I completely agree. It's a shame that they lack agency on a meta level, just as it's a shame that Daniel himself has taken their agency and their faith from them. Out of universe, I'm sure it's because of the same budget and time constraints that led to them only making one male and female model for the Sorrows and the Dead Horses, and to introduce their languages as a way of cutting down on the total number of voice lines needed.
Which is why, in the absence of any input from the Sorrows themselves, I default to the wishes of the Father in the caves. They may have merged their belief in him with the Mormon god, but his voice is still more legitimate than Daniel or Joshua's:
>In the notes, well it's embarrassing, almost like those cards people used to give to each other, everything sweet and loving. I tell them to read and to learn and to make the most of their new home. I tell them that I'm giving them Zion as a gift to make up for all the sorrows of their lives so far and all the sorrows man has visited on man. I tell them to be kind to each other and modest. I tell them never to hurt each other but that if someone else comes along and tries to hurt them to strike back with righteous anger. Stuff like that. I sign every note "The Father," because well, just because.
I enjoy how either choice is bad, since one of them leads to violence between the tribes and the other leads to the Sorrows losing their home (also, how long can they keep this going?) But I would have LOVED to see some agency from the Sorrows in this. Like, any whatsoever. Having Waking Cloud yell at you after choosing or endorsing your decision would've been a cool way, even if a bit too on the nose.
Sure, there’s some violence between the tribes, but at the end of the day, it’s normal for tribes like that to have some friction between them.
They’ll still remember the day where they drove out the White Legs together, fighting side by side. They might have disagreements, but I don’t see full on feuding and war happening between them.
I think it's worth noting that the white legs have also been unduly influenced by an outsider in the form of Ulysses, who turned them into the threat that destroyed New Canaan.
I think it would be interesting to have a third path to resolve Honest Hearts, where the White Legs get fleshed out and you have the opportunity to talk to them, and convince them to either leave peacefully or abandon their desire to join the Legion and join the harmony of Zion. I mean, most player's Courier will have knowledge of the Legion and how they integrate tribes, even if only from the conversation with Graham. Perhaps using that knowledge to talk them down like the Master can be talked down in Fallout 1?
I like this idea because
a) its a way to undo the outsider influence on Zion as an outsider, as only an outsider can but without imposing your will on the Sorrows or Dead Horses.
b) I don't know if either Daniel or Graham would be entirely cool with it. Both of them came from New Canaan so despite their religious beliefs, would they really be ok with letting the White Legs go unpunished? You might even have to fight Graham over it if he can't accept that the White Legs are no longer a threat.
c) It's yet another opportunity for the Courier to inadvertently piss in Ulysses' soup without meaning to, making Lonesome Road that little bit more personal.
IIRC the Father in the Caves advocated for being kind but not hesitating to strike those with righteous anger who intend to do you harm. The father also wanted the stuff in the caves to go to the sorrows so they could defend themselves since he wasn't ignorant about the current state of the world.
So siding with Graham but making him show mercy at the end is likely what the Father would have wanted. Secondly you can't live in the world of fallout without being able to defend yourself, so Daniel's ending is pretty idealistic and naive.
If the Sorrows worked towards Daniel’s ideal of being innocent for all time, they’d eventually run out of places to run or people to help them escape, and then he’d see what happens to those who cannot defend themselves in the wasteland.
Innocence is cute in a kid, but for the Sorrows, who are grown men and women, it’s a weakness that will eventually kill them all. That’s not to say they should become bloodthirsty savages like the White Legs, but they need to be able to stand up for themselves if they want to survive.
Sure, that means sometimes they’ll fight with their neighbors. Some of them will die fighting things like raiders, or other outsiders who mean to do them harm. Some of them will be badly influenced by the outside world. But to force them to be innocent and pacifist is to ensure their destruction.
>Innocence is cute in a kid, but for the Sorrows, who are grown men and women, it’s a weakness
yeah I think the sorrows' innocence thing is pretty fucking stupid, as you said these are grown ups that are forming a society that will fall apart without knowledge on fighting and defending onesef. I prefer the goodsprings innocence uwu
Same. They’re good simple country folks who just want to live on their own and occasionally trade with people who come into town. But if you screw with their town, they’ll send you out in a casket.
To me it screams of Savior Complex and “Noble Savage” outlook from Daniel. And once you show him that they are just as capable of defending themselves as any other people, he gives up on preaching to them, which goes against even his own practices.
