Other M does NOT make Samus weak

 WARNING, DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T BEATEN OTHER M (100%) OR DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED!

It only made her human, and that's good. Please read this, I think I can make you see why.

Let's take a look at the whole game. 

At the beggining, Samus grieves the Baby Metroid's death, because it protected her. Wouldn't you be sad if something that saved your life was brutally killed? 

Then time passes, and she gets over it. Then she intercepts the distress signal--Baby's Cry--. She says it's a common signal, and it reminds her of the infant Metroid.

So she arrives at the Bottle Ship, and finds the the 07th Platoon. Adam doesn't treat her well, because she left the GF. Because he was his only father figure, it's only obvious that she would feel hurt by this. After that he accepts her, which makes her happy. So she decides to follow his orders, to make up for how rebellious she was in her youth.

The next time we see Samus being "weak" is in the battle against this newly-created Ridley. I'm going to talk extensively about this one, because people criticize the game a lot for this without knowing the context. Here's why she's so scared: as the Metroid manga confirms, Samus has PTSD because of how Ridley brutally murdered both her parents in front of her as a child. He also told her he was still alive because he fed on her parents' corpses to regenerate. If that's not traumatic enough for you, nothing is. 

Real-life soldiers can also suffer from PTSD because of traumatic events they went through at war. Some can even enter shock during battle, like Samus did. Others break into crying spontaneously after returning home from war. Just Google it and you'll see.

OK, so Samus had to face Ridley a few times before (Manga, Metroid, Primes 1-3 and Super) and that's why people think she would have gotten over it before. Let's examine the events.

First we have to eleminate the first Metroid and Super, because Samus didn't show emotion there (Not that she showed much in the Primes either, but meh).

In all Prime games, she had a shocked look every time she saw Ridley. Maybe the fear wasn't shown because they weren't made by the series' original creators. 

On the other hand, her PTSD showed up when she saw him in the manga.

Back to Other M, she had just killed Ridley and blown up Zebes before the game began. She obviously thought she would never see him again, and then he shows up out of nowhere. She breathes heavily, and stands there, shocked, as she remembers her traumatizing childhood. Ridley attacks her, then Anthony distracts him, but is thrown off. Samus finally snaps out of it and battles Ridley like always.

She isn't this scared with any other boss in the game, which shows she's stil badass, but seeing Ridley always brings back terrible memories.

Let's keep moving on. There's the scene where Adam refuses to rescue his own brother, Ian. I believe Samus was affected there because she had a good relationship with Ian.

As the game progresses, there's a scene in which she sees another Baby Metroid. It reminds her of THE baby at first, but then she tries to kill it, which proves she's really gotten over it. 

Then Adam dies. It is so obvious why she's so emotional here, that I shouldn't explain, but will. Adam was Samus's only father figure, the only person who truly understood her and why she acted that way in the Federation. Have you lost a person very close to you? I have, the feeling is indescribable. In Samus's words "The finality of it struck me once again". Samus is not portrayed as weak in this game. Her reaction to Adam's death actually portrays her as a strong woman who does have feelings, but casts them aside to finish the mission.

Then at the end, Samus swears not to grieve Adam's death, and gives a symbolic thumbs up. This represent how she's changed after the events of the game. 

Before the Bottle Ship is destroyed, she goes back only to retrieve Adam's helmet. This is, again, not a sign of submission or weakness. It says how much she loved and respected him, risking her life to obtain this memento of him. 

I do not understand why people think this new character for Samus "ruins her" or makes her a "whiny, weak woman". I like Samus as a character a lot more than I did before playing Other M. This game showed us how she is a person, and not a mindless shooting robot. I even identified with her a bit when Adam died. My grandfather, my father figure (my parents divorced before I even remember) was murdered when he was alone in his country house. When Samus hugged Adam's helmet, it reminded me of how I, crying, hugged his clothes weeks after he passed away. I cried a bit seeing Samus, too.

Sure, the story may not have always been handled well, the dialogue was too cheesy at times, they might have let the whole Deleter thing unexplained, and it was anti-climatic sometimes; but this game sure was better than the other Metroid games. Super Metroid was superb, so was Prime. But did they have the depth, the emotion this game had? Absolutely not. I really hope this is how Nintendo handles the series from now on. "Fans" cry for "isolation" and "background storytelling". This game does have isolation, and the whole extra mission is pure old Metroid, but it was meant to tell a story that couldn't have been told in any other way. Samus came out of it as a stronger character, not a weaker one.

I'd rather be a person than a mindless robot, and that's what Samus is now.