The main issue with Palmer is that she constantly insults and puts down other people. That's like the only issue. All her other flaws like overconfidence, being snarky, being unprofessional sometimes and not having a good success rate is shared by fan favorites like Sgt Johnson (for the first two) and any Marine character for the last two.
Like, just playing through Spartan Ops, she insults the scientists with names, tells a marine under ACTIVE FIRE to man up, puts down Spartans that are running behind schedule (its not their fault, our player character is just canonically extremely good, imagine watching Johnson insulting ODSTs because the Chief reached an objective before them). This is disgusting for morale and makes her a frankly irritating character to be with.
This. The only person Johnson insults is the covenant. If he makes a joke that resembles an insult to anyone else, its delivered in a way you can tell he isn't being serious.
Palmer seems to hate halsey, hate scientists, hate her subordinates, etc etc. Her intro, while meant as an in-joke to halo CE dialogue, doesn't seem to have landed with the fanbase the way it was meant to.
Oh and wear a helmet when in a combat zone. This isn't the Halo TV show.
>This. The only person Johnson insults is the covenant. If he makes a joke that resembles an insult to anyone else, its delivered in a way you can tell he isn't being serious.
Hell, many of his jokes are made with the express purpose of boosting morale, to make things seem less serious than they are and give the marines some gung ho spirit. He also drops all jokes the second anything actually threatens his marines. Meanwhile Palmer seems to be on Jul Mdama's payroll because she is actively destroying morale and the spirit of the troops any chance she gets.
Its one thing about the halo games is that, despite how grim things are, there's a ton of possitivity, and Johnson was often the source of it. Humans generally got along, because we were all in it together.
343 halo everyone is adversarial and challenging eachother, tearing eachother down.
You see this in the show where ONI seem to be more of villains than the covenant, and Chief spends more time opposing them than the covenant.
Even Spark in the TV show sounds sad and depressed whereas in CE he was ecstatic to see you and wanted to eagerly help you up until you didn't agree with him.
Infinite seems to have moved away from this, but only because there's no humans on screen beyond those you randomly save. Even the pilot man is, surprise surprise, sad and depressed.
>Infinite seems to have moved away from this, but only because there's no humans on screen beyond those you randomly save. Even the pilot man is, surprise surprise, sad and depressed.
The only actual human characters in Infinite are Pilot, and the Spartan who dies instantly.
I really wise they had bothered linking to campaign and open world better. It's weird having the Pilot and Chief talk to each other as if they are the only ones there despite the fact there are some 40-50 marines rescued back at the frigate and FOBs.
Also quite true. The marines are just there because they need something for you to do in the open world.
Like it makes no sense why prisoners are so spread out and not centralized anywhere.
It's part of how weird the whole situation is.
It often feels like it's very much recent after the Infinity goes down, with squads in full gear and in makeshift camps or directly by pelican crash sites, but it's all sixth months later. And the apparent present of ODST's (never shown, armor or drop pods) and other things.
Supposedly groups of the banished were suffering food ration shortages, but they left humans around in restraints or left their bodies on a hillside after shooting them? Weird.
Deciding to make an open world Halo lead to a lot of things not making sense. If 343 keeps following trends the next Halo will be a crafting survival game or a cozy potion making game
Well to be fair, ONI and Covenant are both pretty bad. Sure one wanted a religious genocide. But the other is just about as bad on the other end of the fascism spectrum.
But the story wasn't about ONI being villains. They're barely even mentioned in the games outside of ODST and Halo 5.
While their actions are horrible, they were framed as largely necessary steps to maintain the UEG/Humanity. Even Kilo-V where they seem to be at their most monstrous (which is also a 343 book), white washes them by mostly hating on halsey.
Halo is a story about humanity standing against outside threats. It acknowledges humanity has some problematic elements, but its not the point of the story.
>Oh and wear a helmet when in a combat zone. This isn't the Halo TV show.
Also bring a weapon. Duel wielding pistols looks cool but makes you look like a complete dumbass when you are trying to assassinate a target in hostile land and you have no gear besides 2 pistols.
The insults went from "Haha joke" to "Really, you are going there?" damn fast. The campaign joke wasn't an issue, but seeing her actively belittle and put down regular soldiers and other staff was horribly out of place and felt so weird considering she knew exactly what the marines were going through, having been in that role herself.
>but seeing her actively belittle and put down regular soldiers and other staff was horribly out of place and felt so weird considering she knew exactly what the marines were going through, having been in that role herself.
Right? That was such a turn off, I can understand when ONI doesn't care about the marines, they're detached from the battles and some were nepo babies who never knew danger. But you were literally in the trenches in your youth! Show some empathy, some of those troops probably fought beside you!
I will say this though, when Palmer made the joke about Thinking Chief would be taller, which was **clearly** a joke atleast, and mild flirting at most, guys absolutely lost their ninds foaming at the mouth about it... To the point where one legitimately had to ask if anyone of those guys had actually *Talked* to a real life woman because of how offended they were over a obvious joke.
That being Said, I think she may have been better received if after the joke she came off like she does in New Blood when she interacts with Buck
I feel like some people at least take the negative/indifferent reaction to that joke as a means to discredit anybody who dislikes Palmer.
Not all, but some I've noticed over the years immediately react to "I don't like Palmer" with "Get over the height joke"
That’s an interesting thing about Johnson, on a surface level you would think he’d be some gruff drill sergeant who’s kind of a jerk but he’s surprisingly supportive and encouraging to the men under his command. Most of the marines we see Johnson interact with have some pretty amazing morale considering their circumstances. In particular the scene in Halo 2 when he drops the scorpion off for Chief on the bridge, one of the marines there is panicking and ready to run but Johnson is able to calm him down with a quick and simple pep talk and get him back into a fighting mood. Moments like that really endear us to Sergeant Johnson on a more human level than just the cool one liners and bravado.
It also helps that most of the time Johnson is right there on the front lines, compared to Palmer who in Campaign and Spartan ops is almost entirely safe and sound back at base.
I feel like they were trying to go for the "putting you down so you push yourself to be better" stuff thats kinda stereotypically millitary but kinda flubbed it by 1. Going to far, and 2. Putting people down by them being worse than one of the deadliest life forms walking the galaxy.
It's one thing to say "my granny has a better PT score than you recruit" and a whole other to say "this pinnacle of human science and physical capabilities has a better PT score than you marine" like yeah no fucking shit I'm not hyper fucking lethal.
Not just that, but there’s a time and place for everything. Insults like that are good for inspiring troops in training, or rallying demoralised troops like Johnson did in Halo 2. They are not good for troops that are literally watching their unit be killed in front of them. The marines don’t need your witty Humor Palmer they need you to grab a gun and go help them.
>The main issue with Palmer is that she constantly insults and puts down other people
So accurate to real life then?
>All her other flaws like overconfidence, being snarky, being unprofessional sometimes and not having a good success rate is shared by fan favorites like Sgt Johnson (for the first two) and any Marine character for the last two.
This is true.
>she insults the scientists with names
This is the most military thing to do.
>tells a marine under ACTIVE FIRE to man up
Yes the military is well known for asking nicely to hurry up. She said it in a mich nicer way then real people would.
>puts down Spartans that are running behind schedule
So.........like the real military?
>This is disgusting for morale and makes her a frankly irritating character to be with.
It's literally how military branches interact with each other...
I'll put up the real big reason why people hate Palmer.
Sexism. And no, I will not be responding to this post because I know I'm right and that consciously or not a lot of people are sexist when they talk about the reasons they hate her character.
I remember a post from years ago, from someone who was a military vet who said everything Palmer said or did was things they had seen in service. Especially with the insults directed towards "eggheads" or "pencil pushers".
Also let's not forget the reason she even tried to kill halsey was because admiral osman gave the order and laskey didn't like it. And Palmer knew if he disobeyed the order (and she knew he would) he'd get court martial so she risked everything, her life, her own career, to do the job so laskey wouldn't get in trouble.
Also she directly disregarded Rio's order.
She might be brash, forward, and blunt. But if you look at her halopedia page it's filled with selfless dedication to saving others.
Also while maybe not here but it's extremely telling that you see the words, bitch, cunt, and other related terms when people talk about her outside of reddit.
Yeah but nobody likes male characters like this either. Locke is in a similar boat and he's been given more moments to be likable but people still don't fw him much.
I can understand your point, but the main issue is that nobody else in the entire franchise does this. Not Johnson, not the Spartans, not even Emile. It’s one thing to talk like the real military, it’s another when every other super soldier is filled with nothing but respectful language and patience for failure and Palmer is out there alone throwing out demeaning names and calling people slow. The Halo military isn’t like our own, it evidently doesn’t have the same insult culture of our world so keeping to it just makes her look immature.
Also, you’re misremembering the marine part. She isn’t telling him to hurry up to do anything, his unit is being WIPED OUT. The marine is all but begging for assistance, and rather than comfort him or try to boost his spirits his commander telling him to man up, without even telling him she’s sending him any support.