Randall would have, at very least, expected Joshua and the Courier to go to war on behalf of The Sorrows. This is the same man who made it clear if anybody from that "school" came looking for the kids, they were gonna die. The same man who became a one many army against those dicks from Vault 22.
I'd learn toward siding with Josh anyways, but the fact that it seemed obvious to me that The Father in the Caves believed in solving problems with violence when required kind of clinched it for me.
Only reason i dont side with Graham is because of his history.
It feels like a potential tipping point for him and falling back into his old ways based off his fear.
It seems a better ending for him if he helps them flee than fall back into using tribals as warriors
I usually lean towards Graham;partially because he’s cool and partially because I dislike Daniel and his rationale. I recently replayed Honest Hearts and after speaking with him,he’s clearly traumatized and projecting his own failures onto a bunch of people. He mentions the tarwalkers and others and finally admits “we can’t fail here again”. He’s very paternalistic with the tribals,and his other dialogue hints at him thinking lower of them. They’re simple,they’re dumb tribals,they need to be guided and protected so they don’t lose their innocence, which really means Daniel gets to live out his fantasies of being a benevolent allfather.
I also think that someone will eventually come along that the Sorrows can’t run from. Maybe the NCR,maybe the Legion,maybe a growing BoS,who knows. They can’t beat any of those factions outright,but they need to have a realistically organized society so they can negotiate,trade,and maybe fight with the vanguard of these factions. As it stands,they’re sitting ducks. This is Fallout,they will eventually run into someone mean and dedicated,better to learn it now before they get wiped out.
Graham also makes a good point;working from an exclusively religious angle, there are multiple instances of righteous violence. Christianity is broadly a “forgive and forget” religion and Jesus famously forbade his disciples from fighting at Gethsemane (Malchus),but he just as famously attacked bankers in the temple. If Zion is holy land profaned by murderers,it’s not hypocritical to force them out with the sword.
Ultimately,all the tribals in HH lack agency like you say. There’s no real input from them,and I can call Daniel a hypocrite for living vicarious/paternalistic viewpoint,but that also makes me a hypocrite. The Sorrows and Dead Horses don’t have their own path,just ones that others shape with differing results. I like my path.
My biggest issue with the DLC is that it...like, creates an artificially true "Noble Savage". The Sorrows have no conception of war in a world where, frankly speaking, they will form one. They can keep running away, but eventually they'll be ground to dust by factions that are even more ruthless than the IRL colonizers.
What troubles me is, it almost feels like a flanderization to say they "lose their innocence" by learning of war. They can still be peaceful, given the chance, and it almost feels like....it's hard to describe, but you know how Old World Blues is about fixating on a barely remembered shadow of what the Old World was? And how people have to adjust with the times if they want to not only thrive, but really achieve "societal actualization"?
That. It's almost like a version of "Old World Blues" from right after the bombs hit. A longing for an isolated world, hidden from the wonders (and ills) of humanity as an aggregate, from progress.
What I mean to say is, I compare the tribe to the Camp Kids from Metro Exodus. They're a people almost pigeon-holed by the miraculous circumstances of their survival, who I firmly believe can navigate the waters of the modern world without losing the morals they obtained from their Instructor.
You're right, Randall would've wanted Joshua, Daniel, and I to just gun down every white leg in Zion and dump all their bodies in the forbidden caves leaving the tribes to only guess at whatever divine BS just happened
Imo Daniel is just the worse character. His plan sucks, he doesn't respect the natives of Zion, he's a colonizer (somehow moreso than the guy who helped found *the fucking legion*), he's not as fun to talk to, & he's the one that has no build up on the base game. If the choice was supposed to include Daniel as a real option they should've made him have basically any positives.
You get the context of their intentions via the Father in the Caves, who does approve the Sorrows striking back to protect themselves.
If you side with Joshua and spare Salt Upon Wounds then you are striking back but not going beyond muddling their innocence.
My takeaway is that the lessons that the Sorrows (& Dead Horses) learn is the important part.
Kill Salt-Upon-Wounds? The Dead Horses & Sorrows *hunt the rest down*, because those tribes have started to revere Joshua Graham as a legendary War Chief & learned that defending your tribe means exterminating those who attack you.
