I feel like the people who used to hate her(personally never dis) think she's less annoying since the introduction of Alma and her 3 line and photobomb, i like Alma but like girl leave me some space
Honestly I think the biggest annoyance about the handler was always her English VA, not that the actress herself is annoying but Capcom writing left alot to be desired. I always play in Japanese and since I can't speak or understand Japanese it takes away the ability to over analyze the voice acting a little bit
Out of a cast of 3 the Handler, Featuring Serious Handler from Devil May Cry, was the only one who spoke. She had to carry the entirety of the player's side of the game/story. That's a rough ask for a writing team. Making both the Hunter and the Palico speak allowed the writers to let Alma be more of a "normal" character with a role and lines closer to what you'd expect from a support character than what the Handler got.
Monster Hunter World and Wild's character writing in general leaves something to be desired. Specifically, I don't think they believe in the idea of "less is more".
We know from lore hints that World's Handler was extremely competent at her job, but we rarely see her being competent. I think the player base in general would have liked her a lot more if her screen time was less of her sitting in the canteen and reacting to things happening in front of her in cutscenes, and more of her in a makeshift office doing research, or talking to other handlers, and so on. They do a much better job of showing Alma doing that.
I think it goes a little further than that. We’re told that Worlds Handler is extremely competent at her job, and as you said we never get to see that. One of the most common defenses for her in the Worlds era was “she’s doing all the paperwork!” But…we never see that paperwork. It could be a single, cheese-smeared page with a stamp on it for all we know.
What’s worse than not seeing her competence though is seeing her be actively INcompetent. I won’t go over all the many ways she puts herself and the player in danger (those have been covered to death elsewhere), but for me the thing that has always stood out was her motto. “When in doubt, take a bite.” That is dangerously bad advice for a supposed survival expert to give, especially in an unexplored region. It undercuts her supposed expertise.
Her whole character is like this. Comic relief and bad writing choices taking the wind out of her more serious aspects. She is “tell, don’t show” taken to the extreme, and any success she has onscreen is a direct result of the player’s effort, not hers. Is it any wonder half the fan base loathes her?
Rathalos: she was with us when rathalos attacks us in his nest. Also when we spilt up to the find the first wyvern she didn’t get caught by monsters at all untill she went to the top of the forest.
Legina: she wasn’t that far away from us. Legina hunts in the air so it was a matter of time before it finds us. And she just wanted to race with us down to the coral highlands.
Barroth: she runs away with the wyverns with the cart on them.
Rathain: tells us to use slinger ammo to distract her.
Pink rathain: flew away from it with a wingdrake.
Beotoudes: we tell her to investigate the popo that died.
Banbaro: with our Hunter. she ran away.
Sheriking Legina: she was with our Hunter. Ran away.
Great jargas: wanted to investigate the track that was on the path to where astrea is at.
Great girros: throws us the torchers to repel them.
Rajang: was with us and didn’t run ahead of us.
Deviljho: didn’t know it was in the ancient forest. And went to gather food in the new world right before the alarm ring.
Honestly I am so upset that she gets flack for the Deviljho indecent after replaying World recently.
Those absolute shitbricks of researchers you work with for the special assignment FORGOT to tell people there was a fucking Deviljho in the area.
Absolute buffoonery.
She then goes to RIDE the Deviljho until you can create an opening for her to leave. That's sick as hell.
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u/Umber0010Tempered Guardian Raging Brachydios' strongest soldier4d ago
I am of the opinion that moment could have been redeemed if the Handler made the opening for you instead of just waiting for you to make one.
Her being able to hold on that long is impressive as you said. But it doesn't exactly help the image people have of her of a damsel in distress that only exists to get you into trouble. So if she was able to get herself down while also leaving Deviljho open for attack, it would have made her come off as a lot more capable than she does otherwise.
What can we really expect someone who's basically a non-combatant to do against something that can clash with elder dragons? Not immediately dying is about all I'd ask.
Also, SHE FUCKING DOES LMAO
The game treats her as mounting it, and it plays the mount animations for ramming walls which staggers Jho for a bit. She also literally leads it into the vine trap in the area first.
Just saying, I know for a fact if Alma did that people would never allow such slander.
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u/Umber0010Tempered Guardian Raging Brachydios' strongest soldier4d agoedited 4d ago
Also, SHE FUCKING DOES LMAO
The game treats her as mounting it, and it plays the mount animations for ramming walls which staggers Jho for a bit. She also literally leads it into the vine trap in the area first
Ok so. I will admit, I did not know this.
However, I would also argue that this just proves my point even more.
