#lillian hart

[cryptidsnackpack]

look, i feel like my feelings toward lillian hart aren’t as strong as other people. i don’t hate her. i know she loves cora, and i respect what she did for sam. BUT WHY DO I HAVE TO PICK HER UP AT THE GOD DAMN AIRPORT ON MY WEDDING DAY.

[silurisanguine]

I so wish you could speak your mind about Lillian Hart to Sam, without him 'disliking' those options.

Sam, I know you"ve put that woman on some sort of pedastal because she saved your life and you think you owe her. But you don't.

She's a terrible mother. An absentee mother who cares more about her job than her own fucking daughter. A hypocrite who thinks having Cora with her dad is dangerous, because of his line of work, yet won't step up and be a parent.

I bet deep down she wishes she never had Cora. Then she'd have kept Sam hanging on a hook. Cora was the best thing to happen to Sam and the worst thing to happen to Lillian.

One day she's going to find Cora isn't interested in trying to spend time with her because the person Sam's fallen in love with cares more about Cora than Lillian ever did.

Next playthrough I'm going to be honest and choose those options, even if it takes longer to build affinity with Sam over it.

[booburry]

Sam Coe Headcanon 3/??

SFW but this is going to be about Lillian and their dynamic so...read knowing you are probably going to hate her more after this.

100% Spoilers

As I am sure y'all have been doing, I have been watching Lillian like a hawk and wishing my dusty could actually give her a piece of MY mind. But it also had me thinking a lot of what type of person she is and what their relationship must have been like...

Lillian is 100% a narcissist with a capital N, A, R, C, I, S, S, I, S, T!

I truly think the reason she took Sam 'on' and 'saved him' was so that she could have the accolade of 'Saving the Last Coe'

Or because she saw how weak and vulnerable he was at that time she knew he would be an easy man to manipulate

She definitely gave false support only to get the noose around his neck tighter

I truly think she is the main reason Sam and his Dad couldn't manage to reconcile at all, even a small part, as with him moving further away from the 'Coe' name and dynasty he had in mind, the more spiteful he became of his 'ungrateful and unworthy child'

Knowing how much Jacob manipulated Sam made it really easy for him to see what he had with Lillian (atleast at the time but not in reflection) as love. He had never really known much else except for the few memories he has from his mom

She gaslit every fucking emotion he had

She would use 'logic' to diffuse any concerns or valid upsets with Sam

She kept them focused on the job, to the point where I see Sam not really knowing true details of her life--mostly just how she is/was as a ranger and surface level information (ie only child)

I think she used the promise of a family 'some day' as a carrot on a stick for Sam, keeping him tethered to her even when he was starting to become unhappy.

She 100% did not want Cora. Not only is she a confirmed unplanned baby, but given how Sam was the main caretaker, she refers to her daughter as a 'puppy' crawling after Sam and her 'closest ranger bud from Neon' has to ask her if her name is Cora. So...fuck her.

When Sam tells you that he just hit a wall one day and that is why he left, it just screams to me how she just constantly dismissed him, didn't care for his needs or upsets or discuss ANY of his emotions

It's also crazy cause in all the dialogue I have seen and experienced with her, she never talks about her emotions. The only one is jealousy towards Sam with how attached Cora is to him, which is just upset that someone could see Lillian as lesser than anyone or anything.

She would 100% hate the P/C and, outside of canon dialogue, would do everything in her power to put a wedge between them and Sam

I think every few months she crawls back to Sam only for intimacy cause that is, truly, the only way I can justify Sam still being hung up on such a bitch

Like she truly must have broken him if he can't see the vile person that she is

Pleeeeease Bethesda - let me kill her. Accidents happen in a gun fight, okay?

Okay????

[poor-ciceros-voring-again]

So pretending this isn't just a little classic Bethesda Fucked Up Moment™

Cora is defs not Sam's daughter, right? Like. No way.

[bearlytolerant]

[asphyxiateher]

My captain after talking to Lillian and Cora at Sam’s memorial

Bruh.

That girl loved talking about you but now she hates you and is no longer part of the crew. Her and Sam made my bigger ships seemed like they were lived in. Y’all notice the clutter that follows them?? Ugh my heart.

I’m glad i saved Sarah cause I don’t think I could handle the angst of the Emissary wearing your wife’s face and talking about seeing defeated versions of you in every universe or at least a version of you that got as far you did in game. Im also very depressed because it’s quiet as shit without him.

Who else are you gonna make me love and say goodbye to in the next game, Bethesda???

Son of a bitch

[aro-pancake]

Watching my boyfriend doing the Ryujin quests...

So... Guuuys... Mine good friends....

Is Nina Hart....

Lillian Hart's sister? Or cousin? Or something?

Because no way in hell they'd just give 2 (rather important) NPC's the same surname... Right?