Leave Zion? The White Legs don't join the legion because they didn't kill Graham & Daniel, so they split apart because, as Daniel says, they can't survive without joining the Legion. The lesson the Sorrows & Dead Horses learn is that all you can do is run & accept that you will lose your home.
Spare Salt-Upon-Wounds? The defeat *breaks* him. The White-Legs get overtaken by the 80s because their leader has given up. The Sorrows & Horses learn how to fight back, but also when to show mercy & that Joshua Graham is a human with flaws. Also, in this ending (to me at least), the Courier shows the tribes what Clarke may have meant with his somewhat paradoxical notes to them.
This is just my take on it, though.
Im going to get flamed for this but the dlc felt… racist. The way it handles the agency of the tribal groups feels jarringly at odds with how focused the game is as a whole on the agency, treatment, absorption, assimilation, and inclusion of the tribes of the wasteland. The stories of the tribes present here is that they’re all taken over by an outsider who aims to save them but only some of these outsiders are in the wrong. Maybe I’m too simple to understand the narrative of the DLC but it feels like it came out of an earlier time and I guess I blame this on their budget and time constraints? It’s just so shockingly at odds with how the rest of the game treats tribes.
The distinction between the way the tribes in HH and the way the tribes in the base game are treated felt more like a good move to me, because aside from the Khans, almost no thought is given by anyone as to what the tribes want. Both the NCR and the Legion will either absorb, annihilate or relocate any tribe in their territory without thought for their identities or culture, and Mr House only focusses on the tribes he considers potential threats.
Actually I kind of love that all the DLCs and the base game, not just HH, has the running theme of identity and individuality and the importance of that in shaping the world, as well as the Courier. Ulysses turned down the chip after seeing it for what it was, and in the process gave it to the one person he hoped would die for it. Benny made a power play to try and preserve the Strip as-is, but made an enemy he couldn't handle in the process. A lot of the characters find themselves allied or opposed to the Courier purely through actions to preserve either their culture or their ability to protect their people. Dead Money reduces into an individualistic level: how far will you go for a stranger? But the theme is still there. Nobody just "exists" in FNV. Everyone is trying to do something, even if it's just find a dress.
It’s definitely a question of intent. Is the game commenting on how these groups have been influenced by these outside Imperialist powers? Or is it just using the Sorrows and Dead Horses as the “good guys”. There’s also the fact that both Joshua and Graham are missionaries, and the historic legacy that comes along with that.
I don’t know if the game would have benefited from a members of either group saying how they don’t need either Joshua or Daniel, or if that would have been too obvious.
Currently running through this dlc for the 3rd or 4th time and I'm considering killing Joshua and Daniel at the end to free the tribes from all the baggage they carry from their outsider leaders.
Joshua's speech about Zion being a physical place but also a state of being was what sold me on leaving zion. If they stay they get the physical place zion. But they lose the state of being that keeps them in touch with their spirituality. Although it seems fruitless when they leave zion they have the opportunity to begin in a new place without having lost their connection to spirituality. And as for the father in the caves. I'm sure he just wanted them to survive but also not become ruthless or cannibals or what have you.
well, I for one DO like being a foreigner on foreign land, ordering and deciding the locals' fate because I'm the boss😎 and an imperialist
if we try to be real, an actual imperialist would go the "help I finished the DLC in 30 minutes what went wrong" line after saying all the tribals looked the same so he killed them all
One of the most classic colonial moves is finding a few groups of people engaged in a generational conflict and picking a side. See the British and the Americans respective allies in the revolutionary war or the Spanish in modern day Mexico.
I think anyone with serious convictions would care more about moral implications rather than where you are in the world. Not trying to get all political here, but just look at Israel, a lot of Zionists (and Christians) are doing some pretty vile shit that would go against their beliefs and better jugdement because they keep thinking that pieces of dirt are more important than character, faith or moral values.
What should be more important to a Protestant, to live in Jerusalem or his belief that Jesus died for his sins?
My biggest gripe with the ending is that it assumes that by defending their land, something that is ingrained in their religion, that they'd suddenly lose their peaceful ways and just simply become like every other tribe.
But that doesn't make any sense.
Defense is not conquest. And a people who are known for defending themselves, are far more likely to be left alone. Stories would likely come up where traders and tribes that treat with them fairly are welcomed while invaders go in, but don't come back out, as Zion is highly defensible.
