Who else REALLY hated Amata?

T

Tarantulakelurk

First time out of the vault
Like, really, I hate her more than Moira, seriously no joke, I mean, Moira indirectly maimed you for the good of Wasteland survivalists everywhere, so at least she's doing something good!
It all started when I was flying the coop during the escape from Vault 101, I see Amata caught in a chair snared by Homicidal Maniac #1 and Homicidal Maniac #2 (Officer Mack, and The Overseer) walking in to diffuse the situation, Mack goes Nuka-Cola Crazy on me, and try's killing me, well I dispose of him easily, then I talk to the Overseer, and I hand over my weapons because I'm a good, albeit stupid person, and then he tries killing me...with that same pistol...good thing I was using an unarmed build! Anyways I dispose of him, and then Amata runs up to me and whines about how '*sniff* you killed my daddy!'
You MORON. Did you seriously just watch what he was doing to me? do you think I was just going to sit there, and take it until the Overseer got bored of killing me again and again and again, JUST so daddy's spoiled little brat can be happy?!
She doesn't even do anything really, all she really does for the Vault 101 story branch is that she's a leader of rebels (it took me every fiber of my being not to cap her then and there after all that moaning about me killing her father) and even then she just kind of does a whole lot of nothing, eventually when you diffuse the situation between the overseer (whom I just ignored on this particular play through at the beginning) she becomes overseer of Vault 101, and how does she reward you?
Kicking you out.
She kicks you out of your own home, and you basically helped her do it.
And I guarantee, the only difference she's making in the vault is that it's a female cracking the whip instead of a male, ever heard the phrase 'a chip off the old block'?
Yeah, goes without saying doesn't it?
But yeah, bottom line, screw you, Amata, that's just my 2 Cents, how about you?
 
I won't say that i hate Amata.
She isn't a great character, but has her fine moment.

Two things really bother me although :

- They failed to provide her a reason for kicking you out the second time. It obvious it was a nod for the Fo1 Overseer. But Jacoren had more than one reason to kick the vault dweller. For Amata ? It just doesn't make any sense.

- It seems very likely that Amata/Sarah Lyons, are meant to be a potential love interest for male characters or homosexual female characters. But what about the female characters and homosexual male character ? Why do they need to have two female love interest, and absolutly zero male love interest ? This sounds terribly unbalanced.
 
Tarantulakelurk said:
Like, really, I hate her more than Moira, seriously no joke, I mean, Moira indirectly maimed you for the good of Wasteland survivalists everywhere, so at least she's doing something good!
It all started when I was flying the coop during the escape from Vault 101, I see Amata caught in a chair snared by Homicidal Maniac #1 and Homicidal Maniac #2 (Officer Mack, and The Overseer) walking in to diffuse the situation, Mack goes Nuka-Cola Crazy on me, and try's killing me, well I dispose of him easily, then I talk to the Overseer, and I hand over my weapons because I'm a good, albeit stupid person, and then he tries killing me...with that same pistol...good thing I was using an unarmed build! Anyways I dispose of him, and then Amata runs up to me and whines about how '*sniff* you killed my daddy!'
You MORON. Did you seriously just watch what he was doing to me? do you think I was just going to sit there, and take it until the Overseer got bored of killing me again and again and again, JUST so daddy's spoiled little brat can be happy?!
She doesn't even do anything really, all she really does for the Vault 101 story branch is that she's a leader of rebels (it took me every fiber of my being not to cap her then and there after all that moaning about me killing her father) and even then she just kind of does a whole lot of nothing, eventually when you diffuse the situation between the overseer (whom I just ignored on this particular play through at the beginning) she becomes overseer of Vault 101, and how does she reward you?
Kicking you out.
She kicks you out of your own home, and you basically helped her do it.
And I guarantee, the only difference she's making in the vault is that it's a female cracking the whip instead of a male, ever heard the phrase 'a chip off the old block'?
Yeah, goes without saying doesn't it?
But yeah, bottom line, screw you, Amata, that's just my 2 Cents, how about you?
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I actually thought Amata's character had a LOT of potential and I liked her--though I was disappointing at the same time. Naosano is a person that I sometimes disagree with--we've had our little debates here and there, mostly regarding FO3--but in this case, I'm pretty much in complete agreement with him; except I think she had more than *one* fine moment. I do think the entire reason she kicks you out of the vault is ENTIRELY a nodoff to Fallout 1. Which, isn't a HORRIBLE thing in and of itself, but they really needed to give her a better reason then "everyone will want to follow you and leave before we're ready." I do appreciate the little nod to FO1, though, the game that started it all--just wish they could've thought things out a little more with that aspect.

