my eyes, this is a good thing. One of the great things about Overwatch is its diverse cast of characters brimming with unique personality, but the full details of their relationships with other characters is never fully shown to us outright. The game is, after all, a FPS in which characters from all kinds of backgrounds come together under one organization. (except for a choice few)

So naturally, absolute sluts for writing character interactions and roleplaying like myself could not be more content with this, since it’s essentially up to the players to fill in the blanks left to us and even form our own headcanons, since no two characters in the game have ever been confirmed to be a couple.

If Jeff Kaplan himself said in a dev update: “Hey guys, this is Jeff from the Overwatch team, we’re excited to announce that Pharah and Mercy are, in fact, a canon couple, also we are nerfing McCree haha”, I would actually be pretty disappointed (and not just about the McCree nerf), despite adoring the idea of these two characters being together.

Because from that point forward, a lot of wonderfully written fanfics would be rendered null and void, or at least met with inherent contention. If Jack and Ana were confirmed a couple for example, someone would then have grounds to say:

“Um uh well, actually, according to the Overwatch canon, Jack and Ana are dating and so your Jack x Gabe fanfic is now automatically wrong.”

Does that sound fun to anyone? Probably not. All the fun of speculation and fan theories = gone. I love the fact that people are able to speculate and write fanfics of their favourite characters in Overwatch, without a fact-checker crying non-canonical.

Now, as for addressing PharMercy and Gency. I personally am fine with both, especially since these 3 characters are actually some of my favourites in the game.

Let’s first start with PharMercy, and the notion that this ship is based purely on aesthetic and no chemistry between the two characters. At first, I actually thought this too, and was annoyed by the insistence of the two being item simply because they are a good combo in-game and they both fly. But upon further inspection and learning more about the two characters, it began to make more sense to me.

As shown in the official Overwatch Pharah comic: “Mission Statement”, for a long time Pharah has been dedicated to ruthless efficiency, often prioritizing the “mission” over the “man” as she puts it. Essentially meaning that individual deaths should not hinder the overall big picture of the mission, since trying to save an individual may jeopardize its success, and thus potentially ending many more lives. However, Pharah struggles with the moral implications of this and ultimately ends up going against that ideal to save a teammates life. She comes to a conclusion that her role, as her mother’s was, is to be a protector to those around her.

Which leads us to Mercy, who also has the same incredible dedication to protecting others, but has almost a reverse mantra to what Pharah had. Mercy is more of an advocate for peace through pacifism, joining Overwatch when learning of the opportunity to heal people on a global scale, but being against its militarized approach. Despite this, she involved herself in an organization that did things she disagreed with, likely because of the war-driven times the world was in. In other words, from the get go she advocated for the “man” over “the mission”, dedicating herself to healing those affected by the war even after the disbanding of Overwatch.

Naturally, these two meeting and interacting makes for such amazing potential because of this. Two people who can learn from each others’ opposing struggles and talk about them while still having the same base goal, fighting side by side. I don’t see this connection as mere coincidence. The fact that they have a voice interaction in-game implying they often fly together on missions means that it’s more than merely an in-game action. It’s pretty safe to assume that if they are on good speaking terms, and flying together every chance they have that some sort of connection would be made.

Of course, I’m not saying that this means they are a couple. Their relationship could very well be 100% platonic, just like any other ship in Overwatch it could really go either way. But given what I’ve discussed I don’t think the complete dismissal of PharMercy is very warranted.

Next up is Gency, a ship that has gained a LOT of traction recently due to voice lines being discovered relating to Genji and Mercy exchanging chocolates.

http://www.pcgamer.com/overwatch-voice-lines-may-hint-at-a-genji-and-mercy-romance-in-the-making/

As we know now, these lines are not part of a Valentines Day event nor a White Day event since those have already passed. Whether or not this took place on one of those days is up to speculation at this point.

Something I will say though is that just like the PharMercy interactions, these kinds of interactions could be romantically charged, but could also be platonic. Let’s not forget that Mercy saved this man’s life and helped give him purpose in it. I don’t know about you, but if someone I knew personally and spoke with fairly often literally saved my life, you bet your ass they are getting Valentines’ Day chocolates from me. I think most people would share that sentiment. Genji has been shown through interactions to be a now open-minded, kind-hearted man who appreciates the opportunities given to him to reshape his life.

I would also assume that Mercy is personally very close with most everyone in Overwatch, considering she’d be patching them up most every day. She is generally an incredibly selfless person, and so getting Swiss chocolates for Genji, a person she evidently respects, isn’t too surprising. As I said, the gesture could be romantic or could not be. It all depends on context, context that we do not have. Which is good, because more context could outright confirm a ship, and while that ship is perfectly valid, I honestly don’t want any ships confirmed in Overwatch since it would ruin the fun of speculation.

So essentially, the TL;DR version is: Both ships are valid, as are all ships in Overwatch between two consenting adults. One is really no better than the other and people should not bash others for thinking that two fictional characters in a video game should date.

#overwatch #pharmercy #pharah #mercy #ship #shipping

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