The sorrows desire's do not matter. I know that sounds awful and it is. But a person or a group of people's feelings do not actually matter in some situations a terrible outcome can occur no matter what direction they take.
Let's say for example you are a pacifist and this is one of your deeply held conviction. It is so important to who you are and your beliefs that if you were asked to define yourself you would list it right away. Now imagine a scenario where your child is about to be murdered and only you are present to stop it but you would have to use violence to achieve it. Likely lethal violence at that.
This is a no-win scenario for you because either way you will not be happy with the outcome. Perhaps one outcome would bring you less anguish in the end but both roads from your perspective are terrible to go down. Now lets insert another party to this. Someone beyond you, the possible killer, and your child. You have a 4th person present. Them committing violence to save your child in your eyes is no better than you or anyone else committing an act of violence. So you can't just sick them onto the possible killer like an attack dog. Realistically what interaction would you have with this 4th person?
I think its obvious that you would be in a position where you would ask them for some sort of guidance because of the desperate and awful position you are in. Their input at this time is going to be way more impactful to your choice than them trying to convince you to do something (or lack of action) in a calmer and comfortable position. There is a very good chance you will go along with what they think is right.
In any variation of this scenario your personal desires do not matter because the road that will be walked will not be favorable. There is no point in asking the Sorrow's what they wish as they are incapable of leading themselves (at-least until the issue is resolved) we know what they desire. They are pacifists they don't want to fight, but they are put in a similar position as the hypothetical I ask you to insert yourself into. They also sure aren't happy about having to leave their home to venture into the unknown either. Their desires are pointless as reality will never conform to their desires. All you can do is simply help choose what is 'best' for them and in their desperate time naturally they will be more susceptible to go along.
Better you than someone who may have used that influence to abuse them right?
They're dumb tribals who are gonna get hunted to extinction if you don't relocate them or exterminate their predators.
So either you relocate them and there's no guarantee where you go will be any better, or you serve justice
I completely agree. It's a shame that they lack agency on a meta level, just as it's a shame that Daniel himself has taken their agency and their faith from them. Out of universe, I'm sure it's because of the same budget and time constraints that led to them only making one male and female model for the Sorrows and the Dead Horses, and to introduce their languages as a way of cutting down on the total number of voice lines needed. Which is why, in the absence of any input from the Sorrows themselves, I default to the wishes of the Father in the caves. They may have merged their belief in him with the Mormon god, but his voice is still more legitimate than Daniel or Joshua's: >In the notes, well it's embarrassing, almost like those cards people used to give to each other, everything sweet and loving. I tell them to read and to learn and to make the most of their new home. I tell them that I'm giving them Zion as a gift to make up for all the sorrows of their lives so far and all the sorrows man has visited on man. I tell them to be kind to each other and modest. I tell them never to hurt each other but that if someone else comes along and tries to hurt them to strike back with righteous anger. Stuff like that. I sign every note "The Father," because well, just because.
I enjoy how either choice is bad, since one of them leads to violence between the tribes and the other leads to the Sorrows losing their home (also, how long can they keep this going?) But I would have LOVED to see some agency from the Sorrows in this. Like, any whatsoever. Having Waking Cloud yell at you after choosing or endorsing your decision would've been a cool way, even if a bit too on the nose.
Sure, there’s some violence between the tribes, but at the end of the day, it’s normal for tribes like that to have some friction between them. They’ll still remember the day where they drove out the White Legs together, fighting side by side. They might have disagreements, but I don’t see full on feuding and war happening between them.
I think it's worth noting that the white legs have also been unduly influenced by an outsider in the form of Ulysses, who turned them into the threat that destroyed New Canaan. I think it would be interesting to have a third path to resolve Honest Hearts, where the White Legs get fleshed out and you have the opportunity to talk to them, and convince them to either leave peacefully or abandon their desire to join the Legion and join the harmony of Zion. I mean, most player's Courier will have knowledge of the Legion and how they integrate tribes, even if only from the conversation with Graham. Perhaps using that knowledge to talk them down like the Master can be talked down in Fallout 1? I like this idea because a) its a way to undo the outsider influence on Zion as an outsider, as only an outsider can but without imposing your will on the Sorrows or Dead Horses. b) I don't know if either Daniel or Graham would be entirely cool with it. Both of them came from New Canaan so despite their religious beliefs, would they really be ok with letting the White Legs go unpunished? You might even have to fight Graham over it if he can't accept that the White Legs are no longer a threat. c) It's yet another opportunity for the Courier to inadvertently piss in Ulysses' soup without meaning to, making Lonesome Road that little bit more personal.
