I am honestly unsure if this is a good idea…
Recently, a person posted a question asking why the fans seem to hate Spartan 4s, and asked for everyone’s opinion as to how and why they like or dislike the S4 generation. Almost immediately, it devolved into people citing Palmer and everyone getting into arguments about what she may or may not have done wrong. This sort of thing has happened twice, as far as I know, on this Forum, and nothing was learned, no one came to any conclusions, and (as usual) nothing relevant came to light.
This event is part of the reason I’m posting this, now. There was another Thread, a few months ago, where someone asked why everyone seems to hate Palmer (which I contributed to). I… feel that it’s necessary sort of… get all of this nonsense out in the open such that some kind of solution or conclusion can be come to. As things stand, the writers simply won’t know which way to take Palmer’s character, and she’ll continue to fade into the background and become more and more irrelevant (such as her presence in Guardians). As much as I hate Palmer, I’d rather see her be killed off, or become relevant in a good way, than to hang there like an appendix that no one knows what to do with.
Also: I’ve seen at least six people, both on this forum and in the YouTube comments, essentially try to make the discussion about gender. I have a problem with that. When you boil down the entire situation to “hurr durr, the fans are sexist. Hurr durr, can’t handle a strong, independent woman with some sass”, it kills any sort of examination of the character’s merits and lack thereof. You’re essentially making a straw-man out of everyone else’s case. It’s sophistry and it seems tragic that Halo fans would resort to it. We’re better than this- come on, guys!
Personally, I feel it has nothing to do with gender. If it did, people would undoubtedly hate Kat’s guts, too- she’s plenty snarky. But they don’t hate her, do they? Or Linda. Or Kelly. Or Naomi. Grace was one of my favorite Spartans, actually, despite how short our time with her was. It makes no sense, to me, that anyone could examine this situation and say, "hm. I know! Everyone must a sexist pig! That makes sense, to me!".
In any case, I will start this off by copy/pasting two posts that I made, before, both in that aforementioned “Palmer Thread”. I would encourage everyone to make their most succinct and most streamlined case as to why they like or dislike Palmer’s character. Hopefully, we can be constructive, here, and come to some amount of synthesis.
My reasons for disliking Palmer, as of a few months ago:
-Because she utterly lacks charisma and is, on the whole, poorly-written. Jennifer Hale's acting talent is wasted on her. Even in Palmer's comic origin story, she's robotic and one-note. And she rubs you the wrong way in Escalation. She hardly* does *anything significant, and yet, seems to take up* way *too much screen-time for how unimportant she is. If she were just some background, side-character, no one would take issue with her. That way, the fact that she's static and one-note wouldn't stand out so much.
-``Also: the commands she gives to her subordinates are all-too-often in the form of thinly-veiled insults. Almost everything she says is very backhanded and condescending. None of her subordinates are even incompetent or disobedient to her, and yet she still talks down to them. In short: she’s a -Yoink!- who has no justifiable reason for being a -Yoink!-. One gets the sense that she doesn’t quite have much self-awareness of her own behavior.
Now, a lot of people might say “but she’s the commander, so it doesn’t matter”. Here’s my problem with that: “being a stern authoritarian” and “being a -Yoink-” are not the same thing, nor are they exclusive or inclusive to each other. When Gordon Ramsey goes off on contestants on Hell’s Kitchen, it’s understandable, because they’re screwing up and claim to be professionals. It’s not her sternness that people don’t like, it’s her bad attitude and priggishness that people don’t like.
If you were a Spartan or marine under her command, it wouldn’t surprise me if you found that she breeds contempt with her own staff. She wields her authority like a barbarian’s cudgel, and seems to be utterly incapable of finesse- not unlike Del Rio. She makes no attempt to curry respect or admiration from the people around her, and is a less effective leader for it. It is best to be loved and feared, when you’re in charge of a group of people- Sarah Palmer, at best, incurs begrudging obedience from her subordinates, and little else. At worst, she rules through fear- fear of punishment, dishonorable discharge, reprimand, humiliation, etc. She’s not exactly averse to blackmail or hazing, is she? The most that we can say about her best leadership skills is: "she’s serviceable, but you wouldn’t want her to be in charge of your platoon".
It wouldn’t surprise me if she ends up biting the dust due to her subordinates refusing to follow the one order that would save her life, out of spite. Sure, she’s a decorated war veteran, so you can’t say that her authority is entirely de jure, but the same can probably be said for most other commanders in the UNSC, and I’d be willing to bet that most other commanders in the UNSC are probably better leaders than her.
She also blatantly plays favorites, which is… pretty much the exact wrong thing to do when one is in a leadership position``.