You get pissed because she's sad and distraught over her fathers death? When I killed the Overseer in one of my playthroughs, I actually thought that was a rather great emotional moment, and it was one of the few times I've genuinely regretting an action I took in the game. These moments are, sadly, underplayed and so few and far between. I appreciated this one, when the girl who they developed as your BEST FRIEND has to watch her father get his head blown off by you! You're telling me you wouldn't be upset? The man was her father, regardless of his faults, she is GOING to be upset. Maybe over time, she could learn to handle what happened, but I don't see anything wrong whatsoever with her initial reaction to what your character did. It's called loving your family, DESPITE their faults, and the world could use a lot more of that! And Fallout 3 could use a lot more of that kind of genuine emotion and character complexity. That was a moment where Amata really shined to me, to be hones.

And if you think she wouldn't be any different from her dad...well, to be quite frank, you aren't paying attention to the characters, which makes me wonder why bother even playing? If you are seriously paying so little attention that you actually believe Amata will be a replica of her father, then you are just mindlessly complaining about things without even taking the time to consider just *what* you are complaining about. Amata's father would see the vault sealed shut forever. "We're born in the vault, we DIE in the vault" is his motto. He'd NEVER open the thing, and that's why it's such a big deal that A: your father came from the wasteland when your character was one year old and B: Your father manages to reopen the vault to make his escape--and then YOU do as well! The Overseer went out of his way to cover up the fact that he *had* opened the vault before, and even went so far as to take in a wastelander, because they were in dire need of medical personelle.

Where the Overseer would let everyone essentially die before opening the vault, either to genetic mutations from inbreeding--or uprisings because he can't keep his vault in order--OR watch his numbers dwindle to nothing (God forbid he actually just open the damn door), Amata would do what is best for the people of the vault. She would open the vault, begin sending out trading parties, letting their people slowly begin to eke out a life in the wastelands. Build a prosperous settlement even--I could see Vault 101 becoming a place not entirely unlike Vault City might have, had they been forced to struggle without a GECK. Actually, the vault 101 group would be very prosperous, I think, with Amata leading them because they actually *would* go out, trade technology and food, whatever they had--in order to build a little community that has contact with the other townships.

So yes, Amata would be VERY different from her father--night and day, really. As for Moira, I loved her character too. In fact, Moira is one of my *favorite* characters, simply because she is so damn colorful. I loved her bubbling personality, how she is so damn optimistic all the time--and funny too. I had a lot of fun doing the Wasteland Survival Guide quests, and thoroughly enjoyed a lot of the snarky and sarcastic remarks one can make to her too! I think the WSG quests were some of the best in all of FO3 :D
 
Well of course I would be! And I would understand Amata hating me if I killed the Overseer and he didn't deserve it, I hated myself too the first time I killed him because I had no idea how much of a snake he is-
The second time, however, I followed him after my birthday and I recall him calling LW a 'brat', and then I actually TALKED to him, and then what I described above happened;
Now think for a second, just think- if you saw your dad beating the crap out of your already mortally injured (not really good at the game and I lost my VATS points from the Security officer you see when you leave your room, so I had very little health after Officer "Ripper" Mack) best friend with a baseball bat right in front of you, would you really have that much angst over his death? ESPECIALLY if the friend was just trying to be diplomatic with him, but he still decides to go crazy on him.
And really, I think Amata's intentions are left ambiguous so we can decide what she would do when we left, I mean any public figure of a community can lie to keep said community calm. And it's never elaborated upon again if my memory serves on what happens to Vault 101's residents, and the only one I HAVE seen so far in my 2nd playthrough in the Capital Wasteland is Butch (someone I feel is much more morally 'good' than Amata, sure he stole your sweet roll, but you gotta understand, his mothers an alcoholic, so she may have spent all their food money on Booze, in all honesty, I gave Butch my Sweet roll both times).
"Unlimited power corrupts the possessor".
 
FoVet >
I should have said "some fine moments". I didn't intended to implie "one".
My overall point of view is that she is not enough original & in-depth to be a character that i would consider iconic.
But as Fo3 characters, she is amongs the few i liked. She is the only companion mod that i downloaded (when i got back to vault 101)
 
I really enjoyed FOVet's description of the characters and completely agreed with him all the way. However, Amata really is "un-pleasable" [sic erat scriptum]. Everything you do, or try to do to help her (getting to make her father back off from beating the hell out of her with a nightstick, to calming the vault rebellion) she just never seems fully "OK" or happy with your actions. Even if you take all the best possible course of actions, it's still "Thank's, but you really didn't have to do it like that".
 
