Johnny and V are more than enough. They really didn't have to put this much relevance on Panam or Judy for that matter. If anything, this kind of favoritism makes characters off-putting not because of the characters themselves but because of how prevalent they are being made while other characters get the shaft.
In my humble opinion she's a stereotypical southern female. In a sense yes she has a mouth, she can bite your head off, and she's one of those full steam ahead types.
Perhaps when you met her, she was the one in need, and not really in a position to help you like you might have wanted. But, after you helped her, and built her back up, she promised to help you. And if you chose the Nomads for your final mission, they follow through, and they pay that kindness back to you at the final scrap.
Just keep in mind, not everyone is in a position to help other people all the time. That doesn't make them selfish.
Perhaps when you met her, she was the one in need, and not really in a position to help you like you might have wanted. But, after you helped her, and built her back up, she promised to help you. And if you chose the Nomads for your final mission, they follow through, and they pay that kindness back to you at the final scrap.
Just keep in mind, not everyone is in a position to help other people all the time. That doesn't make them selfish.
Let me perform a quick comparo between the way Panam treated my character in game, and the way I got treated by a real life girl friend, and my Ex.
Panam wasn't banging a secret boy friend while I was baby sitting HER kids, so she could have some quality HER time, helping to maintain HER property, helping with HER bills, making sure meals got made and served, maintaining HER wheels [detecting a trend?
]. In an incident of divine karma...................................one of the kids ratted her to me. They were good girls; I still miss 'em.
Oh yea. My Ex. Panam didn't fly into physically violent rages; smash thousands in community property, engage in uncontrollable spending, wasn't insanely jealous and accusatory (while banging secret boy friends on the side), didn't constantly take on projects and pets then dump the work on me, didn't threaten to kill me and commit suicide multiple times (loaded gun in hand; mind you!)......................................I could go on. but you get the drift.
So, comparatively; Panam was a Princess of public and personal deportment in my view.
And people wonder why my fur is gray.
Panam wasn't banging a secret boy friend while I was baby sitting HER kids, so she could have some quality HER time, helping to maintain HER property, helping with HER bills, making sure meals got made and served, maintaining HER wheels [detecting a trend?
]. In an incident of divine karma...................................one of the kids ratted her to me. They were good girls; I still miss 'em.Oh yea. My Ex. Panam didn't fly into physically violent rages; smash thousands in community property, engage in uncontrollable spending, wasn't insanely jealous and accusatory (while banging secret boy friends on the side), didn't constantly take on projects and pets then dump the work on me, didn't threaten to kill me and commit suicide multiple times (loaded gun in hand; mind you!)......................................I could go on. but you get the drift.
So, comparatively; Panam was a Princess of public and personal deportment in my view.
And people wonder why my fur is gray.
No doubt. V's a horrible character. Match made in Hell.
It happens right after you have the option to do a a cheer about boobs. The context of the scene incorrectly sets up a lesbian moment. This is a failure of doing proper animations for the characters incompatibility. Will you also defend the Male V and River moment on top of the water tower? Or when Kerry leans in to kiss female V. When they both grab that painting. When he already rejected her in the previous mission.
I can accept the going in the sunset moment, where Panam leans on V's arm as not a advancement. But many other areas fail to do this right.
Well, I'm a straight female and don't see her action as a lesbian moment, but I guess everyone sees things differently. I haven't played a male V so hard to compare the animations.
I like Panam in general, but she is waaay too fanservice to my taste, her face, her body, her personality, she is beautiful-sexy-kind-smart-loyal-strong af, etc. etc. She has no drama about her (all other LIs do), which makes her a bit flat character.
She is obviously "the main" love interest for V, but at the same time there are almost none private events with her, something which can help us to understand her better as a person. Most of her quests are combat/action stuff.
So I don't know. She is fine and nice, but she's not really memorable.
She is obviously "the main" love interest for V, but at the same time there are almost none private events with her, something which can help us to understand her better as a person. Most of her quests are combat/action stuff.
So I don't know. She is fine and nice, but she's not really memorable.
Everybody can be beautiful in this world, biosculpting is one of the cheaper cyberwares. I wouldn't say she's any better looking than Judy, rogue, alt, Young bel isis, most mox etc.
Her drama is her impulsiveness, her anger, and her inability to deal with authority.
I do agree her personal nature is very undeveloped, as you said, 80% of the time you spend with her is combat related, action related, or moving the plot forward. But I guess she speaks with actions mostly. I appreciate her more as you see later in the game, she probably has your back more than any other character, even if you stay in NC. But yeah, LI wise she's currently a bit flat.