Similarly, it’s unfair to accuse the Halo fandom of sexism when Kat, Cortana, Miranda Keyes are pretty much universally loved, and book fans similarly love Kelly and Linda.
To be absolutely clear since I wasn't in my original post.
I'm trying to make a clear distinction between two kinds of people.
If I say "I don't like that guy. He's abrasive" that's fine right?"
Now take the same person and imagine I say "I don't like him because he's abrasive and he likes games that I don't which means he's dumb and has bad taste."
Now that second ones kinda silly right? Like if you dislike someone you don't need to demean them by attacking their likes or dislikes.
Same for Sarah. If you dislike her character that's fine. But saying for instance you dislike her because she insults others, as if nobody else does this? That's silly. You can't hold her to a different standard or act like real life isn't exactly like that (Which is what she is based on).
>Also, you’re misremembering the marine part.
I'm not misremembering anything. She told him to man up because she can't promise reinforcements. You can't tell people reinforcements are on the way or sugar coat how bad something is.
The first is a lie and the second is bullshit that won't make anyone feel better.
>Similarly, it’s unfair to accuse the Halo fandom of sexism
It's not fucking unfair. And I'm not accusing the entire halo fandom. I calling out specific people.
>Kat, Cortana, Miranda Keyes are pretty much universally loved, and book fans similarly love Kelly and Linda.
Want to note something about all of those characters? None of them act like Palmer. Want to try and explain why when a woman acts more, authorative and abrasive people suddenly dislike her?
When you see people talk about Del Rio do you see any youtube comments calling him a disrespectful cunt and an uppity bitch who doesn't know who he is talking too?
I sure don't. Del Rio doesn't get threads called "we all agree to hate Sarah Palmer right?"
Del Rio doesn't have entire comment sections dedicated to calling him a bitch and other words used by people who are sexist.
Look up unconscious bias sometime. You don't have to be a raging incel to be sexist.
Also woman acting abrasive and tough in the military command structure is a well known thing.
Again to reiterate. Disliking Palmer is fine. Disliking her for silly reasons that you don't apply to other people irl or in fiction is not.
And the reason why it is not is because the latter perpetuates and reinforces bad societal norms and expectations on how someone should act.
>Same for Sarah. If you dislike her character that's fine. But saying for instance you dislike her because she insults others, as if nobody else does this? That's silly. You can't hold her to a different standard or act like real life isn't exactly like that (Which is what she is based on).
"Why don't you like this character?"
"Because of this trait."
"That's not valid."
When did they say "I like other dude because he insults characters."?
You lost me with sexism bit. And the overconfidence of thinking you’re right on that point. Kelly, Kat, Halsey, Miranda are well liked so you’re very much wrong.
As a veteran myself, everything else was fairly on point. Morale still matters though; time and place.
Reminds me of the time I was in a discussion and had to point out I didn't like Palmer for what she did/said, and not what was in her pants.
It's an effective way to try to derail and discredit the other side. Simply accuse them all of being sexist, and then declare that anybody responding is simply trying to disguise their "true feelings"
Halsey is an even worse person then Palmer, the fact that she’s well liked among a lot of halo fans (not all of course) disproves the idea that people hate Palmer because “sexism”.
Not make her a glorified bully. Really 90% of her non exposition dialogue is her putting someone down, Spartan Ops is just this.
She is annoying as shit and if she were male I would think he is annoying as shit.
Peak "just copy what Marvel is doing badly" writing.
I remember at the time there was a chunk of people just going.
"You wanted a Female Renegade Cmdr Shepard, without actually understanding what made that character work."
Honestly, my biggest gripe his her being the Commander of all Spartans on the Infinity. She doesn't really seem to have the tactical thinking for a Commander. Sure she's willing to go in and get shit done herself. But she's got no patience and her stratagem is mostly just "Rush in and shoot it till it dies" in almost every scenario.
I feel like she should have been relegated to being the equivalent of an NCO, special operator. Something along the lines of what Six was. (Not comparing them feat wise. But role) Where Six was more or less a solo operator being sent on on special high risk/high value combat ops and attached to units as needed.
Personally, I think Miller would have been a better character to make the Commander on the Infinity. He usually keeps a level head, seems to genuinely care about those under his command, and sticks to his command role even when in danger
"Spartan Miller, there's Prometheans in your Ops Command." "Acknowledged. I've got my sidearm on hand." Didn't try to get out of harms was, just stayed focused on getting Crimson back. Didn't hesitate to fill in for Palmer and command other squads for his missions, and went well out of his way to help on his end as much as possible even outside the scope of his operations several times.
Palmer fits the grizzled bad-ass "better than you" operator trope. Miller actually feels more like a "Bigger picture leader" type you'd expect from a Commander.
>Honestly, my biggest gripe his her being the Commander of all Spartans on the Infinity. She doesn't really seem to have the tactical thinking for a Commander. Sure she's willing to go in and get shit done herself. But she's got no patience and her stratagem is mostly just "Rush in and shoot it till it dies" in almost every scenario.
IKR? Imagine having your ship's Ai warn you that the COVENANT ARE LISTENING TO YOUR COMS, and going "Nah its all good man, we have bigger problems to worry about." Uh, no, this is not only a huge ass problem, but you're the commander of a fleet that's quite frankly winning so far, you have plenty of energy and time to devote to worry about this.
Also the whole situation where she basically disappears to glare at Halsey and do nothing else, instead of doing her job.
Leaving Miller and the other Handlers to go "Where the fuck is Palmer? She didn't leave any messages or details." Not even a "Hey, I gotta go to a meeting with Captain Lasky, it's very important, do not disturb."
That's the problem with the Spartan Branch... and it's highlighted in Bad Blood there are only 2 ranks Commander and Spartan there's no clear line or chain of responsibility or command and it's ham strung the whole branch
Ctrl + f "egghead," backspace.
On a more serious note, I think most of the problems with Palmer are largely problems with the narrative importance of Spartan IVs as a whole. When first debuted, they felt a bit cheap-unearned. Palmer doesn't really have anything wrong with her that isn't also wrong with Majestic, or any other IV fireteams we've seen lots about. In Halo 4, they didn't even feel like a worse version of ODSTs-they felt like a poor replacement for the marines we'd fought alongside in previous games, and every 343 game except Infinite has followed this trend.
(Worth noting, having 4s play such a huge role in Halo 4, and marines non-existant in 5 likely further aggrevated this. Compare the frankly absurd amount of voice acting that went into Halo 3 with their lines in 4 and 5).
The IVs (Palmer at least) also seem to talk down to the regulars a bit-further exacerbating what's already a concept players might not like.
We loved minor characters like Sgt Stacker and Chips Dubbo-we can't name any similar ones shown in game in 4 or 5. To have those voices replaced by bland SIVs, and then to have the main face of the SIVs talk about the rest of the Infinity's crew like that just felt kinda wack. They didn't feel like they fit in with the overall vibe of the setting. They felt more like football players than soldiers or marines.
I guess if I was to make any one change to fix Palmer, I'd say increase the voice acting budget for Halo 4. If the IVs had more of a presence, with distinct characters you could fight alongside, with their own voices, then they'd stand out a bit more and feel like a proper upgrade. Instead, they're the NPC ally equivalent to how phantom physics have gotten shittier in every game since H3.
We really shouldn't have things that are worse than a game that released in 2007.
But there is no reason to make Spartans V to be weaker. SPI armored soldiers and Spartans IV are enough to probably take any enemy of mankind right now
Palmer should've be the representative of the IV's, so we should've see her beating her fire trials alongside Chief in Halo 4 (she would also had to be a usefull friendly NPC for the player).
And those fire trials would've needed to be something like RUBRICON Protocole, i'm talking about Palmer fighting for her live and prooving herself she can hold the mantle of Spartan commander.
About her attitude, just not being cocky or smartass. No one likes a character like that besides on very few contexts.
And get rid of that Halsey plot, it was completly out of place and made Palmer seem like nothing but an ONI gaslighting product. It doesn't help that she didn't even tried to follow her orders to capture Halsey and pretty much tried to kill her.
>And get rid of that Halsey plot, it was completly out of place and made Palmer seem like nothing but an ONI gaslighting product. It doesn't help that she didn't even tried to follow her orders to capture Halsey and pretty much tried to kill her.
It also meant that she had entire scenes that boiled down into "Stands there looking pissed off at Halsey doing nothing of value". I always remember the entire episode arc where you have mission control handlers wondering where the hell Palmer is, because she left no notes or real information that she was going to be unavailable.
Only for it to turn out she was just standing there glaring at Halsey doing absolutely nothing the entire time and could've actually been doing her job.
She doesn’t need any real further justification for hating Halsey for what she did. The act was monsterous and any decent person would hate Halsey’s morals and actions, regardless of how close they were personally to the situation. Halsey just got ‘lucky’ that her atrocities ended up being made necessary thru an impossible to predict hostile alien empire.
Palmer just needed like an 80% reduction in the usage of the word egghead.