[commanderquinn]

a list of canon ways in which lillian hart is The Fucking Worst that cora coe deserves financial and emotional compensation for:

-the basis for the big divorce counseling mission is that cora's worried for her mother's safety. that means, before going on a deep cover operation with smugglers known to kill rangers, marines, or anyone else caught trying to interfere with their business, lillian didnt leave her daughter a heads up much less a lead. once the fuck again, this woman decided that her career was more important than her daughter's mental and emotional health. once the fuck again, this woman decided she could just disappear from cora's life and then come back out of the blue without consequence

-when you go to lillian's office to look for her at cora's request, the guy working the desk knows SAM well enough to know his name and give him shit like they've got a personal history, but he??? isnt sure about????? cora's name???? word for word, he looks at her and says "it's cora, right?" you're telling me that this woman doesn't talk about her kid enough for her fellow INVESTIAGATIVE rangers to be sure about her name??? are you SHITTING ME??????? get the fuck out of here. you cant push "ranger family values" and the close ties they have in one breath then claim she likes to keep a professional distance at work in the other. you wanna have the conversation about what fresh hell it is being a working mother in a position of power, lets go, ill have that conversation all day long. but lillian hart is not a fucking example of a working mother and im gonna be pretty fucking insulted for working mothers everywhere if i catch wind of ppl trying to pull that kind of defense card. the woman's an awful parent and should be held the fuck accountable for it. you wanna know how i know????

she doesn't say cora's name enough for the ranger watching the door to be confident in it, but he remembers alllll the stories of the captain her ex is cozying up to. and lillian is the one to confirm during the quest that she has been getting the stories from cora, so there's some clear "oh she already likes the stranger more than me." i know im reading into it because its fiction and none of these people are real, but ive also, y'know been in cora's shoes, so i can tell you from real life experience that shit does exist. idk if that was the writers INTENT, but it sure does a great job at reflecting a very sad reality

-sam points out its dumb that lillian wants to speed the ship, with her daughter on it, directly at the sydicate. idk abt y'all, but my ship was pretty dinky at that point bc i was focused on outposts, and we got ambushed by like 6 ship waves once we landed for that fight. again, i get it. game mechanics get a higher priority than realism. but this whole "we have to finish this because theres a chance you were spotted trying to rescue me" shit is so. nauseating. theres no demand to drop off cora somewhere safe, theres no "lets call in the cavalry." its this fucking egomaniac looking you dead in the eye and being like "i know i just traumatized the shit out of my kid but i need you to drive us into an ambush while she's still on board. hope you're a good shot because sam and i cant kill them ourselves." and so what that we did that????? YOURE TELLING ME IT WAS JUST THOSE SHIPS???? the rest of the organization is just going to LET IT GO???? like no fucking wonder sam sees himself as the better option even through all his fucking doubt. at least he knows when to turn the fuck around because shit is above his paygrade

-she has custody rights. she is a decorated and respected ranger. sam being a smuggler wasnt public knowledge, but point out one person in akila who wouldnt believe her in a heartbeat over it. everyone in town gives him nothing but shit, and they all side with his dad who was definitely no picnic to live with. im guessing big emotional detachment there, lotta interrogation and persecution rather than teaching and understanding. HELL, sam would probably own up to his past if lillian outed him for it, he's that type of idiot. at literally any point she could put in the effort to get legal council involved. if she's SOOOO by the law, whats the hold up there???? i agree the kid shouldnt be on my ship while im in the middle of a space fight. ive talked with sam about it, and im not even the kids parent (as of the personal quest). what the fuck are you doing about it lillian????????? oh thats right. we cant get lillian on the phone. whomp whomp.

-she made cora cry. hyper independent, "big girls dont cry" cora coe. multiple times. worse, she made cora cry because she made cora feel like she wasn't as important as lillian's career. i dont give a fuck what criminals are doing. i do not give a fuck. i give a fuck that that little pixel child got her heart broken and there isnt a dialogue for me to call out her mother for being a huge fucking cunt to her own daughter but theres a thousand and one options for me to tell sam he's parenting wrong. he is, and i have no problem using them when they're appropriate, but where the fuck are they for lillian??? why am i not allowed to tear this woman a new asshole at any point, but there's like 20+ extra dialogue options added to every single npc you have a persuade option with???? todd my head hurts and its your fault

-"im sure sam's told you all about me. go on. ask whatever you want." yet there is no option to ask what the fuck her problem is. so, clearly, i cannot, in fact, ask whatever i want.