I didn't read any signals from Panam in this scene except platonic intimacy, "to haboobs!" felt more like lightening the mood after she & Saul had just started going at it again. My first playthrough was as a female V and never got the impression she was into me ... er, her.
I do agree that a little gender-specific contextual interactions for possible romance partners would add a nice bit of immersion/variance between playthroughs though, the Kerry one for female V stands out most, but it's no biggie.
Of course, Panam putting up her legs onto V's lap is a "violation of V's private/intimate sphere", no doubt about that since both don't know much about each other until then. And Panam herself knows that, too; her behaviour after V touching her thigh clearly shows that*. Since the behaves that way it's clear that this is intended by the story designer, to make V (you, the player) to get to know her better: she is good in planning (AAA), but she is also impulsive, impetuous; acts first, thinks later, and she knows about that. And that is what happens there at Ingall's Farm: she acts impulsive in that very situation, not thinking about consequences or perceptions of her by others. It's perfectly in-character of Panam.
What choices are given to V and Panam:
What choices are given to V and Panam:
- female/male V: both can brush her off and indicate her that they see that as inappropriate.
- female V: gets a rejection. Panam shows V that she is not interested in V. Game/quest designer made sure that the player notices that Panam is no romance option.
- male V: gets rejected, too. But has already the flirty dialogue from Sunset Motel in mind and gets a kiss the next morning, so game / quest designer makes sure to keep the (interested) player interested in Panam. And V (the player) learns that Panam is interested, but not easy to have.
I tend to agree with Fuse here. Panam is generic-action-girl-with-plot-armor while so many other characters are actually characters rather than archetypes. I imagine on the drawing board her impulsiveness, tendency to rash behavior, and inability to control her temper were supposed to be drawbacks to offset her traditional Badass-with-a-Bad-Ass stereotype, but they never really caught on anything that had a consequence. I also imagine a lot of the reason they don't is because every time she rides off on a wild adventure, V's presence as a one man army turns a really bad idea into a heroic one, thereby making it look like her ideas were right all along.
Judy seems to be more "real" as I see it, yes, she is good looking as well, but Judy is not oversexulized with all this "standing above the table" idles, also her personality feels more like a real person's one, more deep, with her own fears and loves, anger and naivety.
Panam is just perfect, the best friend, best leader, etc. For me she feels smth like "the girlfriend of James Bond", too idealized.
Eh, her impulsive gung ho attitude, and separating herself from her nomad family lead to the deaths of scorpion and other aldecados. If v doesn't interact with her, she never rejoins the family, and is doing poorly as a merc.
I think you are underestimating how much her standoffishness and quick anger inhibits her. This thread is full of people who can't get past her spiky exterior and see her strengths. Rogue actually likes panam(or at least respects her ability), but she can't find people willing to work with her, and can't get her to listen to common sense. Why do you think she ends up teaming with a nomad outcast, and V, who rogue later says no one wants to work with because on his last mission everybody died.
But yes, her and V appear to be creating a series of wins, (many at the cost of lives though) And, I think they could have made more of her drama front and center instead of something you have to put together. I also would expect, if the story continues, her to have some consequence she might have to grow through.
I don't exactly disagree that for various reasons many players doesn't get to really absorb panam's flaws, or even her character overall, though.
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ehh, oversexualized standing positions? thats not really part of a charachter? I'm not exactly sure what you mean here, so I may be misunderstanding.
panam is pretty far from perfect. She is more insecure than Judy, Prone to anger, nobody is willing to deal with her except her family. She also isn't the best leader, she is charismatic, and ambitious, but has probably gotten more aldecados killed in two weeks than Saul did in years.
I agree they don't clearly present her personal story, although there is information about it ingame. Overall I think the stuff is there, but its developed poorly.
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I think the difference is that Panam's "downsides" either happen before her screen time (well, you can actually hear her negotiating the deal with sixth street if you walk around the Afterlife before seeing Dex), and seem more like intro material than clear consequences. And while it's true that if V never comes along, she's having a bad time of it...V comes along as a main story line event. Scorpion et al are not a potentially foreseeable outcome (we shot down an AV in an unrelated event and my clan just happened to be nearby before the evil corpos shot them for trying to provide emergency assistance!) whereas you could absolutely see things like River getting fired, or Judy's liberation attempt ending in a violent Tygerclaw retribution. And if you elect not pursue past the main story, it's all implied off screen in an ending message.
Whereas most characters have their flaws and travails exposed during the story, Panam's flaws all play out perfect unless you don't actually play with her.