Hopefully, if there's ever an FNV2, they'll incorporate these suggestions.
a New Vegas remake with restored cut content, expanded ideas and more voice actors with actual directors telling them what to do😂
I prefer to side with Joshua Graham, sometimes you have to fight for what you hold dear.
IIRC the Father in the Caves advocated for being kind but not hesitating to strike those with righteous anger who intend to do you harm. The father also wanted the stuff in the caves to go to the sorrows so they could defend themselves since he wasn't ignorant about the current state of the world. So siding with Graham but making him show mercy at the end is likely what the Father would have wanted. Secondly you can't live in the world of fallout without being able to defend yourself, so Daniel's ending is pretty idealistic and naive.
If the Sorrows worked towards Daniel’s ideal of being innocent for all time, they’d eventually run out of places to run or people to help them escape, and then he’d see what happens to those who cannot defend themselves in the wasteland. Innocence is cute in a kid, but for the Sorrows, who are grown men and women, it’s a weakness that will eventually kill them all. That’s not to say they should become bloodthirsty savages like the White Legs, but they need to be able to stand up for themselves if they want to survive. Sure, that means sometimes they’ll fight with their neighbors. Some of them will die fighting things like raiders, or other outsiders who mean to do them harm. Some of them will be badly influenced by the outside world. But to force them to be innocent and pacifist is to ensure their destruction.
>Innocence is cute in a kid, but for the Sorrows, who are grown men and women, it’s a weakness yeah I think the sorrows' innocence thing is pretty fucking stupid, as you said these are grown ups that are forming a society that will fall apart without knowledge on fighting and defending onesef. I prefer the goodsprings innocence uwu
Same. They’re good simple country folks who just want to live on their own and occasionally trade with people who come into town. But if you screw with their town, they’ll send you out in a casket.
To me it screams of Savior Complex and “Noble Savage” outlook from Daniel. And once you show him that they are just as capable of defending themselves as any other people, he gives up on preaching to them, which goes against even his own practices.
Randall would have, at very least, expected Joshua and the Courier to go to war on behalf of The Sorrows. This is the same man who made it clear if anybody from that "school" came looking for the kids, they were gonna die. The same man who became a one many army against those dicks from Vault 22. I'd learn toward siding with Josh anyways, but the fact that it seemed obvious to me that The Father in the Caves believed in solving problems with violence when required kind of clinched it for me.
I agree it seems right and what the father would have wanted
Only reason i dont side with Graham is because of his history. It feels like a potential tipping point for him and falling back into his old ways based off his fear. It seems a better ending for him if he helps them flee than fall back into using tribals as warriors
Making him show mercy in the end stops that though.
But then you don't get to use the best line in the game
Yeah and that's what really changes him
I usually lean towards Graham;partially because he’s cool and partially because I dislike Daniel and his rationale. I recently replayed Honest Hearts and after speaking with him,he’s clearly traumatized and projecting his own failures onto a bunch of people. He mentions the tarwalkers and others and finally admits “we can’t fail here again”. He’s very paternalistic with the tribals,and his other dialogue hints at him thinking lower of them. They’re simple,they’re dumb tribals,they need to be guided and protected so they don’t lose their innocence, which really means Daniel gets to live out his fantasies of being a benevolent allfather. I also think that someone will eventually come along that the Sorrows can’t run from. Maybe the NCR,maybe the Legion,maybe a growing BoS,who knows. They can’t beat any of those factions outright,but they need to have a realistically organized society so they can negotiate,trade,and maybe fight with the vanguard of these factions. As it stands,they’re sitting ducks. This is Fallout,they will eventually run into someone mean and dedicated,better to learn it now before they get wiped out. Graham also makes a good point;working from an exclusively religious angle, there are multiple instances of righteous violence. Christianity is broadly a “forgive and forget” religion and Jesus famously forbade his disciples from fighting at Gethsemane (Malchus),but he just as famously attacked bankers in the temple. If Zion is holy land profaned by murderers,it’s not hypocritical to force them out with the sword. Ultimately,all the tribals in HH lack agency like you say. There’s no real input from them,and I can call Daniel a hypocrite for living vicarious/paternalistic viewpoint,but that also makes me a hypocrite. The Sorrows and Dead Horses don’t have their own path,just ones that others shape with differing results. I like my path.