-"but the looks i got from my fellow rangers reading alexander dumas... we do strange things for kids." yeah hart??? thats your standard????? THATS your idea of going out of your way for your kid??? literally how did sam fall for this woman oh my god i cant even listen to her speak without wanting to use the power of bitchhood i inherited from a long line of angry irish women to ridicule her to tears. maybe then she'll fucking understand how small she makes her fucking kid feel every time she turns a moment of bonding into a little "woe is me and my comfort zone oh how unfortunate i am to have a brilliant daughter that wants to connect with me through her greatest passion"

-she openly admits that she dumped the cargo sam was smuggling not because she felt any connection or sympathy or just didnt want to destroy someones chance at life in a capitalist society, but because he was a good pilot and she didnt want that talent to "go to waste" so she could recruit him. thats not really a thing against cora i just really fucking hate that and the picture it paints of her priorities as a human being

-"if we're going to be really honest here... back when we were a team... cora would follow you everywhere, like a little adoring dog. i... just fell out of it. long before we separated."

i literally. do not have words for how fucking disgusted i am by that line of dialogue. oh my fucking god. oh my fucking god. i. i TRULY would not even know where to start. the dog comparison makes me violently angry and if you'd given me a punch interrupt at that moment, i would have broken my keyboard punching the accept option

-go replay or watch a recording of that divorce counseling mission one more time. while you're doing it, imagine the roles reversed. imagine youre romancing a character thats a mother bringing cora into space, and the ranger standing in your cockpit asking to finish the mission is her father who took off to live at work once it was clear his little girl liked mommy better. imagine THAT while you listen to the (imo) out of fucking pocket dialogue where sam constantly praises lillian for being "a good ranger/woman." then you come back and tell me how comfortable you are with the concept of lillian hart as a character.

[aro-pancake-writes]

Another Brain Rot. That man has me on a chokehold and I'll never deny it.

Sam Coe x Spacefarer.

NB Dusty, as usual. No description of Dusty, but there's a whole collection of every single plushie in the game on their bed, because that's what I do with my plushies. And I want to have something handy.

And no, I cannot give my stories titles, because I never know what to name them.

It's not even noon, and I'm already in a bind.

Crimson Fleet ships surround the Kepler, and there's a familiar voice on the comms.

Would someone be mad if I "accidentally" shoot at her ship? Just enough to disable the grav drive and she's unable to run away the second the fight is over.

Taking a look over my shoulder, to where Sam is sitting on the guns, I choose not to shoot. He'd be mad.

The last ship is taken down, and I'm opening the comms for... Lillian.

And of course the first thing she does is to ignore me, dismiss Cora, and focus all her attention on Sam. Flirting with him.

If he was ignoring, sure, I'd also ignore it. But he's flirting back. Returning her quips in the same tone, smiling.

I can't stand it, so I tell Andreja to set a course to New Atlantis once they're done there, and head to my quarters. I can still hear them through the intercoms, so I turn it off and hide under my covers.

I should have shot her down. Docked. Made her see Cora and look into my eyes as she flirts with...

Sam once told me that Lillian came back after him a lot over the years. Looking for sex, claiming to have changed, to be wanting to have a good relationship with him and Cora... Not that he actually believed after a while, but he said the sex was good, so he played along.

Is that what they're doing now? Looking for comfort in eachother after some adrenaline? I don't want to know.

~~

Sam closed off the comms to Lillian's ship, kinda happy that they didn't fight again. Despite Lillian making up excuses to not see Cora.

But the glares he was getting from Andreja and Cora told him it was not something to be happy about.

"Dad, why were you flirting with mom?" Cora asks, crossing her arms as she started at him like she's the parent.

"I wasn't flirting with her. Why would I do that?" He retorts, confused as to what led to this situation.

"It sure sounded like you two were flirting." Andreja says, deadpan as she takes the pilots seat. "Didn't notice anything happening while the two of you were talking?"

Andreja is on the pilots seat. Not them.

"When did they leave?" He asks, not being any answers for the women in the ship, both still glaring at him. "When?" He pushes, and Andreja folds.

"Somewhere between needing a vacation and that invitation to Paradiso." It was an invitation?

If they aren't here, there's one place.

~~

It's a while before the door to my quarters open. I'm not in the mood to talk to him, so I turn away on the bed, avoiding his eyes.

"Darling, can we talk?" Sam asks, and I make a point to ignore him. "Please? I'm really-" I don't want to hear it, so I turn and toss one of my plushies at him.

"Don't want to talk!" I shout, throwing another plushie. "Get out! Go back to her!" I throw one with each sentence, but he barely moves, only to dodge my attacks.

Instead of leaving, he steps closer.

"Go back to having that great sex you couldn't pass up on." I continue, along with my barrage of plushies. "Go back to crawling, to begging for any drop of attention, to arguing every day. Isn't that what you want?" I finally toss my Parsecpooch, the last plushie in the bed, and he catches it expertly.

"Darling, I'm not gonna-" he tries again, close enough to hold me in his arms.

"At least have the decency of waiting for me to leave the room, to not do it where I can see or hear it." I mumble, falling into his chest, crying. "Try to hide from me."

"I'm not going back to her." He says, running a hand through my hair. "Hell, if Cora and Andreja didn't tell me, I wouldn't know she was flirting with me."

"What?" I lean back, cleaning up my tears.

"It felt... Good. To talk without it escalating into an argument." He explains. "That's all it was for me, love."

