There’s some things I’ve seen online about Gears 5 that somewhat confuse me. It’s mostly in regards to the writing for the characters. And as you can imagine, the complaining is mostly about Kait from a demographic of what I'm assuming is gamer-chad’s still obsessed with the way the franchise was in 2006.
It felt like people didn't pay real attention to the meaning or the nuances of the game. Not everything is going to be said outright. I rarely see anyone say different and since I've recently replayed the fifth game some stuff has been on my mind.
A few of the things I reference comes from the Gears novels. I'll try and point it out as I go. I'll break it up into “chapters” of each weird opinion I've seen and my thoughts on it.
Disclaimer: Strap in, I wrote this ✨caffeinated✨
First Thing: "The new group is annoying"
The whole point of Gears 4 is that Kait, JD, and Del grew up in a time of peace, not war. They don’t know what it's like to see the news about people dying or the loss of another city or live in constant fear of monsters killing them. Aside from Kait, JD and Del only saw the progress and peace that people fought hard for and were enjoying. All they would have is stories from the survivors.
Marcus grew up at the end of the Pendulum Wars and through the Locust invasion. And we start off his storyline with him in his thirties, well into the conflict with the Locust. He’s hardened and tough. Whereas the new Gears got to see a world that was stable and safe. JD and Del grew up in an almost utopia. After Anya dies, JD grows up with a hard relationship with Marcus and that seems to drive both his resentment and his desire to be seen and respected by Marcus. Where Marcus just sees someone making the exact same mistakes he did. I don't think he’d have gone the path he did if it weren't for growing up in war time, and he deeply resents the new COG because it's not rooted in anything meaningful. He doesn't want JD to willingly make the choice to be a soldier.
I don't know how many people played the Hivebusters. But Cole’s daughter Hana was raised almost opposite. Cole wanted her to have nothing to do with the military and interfered heavily that she’d go another path. Even Baird and Sam were ready to hang up the armor (in the book they live quite lavishly). The world is different! The perspective these new characters will have will be different. You're going to see in real time how overnight they are forced to adapt and I think they do it quite well.
Kait, even though the Outsiders are reliant on survival skills, still has a peaceful life, and rounds out the other two with her perspective of growing up without the luxuries of a city or protective walls.
I'm excited for E-day because now we're going to see a version of Marcus and Dom before they were these grizzled badasses that we started off with in 2006. They're young, probably the same age that the new cast is in Gears 4 and going to make mistakes. And people are probably going to complain for those exact reasons.
Second Thing: Kait is ‘whiny’, ‘bitchy’, ‘selfish’, or ‘aggressive’
This is probably the most common rant I've seen. And I think people are missing some key things about her in gears 5.
Her. ENTIRE. village. dies! Everyone she’s ever known or grown up with or cared for is gone in a matter of hours. It's not something we really see aside from her relationship with her mother, or her hugging the kid in the 4, or the books with Mackenzie and Eli, but this is the extent of her world up until five: her village in the mountains. And it's heavily implied she had deep love for her home and people. Her community is literally murdered in one night. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
She's forced to mercy-kill her mother. Spends the last 24 hours fighting through hordes of monsters only to find it was too late. (And she also thinks her uncle is dead at this point. )
Her home was completely destroyed and unsafe to return to. So she's somewhat forced to join the COG, an organization she's spent her life despising.
This is more minor, but when she decides to go find the twins and her uncle in the book, Oscar is a dick to her about choosing to join the COG. He says something along the lines of “what would your mother think of you?” and it was pretty fucked up.
Also minor but in one of the books she finds out about her fathers involvement with Ukkon in the war and suspects that her memory might have been tampered with on behalf of her parents because of it. Not an outright thing to add to the list but it weirded me out.
(Beginning of Gears 5. I think its one month or so after the end of 4 )
Starts getting near debilitating headaches constantly.
Very horrific nightmares every time she sleeps, to the point where admits to Marcus she’s getting minutes of sleep at night. (this is before the time skip to Riftworm too)
Finds out JD lies to everyone about Settlement 2 and then he almost dies and is put into a coma. In the book, Kait spends a lot of time in the hospital with him waiting for him to wake up. Just sitting there for hours, but when he eventually wakes up, he’s different and she ends up almost crying and leaving. (This is about a month into the time skip and the beginning of his really big rift with everyone) It’s also implied she relies a lot on him (and Del too) for comfort and I guess stability after everything and him pushing her and Del away probably really took away a part of her support with everything else.
To go back to the nightmares. In an attempt to avoid sleeping she pushes her body to the max. Sparring, training, running endlessly until she’s too exhausted and is forced to sleep. But even when she tries she’s unable to actually rest. This leads into her hallucinating constantly and by the time we get to Riftworm and her connection to the Hivemind deepens the hallucinations are fueled by dark, often scary visions. They don't touch on the health ramifications of this but I imagine she's pretty messed up after five months of it.
Forced to kill Oscar. An action she ultimately takes responsibility for. And now she’s completely lost all of her family.
Granddaughter of Queen Myrrah (need I say more?)