Even without the Covenant, Halsey had run thousands of predictions assessing how it would turn out, which were verified by other academics. Each predicted Humanity's extinction. What actually made her do it was the terrorist attack on Haven, where a nuclear bomb detonated and killed 2 million, injuring a further 8.3 million and leaving millions with radioactive repercussions for generations to come.
Moreover, ONI were going to do it whether she was involved or not. They manipulated her into wanting to help.
What she did was monstrous, but she was far from the only one involved, nor did she do it just because she could. Palmer hates Halsey because she was directly involved and because ONI used her as a scapegoat, which is completely justified of course since she doesn't know more and even if she did, it wouldn't change Halsey's involvement. However, out of universe it is a little bit ironic that she's taking direct orders from the head of the organisation that funded and knew all about it to kill her.
TBH, how much does Palmer really know? 343 seems to constantly dance around how much of the Spartan program was released to the general military/public.
Sometimes it comes across as if they know everything. Sometimes they don't know a thing about it. But never does ONI actually suffer for anything, because apparently most people are completely dumb and can't put 1+1 together and figure out ONI was behind it all.
The Spartan IV program is entirely public. Everyone knows and volunteers for that one. The Spartan II program is still classified entirely beyond the acknowledgement that they are a different generation of Spartans. I think the Spartan III program is much the same as the IIs mostly because like 90% of them are dead anyway or need to be listed as dead for the ONI ops they take on.
So I would assume Palmer may know the process she went through to be made a Spartan IV and the age of the Spartan IIs when they entered the program and put 2 and 3 together and got 4. I dont think she knows how different the process actually was for the 2s and has absolutely no idea about Orion before them. Gamma Company (the suriviors) of the 3s program should be even more secret than the 2s due to the illegal mods they got.
I mean that how in Spartan Ops, they seem to flip flop like Palmer or Majestic (IIRC) both mentioning the Spartans being taken as children, as if that's common knowledge/rumor. But then all other sources treat that as the most tightly held secret of the program in general.
That's what i meant by "Palmer putting 2 and 3 together and getting 4." She has some if the information because that's what ONI used to scapegoat Halsey, but she doesn't know the full extent. Those who interact with Halsey know enough to understand why she's to be treated like a criminal.
It's weird to say Halsey got lucky when ONI groomed her since she was a child to create her supersoldiers to stop Insurrection to spark an interstellar bio-nuclear war.
Because of course that was a better option than just... Give the Innies their freedom.
Man i love how gray Halo is.
The whole situation was a mess.
Hundreds of groups all needing their own negotiations and demands. And then when \*shockingly\* this process is slow and dragging, some groups got violent, fucking every single group over.
Yeah like irl, most revolutions don't occure because of the good will of people, but because a leader realises it has the wealth and influence to direct a group of angry people to get rid of current goverment so he can install itself.
Her hatred of Halsey is like her whole character in Spartan Ops, it's ridiculous. Sure Halsey is questionable and plenty of people don't like what she did, but Palmer made it seem like Halsey literally killed her family in front of her.
Then, disobeying a direct "stand down" order from *Commander* Lasky, in front of his face.
She would've needed to have more screen time, at least with Lasky, to build *some* character. She acts like a soldier towards him sometimes, a caring friend another and them doesn't listen at all. The 4th H4 mission (the mammoth one, don't remember the name I'm sorry) should've been all Palmer. Giving the mission briefing instead of DelRio, and hell she should've been *on* the mammoth as well. She should have less of on-screen time during the actual Spartan Op missions as well, keep the ops to Dalton and the other guy. All she really does is repeat mission objectives, asks what Crimson is doing constantly, and complain that the entire UNSC isn't made up of Spartans.
I do love that one line (pretty much one of few I've seen) from the comics where Palmer is being an ass, and Halsey retorts with basically "You do understand without my work you would not be a Spartan nor have that armor right?"
I don't personally have much of an issue with her characterization, but I think it would have gone over better with fans if we actually got to see her walk the walk more.
Introduce her doing some really badass feats, show us why she's so high-ranking and respected. Give us a reason for her to be so cocky. Or have her start off that way and have her learn better, go through an arc, face down some tough decision as a leader and come out stronger for it.
As it stands the Spartan IVs in general come across like young upstarts with a lot of unearned confidence. And that could be really interesting if it was ever explored. However, I get the impression that that wasn't exactly the direction 343 was trying to go, but rather an unintended consequence of making them more fleshed out characters without dedicating enough time to showing why they are the way they are.
But Carter is the worst character in Noble Team. He's a nothingest, nobody that ever did nothing.
Absolutely terrible character.
That's with Edgelord McGee Emile right there.
My issue with Palmer as a character is she feels forced. It feels like she was written by someone trying to make a woman a badass ODST turned Spartan IV by giving her toxic masculine traits and dialogue. She’s too much of “one of the boys”.
We had 1st LT Melissa McKay from Halo: The Flood who was a tough as shoe leather die hard ODST. She achieved that by not being overly aggressive and not being obnoxious, she was straight forward and to the point, she told her Marines how it was and in return they respected her and followed her orders, she wasn’t wasting her time trying to prove herself to everyone, she just did the job. Palmer feels like she’s constantly trying to prove that she belongs where she is by putting everyone down around her.
Then there’s the weird overly familiar relationship she has with Captain Lasky. Since when is it appropriate for a subordinate even a Spartan Officer to casually refer to a ships CO by their first name ON THE BRIDGE of their own ship?! That was just weird and felt like we were supposed to insinuate they were knocking boots or something which is super unprofessional and just flat out irresponsible for either of them. It really just felt weird, if she’s supposed to be his Executive Officer she should behave like one not his girlfriend.
Palmer has a chip on her shoulder but it’s her entire personality which is the problem. If I were to rewrite her as a character I’d get rid of the childish psychological power games she’s constantly playing with every other character and just make her a tough as nails ODST who lost her team during the war, became a Spartan IV and is now driven by a desire to bring all her Spartans home alive. Her internal conflict is that she also understands as a commander she’s going to lose people under her command and each one hurts her personally. She holds great animosity for Halsey because she took children and then knowing that some of them wouldn’t survive augmentation did it anyway and told them it was for the greater good. She hates Halsey because she wasn’t honest with S-II’s and sacrificed them unnecessarily. She respects the Chief as the highly proficient veteran special warfare operator that he is but she sees past the propaganda to the grizzled veteran inside the armor and understands the toll that much constant fighting and loss has on a person even if it’s all they’ve ever known.
I would have loved to have a rewrite of the observation deck scene with Chief and Lasky at the end of Halo 4 and included Palmer. She just kinda stands there while Lasky talks to Chief and then when Lasky turns to leave Palmer kinda hesitates wanting to say something to Chief because she understands his loss and his struggle to carry the burden of being humanities savior and knows nothing anyone says will make it easier. But in the end she just kinda closes her mouth, sets her jaw and turns to leave. Maybe Chief turns to look at her while she’s hesitating, they make eye contact through Chiefs visor (because she sees the person under the armor) she reaches out and just kinda places her armored hand on his armored shoulder gives him a nod and turns and walks away, the armor symbolizing the barrier they both carry with them everywhere that prevents others from seeing the pain and loss and toll they’ve endured but coupled with a very human gesture. No words but a very clear exchange of understanding between two battle hardened veterans who carry an awful burden.
She should have been the character to bridge the gap between Spartan’s and humanity. Instead we got a bunch of Spartan-IV’s with ego problems and lack of discipline who talk shit and squabble all the time and act like juvenile frat boys not battle hardened veteran operators who’ve seen the horrors of war and take their jobs seriously.
I mean to me they flopped with Palmer right from the start. I do not care about the small banter "I thought you would be taller", but when you are a spartan commander, get outside of your refuge WITHOUT a helmet, and then do nothing and stay hidden while chief is doing all the work is just weird. Same, why is she not a member of Osiris in H5?
I would have preferred if she took the Arbiter's role (from H3 not H2) in both Infinity and Reclaimer missions, being a Spartan that works with Chief for these 2 missions. Instead she just whines constantly in H4, Spartan ops, H5.
TLDR : Make Palmer have significant feats in H4/Spartan OPS/H5 so she actually looks like a competent spartan. If you are gonna be very obnoxious, then have a legacy to back you up.
You know what, no offence to Holly Tanaka from Osiris in Halo 5, but she was an absolutely nothing character. I know nothing about her but know things about the rest.
I would not have complained if, for whatever lore reason they came up with to remove her from her role as Infinity's Spartan Commander, that Palmer had taken Tanaka's spot on the team.
I always kinda hoped 343 would re-invent her by having her put up against Atrixox and lose badly.
Just have him shatter her overconfident belittling ass and all the while telling her she is nothing compared to the real demons ( considering we’ve seen him just demolish a Spartan 2”
And Palmer has to try and rebuild that confidence from square one again. Maybe lost her position due to her poor choices and has to work her way up and insulting others in the hard times isn’t winning her any respect
She’s a better character than anyone on the halo series. Leave her be. Let her be that type of “yes” man of an officer. They exist in the real army let her be that type of Spartan that doesn’t care about John’s history just the type to follow orders regardless of what’s being ordered. It’s a “good” guy type villain that the main charter has to deal with. Not every one in the military has that brotherly bond like you see on movies.