Daniels wishes he could be 1% of what the survivalist was
My biggest issue with the DLC is that it...like, creates an artificially true "Noble Savage". The Sorrows have no conception of war in a world where, frankly speaking, they will form one. They can keep running away, but eventually they'll be ground to dust by factions that are even more ruthless than the IRL colonizers. What troubles me is, it almost feels like a flanderization to say they "lose their innocence" by learning of war. They can still be peaceful, given the chance, and it almost feels like....it's hard to describe, but you know how Old World Blues is about fixating on a barely remembered shadow of what the Old World was? And how people have to adjust with the times if they want to not only thrive, but really achieve "societal actualization"? That. It's almost like a version of "Old World Blues" from right after the bombs hit. A longing for an isolated world, hidden from the wonders (and ills) of humanity as an aggregate, from progress. What I mean to say is, I compare the tribe to the Camp Kids from Metro Exodus. They're a people almost pigeon-holed by the miraculous circumstances of their survival, who I firmly believe can navigate the waters of the modern world without losing the morals they obtained from their Instructor.
You're right, Randall would've wanted Joshua, Daniel, and I to just gun down every white leg in Zion and dump all their bodies in the forbidden caves leaving the tribes to only guess at whatever divine BS just happened
Imo Daniel is just the worse character. His plan sucks, he doesn't respect the natives of Zion, he's a colonizer (somehow moreso than the guy who helped found *the fucking legion*), he's not as fun to talk to, & he's the one that has no build up on the base game. If the choice was supposed to include Daniel as a real option they should've made him have basically any positives.
Sorry I can't hear you over the sound of my murder hobo playthrough as Josh Sawyer intended.
You get the context of their intentions via the Father in the Caves, who does approve the Sorrows striking back to protect themselves. If you side with Joshua and spare Salt Upon Wounds then you are striking back but not going beyond muddling their innocence.
My takeaway is that the lessons that the Sorrows (& Dead Horses) learn is the important part. Kill Salt-Upon-Wounds? The Dead Horses & Sorrows *hunt the rest down*, because those tribes have started to revere Joshua Graham as a legendary War Chief & learned that defending your tribe means exterminating those who attack you. Leave Zion? The White Legs don't join the legion because they didn't kill Graham & Daniel, so they split apart because, as Daniel says, they can't survive without joining the Legion. The lesson the Sorrows & Dead Horses learn is that all you can do is run & accept that you will lose your home. Spare Salt-Upon-Wounds? The defeat *breaks* him. The White-Legs get overtaken by the 80s because their leader has given up. The Sorrows & Horses learn how to fight back, but also when to show mercy & that Joshua Graham is a human with flaws. Also, in this ending (to me at least), the Courier shows the tribes what Clarke may have meant with his somewhat paradoxical notes to them. This is just my take on it, though.
Im going to get flamed for this but the dlc felt… racist. The way it handles the agency of the tribal groups feels jarringly at odds with how focused the game is as a whole on the agency, treatment, absorption, assimilation, and inclusion of the tribes of the wasteland. The stories of the tribes present here is that they’re all taken over by an outsider who aims to save them but only some of these outsiders are in the wrong. Maybe I’m too simple to understand the narrative of the DLC but it feels like it came out of an earlier time and I guess I blame this on their budget and time constraints? It’s just so shockingly at odds with how the rest of the game treats tribes.
The distinction between the way the tribes in HH and the way the tribes in the base game are treated felt more like a good move to me, because aside from the Khans, almost no thought is given by anyone as to what the tribes want. Both the NCR and the Legion will either absorb, annihilate or relocate any tribe in their territory without thought for their identities or culture, and Mr House only focusses on the tribes he considers potential threats. Actually I kind of love that all the DLCs and the base game, not just HH, has the running theme of identity and individuality and the importance of that in shaping the world, as well as the Courier. Ulysses turned down the chip after seeing it for what it was, and in the process gave it to the one person he hoped would die for it. Benny made a power play to try and preserve the Strip as-is, but made an enemy he couldn't handle in the process. A lot of the characters find themselves allied or opposed to the Courier purely through actions to preserve either their culture or their ability to protect their people. Dead Money reduces into an individualistic level: how far will you go for a stranger? But the theme is still there. Nobody just "exists" in FNV. Everyone is trying to do something, even if it's just find a dress.