Pretty much manipulated through the link by Myrrah to find Kadar and connect with Niles and the matriarch, a process that should have allowed her assume control of Kait's body.
Dead mother reanimated by her psycho grandmother. That would haunt me for life.
Okay. A lot of people think Kait is bitchy and whiny and out of line in Gears 5. That it makes no sense for her to lead delta. When has Delta new or old ever done anything by the norm? Of the new group Kait is the most levelheaded and patient. She rarely gets defensive unless it defends her stance on something (like her argument with Marcus in 4 about saving her mom) and only puts people in their place when they need it. Like her comment to Fahz in Act 1 or Act 2 with JD.
Moving on, I think a lot of it is directed to her response to JD in Riftworm when they're trying to move the residents of Riftworm to the security of the cities.
I dont know about ya’ll, but if i get even slightly crappy sleep for a day or two I'm a different kind of person. I'm ruder, a bit more clipped. But if I'd been going through all of that ⬆️ for months and just killed someone I loved, I'd FLIP TF OUT. But Kait doesn’t, yeah she gets mad, but I don’t feel at any point Kait is ‘bitchy’ or ‘bratty’ or ‘whiny’. (I see similar shit said about Ellie from TLOU and I think it's pretty evident people don't pay attention to the character at all.)
Despite everything she’s gone through. If anything, she’s got a reason to be that way. Of the Gears characters there are very few that have had to go through more shit than she did, but with the luxury of having it be spaced out over years or decades. Kait went through it in months and she’s the only character that had it amplified by hallucinations and visions. It's why Marcus has a guiding hand for Kait, because he understands the enormous scale of what she's going through. He’s lived through it himself. She has a strong rapport and trust with him because of it, and it's more shown in the books and Gears 4.
And her defiance of orders isn't because of some gimmicky "I need to know who I am” (which I think the line delivery could have been better written so surface level gamers could actually understand a bit more) but rather that she knows she needs to stop whatever the hell is going on because the moment she killed Oscar it became a lot more than just headaches and hallucinations. And it makes her dangerous and a liability. And only makes the choice to defy JD when MARCUS tells her to go to Kadar.
I think that for someone who has gone through ALL of the above things, her response to JD was actually pretty tame. She gets mad at JD, because she’s just murdered her own uncle and now understands her hallucinations are very, very real visions and she's connected to the Swarm. That’s a lot to deal with. And JD, her best friend, and someone that would’ve supported her before, essentially tells her to deal with it on the trip home–which is not something I fault JD for, they were in a tight spot with the Swarm attack. But I think Kait was very panicked about the state of her mind and her agency at the moment (she was forced to kill Oscar), and it doesn't help that Marcus confirms to her face that he sort of knew what was up since the jump.
Her anger seems to be more because of JD. I think any other character she wouldn't have been angry with, but the relationship between him Del and Kait kinda hits its bottom here. And she’s just frustrated he’s treating the situation the way he did.
Third thing: ‘Kait kept her own secret’
JD knew the scale of what he did and lied and hid it for months. Whereas Kait had no idea what her headaches and lack of sleep were about, and figured it to probably be a trauma response right up until she is controlled by Myrrah.
I don't know if people understand that moment in the game is when Kait realizes that something horrible is actually happening to her. Just because we’ve ‘known’ she’s Myrrah’s granddaughter since the end of Gears 4, doesn't mean that she knew. She didn't have anything to piece together about the headaches or hallucinations. Which is why her defying orders was supposed to be the right call, because she's just realized she's connected to the Swarm. And it’s a ticking clock until she loses complete control.
So I have a ‘???” moment when I see the complaints for Gears 5 are condensed into Kait hate, probably by people who still really want the games to be played by Marcus or don't have any level of deeper understanding of the game based on lack of critical thinking. Maybe both.
I mean, Baird complains constantly and we love him. Marcus defies orders and does his own thing and no one cares, he's Marcus. JD is cold and rude to the people he cares about and people thought it made him ‘interesting’. FAHZ IS LITERALLY ALL. THE. THINGS. PEOPLE SAY KAIT IS AND PEOPLE LOVE HIM FOR IT. Most people that complain about her don't take the time to actually understand anything they see in the game, or what was being implied.
Fourth Thing: She's not the traditional sexualized video game woman
I think a part of the Kait stuff is probably the way she looks. I think Sam and Anya come from an era of gaming where there was more of a defined norm that was accepted for female characters. Example: skin tight clothes, no muscle and a defined rack and ass. Though they're still kickass and tough characters they had a very different look from the male gears in the game.
Kait is still gorgeous, but she's got an nontraditional hair style that fits her cultural upbringing as an Outsider (something the game never really explained but is explained in the books) and not some edgy thing it's been assumed to be. I do understand that her hair is kinda down and I don't claim to understand the physics of her bangs, but comparatively Anya and Sam had their hair completely down in the older games.
She's also in actual frickin’ fatigues like the dudes are in the game whereas Sam and Anya were in some tight leather looking pants. The only clothes that are skin-tight are Jinn's dress and some of the capital women's clothing in Gears 5. But overall the styling for 5 made sense.