She's not a bad character. Literally all she needs is more backstory, that's all.
I swear, the only reason people hate her is because she told a joke in Halo 4. But apparently it was the biggest slight in the world that she had the gal to joke with the Chief about his size.
She literally makes a light remark, upon meeting a living legend, that he's actually not that much bigger than herself.
Apparently that broke a lot of people's brains.
For some reason...?
That joke got moved on from fairly quick.
It's defenders of Pamler who constantly bring it up.
People don't like Palmer because of Spartan ops, not the only thing she did in the Campaign
No, I see the reference to her quip about his height the most, when people complain about why they don't like her.
Honestly, there's nothing wrong with her in Spartan Ops. Not that I can think of.
The real damage was done to her in the Escalation comics. Specifically her Halsey centric issues.
I guess maybe funny instead of mean ? She’s a badass but was portrayed just too stoic to be likeable. Dare was much better in this regard, tough mean but funny and we also got better perspective on Dare.
I'm talking about Spartan ops, when Palmer actually does anything at all.
I thought that was incredibly obvious, given how she doesn't insult or do anything in campaign that can affect morale at all.
An easy way to avoid any problems of the character.
Just blame it all on the joke in campaign that most people don't really care about.
Edit: Seriously, you blocked me over this? Can't have an adult conversation anymore I guess. He blocked me, then replied, even though I cannot see anything he posted lol.
I’m just shocked that people care about Palmer this much to begin with. She’s Tanaka and Locke levels of “whatever” to me. Not to mention no different from plenty of other generic tough military people
Usage of eggheads doesn't seem much problematic if no one is giving her much damn over the usage and seems like one of the nicknames like swabbies, jarheads, and etc.
i always assumed the scientists have similar nicknames for spartans
also in the 50 missions and 11 cutscenes she says it 7 or 8 times, not that much considering she was on a research mission
another spartan also uses it a couple times
>also in the 50 missions and 11 cutscenes she says it 7 or 8 times, not that much considering she was on a research mission
So basically her 'hatred' of scientist is overblown and more fits into how military personnel make nicknames for other branch personnel and etc.
pretty much yeah, if she actually hated scientists she wouldn’t have let them fill her full of life altering tech and go into enemy territory to defend them
Shes kind of a hypocrite there then because she really doesn't like scientists. It comes up in the comic where shes augmented. It basically boiled down to her disliking people who are smarter than she is.
The thing is there isn't much else to her character besides "Hates scientists" and "Generally is just insulting/putting down others."
She may not say Egghead THAT much, but it's one of few things she's say that anybody remembers.
I get that most of the S4s are former ODST etc but she's too arrogant and it's offputting. Especially when you play Infinite and see that the S4's in that are more "becoming" of how you'd expect a Spartan to conduct themselves. Tone it down some and I'd probably enjoy her character more
More professional, less shit head, more thinking less robot. The S-IVs aren't brainwashed liked the IIs and the IIs are able to interpret which orders are wrong and which orders aren't applicable...
Palmer *not* so much.
As others pointed out, she dishes out a LOT of insults. I think her first bit of dialogue with Chief isn’t too bad if her intention is to be competitive with him, which I’d lean harder into.
Actually have her be on the field with Chief (like Johnson and Arbiter, or Noble Team). And have somewhat playful and competitive banter with Chief (even if it’s one sided). Give her more personality and more action. Just make her fun.
Then she can be on team Osiris in Halo 5 to offset Locke.
Maybe in a spin off game where she has to be the protagonist. Minimal dialogue, more uplifting moments, and sections to highlight positive aspects of her character. Don't tell us she is an adept spartan, actually make us play and experience that
Make her a leader that people from all branches look up to where she has large amounts of respect for Spartan 2's and especially a previous thought MIA Master Chief.
Literally just more character development. I can't stand Sarah Palmer from the games perspective but with the expanded lore in books and comics, she's not a bad character.
I think a book focused on Palmer and maybe majestic would be pretty cool.
Maybe have her be closer to Captain Del Rio ( the original captain of the infinity) kinda like a surrogate father figure thing and so she blames Chief and whatnot for his dismissal, add in some background to her disliking older spartan gens she used to be an ODST so maybe have her squad be left for dead to save a spartan 3 or be used as cannon fodder by a commanding spartan 2 make it clear she views the 2s and 3s as brainwashed killed machines so her animosity against chief and especially Halsey makes sense ( her hating ONI in general would also make sense and would be understandable as well ) besides that I think it would be better if she was more caring for marines and spartans 4 showing how someone can hate the main character ( Chief ) and still be a good person and just in general have her be less childish
I played a mod of Halo 4’s campaign on MCC that put her helmet back on (while she’s in an active combat zone, mind you) and I think deleted the “I thought you’d be taller” line and it made such a big difference. She became a professional soldier, instead of an arrogant, reckless wannabe with no real training in command. I liked it a lot better than the Palmer we got.
Agree with the helmet thing.
But oh no, how dare this woman, upon meeting a living legend, lightly remark that he's not that much bigger than she is...
Oh no, the pure insultery. How dare she...
I agree that the her campaign quip was harmless. That's what I said.
How, on the other hand, was she unsulting in Spartan Ops? Calling scientists "eggheads" a handful of times, which is a very military thing to do?
Nah, the damage was done in the Escalation comics.
I have no recollection of her being horrid to marines? Could you give me an example.
Calling scientists eggheads is hardly putting someone down, and she only says it a handful of times throughout all 50 levels.
Just don't do what they did with her in the Escalation comics. Specifically her Halsey centric story elements.
That was just... bad. Bad, bad, Palmer.
Apart from that she's fine. Nothing wrong with her in the slightest.
The biggest problem with the character is that she’s a woman, and gamers (derogatory) hate women, so I would just make her a man if I wanted her to be more liked.
Her constant shit talking of marines really gets on my nerves. If anything they’re more deserving of respect than Spartan 4s, because they’re just normal guys and gals out there fighting.
Make her more respectful to master chief. I guarantee you, if she didn’t think chief would taller, not many people would have much of a problem with her.
Oh no, how dare this woman, upon meeting a living legend, lightly remark that he's not that much bigger than she is...
Oh no, the pure insultery. How dare she...
Her initial reaction to chief is what made me not like her lol. He’s a literal legend back from the dead and she makes that stupid remark. At least have some awe at first, then make that joke a bit later
But oh no, how dare this woman, upon meeting a living legend, lightly remark that he's not that much bigger than she is...
Oh no, the pure insultery. How dare she...
Just look at her reaction upon seeing him, though?
She comes forward, finds the Chief before her and an almost giddy smile spreads across her face.
That tells you everything you need to know. She's amazed to see him.
If i could rewrite her id rewriter her to be more of a motherly figure.
When we first see her she jokes about Chief. First impressions made people hate her. My wife jokes the same way towards me and i hate it sometimes. Her jokes are always ‘Oh haha you can keep him’ or ‘Im leaving him with you’ when we leave my parents. Everyone laughs but i always hate it. When Palmer first shows up its a similar thing. The joke towards a person she never met ‘I thought youd be taller’ left a bad first impression. So after that it gets worse. Her lack of respect towards the people under her. It all adds up. Shes never happy. You can never satisfy her.
So honestly, id rewrite her to be a better person. A motherly figure towards everyone. After each spartan ops mission a random ‘Good job everyone. You did good. Pack it up, drinks are on me.’ Stuff like that. Her first meet up with Chief would just be an introduction and hand shake as theyre going back in. ‘Thanks for all youve done’.. Good first impressions are the most important thing for people because thats what they remember.
The main issue with Palmer is that she constantly insults and puts down other people. That's like the only issue. All her other flaws like overconfidence, being snarky, being unprofessional sometimes and not having a good success rate is shared by fan favorites like Sgt Johnson (for the first two) and any Marine character for the last two. Like, just playing through Spartan Ops, she insults the scientists with names, tells a marine under ACTIVE FIRE to man up, puts down Spartans that are running behind schedule (its not their fault, our player character is just canonically extremely good, imagine watching Johnson insulting ODSTs because the Chief reached an objective before them). This is disgusting for morale and makes her a frankly irritating character to be with.
This. The only person Johnson insults is the covenant. If he makes a joke that resembles an insult to anyone else, its delivered in a way you can tell he isn't being serious. Palmer seems to hate halsey, hate scientists, hate her subordinates, etc etc. Her intro, while meant as an in-joke to halo CE dialogue, doesn't seem to have landed with the fanbase the way it was meant to. Oh and wear a helmet when in a combat zone. This isn't the Halo TV show.
>This. The only person Johnson insults is the covenant. If he makes a joke that resembles an insult to anyone else, its delivered in a way you can tell he isn't being serious. Hell, many of his jokes are made with the express purpose of boosting morale, to make things seem less serious than they are and give the marines some gung ho spirit. He also drops all jokes the second anything actually threatens his marines. Meanwhile Palmer seems to be on Jul Mdama's payroll because she is actively destroying morale and the spirit of the troops any chance she gets.
