Chapter Text
Pharah cries for justice, but it has not always been so. To seek justice implies that one has been wronged, or has seen wrong, and knows enough to seek to correct it, to rectify a situation by meting out punishment or by providing some means of compensation. The pursuit of justice requires something more than an inborn sense of fairness, some awareness of what is right, and what is wrong. The pursuit of justice requires strength, and determination. The pursuit of justice requires a cause. Fareeha did not always have these things, as she does now.
(As a child, Fareeha thought it unfair that other children could live their whole lives in one place, need not be uprooted every few months, forced to live in a strange new city where no one but their mother knew their language. She thought it unfair that, for so long, her mother was the only one with whom she could speak in her native tongue. To her young eyes, it seemed as if everyone around her had many people with whom they were close, and she herself was restricted to just the one. When others spoke to her mother, and especially when they did so in the strange round sounds of English, she found herself jealous—why could they not speak to someone else, why must they take her mother from her, why must they make her move from one place to the next, with no thought spared for her own desires? The fate of the world was at stake, but she was a child, and entitled to selfishness, now and again. She found her situation to be unfair, and it was so.)
By questioning the fairness of things, Fareeha came to know of good and evil, of right and wrong, came to define herself along ideological lines, and many of these early notions of what the world ought to be have continued to inform Pharah in her pursuit of justice, even if she has long since grown beyond such simplistic thinking. While it may not be that the world is so simple as her mother made it seem when she was a child, there has always been much about Ana Amari worthy of adoring, her moral compass included.
(As she grew older, it was easy for Fareeha to understand why others had sought to steal a moment of her mother’s time. Ana had something that most people lacked, a true sense of purpose—and with it, a charismatic self-assurance. To many, Ana was able to play the role of mother, because her sense of purpose enabled her to be almost entirely confident in her answers, making her advice deeply comforting, like a parent answering their child’s questions. At the time, Fareeha did not—could not—understand how it was that her mother was such a whole person. Longing to be the same, Fareeha sought to emulate her, to become like Ana by acting like her, rather than by finding a purpose of her own.)
By becoming a soldier, a true Amari, sworn to protect the innocent, Fareeha found strength, learned to be self-reliant, always, and she remains grateful for what her years in the military taught her. However, she was not, then, complete as she is now; instead, she existed only in the shadow of her mother, only as a last name. Fareeha became Amari, name and rank, nothing further, whereas now she is something more, something beyond the name her mother gave her, and the name whose legacy she sought to uphold.
(It was not until it became a legacy, in the truest sense, Ana dead—or near enough, a purposeless husk of her former self—that Fareeha was able to begin to grasp what it was that had always made Ana great. Not great deeds, not a code of ethics, not confidence, but purpose. Purpose which those who had sought to use Overwatch for their own political gain had stolen from her. Purpose which those whom Ana had risked her very life to protect had robbed her of, wearing her down day by day until her own daughter hardly recognized her. This, Fareeha knew, was more than simply unfair. This was a betrayal, this was the theft of something which might never be recovered. This was more than a petty conflict, this was more than something which could be neatly defined as right or wrong, and then treated as such. This was an affront to all those who would see good deeds rewarded. Her mother, and indeed, most everyone in Overwatch, had given all they could to save the very people who would see them destroyed. While not a wrong which Fareeha could right, she knew, more deeply and clearly than she had ever known anything before, that this was an injustice.)
From her mother’s death, from the fall of first Overwatch, Pharah gained that which her mother has lost, something which, now, enables her to become whom she needs to be: a sense of purpose. She knows, from seeing injustice done on such a scale, that justice is what defines her, that it is justice that will motivate her to fight for what she believes to be right. Fareeha may have fairness, an innate sense of right and wrong, Amari, name and rank, may have strength, and determination, but it is Pharah, the woman she becomes in the aftermath, the ideal she embodies on the battlefield, who is able to put that knowledge to use, who is able to make difficult decisions based upon what she knows to be right, who is able to protect the innocent like Lieutenant Amari never could, because she is sure of herself, now, sure of her decisions as anyone reasonably can be.
A desire for justice guides Pharah, enables her to find purpose and finally, finally, be content in herself, to define herself not in relation to her mother, or to any other, but inwardly. Only when she becomes Pharah does Fareeha feel complete. Only when she has become Pharah can Fareeha rest easy in the knowledge that she can do what it takes to protect those she loves, can protect Angela, her mother, her squadron. Only in becoming Pharah are Fareeha’s fears that she will be left alone finally cast aside. She can make the decisions necessary to protect those she loves, has the strength to fight for them, because she has at last found a cause.
Pharah cries for justice, and justice will reign.