Whereas most characters have their flaws and travails exposed during the story, Panam's flaws all play out perfect unless you don't actually play with her.
If she wasn't cutting off family she would have told them what she was doing, even besides that she didnt consider them, even though she knows more than anyone else exactly what aldecado's would do in that situation. As soon as it happens she describes with accuracy what the standard procedure would be. It was also in aldecados area, basically aldecado and wraiths dominate the NC badlands. She clearly recognizes her own fault in this.
Her big flaw is her personality, and you see it inplay with Saul interactions. Saul clearly cares for her, and she can barely conceptualize that.
I do agree, that lining up 3 wins in a row Muddy's the message that she needs to balance. The game also rewards you for going along with her. Attack raffen in their home turf? get the batmobile, and an invite to bunk with her, disagree? rogue sends you a message that panam can't understand now, but will eventually be a better person for it.
She could acknowledge more how people generally can't handle her, and the loneliness. And probably spent a little longer away from her family for foolish pride and outrage. That convo occurring in a message with one line of recommendation from V, was a little to quick and easy. Also more other aldecados besides Saul could acknowledge how she at times is hard to deal with.
side note: I don't know if river getting fired is a flaw btw, "my only flaw is... I'm not corrupt"
I mean all these times she's bending over smth to let player observe her ass, even our first meeting with her started with that, seriously that is just Nier Automata level of fanservice
Well, all characters in this game are more or less fine and decently developed, CDPR done a good job here, of corse she is not that flat and generic as Lara Croft of new TR games, but for me she seems to be a bit less complex than others LIs (at least Judy and Kerry, River is questionable too, he is actually quite similar to Panam but from opposite gender, like good and handsome and honest guy, bright knight of Night City
)
Everyone is entitled to like or dislike any character but general consensus appears to be Panam is a fan favorite, I feel for good reason. Personally I cant particularly agree with your perspective on Panam. I think there are several points in the story that contradict the points your making;
To say she only cares about herself however,
. For someone who only cares about themselves, why would she do this? Clearly she cares for others.
To say she treats you like part of the furniture this during riders on the storm when you find yourselves alone for the evening, I view this as more flirtatious behavior, shes finding an excuse touch you and see how you respond
'She wants to be the boss no matter what'
. She may voice her opinions loudly but she is willing to listen to reason, this is more leadership qualities than being 'bossy'.
Yes Panam is perhaps hot headed at times, has a hot temper/short fuse. But this all just adds to her character as a person, she's a do'er and a firecracker.
To say she only cares about herself however,
At the conclusion of queen of the highway, as Saul himself says [when declaring Panam as joint leader of the clan], she risked everything for the clan, despite not knowing whether she'd be welcomed the next day. During the mission where you down the AV for example, she rushes headlong to rescue the clan and her friends/family from the Kang Tao convoy. Riders of the Storm, she is prepared to save Saul, the guy who cast her out of the clan and the guy she has the most conflict with, for no reward. At the conclusion of queen of the highway, as Saul himself says [when declaring Panam as joint leader of the clan], she risked everything for the clan, despite not knowing whether she'd be welcomed the next day. During the mission where you down the AV for example, she rushes headlong to rescue the clan and her friends/family from the Kang Tao convoy
When you tell Panam what is going on, that you [V] are dying because of the construct in your head, she tells you she will help no matter what, she will help you find a way. During the end run post Nocturne, if you call her, she insists she is coming to help you, even before she knows how dangerous what you need to do is
To say she treats you like part of the furniture this during riders on the storm when you find yourselves alone for the evening, I view this as more flirtatious behavior, shes finding an excuse touch you and see how you respond
'She wants to be the boss no matter what'
She has no idea Saul intends to make her joint leader following the events of Panam's quest line, in fact she assumes Saul is going to kick her out of the clan again. In addition during the mission where you down the AV and Panam gets wounded, V tells her to cover him from the transport as she'd slow them down, Panam sees the logic and reason in this and responded 'yes sir/mam' this doesn't strike me as someone who always wants to be the boss no matter what.
Yes Panam is perhaps hot headed at times, has a hot temper/short fuse. But this all just adds to her character as a person, she's a do'er and a firecracker.
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I should say that Panam is doing what V is doing. Nomad is more of the mirror. But the LP's are still similar. They are the same type of characters. Except V screws up worse with their endings. Also, I played as female V. So I didn't care to have sex with Panam. So techincally, because they didn't animate the characters to avoid things that wouldn't work for their sexual preferences. Panam looks like she wants female V. While I avoided her the whole time.