"So you're not going to that weekend in Paradiso?" I ask, my voice broken and flawed.

"Not with her, no." He offers me a smile, cupping my face in his hands. "If I'm ever granted a vacation there, it'll be with you. On our honeymoon."

Our... Honeymoon? My brain stops in its tracks. Why is he talking about honeymoon already? Unless...

"I know this is a shit time to do it, but I love you. And I want to marry you, if you'll take me." His smile is genuine, and I'm about to lean into a kiss when there's a noise at the door.

I get up, opening it to find Cora and Andreja there, acting as if they weren't listening in on our conversation.

Cora comes by to hug me, clearly happy with the proposal.

"I'd love to have you in my family." She says, before running off into the ship.

I close the door again, and turn back to Sam.

"I'd love to marry you." I say, but the memory of the way they flirted is still like a gash on my mind. "But you'll have to promise me that there won't ever be a repeat of today." All my terms are on the table. That's the only demand I'll ever make.

"You have my word on it, love." He gets up, coming by to give me a kiss.

I'm not letting go that easy. Not really.

[chaotic-starlight24]

Yeah, Natalia is probably right

Tw: badly drawn gun

[worship-me-like-srsly]

Lillian Hart showed up just past midnight in Akila City, but by that time, Cora had already cried herself to sleep, correctly assuming that her mother had chosen work over her again.

[rhikasa]

Silas: Who the fuck added me to a fucking group chat?

Ella: >:O language

Mikael: Yeah watch your fucking language

Lillian: Okay, who taught Mikael the fuck word?!

Mira: 'The fuck word'.

Alais: Are you stupid? You guys use the f word all the time

Mikael: Oh my god he censored it

Mira: Say fuck, Alais.

Mikael: Do it, Alais. Say fuck.

[squidgeandsmidge]

Thanks for the assist guys 💪 We all know Lillian couldn’t give a flying F if we survived 🙄😒

[bumblefruit-ahhh]

Drawing my characters kissing is MUCH more important than schoolwork

[aro-pancake]

I fucking hate Lillian Hart.

There was a random encounter, bitch called in, asked for an assist, and I out of the love for MY daughter, help out her egg donor.

Then, she hailed my ship, and once again, for Cora, I allow.

She spent 5 minutes flirting with MY husband, stops to say a nice "oh, you're there kiddo", and goes back to flirting with Sam, while I'm sitting on the pilot seat unable to punch interrupt her or even shoot her damn ship down.

I can't even cut her off by "hey, did you know that you're flirting with a married man that is no longer YOUR husband, as you should well remember as you were there, because you fucked up so bad and I only allowed this to happen because MY kid is in this ship and she likes you for some reason I can't understand but I won't argue with her about it until she's old enough to understand what's going on. You lost your chance. They are my family now, so scram and I won't hesitate to put you down if you do that again."

I really think that a Laredo, a desert planet, preferably with lots of predators, and a shallow ditch (because I won't be digging more than that for her) would do wonders for Lillian. Do you think anyone would notice or be mad at me? I mean, I could always frame it as a job gone wrong or something... maybe the Syndicate? Or someone who she arrested and just got out of jail, preferably who also holds a grudge, miraculously got her location? The possibilities are endless.

Also, I wanna give Cora all the books. It would be a great motivation to find all the books in the game. She's my pixel child now, and I'll move a couple starts around to make her happy.

[commanderquinn]

meta: sam coe - post-campaign analysis

allllrighty i am officially post-campaign so time for first thoughts. since im still collecting my feelings/opinions on the main quest i dont want to go super into that. i wanna wait and consolidate into a deep dive on that one. BUT i am a fic writer with a fixation on socioeconomics, intergenerational trauma, and more specifically the phenomenon of atheists clinging to their religious parents morals because they haven't taken the time to evaluate their biases and the reasons they still hold them

translation: the silver spoon space cowboy is an interesting concept. poory executed in the case of starfield, sadly, but great framework for fandom to chop the head off of and bring to their own individual comfort interpretations.

this meta will include spoilers for the following:

-sam's questline and the npcs involved

-his romance

-cora, the safety storyline around her, and how she's the best part of the space game

-why bethesda was fucking stupid to turn the cowboys into cops when they have the perfect opportunity for not that. i went in hoping for retired/reformed army rangers fed up with war looking to defend their home from fascism given the "han solo simulator" marketing, but all i got was this lousy ass rendition of the texas rangers, which i for SURE did not want

-i WONT be going into detail about the main plot for this post, just fyi. i wanna save that, and sam's relation to it, for its own essay. id still recommend not reading meta's until you finish the game tho

-i miss obsidian's writing. this game made me want to play outer worlds for the 100th time. that will probably come up a lot

this is probably gonna sound more than a bit scattered and off the fucking plot for the first section, but bare with me, im making a point eventually i promise. gotta make sure we're all on the same page first.

now that ive done a majority of his content, it's clear what the intent was for sam and i applaud it. i like it when good hearts in bad systems spot the fundamental flaws and decide to abandon it entirely, or work to change it. i hate perfect characters. i hate characters that have no growth to find. sam is a great character for showing the awesome power of a perspective change. but damn. what a waste when you're talking about a format where a writer is constricted to:

-an exact conversation trigger (bethesda games have always relied on interrupt & player approach, and i didnt notice any variation on game engine front but i wont know until they release the ck so)

-word limit on all responses (yes, you can make long dialogues in engine. but those words still have to be f u n d e d from a dev standpoint. words are not free in video games. capitalism sucks for art.)