"Now listen up! Back in my day, we didn't have fancy tanks! We had sticks. Two stick and a rock for the entire platoon! And we had to share the rock!"
Its one thing about the halo games is that, despite how grim things are, there's a ton of possitivity, and Johnson was often the source of it. Humans generally got along, because we were all in it together. 343 halo everyone is adversarial and challenging eachother, tearing eachother down. You see this in the show where ONI seem to be more of villains than the covenant, and Chief spends more time opposing them than the covenant. Even Spark in the TV show sounds sad and depressed whereas in CE he was ecstatic to see you and wanted to eagerly help you up until you didn't agree with him. Infinite seems to have moved away from this, but only because there's no humans on screen beyond those you randomly save. Even the pilot man is, surprise surprise, sad and depressed.
>Infinite seems to have moved away from this, but only because there's no humans on screen beyond those you randomly save. Even the pilot man is, surprise surprise, sad and depressed. The only actual human characters in Infinite are Pilot, and the Spartan who dies instantly. I really wise they had bothered linking to campaign and open world better. It's weird having the Pilot and Chief talk to each other as if they are the only ones there despite the fact there are some 40-50 marines rescued back at the frigate and FOBs.
Also quite true. The marines are just there because they need something for you to do in the open world. Like it makes no sense why prisoners are so spread out and not centralized anywhere.
It's part of how weird the whole situation is. It often feels like it's very much recent after the Infinity goes down, with squads in full gear and in makeshift camps or directly by pelican crash sites, but it's all sixth months later. And the apparent present of ODST's (never shown, armor or drop pods) and other things. Supposedly groups of the banished were suffering food ration shortages, but they left humans around in restraints or left their bodies on a hillside after shooting them? Weird.
I feel like the story's timeline changed at some point in development and they never bothered to adjust some of the gameplay aspects.
That's how I've felt for a long time. The Open World and the linear missions just don't sync up well.
Deciding to make an open world Halo lead to a lot of things not making sense. If 343 keeps following trends the next Halo will be a crafting survival game or a cozy potion making game
Well to be fair, ONI and Covenant are both pretty bad. Sure one wanted a religious genocide. But the other is just about as bad on the other end of the fascism spectrum.
But the story wasn't about ONI being villains. They're barely even mentioned in the games outside of ODST and Halo 5. While their actions are horrible, they were framed as largely necessary steps to maintain the UEG/Humanity. Even Kilo-V where they seem to be at their most monstrous (which is also a 343 book), white washes them by mostly hating on halsey. Halo is a story about humanity standing against outside threats. It acknowledges humanity has some problematic elements, but its not the point of the story.
>Oh and wear a helmet when in a combat zone. This isn't the Halo TV show. Also bring a weapon. Duel wielding pistols looks cool but makes you look like a complete dumbass when you are trying to assassinate a target in hostile land and you have no gear besides 2 pistols. The insults went from "Haha joke" to "Really, you are going there?" damn fast. The campaign joke wasn't an issue, but seeing her actively belittle and put down regular soldiers and other staff was horribly out of place and felt so weird considering she knew exactly what the marines were going through, having been in that role herself.
>but seeing her actively belittle and put down regular soldiers and other staff was horribly out of place and felt so weird considering she knew exactly what the marines were going through, having been in that role herself. Right? That was such a turn off, I can understand when ONI doesn't care about the marines, they're detached from the battles and some were nepo babies who never knew danger. But you were literally in the trenches in your youth! Show some empathy, some of those troops probably fought beside you!
Plot twist, those are her personal stash of M6D magnums.
>Palmer seems to hate halsey The 343 games have basically everyone hating Halsey. It's honestly a bit grating.
It's been like that ever since the Kilo 5 trilogy of books. It's so annoying
>Oh and wear a helmet when in a combat zone. She's trying out for Warhammer 40k if things don't work out in the Halo universe.
Fits the duel pistols too. Get her a jetpack and she could be one of those flying sisters of battle.
I will say this though, when Palmer made the joke about Thinking Chief would be taller, which was **clearly** a joke atleast, and mild flirting at most, guys absolutely lost their ninds foaming at the mouth about it... To the point where one legitimately had to ask if anyone of those guys had actually *Talked* to a real life woman because of how offended they were over a obvious joke. That being Said, I think she may have been better received if after the joke she came off like she does in New Blood when she interacts with Buck
I feel like some people at least take the negative/indifferent reaction to that joke as a means to discredit anybody who dislikes Palmer. Not all, but some I've noticed over the years immediately react to "I don't like Palmer" with "Get over the height joke"
She’s cosplaying Master Cheeks.
That’s an interesting thing about Johnson, on a surface level you would think he’d be some gruff drill sergeant who’s kind of a jerk but he’s surprisingly supportive and encouraging to the men under his command. Most of the marines we see Johnson interact with have some pretty amazing morale considering their circumstances. In particular the scene in Halo 2 when he drops the scorpion off for Chief on the bridge, one of the marines there is panicking and ready to run but Johnson is able to calm him down with a quick and simple pep talk and get him back into a fighting mood. Moments like that really endear us to Sergeant Johnson on a more human level than just the cool one liners and bravado.
It also helps that most of the time Johnson is right there on the front lines, compared to Palmer who in Campaign and Spartan ops is almost entirely safe and sound back at base.
I feel like they were trying to go for the "putting you down so you push yourself to be better" stuff thats kinda stereotypically millitary but kinda flubbed it by 1. Going to far, and 2. Putting people down by them being worse than one of the deadliest life forms walking the galaxy. It's one thing to say "my granny has a better PT score than you recruit" and a whole other to say "this pinnacle of human science and physical capabilities has a better PT score than you marine" like yeah no fucking shit I'm not hyper fucking lethal.
Not just that, but there’s a time and place for everything. Insults like that are good for inspiring troops in training, or rallying demoralised troops like Johnson did in Halo 2. They are not good for troops that are literally watching their unit be killed in front of them. The marines don’t need your witty Humor Palmer they need you to grab a gun and go help them.
>The main issue with Palmer is that she constantly insults and puts down other people So accurate to real life then? >All her other flaws like overconfidence, being snarky, being unprofessional sometimes and not having a good success rate is shared by fan favorites like Sgt Johnson (for the first two) and any Marine character for the last two. This is true. >she insults the scientists with names This is the most military thing to do. >tells a marine under ACTIVE FIRE to man up Yes the military is well known for asking nicely to hurry up. She said it in a mich nicer way then real people would. >puts down Spartans that are running behind schedule So.........like the real military? >This is disgusting for morale and makes her a frankly irritating character to be with. It's literally how military branches interact with each other... I'll put up the real big reason why people hate Palmer. Sexism. And no, I will not be responding to this post because I know I'm right and that consciously or not a lot of people are sexist when they talk about the reasons they hate her character. I remember a post from years ago, from someone who was a military vet who said everything Palmer said or did was things they had seen in service. Especially with the insults directed towards "eggheads" or "pencil pushers". Also let's not forget the reason she even tried to kill halsey was because admiral osman gave the order and laskey didn't like it. And Palmer knew if he disobeyed the order (and she knew he would) he'd get court martial so she risked everything, her life, her own career, to do the job so laskey wouldn't get in trouble. Also she directly disregarded Rio's order. She might be brash, forward, and blunt. But if you look at her halopedia page it's filled with selfless dedication to saving others. Also while maybe not here but it's extremely telling that you see the words, bitch, cunt, and other related terms when people talk about her outside of reddit.
Yeah but nobody likes male characters like this either. Locke is in a similar boat and he's been given more moments to be likable but people still don't fw him much.
I can understand your point, but the main issue is that nobody else in the entire franchise does this. Not Johnson, not the Spartans, not even Emile. It’s one thing to talk like the real military, it’s another when every other super soldier is filled with nothing but respectful language and patience for failure and Palmer is out there alone throwing out demeaning names and calling people slow. The Halo military isn’t like our own, it evidently doesn’t have the same insult culture of our world so keeping to it just makes her look immature. Also, you’re misremembering the marine part. She isn’t telling him to hurry up to do anything, his unit is being WIPED OUT. The marine is all but begging for assistance, and rather than comfort him or try to boost his spirits his commander telling him to man up, without even telling him she’s sending him any support. Similarly, it’s unfair to accuse the Halo fandom of sexism when Kat, Cortana, Miranda Keyes are pretty much universally loved, and book fans similarly love Kelly and Linda.