Kait is also shredded. In the books she’s working out a lot and constantly active and it is reflected in her design. Same with Lani and Hana from Hivebusters, the newer female characters designs look like they could actually truck the fuck outta someone. And I can't imagine how strong her core is to pilot that skiff.
Fifth thing: Assumption that Kait, Del, and Baird HATE JD for what happened.
A lot of people take the dialogue between Kait and Del in Act 2 about JD really far. And there's this immediate assumption they hate him, specifically because he was responsible for ordering bots to kill civilians. But from my understanding they were more pissed that JD kept it a secret and lied to them.
ESPECIALLY Del. Who grew up with JD and saw him as a brother. And when Del wanted to leave the COG because of Settlement 2 JD agreed knowing he was part of the cause for Del’s shaken faith in the COG. And now, JD wakes up from a coma and starts getting tight with Fahz, someone who constantly tormented him and Del back in their time before going AWOL, and someone they both actually hated. And Kait defended JD multiple times from Oscar in the first game about their involvement in the massacre.
Most of their dialogue about JD in Act 2 is them wondering if JD will ever go back to being himself , and wondering if returning to the COG and getting constantly reminded of Anya and Marcus’s legacies really pushed him down the road he was on. Del getting mad that his best friend was ‘palling around with Fahz’ and I think is the only time this Act 2 that he got pissed off.
In Act 3 when JD shows up I don’t think Del or Kait were in the wrong for being defensive and angry with him being there. The last time they saw him was Riftworm and they were expecting to get shut down with relaunching the HOD, something they needed and knew JD probably wouldn't hear them out on. Kait's angry with him, but the second JD announces he wants to help and acknowledges the shit he's put them through she visibly calms down. Del too.
It's Del who is more fired up afterwards, and I think people say they were too harsh to JD even though he wanted to help. But JD really messed up his friendships with them and made himself hard to rely on, so naturally Del and Kait aren't going to immediately sweep it under the rug.
It's not until Fahz admits that Kait and Del bring out the best in JD that they begin to accept it. Del definitely is more angry (rightfully so) and after pushing it, even Kait sort of gets on to Del about it. But I'm glad they included that friction, it shouldn't be a completely seamless thing. And I think once they saw the real JD that they know they collectively moved forward. It's not perfect, but they definitely don't hate him. If they did, I'm sure they would've sent him right back to New Ephyra. They just wanted their friend back.
I also don't think Baird hates JD. Like, at all. They have a trickier time reconciling because Baird and JD share responsibility for using the Hammer of Dawn on Settlement 2. Lizzie dies and JD, Baird's nephew is put into a coma as a repercussion. I think Baird really blamed himself for what happened, that he listened to JD and it resulted in a weapon on that scale going out of his control.
And JD blames himself because he knows that his decision backed Baird into a corner and nearly cost him his life, and it did for Lizzie's. And there's this added layer of what would have happened if they hadn’t, since the city was overrun with Brumaks and Swarm. It was the best decision, but still a shitty one. JD also went crazy COG afterwards, something that Baird doesn't stand for, so their attempts at reconciling were strained and awkward. But never hate-fueled.
Sixth Thing: The Hivemind connection
A big thing people didn't realize is that Myrrah is actively haunting Kait through the bond in an attempt to drive her to Kadar to use her body. The Swarm had Reyna's body, but it was decaying and weak and Myrrah needed a healthy, alive one. Since the Matriarch never died and the Swarm came back, Myrrah essentially ‘wakes up’ but she's without a vessel.
When Kait is abducted by the Snatcher in Gears 5, Myrrah forces her to control them and ultimately kill Oscar, finally revealing to Kait that it's more than ‘seeing things’ and begins this crazy manipulation by Myrrah to get Kait to Kadar. We all know Niles had a fascination with Myrrah and the Locust and so his intentions to connect Kait are never to help. He knew that when Kait linked into the Hivemind, getting a one-on-one connection to Myrrah would be able to give Myrrah a vessel.
The scene of Kait and the Matriarch circling each other isn't just her seeing the ‘monster’, that's Myrrah. And when she grabs Kait in the link and Kait begins to scream in pain it's because it's an attempt by Myrrah to take over. Del unplugs the machine before anything too damaging can happen but Kait manages to force her grandmother into the semi-preserved body of Reyna, which ultimately gives the Swarm their Queen. Once they kill the Matriarch Kait is free of her visions and from Myrrah/Queen Reyna. This is something I wish got expressed more in dialogue, because it took me a second to realize myself.
–Reyna also had slowed aging like Myrrah and was in her seventies/ eighties when she died in Gears 4.
I'm sure I can find more to talk about. But overall Gears 5 was a solid game, and the characters were great. I do agree some parts of the game could’ve had a tad cleaner writing (wtf was the choice 😭) or most namely: a better balance with JD's character. I definitely agree that a DLC of him during his time as ‘Dark JD’ would've been really great and would've probably given more insight to people about why Kait and Del were upset with him.
I just don't agree with the surface level pulls people take from the game. I've loved Gears since forever and though the new trilogy is different, it's meant to tell a different story apart from Marcus and the old Delta. So thank you if you read all of this! It was a lot.