-multiple conversation branches that ALL have to circle back to the original topic (they have to follow a set pattern of establishing a subject, then the players possible responses to that subject, the npcs responses to those responses, AND provide a seamless, one dialogue tie-in path to the next branch. it sounds super easy until you're the shmuck writing it, and then it doesnt feel so easy anymore)

-get approximately two personal quests with, what was it, 12 motion scripted scenes? (im watching other peoples pts now so ill try to remember to count, but it was. hmm. lack luster imo. im not saying quantity is vital. im a bioware fanatic, i know the power of quality when its actually delivered. i didnt have any moment like that for sams quests and it was kind of crushing. ill get into it.)

-appeal to a wide enough audience to obtain profit by holding back eXtReMe ViEwS (id like to point out that there is, at this exact moment in time, an active pr campaign (and a few scattered gaming content creators) surrounding starfield talking about how pronouns are politics and should be left out of gaming. over a setting flag in a save file. you literally dont even have to press a button about it. like, you pick your characters body. masc bodys are auto assigned m pronouns. fem bodies are auto assigned f pronouns. you literally dont even have to SEE the button, and it never gets brought up. the only purpose it serves is so the game knows what voice lines to fire. that. is. it.)

im not going to humor the "thats dumb, bethesda makes political games" contribution to the argument.

i get straight people think they're being super helpful and witty on that one, but i think the world would collectively benefit from allies taking just a few extra seconds before standing on that soapbox to maybe consider that calling existence "politics" might be, gee idk, insulting. maybe more than a lil dehumanizing. maybe super easily solved by just NOT giving into their parents obsession with playing devils advocate. i think if maybe allies could shut the fuck up for a minute or two at a time and go look for voices of authority within the communities they're defending instead of trying to talk over them, that'd probably work out better. might help cut out the completely useless middle man their parents taught them to be when they drilled home "you have to respect everyone's opinion"

no the fuck you do not, actually. i, as someone on this earth attempting to be a compassionate person, owe people a chance at understanding. i do not, under any circumstance, owe someone any kind of respect WHATSOEVER if they cannot respect me as a human being. full stop. i dont owe it to them, i dont owe it to their religion, i dont owe it to the government they try to establish. i do not owe respect to people attempting to oppress me. i never have and i never will.

but remember. there is context to be found in the passing of time. yes, you need to tell grandma to stop being racist. no, you do not need to banish grandma to the nursing home if there's still a chance that she's willing to sit and listen. a chance that she'll empathize with social perspectives that the racist society she was raised in never allowed her to have. breathe and give grandma the chance. then send her to the home if she's still racist.

(yes that was an analogy for how i imagine a perspective conversation with jacob would go. i do not have high hopes of that man finding self awareness given. well. who he is as a person.)

now. if you've played through sam's content, you already know why im bringing all of that up, but lets put together a list of all the things that Make Sam Coe Who He Is before we wrap it all up in a pretty bow that hopefully reads a lot less scattered than this "yo society got some trauma actually" lead up ive dumped on you

quick interrupt just for me: i love that im back on tumblr where i dont really have to give all that much of a fuck about making sense. any audience i could find here is equally unhinged so mostly i just have to format it in a way that makes your brain not hurt. sorry if you dont have adhd <3

1: lets talk about cora's hair.

im going to make the race observation because its bothering me from a dev standpoint AND the gamer crowd is already starting to make cuck memes which sucks to see.

i get that this doesnt matter in a colonialism scifi future where a service like enhance exists and we're talking about two rangers that apparently went under cover regularly, but it matters in the context of how sam was handled in a 2020 era commercial, creative environment. im just going to MENTION that cora coe's biological mother (that jab was me not liking her as a person, not me giving a shit that she's white) is paler than pale, and sam does NOT look like some of his earlier promo images. bethesda as a company also has a very long history of making characters arguably tan to avoid this shit.