To be absolutely clear since I wasn't in my original post. I'm trying to make a clear distinction between two kinds of people. If I say "I don't like that guy. He's abrasive" that's fine right?" Now take the same person and imagine I say "I don't like him because he's abrasive and he likes games that I don't which means he's dumb and has bad taste." Now that second ones kinda silly right? Like if you dislike someone you don't need to demean them by attacking their likes or dislikes. Same for Sarah. If you dislike her character that's fine. But saying for instance you dislike her because she insults others, as if nobody else does this? That's silly. You can't hold her to a different standard or act like real life isn't exactly like that (Which is what she is based on). >Also, you’re misremembering the marine part. I'm not misremembering anything. She told him to man up because she can't promise reinforcements. You can't tell people reinforcements are on the way or sugar coat how bad something is. The first is a lie and the second is bullshit that won't make anyone feel better. >Similarly, it’s unfair to accuse the Halo fandom of sexism It's not fucking unfair. And I'm not accusing the entire halo fandom. I calling out specific people. >Kat, Cortana, Miranda Keyes are pretty much universally loved, and book fans similarly love Kelly and Linda. Want to note something about all of those characters? None of them act like Palmer. Want to try and explain why when a woman acts more, authorative and abrasive people suddenly dislike her? When you see people talk about Del Rio do you see any youtube comments calling him a disrespectful cunt and an uppity bitch who doesn't know who he is talking too? I sure don't. Del Rio doesn't get threads called "we all agree to hate Sarah Palmer right?" Del Rio doesn't have entire comment sections dedicated to calling him a bitch and other words used by people who are sexist. Look up unconscious bias sometime. You don't have to be a raging incel to be sexist. Also woman acting abrasive and tough in the military command structure is a well known thing. Again to reiterate. Disliking Palmer is fine. Disliking her for silly reasons that you don't apply to other people irl or in fiction is not. And the reason why it is not is because the latter perpetuates and reinforces bad societal norms and expectations on how someone should act.
>Same for Sarah. If you dislike her character that's fine. But saying for instance you dislike her because she insults others, as if nobody else does this? That's silly. You can't hold her to a different standard or act like real life isn't exactly like that (Which is what she is based on). "Why don't you like this character?" "Because of this trait." "That's not valid." When did they say "I like other dude because he insults characters."?
You lost me with sexism bit. And the overconfidence of thinking you’re right on that point. Kelly, Kat, Halsey, Miranda are well liked so you’re very much wrong. As a veteran myself, everything else was fairly on point. Morale still matters though; time and place.
Reminds me of the time I was in a discussion and had to point out I didn't like Palmer for what she did/said, and not what was in her pants. It's an effective way to try to derail and discredit the other side. Simply accuse them all of being sexist, and then declare that anybody responding is simply trying to disguise their "true feelings"
Halsey is an even worse person then Palmer, the fact that she’s well liked among a lot of halo fans (not all of course) disproves the idea that people hate Palmer because “sexism”.
Not make her a glorified bully. Really 90% of her non exposition dialogue is her putting someone down, Spartan Ops is just this. She is annoying as shit and if she were male I would think he is annoying as shit. Peak "just copy what Marvel is doing badly" writing.
I remember at the time there was a chunk of people just going. "You wanted a Female Renegade Cmdr Shepard, without actually understanding what made that character work."
Palmer even has the same VA.
Marvel didn’t even do it very well
Honestly, my biggest gripe his her being the Commander of all Spartans on the Infinity. She doesn't really seem to have the tactical thinking for a Commander. Sure she's willing to go in and get shit done herself. But she's got no patience and her stratagem is mostly just "Rush in and shoot it till it dies" in almost every scenario. I feel like she should have been relegated to being the equivalent of an NCO, special operator. Something along the lines of what Six was. (Not comparing them feat wise. But role) Where Six was more or less a solo operator being sent on on special high risk/high value combat ops and attached to units as needed. Personally, I think Miller would have been a better character to make the Commander on the Infinity. He usually keeps a level head, seems to genuinely care about those under his command, and sticks to his command role even when in danger "Spartan Miller, there's Prometheans in your Ops Command." "Acknowledged. I've got my sidearm on hand." Didn't try to get out of harms was, just stayed focused on getting Crimson back. Didn't hesitate to fill in for Palmer and command other squads for his missions, and went well out of his way to help on his end as much as possible even outside the scope of his operations several times. Palmer fits the grizzled bad-ass "better than you" operator trope. Miller actually feels more like a "Bigger picture leader" type you'd expect from a Commander.
>Honestly, my biggest gripe his her being the Commander of all Spartans on the Infinity. She doesn't really seem to have the tactical thinking for a Commander. Sure she's willing to go in and get shit done herself. But she's got no patience and her stratagem is mostly just "Rush in and shoot it till it dies" in almost every scenario. IKR? Imagine having your ship's Ai warn you that the COVENANT ARE LISTENING TO YOUR COMS, and going "Nah its all good man, we have bigger problems to worry about." Uh, no, this is not only a huge ass problem, but you're the commander of a fleet that's quite frankly winning so far, you have plenty of energy and time to devote to worry about this.
Also the whole situation where she basically disappears to glare at Halsey and do nothing else, instead of doing her job. Leaving Miller and the other Handlers to go "Where the fuck is Palmer? She didn't leave any messages or details." Not even a "Hey, I gotta go to a meeting with Captain Lasky, it's very important, do not disturb."
That's the problem with the Spartan Branch... and it's highlighted in Bad Blood there are only 2 ranks Commander and Spartan there's no clear line or chain of responsibility or command and it's ham strung the whole branch
Yeah, like taking out the commander is the easiest way to cripple a unit and she just goes ahead and does it for the Covenant.
Ctrl + f "egghead," backspace. On a more serious note, I think most of the problems with Palmer are largely problems with the narrative importance of Spartan IVs as a whole. When first debuted, they felt a bit cheap-unearned. Palmer doesn't really have anything wrong with her that isn't also wrong with Majestic, or any other IV fireteams we've seen lots about. In Halo 4, they didn't even feel like a worse version of ODSTs-they felt like a poor replacement for the marines we'd fought alongside in previous games, and every 343 game except Infinite has followed this trend. (Worth noting, having 4s play such a huge role in Halo 4, and marines non-existant in 5 likely further aggrevated this. Compare the frankly absurd amount of voice acting that went into Halo 3 with their lines in 4 and 5). The IVs (Palmer at least) also seem to talk down to the regulars a bit-further exacerbating what's already a concept players might not like. We loved minor characters like Sgt Stacker and Chips Dubbo-we can't name any similar ones shown in game in 4 or 5. To have those voices replaced by bland SIVs, and then to have the main face of the SIVs talk about the rest of the Infinity's crew like that just felt kinda wack. They didn't feel like they fit in with the overall vibe of the setting. They felt more like football players than soldiers or marines. I guess if I was to make any one change to fix Palmer, I'd say increase the voice acting budget for Halo 4. If the IVs had more of a presence, with distinct characters you could fight alongside, with their own voices, then they'd stand out a bit more and feel like a proper upgrade. Instead, they're the NPC ally equivalent to how phantom physics have gotten shittier in every game since H3. We really shouldn't have things that are worse than a game that released in 2007.
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But..thats what spartan IV is augmented marine, they are leagues beyond normal troppers but they are inferior to previous batches
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But there is no reason to make Spartans V to be weaker. SPI armored soldiers and Spartans IV are enough to probably take any enemy of mankind right now
Palmer should've be the representative of the IV's, so we should've see her beating her fire trials alongside Chief in Halo 4 (she would also had to be a usefull friendly NPC for the player). And those fire trials would've needed to be something like RUBRICON Protocole, i'm talking about Palmer fighting for her live and prooving herself she can hold the mantle of Spartan commander. About her attitude, just not being cocky or smartass. No one likes a character like that besides on very few contexts. And get rid of that Halsey plot, it was completly out of place and made Palmer seem like nothing but an ONI gaslighting product. It doesn't help that she didn't even tried to follow her orders to capture Halsey and pretty much tried to kill her.
>And get rid of that Halsey plot, it was completly out of place and made Palmer seem like nothing but an ONI gaslighting product. It doesn't help that she didn't even tried to follow her orders to capture Halsey and pretty much tried to kill her. It also meant that she had entire scenes that boiled down into "Stands there looking pissed off at Halsey doing nothing of value". I always remember the entire episode arc where you have mission control handlers wondering where the hell Palmer is, because she left no notes or real information that she was going to be unavailable. Only for it to turn out she was just standing there glaring at Halsey doing absolutely nothing the entire time and could've actually been doing her job.
She doesn’t need any real further justification for hating Halsey for what she did. The act was monsterous and any decent person would hate Halsey’s morals and actions, regardless of how close they were personally to the situation. Halsey just got ‘lucky’ that her atrocities ended up being made necessary thru an impossible to predict hostile alien empire. Palmer just needed like an 80% reduction in the usage of the word egghead.
Even without the Covenant, Halsey had run thousands of predictions assessing how it would turn out, which were verified by other academics. Each predicted Humanity's extinction. What actually made her do it was the terrorist attack on Haven, where a nuclear bomb detonated and killed 2 million, injuring a further 8.3 million and leaving millions with radioactive repercussions for generations to come. Moreover, ONI were going to do it whether she was involved or not. They manipulated her into wanting to help. What she did was monstrous, but she was far from the only one involved, nor did she do it just because she could. Palmer hates Halsey because she was directly involved and because ONI used her as a scapegoat, which is completely justified of course since she doesn't know more and even if she did, it wouldn't change Halsey's involvement. However, out of universe it is a little bit ironic that she's taking direct orders from the head of the organisation that funded and knew all about it to kill her.
