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[hoisinsauce]

A space to chat fandom! Anon!

Got a WIP you're excited about? Want to rave about your fave? Or is your fandom absolutely in love with a character who detracts from every scene they bumble into, and you need somewhere to vent? You're in the right place!

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Comments

Re: FF7 - The Remake

[(Anonymous)]

i think it would have been better if you had played the whole thing as palmer and it had been a game about his life, loves and losses.

But I do actually want to know how he bumbled into being in charge of the space program. I've heard the suggestion that he's from a wealthy family that shinra wanted onside, so he's just a figurehead, but the rocket still went up there, so clearly the space division got something right. Was he once talented and then lost his way with too many cups of lardy tea? Or did someone else do all the work?

Re: FF7 - The Remake

[(Anonymous)]

This is giving me r/lifeofnorman vibes. I'd totally play some sort of overdramatic visual novel about Palmer's personal life while the events of Remake happened in the background. Or maybe it could be an office sim where you have to balance your time between tea-making, personal calls, and doing the minimum acceptable amount of paperwork. Seeing Sephiroth would just be another of the days/levels, with the narration focusing on the spilled tea. And then the next level would go back to the usual routine of tea, calls, and paperwork without another mention of the plot.

I have so many thoughts about the space program! It's been a while since I read the OG script or played Remake, but I loved speculating about how Palmer got there. Some of these probably get facts wrong, but:

1) I've heard the wealthy family idea too. It does sounds like something Shinra would do. It could also be a nepotism thing, where one of his relatives was very talented or influential. Then either they bargained with Shinra to hire Palmer, or Shinra wanted to collect the whole set in case there were any other geniuses.

2) Another take on connections: he had a mediocre amount of skill and was friends with someone high up. Maybe he went to school with Bugenhagen? Pretty sure Bugen is older than Palmer, so maybe he was a mentor and felt sorry for Palmer or saw potential in him.

3) He started in a low position and kept failing upward. Maybe he used to work in weapons or some other department when he was young, but kept making costly mistakes. Shinra decided he would do less harm in the space program, offered an impressive-sounding dead-end promotion, and left him alone. He'd get the director job after Shinra decided they didn't care about the department anymore and he was the most inoffensive option. They could've even put him there to kill the program after someone else built it up.

3) Like you suggested, he was talented, but gave up all his integrity and hope for humanity after being part of the company for too long. I sometimes think Reeve could end up similar if he were stuck at Shinra for too long and the OG never happened. They both have a tendency to lie to themselves and detach from reality, and to focus on things of questionable relevance (yeah, Cait Sith ended up being useful, but nobody knew any of the events in the OG would happen. In another world, Reeve could've kept building random cat robots in his office forever). Palmer might have been excellent at his job when Shinra thought it had a future. Then when they started pulling funding and he saw it was hopeless, he withdrew and started getting deep into obscure teas instead. I could see him and Reeve getting into some super technical discussion out of the blue, and Reeve being both impressed and disgusted that Palmer knows so much, yet is the way he is.

4) Maybe when he was younger he was a talented suckup and good at office politics. He'd probably be good enough at finding other talented people (Shera, etc.) to keep his department going, even if he didn't care about it other than to make him money.

Re: FF7 - The Remake

[(Anonymous)]

Hahaha, I hadn't heard of the lifeofnorman sub until now! Actually I did once try to write a novel where the "main" character with the melodramatic narrative was positioned as a side-character, while the point-of-view characters were intentionally not at the heart of things, because that struck me as funny. It didn't really work in the end, just made readers go "why is the last third suddenly all about this person?" xD

I could see Palmer being good at office politics (especially if combined with the "rich" theory; maybe he makes flashy gestures). I always felt like they were trying to go for an old boys club vibe with him, given his dress sense. And/or I could definitely picture him reaching and keeping his position via blackmail.

Hah, I was thinking about Bugenhagen before! I have a bad habit of attributing too much to him. But I could see a situation where he did the work, then left, and Palmer was the only one around to be credited and thus got a position way above his skill level.

I also sometimes headcanon Palmer as an alcoholic. So that could interact in interesting ways with Reeve-as-observer-who-is-afraid-they-are-similar. Or, more comically, with members of General Affairs. Elena makes some jokey comment, Tseng starts worrying he is become Palmer, drinker of... beverages...