9/16 edit: was asked for source, heres the exact image im referencing, which is still his set image on the starfield wiki to date:

(im going to preemptively warn any white artists building the urge to argue over this: you DO NOT want to die on a hill about lighting for this one, fucking trust me. thats not what this conversation is, and if you dont understand that as a White Artist, you need to sit this one out until you understand the full weight of the conversation and the profound effect of media treating skin color like a rare diversity accessory. bethesda has a very very long history of this. their last major story title, fallout 4, (76 was a money grab made in the other studio and i barely want to call it a game) had a whopping total of two black characters in its main cast, and both of them acted in subservient roles so please. please please please just. stop trying to defend bethesda on this one. its dehumanizing, cowardly, and malicious in this day and age. i promise im not trying to bite anyones head off here, im just Old And Tired when it comes to suburbanites in fandom.)

i think having solomon be canonically black would have been a really important aspect. i think it would have given the opportunity to show white people why its fucked up that they get SO EXCITED to save war mementos (or in the case of starfield a nasa memento) and will go on and on about how vital it is to save that piece of history, but when you bring up memorializing the importance of race as it pertains to human history and cultural history/pride, they suddenly start getting Very Uncomfortable and throw out phrases like "what does it matter we're all human" while standing next to the gun their grandfather smuggled home from the war

there is no brightness slider on pc and i havent gone reshade tweaking so everything is still washed out on my end (dont worry, as an rtx user, imma be makin a rant post on that) b u t. cora coe has a pale as fuck mother and a vaguely tan father with blue eyes and straight hair, meanwhile my precious angel has a darker complexion and curls that look like they're closing in on the 3c range so like. im getting vibes that sammy boy mighta been whitewashed during game dev, and thats about as far into THAT topic as im gonna bother to venture for this post.

2: his dad

were we supposed to have more daddy issues content??? istg it feels like there was the initial map talk and then nothing. im not saying that i cant pull blood from a stone and give you an entire essay on that glimpse of family trauma just from a few lines of dialogue, but still. feels like thats maybe something that should have gotten more detail.

"no forgiveness between me and my old man. it's uh... coe tradition."

oh boy. oh boy oh boy oh boy. what a line to start his personal quest

before we go ANY FURTHER im gonna drop a reference to one of my favorite aaron sorkin scenes of all time. its from the movie he did about the chicago seven, and i think it fits VERY well when having a conversation about how sam is shaped by his father

unfortunately the exact scene i want to show isnt clipped anywhere easy i could find, so here's an article that talks about that scene specifically if you want more context but dont want to watch the whole movie. what we're really focused on is this:

which is a scene where a fictional account of bobby seale, the leader of the black panther party at the time of the chicago 7 trial, said that above quote to a fictional account of tom hayden while they were having a conversation about how the stakes of this trial are life and death for him as a black man, but little more than a family dispute and a dark spot on their records for the (all white) chicago 7.

its a GREAT continuation of sorkin’s fascination around father son conflicts (he covered it a time or two during his writing days as west wings original creator, which is a great political show id strongly rec) and it really really works when used in comparison to those rebellion days sam had that he still flagellates over

sam was a privileged kid without a foundation of emotional support or a safe environment to vent to. he didnt have the words needed to communicate what he was feeling and thinking and experiencing. he didnt have the means to express himself in a way that wasn't immediately criticized by the people in his life. it doesnt take a degree in psych to figure out that sam first ran for the stars to run from his father. and it sounds like that was tradition

from the MOMENT YOU MEET HIM, jacob is full stop "my way or the highway" until you hit him with the good ol bethesda persuasion and his disposition pulls a 180 to hand you the next plot device

sam: "you know why im here."

jacob: "oh? and what's that? you come to your senses? realize where you ought to be for once?"

w o w

i wonder why sam never felt safe in his own home. i wonder why he doesnt feel safe leaving cora there. i wonder why that miserable fucking attitude and guilt has sam convinced that jacob will be the worst possible thing for his curious daughter's self esteem.

yes, grandparents sip a different kind of koolaid when it comes to their grandkids. no, that is not enough to protect that child from that much intergenerational trauma. sam's made a bad choice keeping cora in space, but he's made an EXCELLENT choice keeping her away from jacob.

forget "showing respect" to his son's choices, jacob won't give them the time of day. he brushes off constellation and wont go meet them for himself, he insists that cora being "in her family home" is the only priority (isnt THAT telling) and, as if that wasnt enough to prove he's incapable of empathy, the fact that he outright, direct fucking quote during that first scene with him, says to sam's face

"the only mistake im seeing here is you"

fuck anyone who walked away from that scene of a parent saying that to their own kid and had the response of "i dont understand why sam wont let jacob take care of cora." fuck you, genuinely from the bottom of my heart, if that was your reaction.