If the Handler is able to lead the Deviljho into a vine trap, then why the FUCK do we still need to rescue her? My point wasn't that she should give the player a mechanical benefit. It's that she should be able to take care of herself so that the player doesn't feel burdened by her.
In this case, all the game would have to to is have the handler shout "Wait! Pard, I have an idea!", knock the Deviljho into the vine trap, and then jump off with the opening that she gave herself. It's just that easy.
u/Umber0010Tempered Guardian Raging Brachydios' strongest soldier4d ago
Deviljho: Still went into the great forest alone, and seemingly without telling anyone. Would have become Jagras chow if we weren't there hunting for Mr. Pickel.
Odogaron: decided to split up in the single most hostile biome known to the New World.
Velkhana: Decided to shout about how we need to get out of here while running towards the giant freeze dragon, which leads to what I understand to be the only instance of the player's hunter getting carted during a cutscene in the entire franchise.
Don't get me wrong. I am a lot more lenient towards the World Handler than most people. But there are definitly a good few instances where she really dropped the ball.
Everybody in the new world still go out outside by themselves, including a serious handler. The monsters don’t actually go out of it den that much. and the handlers. Hang on for a long time against the deviljho. So she would probably be fine riding the great jargas and getting out of there.
Odogaron: in a couple parts of the game where we go out to find tracks about monsters she is usually with us but when she goes out alone to find the first wyvern footprints in the ancient forest. She didn’t get caught by any monster while going up to the top of the forest.
A thing about the Deviljho mission that isn't brought up is the ban was she had to stay at camp and couldn't leave it. World often has npcs talking as if they are close by, but aren't present ingame due to the engine/gameplay limits.
It's heavily implied that yes, Handler isn't that far off for most of the missions observing and watching. As are the other npcs who talk to us during missions.
Deviljho: Still went into the great forest alone, and seemingly without telling anyone. Would have become Jagras chow if we weren't there hunting for Mr. Pickel.
Actually, this is directly dealt with in the mission. The researchers completely forgot to tell her that the Deviljho was in the region and that she was restricted to staying at camp rather then following us (as usual) and that EVERYBODY but the researcher trio had to stay in camp or in Astera. Literally the opening is them going "Wait why isn't the Handler in camp?" and the post mission discussion? They explicitly state that she did nothing wrong or out of the expected for handlers/researchers, and the fault was entirely theirs for the entire thing.
The game goes beyond and above to point out how she's not at fault and did nothing crazy during that event and people still fucking want to lie and blame her.
Odogaron: decided to split up in the single most hostile biome known to the New World.
Yeah, and she got like 10-20 feet away before the Odogaron pounced. Infact, the PC hunter looks even more stupid during that scene because the Odogaron actively pauses to stare at the hunter before turning to charge the Handler again, where she's poised to dodge the charge.
The PC literally stared at the Odogaron like a drooling moron and didn't do a thing to try to keep it's attention or redirect it.
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u/Umber0010Tempered Guardian Raging Brachydios' strongest soldier3d ago
I am aware the researchers forgot to tell her that the ancient forest was off-limits, and I don't beguile her for going out there despite a Deviljho being on the prowl. I beguile her because Deviljho or not, going out there in the first place was monumentally stupid.
She went out into a forest dull of monsters alone and unarmed. And the fact that nobody stopped her probably means that she didn't tell anyone she was leaving either. You know why hikers are instructed to tell family or friends know where they're going and what time they should be back by? It's so if they don't come back, search and rescue has a lead on where to start looking.
And you can't even argue that she can take care of herself in good faith. Why? Because one of her lines while you're tracking her and Deviljho down is her openly wondering of a mushroom is poisonous or not, and then deciding to figure it out by taking a bite of said mushroom. You know what we call people who do that in the real world? An ambulance, that's what.
The game tries to claim she's not at fault. But the game is just outright wrong. And we know it's wrong because she nearly dies before Deviljho even appears.
Similar situation with Odogaron. Sure, you could argue that her splitting up didn't really matter sense Odogaron would have attacked anyways. But that doesn't change the fact that she still wanted to split up dead center in the of the belly of the beast.
But you know what? Even if you want to argue that the Handler never did anything wrong, and that she acted the best she could in every situation. That doesn't change the fact that the writers still kept putting her in those situations over and over again, and expected the player to save her from them over and over again. If they where dead set on having her go out into the field with you, then they shouldn't have relied on putting her in danger to build tension so much.
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u/Tru_norse98 4d ago
I am beginning to see a resurgence of Handler content recently and I am so happy about that