Overwatch x Reader

Let's Talk About McCree's Name

Sup my dudes. Welcome to me talking about McCree again lol.

Anyways McCree is in a controversy and it isn't about his sexuality- it's about his name. For those who don't know, McCree was named after one of the developers at Blizzard because they couldn't come up with a name that sounded cowboy enough. And now the real life Jesse McCree got fired from Blizzard and was mentioned by name in a Activision Blizzard lawsuit involving sexual harassment and discrimination. Now the in-game McCree is being called 'the cowboy' by a few casters for the Overwatch League just because they don't want to associate the character with the person he was named after. Because of that, people want McCree's name to change or for the character to be killed off and replaced in Overwatch Two.

Before you jump into this, I'm gonna give a brief summary of the lawsuit and what the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing are suing Activision Blizzard against. 1.) sexual harassment done against female workers , 2.) not paying women fairly (including women of color), or giving them promotions and would rather give them to unqualified men, and 3.) the male workers coming to work hungover + playing videogames the rest of the day while pushing the responsibility of their jobs on the female workers. The sexual harassment part is not something I will go over in detail because that stuff can really be triggering for other people and I was so surprised about it my mouth dropped while reading an article about it. If you want to know more, look into it on your own time or read the one I read. 

Here's the article I read: 

https://www.dexerto.com/business/activision-blizzard-sued-california-pervasive-frat-boy-culture-1616462/

So let's go through the motions:

McCree's character is integral to the story of Overwatch because he's apart of the Overwatch/Blackwatch members from the beginning. He's the one guy that's close with Reyes during Blackwatch to the point where he was able to identify the way Talon agents were approaching their mission in Train Hopper (the comic). So having him around in Overwatch Two would be beneficial for revealing Reaper as Reyes to the majority of the Overwatch agents (because he's already suspicious) and also just for predicting battle tactics Talon might have against them. If McCree wasn't important, he wouldn't be part of the main story in the first and second game; so he can't be removed. If he was killed off, it wouldn't feel earned but rushed for the sake of appeasing the fanbase- and I don't think all of us want McCree dead because of who he was named after. From what we know, McCree has just been a bounty hunter that was trying to right his wrongs and then somehow got to Canada in time to join the Overwatch Two team. Killing him off wouldn't be righting a wrong, it would just kill off a compelling character that can help push the plot a bit. 

And then we got the other option: changing McCree's name. That option is probably a good fit for his character if I'm honest. He seems like a character that keeps to himself so I wouldn't be surprised if Jesse McCree isn't his real name. A voice interaction between Sombra and McCree indicates that Jesse McCree is not his real name. He says his name is not Joel, which a reference to an in-universe blog article written by Joel Morricone about a stranger saving a ramen shop from being robbed and saying that it's ok because of the high crime rate- so it's obviously McCree just patting himself on the back for his vigilante work. It was really just a cover name he used to voice his opinions online, and it would be weird to call a cowboy Joel Morricone when Morricone makes me think of ice cream cone. The whole interaction has two routes: one being that McCree is still his real name but he just goes by a different person online or McCree isn't his real name at all and his name is not Joel either.

 There's a better idea I see getting pushed on twitter by renaming McCree to Joel Mercer- Mercer being a nod to his voice actor Matt Mercer. It do got a ring to it, I'll give them that, but what if Mercer does something the internet hates and Blizzard has to change McCree's name again? I doubt Matt would do something wrong because it's not really in his nature from what I've seen, but you never know for sure. Anyways, renaming McCree is one giant recon. It's like Soldier:76 turning out to be gay out of nowhere.  I think what would make it semi-better if he had an actual codename for Overwatch Two. Genji is getting teased to having the possible codename Sparrow in voice interactions so might as well give McCree one since he's part of the Overwatch Two Team. It fits his character because in the Deadlock Rebels book, he was pushing Ashe to name their gang and helped her name the gang Deadlock Rebels. So he's capable of being creative. 

Overall Conclusion: 

I think this weird situation really brings to question whether or not we should punish the character for the developer's actions. Because what the real Jesse McCree did was bad and it should never be excused. However, the in-game McCree's central character is about changing to become a better person. He went from being a careless gang member to a cowboy that wants to make up for the people's he's hurt by helping others. If we get rid of McCree, we are punishing him for something he wasn't involved in. If we rename McCree, it's another retcon to add to Overwatch's list of retcons. What I do agree with is that we need to stop associating the in-game McCree with the real life McCree, but it has to be done in a way that fits the story and McCree's character. 

What we can learn from this:

Maybe when naming characters after people, we should stick to dead people because at least dead people don't continue to be shitty people once they're dead. 

So for funzies let's come up with names for McCree:

Joel McForester (it keeps the initials, the Joel element, and the Mc for McDonald's) (also idk if I made that up or if it's real because it feels vaguely familiar)

Ronald McDonald (to keep the memes alive)

Jessica (because you can say that Jessica was McCree's full name and that Jesse was a nickname)

John Morgan (combination of John Marston and Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption one and two because they're cowboys)

 Jerimiah Craus ( I'm not for it because his nickname would be Jeremy and it either makes me think of Phineas and Ferb or iCarly)

  Mike Creed (kinda sounds like McCree with an accent and if Blizzard did name him this, I would laugh. This is worst way of renaming a character lol)

It's hard to think of names for cowboys that are similar to Jesse McCree so if you got any ideas don't be afraid to comment them. And what do you think Blizzard should do about this? Should they leave McCree's name alone or should they change his name? Or should McCree die and never respawn? 

Here's some of the sources I used but instead I'm just gonna just say them because Wattpad won't let me copy and paste urls.

I used the overwatch wiki to find Joel Morricone and then proceeded to use google images to find the picture of the made-up article written by Joel. They never said explicitly in the article that McCree saved a ramen shop, but the overwatch wiki thing on McCree says it was. 

Ok bye bye