i looked for opportunities to get sam to talk about what the rest of those "30 plus years of experience with the man" really looked like after that. the fact that it was used as a plot device without any (from what I COULD FIND in my first pt, if i find any ill edit this) kind of dialogue discussion about that trauma around his father's behavior/mentality and the terrible influence it had is such a waste. chances are!!!!!! id fucking agree with him!!!!!!!!!! SO TELL THEM TO ME BETHESDA!!!!!! give me the chance to storm back into that house with the full story and let that geriatric fuck know why he will not be allowed back into my daughters life (yeah we're gonna be calling cora our daughter on this one bc, again, she's the best thing in the game) until he can learn to be a safe emotional environment for her

and THEN, at the end of the romance, the wrinkly mf drops a "hey can you go over sam's head and make the parenting decisions now" 20 minutes before your vows get exchanged in his living room (WE'RE GONNA TALK ABOUT THAT MESS OF A WEDDING LMAO ITS A LOT but im probably gonna save it for another sam post where i talk more in depth about why packing a complicated romance in that tightly just Dont Work). like wow. wowowowwow. if that doesnt perfectly sum up how he views the dusty's (shhh i really hope that name catches on pls i keep seeing ppl use captain instead its heartbreaking) role in the family now, and confirm how he's always viewed his own son, idk what does

3: lillian "i can abandon my kid and demand she be taken care of in the same breath" hart

i was originally going to go into hella detail on his relationship with his ex but honestly i think im just gonna leave a few paragraphs and not touch on her again bc its bad for my blood pressure.

okay, here's the deal. im biased in the sense that i had a mother with attachment issues and lets just say that his ex is worth about as much to me as a pile of dogshit. it'd be one thing if she had that moment of "oh. sam and cora bond really well and i dont fit" and decided to look at that and evaluate if she wanted to continue trying to be a parent.

but she didnt have a moment of reflection. she didnt talk to a therapist. she didnt have a discussion with sam. she went back to work and decided "oh well, my kid doesnt like me" and then left her daughter with an open wound and no shot at closure. which is just. wow. that's active abandonment. she WALKED OUT of cora's life because she couldn't stomach the idea that she didnt immediately win over her daughter without any effort to connect to her.

then she has the nerve to yell at sam for not doing the best for cora. like bitch, you cant even consistently answer the phone??? what are you on??? she's REPEATEDLY broken cora's heart with false promises, and clearly made no effort to truly atone for that given just HOW angry sam is ALL the times he brings it up.

and she does it all for what????? a beat cop reputation and some shiny medals????? like shut the fuck up with that righteous indignation piglet, you're killing smugglers under someone's made up authority to protect COMMERSE, not creating galactic peace. the idea that THAT SHIT is worth more to her than her own daughter having a mother who's around for all her life milestones is inFURIATING and id fucking deck her if i could.

the fact that there's zero chance to call her out other than one single "thats a pretty awful thing to say" option is a real cop out from bethesda. they realized they put a woman in a position where she could be really, truly yelled at for something like child care, and chickened out on following through with it so they wouldnt take any heat.

thats gross and should piss you the fuck off, by the way. that sure the fuck isnt what equality looks like by any measure. you don't empower women by acting like they're infallible creatures you cant call out for being flawed. and you sure as shit dont empower the next generation of women by forgiving their abusers.

4: cora's safety

which brings us to the big sticky: sam is a disaster and i DONT think that keeping cora on a combat-active spaceship is right. i think she'd be much better off living in constellation hq (aside from the main plot obvsly) with a constant open comm to her dad and the ability to bring her to outposts and secured sights.

the problem with the biomother's abandonment isnt the distance. its the lack of attempt to connect. its the lack of forming a bond. its the fact that she had zero desire to understand her child once she figured out her child didnt "love her the most" when thats literally not a thing. the problem was never the physical space, and it wouldnt have to be in sam's case, either.

he's a dad that's there for cora day in and day out, he just never got the chance to grow out of the panic stage of a parent worried the first fever is going to kill the baby. he didn't have his dad because he had to get out to protect himself, he doesnt have a mom because of how long she's been dead, and lillian checked the fuck out at an early stage apparently. so sam was left to be the nervous wreck trying to keep history from repeating itself. the man's flying blind in the face of all the combined generational trauma of himself, his father, and his ex, all while trying not to fuck up shaping a human life.

you're damn fucking right he keeps cora glued to his side, i legitimately do not think his own ptsd would allow him to do otherwise without someone like the dusty to come and and go "hey dude, maybe its time we read some emotional intelligence and trauma books so we can start getting cora into a stable environment for literally the first time in her life? also im going to teach her gun safety for my own sanity because you keep letting her walk all over you and its scaring the fuck out of me thinking my daughter is going to try to raid a pirate ship at 15 because no one taught you proper boundaries."

5: his morals

its been 30+ years and his father wont let go of arguing and micromanaging long enough to try to understand his son. lillian is a workaholic who believes her only inherit value is what she can provide to an organization that views living, breathing human beings as occasionally expendable while screaming about its pursuit of freedom and equality.

sam coe is a man who got told what he was supposed to be his entire life, tripped into drugs and crime in an angry, sheltered act of rebellion, and walked away from it all with a very skewed, very flawed interpretation of morality as a result.