I agree with FOVet for the most part too, except about Moira, but to each their own. I can actually accept and even enjoy some of her characterization and writing, but I feel voice direction in F3 was a bit lacking overall and Moira was one of the characters where you really see some evidence of that. I don't even mean it sarcastically when I say the character made more sense to me, and bothered me a lot less, once I instituted the headcanon that she suffered some kind of developmental or emotional disorder.

Regarding Amata, she represents a clear break in the vault experiment protocol and there's absolutely no way she would end up like her father. Whatever other (copious) personality flaws she exhibits, megalomania isn't one of them. Besides, she's seen the corrupting influence of a dictatorial Overseer position on both the vault and the person holding the office, and even if she were to suddenly snap and go that route it's fairly unlikely that the rest of the rebels who just banded together to pry her father out of power and open up the Vault to change would just sit back and accept Amata establishing the royal Almodovar dynasty.

Amata's not necessarily all that bad-- she's flawed, and she can definitely be irritating, but most of the things that made me want to whack her in the head with a two-by-four until her character model was unrecognizable as a human being seemed to stem more from forced writing than organically from her character.
 
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Yamu said:
I say the character made more sense to me, and bothered me a lot less, once I instituted the headcanon that she suffered some kind of developmental or emotional disorder.
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Yamu. It is not your head canon. The develloper made her that way. They made sure to remind you in every quest she provide, and every backstory event that you learn about her past, that she doesn't understand the full repercution of what the word danger means. She could send you run into some mines, while she could test mines in a safe environnment, she ask you to get hurt in the middle of the wasteland, while there is a doctor in town that could talk about wounds, she could ask you to become irradiated, while you just left your vault, and were prime-human. Everytime you talk to her about the danger, she is in a complete denial. The develloper were consistent in the way they despicted her mental disease. Yet, if you like that kind of humor, being insane don't prevent her for being the comic relief.

What makes it less funny for me, is thinking about all the previous guys that died before you in such missions.
 
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The first of my 2 cents is this: Tarantulakelurk, run-on sentences are NOT your friend! Embrace the periods and pauses to take your breath! They also make for much more cohesive sentences.

My next is that Amata suffers from the same dilemma as every character from FO3: she's shallow. I don't mean that SHE is a shallow person, but rather that her character is just not well thought out. From scene to scene, she's a simple archetype that serves a simple purpose, and she shows no sign of growing as a person from those scene. In one scene, she IS "a bullied person", and that her entire existence. She's there just to provide a vehicle for the player to choose their stance on bullying and, more importantly, give the player their starting karma. She doesn't have a real voice or any recognizable personality at this time. She'll criticize you or thank you depending on what you do, but other than that, Amata as a person is very little here. In the next scene, Amata is the means of advancing the plot from "I live in a Vault" to "I must escape this Vault!" Similarly, she may respond coldly or gratefully to the player depending on their actions, but she won't have any purpose other than to be there to tell you to get up and get out before it's too late, and to say goodbye when you're about to leave. Amata is a blank slate to accomplish storytelling objectives, she's not a fulfilled character.

But the crippling flaw with Amata's character (her total LACK of any definable character) is shared with all NPCs in FO3. If you compare them with ANY of the NPCs from other games, you'll see the difference immediately. One of my favorite examples, Veronica, is a fulfilled character. She has something to say on anything that comes your way, and she has a stake in what transpires with any relation to her as a person. She is a disillusioned youth trying to save her family but feeling powerless to stop them from strangling themselves to death. She doesn't show up just to provide a simple vehicle for a scene, she's there with her own agenda and with a personality that will evolve and change as her worldview expands. Set, while little more than a one-note asshole, has a clear and definable character. He wants to maintain his power over the Necropolis, but you can see where shreds of self-doubt creep in beneath his rough and demeaning exterior. He has a flourishing inferiority complex as a Ghoul and he uses force to try and shove all those doubts away, touting his people's "superiority" over others more as a mantra to convince himself than as an explanation to the Vault Dweller's questions. Set isn't a vehicle for a scene, because he can be avoided altogether (or never even met, alive) depending on how the player approaches Necropolis, but he CAN be a stepping stone towards finding the Water Chip, though that's not the extent of his character.

I didn't hate Amata, I hated the game she came from, and the writers who crippled her before she could become a real character. I hated what the writers made her do, but more importantly, all the things the writers couldn't LET her do. She wasn't a bad character at all: she just wasn't a realized character.
 
