Taking a break from Gremlin D.Va comics, need to catch up on personal work.
I’ve been looking at a lot of “Mercy Is Evil” theories since I’ve always questioned her design, especially how Overwatch’s concept artists purposely made her into a young, kind-hearted, angelic-looking healer that can do no wrong.
Mercy is possibly an antagonist in Overwatch. If you had the ability to bring people back from the dead, you would never function like a normal human being ever again.
Most doctors in the healthcare field have some level of God complex, surgeons are notoriously well-known for this. When you can fix a person’s body with extreme precision (and get paid a lot of money for it), you tend to become arrogant and have inflated forms of egocentricity and narcissism.
That goes a lot further when a person solves the problem of preventing DEATH itself.
What we know so far:
- Mercy’s motivation to pursue medicine was the death of her parents during the first Omnic crisis. Instead of revenge, she focused on becoming a surgeon, then later made medical breakthroughs that significantly treats life-threatening illnesses and injuries.
- Mercy has achieved a plethora of scientific advancements in applied nanobiology and cybernetics, thanks to Overwatch funding her research. She became the head of their medical research group, healing the injured during the war.
- She is seemingly young-looking despite being 37 years old.
- She was often at odds with her superiors and their goals, which led to allegations where she was later interrogated in court when Overwatch started to crumble from within, highlighting the politics between Morrison and Reyes.
- Mercy was responsible for turning Gabriel Reyes into Reaper, possibly from a failed genetic alteration stated in the Visual Source Book. She’s also the one who brought Genji back from the brink of death without his consent, turning him into a cyborg. Genji hated his new cybernetic body but later found peace after meeting with Zenyatta.
Thoughts:
- Mercy is an advocate of peace and personally dislikes war. Pacifists are often the most dangerous since they create things that deter war entirely. Albert Einstein is a prime example of a pacifist, who later helped develop the Atomic Bomb.
- Mercy disliked Overwatch’s militaristic approach, but joined them since she saw opportunities in advancing her research and personal interests. It’s a doctor’s ultimate dream to work on anything they want that doesn’t follow any conventions, nor bound to the laws of nature or religion.
- Before Overwatch, her research was possibly used by the government in the Soldier Enhancement Program, turning Morrison(S:76) and Reyes(Reaper) and into super soldiers.
- Her young appearance is an extreme form of vanity that contributes to narcissistic traits. We still don’t know what she puts on her body that it physically stops her from aging (possibly from her genetic research that involved human testing)
(Art by @nesskain - who made the official Reinhardt and Pharah comics)
- She fashions her Valkyrie suit in the likeness of an angel, a symbol of peace that also doubles as an outfit for one with a Messiah/Savior complex. People who do this wants to gain people’s trust quickly and convert them into fanatical followers. Valkyries in mythology are also called ‘choosers of the slain’, choosing who lives or who dies in battle.
- Raising the dead is expensive. After seeing Overwatch crumbling from within, Mercy secretly took her research with her, destroyed any traces of it in Overwatch’s HQ (by blowing it up) and possibly found new funding from private corporations and interest groups. She was also not present when their Swiss HQ was destroyed, and possibly used the Morrison/Reyes politics as her scapegoat.
- Reyes was her human guinea pig before she perfected her Resurrection ability through advanced genetic/molecular alteration. Genji was her attempt at creating a well-endowed, cybernetic killing machine. Both had mixed results.
- Mercy’s a master psychologist, forcefully creating living weapons in order to dismantle global threats (saving most for the greater good). In exchange for Genji’s new cyborg body, Genji was tasked by Overwatch to dismantle his own family, after centuries of being in power. The only reason Genji was able to do this was the clan being at weakest without Hanzo’s leadership. Its easy to call this as a Reyes/Reaper tactic, but his methods are more in line of “Getting the job done at all costs”, with little care on how much unnecessary destruction or casualties he’d accumulate during a mission. Mercy’s deal with Genji was a calculated decision, striking a threat with its own kind with surgical precision (and minimal civilian casualties).
- Widowmaker’s blue skin is also a by-product of experimental genetic modification, which parallels Mercy’s line of work (along with creating effective, well-endowed assassasins). Talon was very unsuccessful at assassinating Overwatch agents, until they became brutally efficient by capturing their love ones instead and sending them back as sleeper agents through neural reconditioning.
- She clearly doesn’t want to bring Overwatch back. She has a voice that triggers in Watchpoint: Gibraltar saying “Overwatch was shut down for a reason. Maybe it’s best it stay that way.”
http://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Mercy/Quotes
- Mercy’s “No Pulse” emote has her jokingly checking her vitals, only to find she doesn’t have any.
- Her Devil/Imp skin doesn’t shy away from asking a price when she resurrects fallen heroes.
- Mercy’s possible end game is to prevent the people she loves from dying ever again; being haunted by the death of her parents. Its also the motivating force that drove her to achieve so many medical advancements in a short amount of time. She has a twisted view of saving the majority of mankind; by creating short-term crises that later results into moments of peace. Despite what happens to the world, the rest are just high-paying customers that keep her private life-extension business extremely healthy.
Or… I could be wrong and she’s just a sweet, sinless angel birb mom.
Be nice to Mercy players >:3