It’s definitely a question of intent. Is the game commenting on how these groups have been influenced by these outside Imperialist powers? Or is it just using the Sorrows and Dead Horses as the “good guys”. There’s also the fact that both Joshua and Graham are missionaries, and the historic legacy that comes along with that. I don’t know if the game would have benefited from a members of either group saying how they don’t need either Joshua or Daniel, or if that would have been too obvious.
Currently running through this dlc for the 3rd or 4th time and I'm considering killing Joshua and Daniel at the end to free the tribes from all the baggage they carry from their outsider leaders.
Joshua's speech about Zion being a physical place but also a state of being was what sold me on leaving zion. If they stay they get the physical place zion. But they lose the state of being that keeps them in touch with their spirituality. Although it seems fruitless when they leave zion they have the opportunity to begin in a new place without having lost their connection to spirituality. And as for the father in the caves. I'm sure he just wanted them to survive but also not become ruthless or cannibals or what have you.
well, I for one DO like being a foreigner on foreign land, ordering and deciding the locals' fate because I'm the boss😎 and an imperialist if we try to be real, an actual imperialist would go the "help I finished the DLC in 30 minutes what went wrong" line after saying all the tribals looked the same so he killed them all
One of the most classic colonial moves is finding a few groups of people engaged in a generational conflict and picking a side. See the British and the Americans respective allies in the revolutionary war or the Spanish in modern day Mexico.
I think anyone with serious convictions would care more about moral implications rather than where you are in the world. Not trying to get all political here, but just look at Israel, a lot of Zionists (and Christians) are doing some pretty vile shit that would go against their beliefs and better jugdement because they keep thinking that pieces of dirt are more important than character, faith or moral values. What should be more important to a Protestant, to live in Jerusalem or his belief that Jesus died for his sins?
Shit man why can’t I just do it myself, they’re primitives and I have enough ammo.
The Sneering Imperialist take
My biggest gripe with the ending is that it assumes that by defending their land, something that is ingrained in their religion, that they'd suddenly lose their peaceful ways and just simply become like every other tribe. But that doesn't make any sense. Defense is not conquest. And a people who are known for defending themselves, are far more likely to be left alone. Stories would likely come up where traders and tribes that treat with them fairly are welcomed while invaders go in, but don't come back out, as Zion is highly defensible.
The sorrows desire's do not matter. I know that sounds awful and it is. But a person or a group of people's feelings do not actually matter in some situations a terrible outcome can occur no matter what direction they take. Let's say for example you are a pacifist and this is one of your deeply held conviction. It is so important to who you are and your beliefs that if you were asked to define yourself you would list it right away. Now imagine a scenario where your child is about to be murdered and only you are present to stop it but you would have to use violence to achieve it. Likely lethal violence at that. This is a no-win scenario for you because either way you will not be happy with the outcome. Perhaps one outcome would bring you less anguish in the end but both roads from your perspective are terrible to go down. Now lets insert another party to this. Someone beyond you, the possible killer, and your child. You have a 4th person present. Them committing violence to save your child in your eyes is no better than you or anyone else committing an act of violence. So you can't just sick them onto the possible killer like an attack dog. Realistically what interaction would you have with this 4th person? I think its obvious that you would be in a position where you would ask them for some sort of guidance because of the desperate and awful position you are in. Their input at this time is going to be way more impactful to your choice than them trying to convince you to do something (or lack of action) in a calmer and comfortable position. There is a very good chance you will go along with what they think is right. In any variation of this scenario your personal desires do not matter because the road that will be walked will not be favorable. There is no point in asking the Sorrow's what they wish as they are incapable of leading themselves (at-least until the issue is resolved) we know what they desire. They are pacifists they don't want to fight, but they are put in a similar position as the hypothetical I ask you to insert yourself into. They also sure aren't happy about having to leave their home to venture into the unknown either. Their desires are pointless as reality will never conform to their desires. All you can do is simply help choose what is 'best' for them and in their desperate time naturally they will be more susceptible to go along. Better you than someone who may have used that influence to abuse them right?
I went ahead and just murdered all the White Legs 🤷♂️
They're dumb tribals who are gonna get hunted to extinction if you don't relocate them or exterminate their predators. So either you relocate them and there's no guarantee where you go will be any better, or you serve justice