Yamu said:
Amata's not necessarily all that bad-- she's flawed, and she can definitely be irritating, but most of the things that made me want to whack her in the head with a two-by-four until her character model was unrecognizable as a human being seemed to stem more from forced writing than organically from her character.
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Bethesda's problem is that they hire too little actors to cover too much ground (and probably pay them ass to boot).
 
BigBoss said:
Bethesda's problem is that they hire too little actors to cover too much ground (and probably pay them ass to boot).
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The nasal raider-voice that your raider-companion has, all over FO3, plaguing me like that dark female voice appearing everywhere in Oblivion. Everywhere
 
The thing is, we're not even talking about untalented men and women. To achieve the magic that is F3-level voice acting, you need just the right formula of poor direction, lack of motivation, and unpolished dialogue. It's the Star Wars Prequel effect, and it can reduce even celebrated Hollywood vets to Razzie fodder.

(Mind you, it can't be laid squarely at the feet of the writers, either-- if you go back through Fallout 3 reading the dialogue rather than listening to it, you see that there's plenty of it that's just fine if you give it the right inflection, especially if you keep in mind the bizarre and illogical situations these people were being asked to write for. I see the problem as a holistic one, sort of a "Lucas Field" generated by issues with each part of the apparatus aggregating into a greater whole.
 
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Could those still be called dialogs ?
Or vocal markers that guide you toward quests, chops and "points of interest" ?
 
I'm not really talking about B-Movie acting and scripts, honestly I knew that Fallout was a tongue-and-cheek parody of godawful 50's B-Movies, what I'm talking about is that I hate Amata personality-wise, she was a jerk pretty much through and through:
You saved me from getting bullied by the Tunnel Snakes? A little "thank you" should be enough, asshat!
My douchebag dad that was about to smack me around is beating up my crippled best friend with a baseball bat? I can't believe my friend KILLED HIM! Get out of my sight before I doom you to getting poked to death with police batons...
You saved me twice, and promoted me to overseer, giving me complete control over my own little civilization? Have a nice hot cup of go **** yourself, and get out of my vault, because people don't like you and I don't know!
And NOW I've found a Vault 101 trader around the Dunwhich Building, and she told me Amata misses me?
Well, my MIRV is a little lighter on Mini nukes, and I could proudly say I would do the same to Amata if those NUKE PROOF DOORS would let me through.
 
Tarantulakelurk said:
I'm not really talking about B-Movie acting and scripts, honestly I knew that Fallout was a tongue-and-cheek parody of godawful 50's B-Movies
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It was, was it? Well that's news to me (and practically everyone else here). I always thought it was a clever homage to olden fiction, and a parody of modern pop culture, just like the creators said it was, but what would I (or they) know? Also, the phrase is "tongue-in-cheek" not "tongue-and-cheek". It describes the physical act of poking your cheek with your tongue whilst making a blatantly farcical facial expression, thereby transparently illustrating that you're joking. Hence the phrase.
 
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CRAP! I knew I said it wrong!
Well basically, I meant to say I personally thought it was probably just joking around with it's sometimes awful line delivery, if it really IS news to you and some of the amazing voice actors on the game actually DID suck with the line delivery, then I'll redact my statement!
 
No, I was being sarcastic when I said "It's news to me". It really ISN'T a parody of old sci-fi, it's an homage. Giant Radscorpions aren't a joke about how 50s sci-fi assumed that radiation just made everything bigger, it was a reference to that line of popular logic. "Old World Blues" was a parody of sci-fi from those days, but OWB, you'll notice, is NOTHING like the rest of Fallout. It stands out like a sore thumb because it's making a big joke (a really funny joke, in execution, but still over-the-top and silly and would've been bad if it hadn't been done so well) unlike the rest of the series which maintains an appropriately serious mood throughout the setting, despite how outrageous some of the things happening are. Giant green mutated men? Serious threat, not a joke. People that look like zombies? Serious and beautiful vehicle for analyzing racism within the context of the series, not a joke. Giant rats? Seriously dangerous creatures, the game is pretending that's what radiation does, not a joke.... well, okay, the Brain and Keeng Raat were jokes, but they came later!

Anyway, you get the point. The series was honoring old and contemporary sci-fi (remember Fallout was started in the early 90s and the 80s movies they referenced weren't old at the time) it wasn't outright parodying it. But it was parodying or referencing pop-culture on a regular basis, with FO1 doing a better job of masking it than FO2 did. Multiple joke references to Pulp Fiction, South Park, Clint Eastwood films, you name it... If the entire series had the same mood as "Old World Blues" then the series would have been parodying 50s Sci-fi, but since that was a exception to the general rule, it wasn't.
 
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