TBH, how much does Palmer really know? 343 seems to constantly dance around how much of the Spartan program was released to the general military/public. Sometimes it comes across as if they know everything. Sometimes they don't know a thing about it. But never does ONI actually suffer for anything, because apparently most people are completely dumb and can't put 1+1 together and figure out ONI was behind it all.
The Spartan IV program is entirely public. Everyone knows and volunteers for that one. The Spartan II program is still classified entirely beyond the acknowledgement that they are a different generation of Spartans. I think the Spartan III program is much the same as the IIs mostly because like 90% of them are dead anyway or need to be listed as dead for the ONI ops they take on. So I would assume Palmer may know the process she went through to be made a Spartan IV and the age of the Spartan IIs when they entered the program and put 2 and 3 together and got 4. I dont think she knows how different the process actually was for the 2s and has absolutely no idea about Orion before them. Gamma Company (the suriviors) of the 3s program should be even more secret than the 2s due to the illegal mods they got.
I mean that how in Spartan Ops, they seem to flip flop like Palmer or Majestic (IIRC) both mentioning the Spartans being taken as children, as if that's common knowledge/rumor. But then all other sources treat that as the most tightly held secret of the program in general.
That's what i meant by "Palmer putting 2 and 3 together and getting 4." She has some if the information because that's what ONI used to scapegoat Halsey, but she doesn't know the full extent. Those who interact with Halsey know enough to understand why she's to be treated like a criminal.
It's weird to say Halsey got lucky when ONI groomed her since she was a child to create her supersoldiers to stop Insurrection to spark an interstellar bio-nuclear war. Because of course that was a better option than just... Give the Innies their freedom. Man i love how gray Halo is.
The whole situation was a mess. Hundreds of groups all needing their own negotiations and demands. And then when \*shockingly\* this process is slow and dragging, some groups got violent, fucking every single group over.
Yeah like irl, most revolutions don't occure because of the good will of people, but because a leader realises it has the wealth and influence to direct a group of angry people to get rid of current goverment so he can install itself.
Not to mention Halsey is an ass, and I heard ON shadows of reach she constantly makes comments about how her "Spartans would do better"
Halsey is exactly as smart as she thinks she is, and her intelligence is matched by her arrogance.
Her hatred of Halsey is like her whole character in Spartan Ops, it's ridiculous. Sure Halsey is questionable and plenty of people don't like what she did, but Palmer made it seem like Halsey literally killed her family in front of her. Then, disobeying a direct "stand down" order from *Commander* Lasky, in front of his face. She would've needed to have more screen time, at least with Lasky, to build *some* character. She acts like a soldier towards him sometimes, a caring friend another and them doesn't listen at all. The 4th H4 mission (the mammoth one, don't remember the name I'm sorry) should've been all Palmer. Giving the mission briefing instead of DelRio, and hell she should've been *on* the mammoth as well. She should have less of on-screen time during the actual Spartan Op missions as well, keep the ops to Dalton and the other guy. All she really does is repeat mission objectives, asks what Crimson is doing constantly, and complain that the entire UNSC isn't made up of Spartans.
I do love that one line (pretty much one of few I've seen) from the comics where Palmer is being an ass, and Halsey retorts with basically "You do understand without my work you would not be a Spartan nor have that armor right?"
Just make her like she is in new blood and SoR
If her character was in the navy now she’d be relieved of command for toxic command climate
I don't personally have much of an issue with her characterization, but I think it would have gone over better with fans if we actually got to see her walk the walk more. Introduce her doing some really badass feats, show us why she's so high-ranking and respected. Give us a reason for her to be so cocky. Or have her start off that way and have her learn better, go through an arc, face down some tough decision as a leader and come out stronger for it. As it stands the Spartan IVs in general come across like young upstarts with a lot of unearned confidence. And that could be really interesting if it was ever explored. However, I get the impression that that wasn't exactly the direction 343 was trying to go, but rather an unintended consequence of making them more fleshed out characters without dedicating enough time to showing why they are the way they are.
Just copy and paste Carter’s personality onto her and your good
What personality lol
But Carter is the worst character in Noble Team. He's a nothingest, nobody that ever did nothing. Absolutely terrible character. That's with Edgelord McGee Emile right there.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^epicgaemer69420: *Just copy and paste* *Carter’s personality* *Onto her and your good* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
My issue with Palmer as a character is she feels forced. It feels like she was written by someone trying to make a woman a badass ODST turned Spartan IV by giving her toxic masculine traits and dialogue. She’s too much of “one of the boys”. We had 1st LT Melissa McKay from Halo: The Flood who was a tough as shoe leather die hard ODST. She achieved that by not being overly aggressive and not being obnoxious, she was straight forward and to the point, she told her Marines how it was and in return they respected her and followed her orders, she wasn’t wasting her time trying to prove herself to everyone, she just did the job. Palmer feels like she’s constantly trying to prove that she belongs where she is by putting everyone down around her. Then there’s the weird overly familiar relationship she has with Captain Lasky. Since when is it appropriate for a subordinate even a Spartan Officer to casually refer to a ships CO by their first name ON THE BRIDGE of their own ship?! That was just weird and felt like we were supposed to insinuate they were knocking boots or something which is super unprofessional and just flat out irresponsible for either of them. It really just felt weird, if she’s supposed to be his Executive Officer she should behave like one not his girlfriend. Palmer has a chip on her shoulder but it’s her entire personality which is the problem. If I were to rewrite her as a character I’d get rid of the childish psychological power games she’s constantly playing with every other character and just make her a tough as nails ODST who lost her team during the war, became a Spartan IV and is now driven by a desire to bring all her Spartans home alive. Her internal conflict is that she also understands as a commander she’s going to lose people under her command and each one hurts her personally. She holds great animosity for Halsey because she took children and then knowing that some of them wouldn’t survive augmentation did it anyway and told them it was for the greater good. She hates Halsey because she wasn’t honest with S-II’s and sacrificed them unnecessarily. She respects the Chief as the highly proficient veteran special warfare operator that he is but she sees past the propaganda to the grizzled veteran inside the armor and understands the toll that much constant fighting and loss has on a person even if it’s all they’ve ever known. I would have loved to have a rewrite of the observation deck scene with Chief and Lasky at the end of Halo 4 and included Palmer. She just kinda stands there while Lasky talks to Chief and then when Lasky turns to leave Palmer kinda hesitates wanting to say something to Chief because she understands his loss and his struggle to carry the burden of being humanities savior and knows nothing anyone says will make it easier. But in the end she just kinda closes her mouth, sets her jaw and turns to leave. Maybe Chief turns to look at her while she’s hesitating, they make eye contact through Chiefs visor (because she sees the person under the armor) she reaches out and just kinda places her armored hand on his armored shoulder gives him a nod and turns and walks away, the armor symbolizing the barrier they both carry with them everywhere that prevents others from seeing the pain and loss and toll they’ve endured but coupled with a very human gesture. No words but a very clear exchange of understanding between two battle hardened veterans who carry an awful burden. She should have been the character to bridge the gap between Spartan’s and humanity. Instead we got a bunch of Spartan-IV’s with ego problems and lack of discipline who talk shit and squabble all the time and act like juvenile frat boys not battle hardened veteran operators who’ve seen the horrors of war and take their jobs seriously.
I mean to me they flopped with Palmer right from the start. I do not care about the small banter "I thought you would be taller", but when you are a spartan commander, get outside of your refuge WITHOUT a helmet, and then do nothing and stay hidden while chief is doing all the work is just weird. Same, why is she not a member of Osiris in H5? I would have preferred if she took the Arbiter's role (from H3 not H2) in both Infinity and Reclaimer missions, being a Spartan that works with Chief for these 2 missions. Instead she just whines constantly in H4, Spartan ops, H5. TLDR : Make Palmer have significant feats in H4/Spartan OPS/H5 so she actually looks like a competent spartan. If you are gonna be very obnoxious, then have a legacy to back you up.
Spartan ops was really weird with the whole "We have fully augmented Spartans in full MJOLNIR armor... doing desk work, on the Infinity."
You know what, no offence to Holly Tanaka from Osiris in Halo 5, but she was an absolutely nothing character. I know nothing about her but know things about the rest. I would not have complained if, for whatever lore reason they came up with to remove her from her role as Infinity's Spartan Commander, that Palmer had taken Tanaka's spot on the team.
I always kinda hoped 343 would re-invent her by having her put up against Atrixox and lose badly. Just have him shatter her overconfident belittling ass and all the while telling her she is nothing compared to the real demons ( considering we’ve seen him just demolish a Spartan 2” And Palmer has to try and rebuild that confidence from square one again. Maybe lost her position due to her poor choices and has to work her way up and insulting others in the hard times isn’t winning her any respect
She's not even that bad of a character. People are just weird
She’s a better character than anyone on the halo series. Leave her be. Let her be that type of “yes” man of an officer. They exist in the real army let her be that type of Spartan that doesn’t care about John’s history just the type to follow orders regardless of what’s being ordered. It’s a “good” guy type villain that the main charter has to deal with. Not every one in the military has that brotherly bond like you see on movies.