lillian and his father are the clear moral compasses in his life. like yeah, sure, he'll talk about how cora is his driving force until he's blue in the face. and he's not lying!!! he's not even technically wrong. she is his active motivation day in and day out. but she is not his Morality. she hasn't developed enough as a person to be able to be that kind of beacon. she's a kid rushing herself through childhood because she thinks that will make her better and no one in her life recognizes it enough to stop it. she shouldnt have to be the moral guide for someone who's supposed to be guiding her

sam cant let go of the ranger envy. he couldnt stomach being around it, but he cant look at that discomfort long enough to identify why. he can walk into a bank and plain as day go "ah, don't you hate the smell of capitalism," but he can't bring himself to blink the stars out of his eyes long enough to ask why the rangers are so willing to put smugglers to death without trial. sam has enough awareness to identify the system is flawed, but he doesnt have the guts to really stare that down

he'll make cracks about walter having too much money and influence, but he wont actually mention how he and his wife are the root cause of an extraordinary amount of pain and suffering and perfectly avoidable manslaughter as a result of their business. i get that constellation runs as a dont as dont tell organization, but if sam's going to give me shit about nabbing a paper weight from a guy's desk, i think we should talk about how he doesnt display anger for walter's business practices.

sam coe, at his heart, is a dreamer who doesn't want to look too close at things. he was taught that some things just Are, and looking for too many answers will find you trouble. he's got the spirit of an explorer dampened by a lifetime spent under cops.

you can hear it in his voice whenever he talks about how proud he is of cora for being a goddamn prodigy. you can hear the wonder and the excitement there. you can hear the curious kid in him that probably got pushed out of the way while he was trying to shape himself into a Proper Coe

i think sam coe is a dreamer who was forcibly taught to fear learning as a child, and thats the real tragedy of him.

so let's start to tie our bow here.

sam is a man who, in a way that only a privillaged kid can, stumbled into neon's life of drugs and smuggling and self harm through destructive behavior with both eyes firmly shut.

he didn't fall into drugs after a lifetime of being submersed in the culture of it. he didnt take them because he grew up surrounded by people that just knew that's all life was ever going to hold. he didnt get into smuggling because he was starving. he didnt take on his first "criminal act" because there was a life and death battle going on somewhere in his life.

this man was drowning in guilt and shame centered around not "being a proper coe" by the time he was free of his father's control, by all accounts. you can hear how much self hatred he has over the memory of that time in his life. look, im not going to say that age and recovery doesnt come with regret, but he talks about it like degeneracy and something to be guilted about rather than just... living life. like so what you did some drugs?? so what you did a capitalism no no?????

corporations arent people. you shouldnt steal from them because itll put YOU at risk, but under no circumstance should anyone hold onto any guilt for stealing from them. money is fake and capitalism murders people every hour of the day. fuck the system, its fucking rigged, look out for you and yours while capitalism is stealing your natural resources and making private homesteading prosecutable (translation: in our actual, real life here, the government can throw you in jail for building a house without a permit. go look up at the sky and think about the moral journey humanity had to take to get us to that point, and then come talk to me about how i shouldnt encourage people to steal from corporations)

anyways back to the video game, as far as the "what if he was unknowingly smuggling something like organs or weapons" argument, there's no desire for me to defend it, tbh. i dont view crime as a personality brand the way cops do. someone being convicted of a crime doesnt make me see them as lesser, it makes me see them as a person who did a bad thing. i do bad shit all the time. we all do. we're human. sometimes there's an excuse for the behavior, and sometimes there isnt. that's not the end of the world. you own up to your actions, you apologize, and you put in the effort to make amends that fit the situation. end of story. the obvious exception to that being when someone you have victimized tells you to fuck off because they dont want your further involvement.

yes. yes there are people in the world that are genuine monsters that spend their time and energy looking for ways to do the cruelest shit imaginable to their fellow human beings. but those are fucking outliers, so no, im not going to let a conversation about morality be derailed by a fraction of a percent of the population

but people (like the rangers) who aren't ready to look at the whole picture of context, who would rather hyper focus on the unbending rule of the land, don't see that. they see a "type" of person once a crime has been committed rather than "a person who found themselves in this scenario"

sam was raised by cops. he fundamentally does not understand how biased his own view is. he'll sometimes make a vague mention of crime being a necessity, but you can hear how many strings are attached there just from the way he talks about it. he truly views crime as a black and white subject with exceptionally few slivers of grey to be found. you can hear the "law and order is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom" in his voice whenever he talks about how the rangers are "good people" he just "didnt fit anymore" and it's heartbreaking

he'd be so much better off if he would take a moment to reevaluate his priorities and look a lot closer at that guilt he carries and why he carries it. i think it would even help him better connect with cora in the long run. it would for sure give him a better handle on why letting his daughter take on college courses this early in her life isnt something to brag about. its a bad sign that she's pushing herself to Be Something in the exact same way he used to. he just doesn't recognize it because her way is "healthy" by society's fucked up view of child prodigies

tl;dr

i don't need to fix sam coe. he's stubborn, traumatized, and sheltered, not broken.

give that man good enough head and i'm absolutely sure he could be talked into reading some -clutches pearls- marxist literature