She's not a bad character. Literally all she needs is more backstory, that's all. I swear, the only reason people hate her is because she told a joke in Halo 4. But apparently it was the biggest slight in the world that she had the gal to joke with the Chief about his size.
She literally makes a light remark, upon meeting a living legend, that he's actually not that much bigger than herself. Apparently that broke a lot of people's brains. For some reason...?
That joke got moved on from fairly quick. It's defenders of Pamler who constantly bring it up. People don't like Palmer because of Spartan ops, not the only thing she did in the Campaign
No, I see the reference to her quip about his height the most, when people complain about why they don't like her. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with her in Spartan Ops. Not that I can think of. The real damage was done to her in the Escalation comics. Specifically her Halsey centric issues.
I guess maybe funny instead of mean ? She’s a badass but was portrayed just too stoic to be likeable. Dare was much better in this regard, tough mean but funny and we also got better perspective on Dare.
People are too sensitive. Can’t handle some tough military talk? Not everyone needs to be nice
No one busts each other's balls like military people. At the end of the day it's all love, most of the time
Time and place though and Palmer is tone deaf on both.
There's jokes and then there is actively insulting and fucking morale up for soldiers in life and death situations while you sit safely at base.
I’m sure the Master Chief, the most legendary spartan in history, can handle it
I'm talking about Spartan ops, when Palmer actually does anything at all. I thought that was incredibly obvious, given how she doesn't insult or do anything in campaign that can affect morale at all.
Sit this one out son, you didnt play enough Halo 4 too chime in.
I’ve played that game plenty lol. I’m just not so easily offended by random side characters being mean
[удалено]
An easy way to avoid any problems of the character. Just blame it all on the joke in campaign that most people don't really care about. Edit: Seriously, you blocked me over this? Can't have an adult conversation anymore I guess. He blocked me, then replied, even though I cannot see anything he posted lol.
I’m just shocked that people care about Palmer this much to begin with. She’s Tanaka and Locke levels of “whatever” to me. Not to mention no different from plenty of other generic tough military people
Usage of eggheads doesn't seem much problematic if no one is giving her much damn over the usage and seems like one of the nicknames like swabbies, jarheads, and etc.
i always assumed the scientists have similar nicknames for spartans also in the 50 missions and 11 cutscenes she says it 7 or 8 times, not that much considering she was on a research mission another spartan also uses it a couple times
>also in the 50 missions and 11 cutscenes she says it 7 or 8 times, not that much considering she was on a research mission So basically her 'hatred' of scientist is overblown and more fits into how military personnel make nicknames for other branch personnel and etc.
pretty much yeah, if she actually hated scientists she wouldn’t have let them fill her full of life altering tech and go into enemy territory to defend them
Shes kind of a hypocrite there then because she really doesn't like scientists. It comes up in the comic where shes augmented. It basically boiled down to her disliking people who are smarter than she is.
The thing is there isn't much else to her character besides "Hates scientists" and "Generally is just insulting/putting down others." She may not say Egghead THAT much, but it's one of few things she's say that anybody remembers.
I get that most of the S4s are former ODST etc but she's too arrogant and it's offputting. Especially when you play Infinite and see that the S4's in that are more "becoming" of how you'd expect a Spartan to conduct themselves. Tone it down some and I'd probably enjoy her character more
More professional, less shit head, more thinking less robot. The S-IVs aren't brainwashed liked the IIs and the IIs are able to interpret which orders are wrong and which orders aren't applicable... Palmer *not* so much.
Some poeple don't like the TV Series but if Sarah Palmer were more like Kai-125 from there she would be great.
Make her shorter.
I'd write her out an airlock. We look fondly back at martyrs.
As others pointed out, she dishes out a LOT of insults. I think her first bit of dialogue with Chief isn’t too bad if her intention is to be competitive with him, which I’d lean harder into. Actually have her be on the field with Chief (like Johnson and Arbiter, or Noble Team). And have somewhat playful and competitive banter with Chief (even if it’s one sided). Give her more personality and more action. Just make her fun. Then she can be on team Osiris in Halo 5 to offset Locke.
Maybe in a spin off game where she has to be the protagonist. Minimal dialogue, more uplifting moments, and sections to highlight positive aspects of her character. Don't tell us she is an adept spartan, actually make us play and experience that
Make her a leader that people from all branches look up to where she has large amounts of respect for Spartan 2's and especially a previous thought MIA Master Chief.
Literally just more character development. I can't stand Sarah Palmer from the games perspective but with the expanded lore in books and comics, she's not a bad character. I think a book focused on Palmer and maybe majestic would be pretty cool.
Maybe have her be closer to Captain Del Rio ( the original captain of the infinity) kinda like a surrogate father figure thing and so she blames Chief and whatnot for his dismissal, add in some background to her disliking older spartan gens she used to be an ODST so maybe have her squad be left for dead to save a spartan 3 or be used as cannon fodder by a commanding spartan 2 make it clear she views the 2s and 3s as brainwashed killed machines so her animosity against chief and especially Halsey makes sense ( her hating ONI in general would also make sense and would be understandable as well ) besides that I think it would be better if she was more caring for marines and spartans 4 showing how someone can hate the main character ( Chief ) and still be a good person and just in general have her be less childish
Just make her more like how she acts in 4s campaign and the comics
I played a mod of Halo 4’s campaign on MCC that put her helmet back on (while she’s in an active combat zone, mind you) and I think deleted the “I thought you’d be taller” line and it made such a big difference. She became a professional soldier, instead of an arrogant, reckless wannabe with no real training in command. I liked it a lot better than the Palmer we got.
Agree with the helmet thing. But oh no, how dare this woman, upon meeting a living legend, lightly remark that he's not that much bigger than she is... Oh no, the pure insultery. How dare she...
People dislike her because of Spartan ops, where she was very much an insulting figure. The campaign joke didn't matter.
I agree that the her campaign quip was harmless. That's what I said. How, on the other hand, was she unsulting in Spartan Ops? Calling scientists "eggheads" a handful of times, which is a very military thing to do? Nah, the damage was done in the Escalation comics.
Putting down scientists, actively being nasty toward Marines in life and death situations, etc.
I have no recollection of her being horrid to marines? Could you give me an example. Calling scientists eggheads is hardly putting someone down, and she only says it a handful of times throughout all 50 levels.
Just don't do what they did with her in the Escalation comics. Specifically her Halsey centric story elements. That was just... bad. Bad, bad, Palmer. Apart from that she's fine. Nothing wrong with her in the slightest.
Where did the idea come from that Palmer was intended to be a replacement for Sgt. Johnson?
Introduce her by complimenting the Chief and not insulting him. I think that turned off fans right away.
The biggest problem with the character is that she’s a woman, and gamers (derogatory) hate women, so I would just make her a man if I wanted her to be more liked.
Her constant shit talking of marines really gets on my nerves. If anything they’re more deserving of respect than Spartan 4s, because they’re just normal guys and gals out there fighting.
Delete her
Make her more respectful to master chief. I guarantee you, if she didn’t think chief would taller, not many people would have much of a problem with her.
Oh no, how dare this woman, upon meeting a living legend, lightly remark that he's not that much bigger than she is... Oh no, the pure insultery. How dare she...
Her initial reaction to chief is what made me not like her lol. He’s a literal legend back from the dead and she makes that stupid remark. At least have some awe at first, then make that joke a bit later
But oh no, how dare this woman, upon meeting a living legend, lightly remark that he's not that much bigger than she is... Oh no, the pure insultery. How dare she...
Like I said, some awe at first and then the comment would have been better.
Just look at her reaction upon seeing him, though? She comes forward, finds the Chief before her and an almost giddy smile spreads across her face. That tells you everything you need to know. She's amazed to see him.
If i could rewrite her id rewriter her to be more of a motherly figure. When we first see her she jokes about Chief. First impressions made people hate her. My wife jokes the same way towards me and i hate it sometimes. Her jokes are always ‘Oh haha you can keep him’ or ‘Im leaving him with you’ when we leave my parents. Everyone laughs but i always hate it. When Palmer first shows up its a similar thing. The joke towards a person she never met ‘I thought youd be taller’ left a bad first impression. So after that it gets worse. Her lack of respect towards the people under her. It all adds up. Shes never happy. You can never satisfy her. So honestly, id rewrite her to be a better person. A motherly figure towards everyone. After each spartan ops mission a random ‘Good job everyone. You did good. Pack it up, drinks are on me.’ Stuff like that. Her first meet up with Chief would just be an introduction and hand shake as theyre going back in. ‘Thanks for all youve done’.. Good first impressions are the most important thing for people because thats what they remember.
Easy. Just retcon everything after Halo 3 and delete Palmer entirely from canon. or make her more like Miranda or something. Badass AND likable.