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And the Sorrows do fight and kill White Legs in the valley, and Waking Cloud does kill and attack when she is a companion. It is a shame that the game doesn't let you talk to her about this, I'll admit. KOTOR 2 has a couple of pretty memorable quotes from your party members about how uncomfortable they are killing people but how it seems to come so easily to them when they're in your party. I'd have liked to see that explored again with Waking Cloud, since her main profession is midwifery and not white leg executioner.
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Jul 23, 2022 15:47
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steinrokkan posted:I may be remembering it wrong, but aren't the Sorrows in the canyon just the hunters and other able members of the tribe, with the children, elders and "non-combatants" located in some camp further ahead? So it wouldn't be literally arming every single child and grandma and sending them off to war, just their de facto warriors. They don't have de facto warriors, that's the entire point. They have people more able bodied to fight than others, people who are used to hunting around some of the awful fauna of Zion, but the issue isn't whether some of them can fight. The issue is how having a large number of them learn to take life and for those that can't to see life deliberately taken, will change who they are and what they will lose for it. In the same way if we had to shoot another human being--or worse, become comfortable with shooting another human being. You are teaching the Sorrows to kill. To commit murder. You can make an argument for its necessity--it's the argument I make with it--but it is worth stopping and thinking that, even if that's the case, should they really be learning it from the Malpais Legate? My issue is that Daniel has a good point, and his approach to the Sorrows, while colored by his guilt, is compassionate. Joshua's is about blood. Neither man has an honest heart; one wants what he thinks is best for the Sorrows, the other wants his vengeance on the White Legs, and both are thinking in terms of what they want rather than what the Sorrows might need. And yet I see far more people here treat Daniel as some atrocious figure who should be pitched off the side of the canyon wall while staying mum about the atrociousness of Graham, a man who is directly using them for his desire for blood.
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Jul 23, 2022 15:49
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Yeah all the old people and kids already evacuated with what's left of the Mormons. The Sorrows in Zion are all hunters-turned-warriors. I definitely agree that Daniel is naive and twisted by his own guilt, it's just a shame that the other path is following a man who's just using the tribes as tools to enact his personal vengeance. Staying peaceful pacifists is almost impossible in Fallout - see also the fate of Vault 3 for an example - nevermind the actual real world we live in which doesn't have the excuse of sadistic raider gangs and mutant science fiction creatures. What Daniel's trying to do is, in and of itself, a pretty good and noble thing. It's just not realistic imo.
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Jul 23, 2022 15:51
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You say use them as tools for his vengeance but he doesn't take the sorrows or horses to fight Caesars people. They come for him and whether he stays or flees it's bad news for the tribes there. Once Zion is secure it cements the tribes there as their home. Graham is a great war chief, he has earned his place in the dead horses and sorrows.
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Jul 23, 2022 16:06
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It's like conflict is a constant, or something.
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Jul 23, 2022 16:15
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Joshua doesn't appear to give a drat about Caeser's Legion, or want revenge on it or Sallow. Why would he? They're what he helped build them to be. What he wants is revenge on the White Legs, who burned down New Canaan and killed most of the Mormons, and it is solely for his own gratification. The White Legs have no future if they can't find or kill the remaining New Canaanites, and fleeing accomplishes that same end--he just wants the one where he personally gets to make them suffer, and admits as much if you stay his hand during the climax of his path. Edit: Was speaking hyperbolic, he does hate the Legion, but it's not the object of his vengeance in Honest Hearts. Ironslave fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jul 23, 2022 |
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Jul 23, 2022 16:23
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Daniels is at least a good person. Joshua is still a Legion man through and through (like Ulysses) which destroys any credibility he might otherwise have. Sure he's against them now cause they tried to kill him but..he hasn't exactly climbed the path to remorse yet considering his very first act after leaving is to organize a genocide. Fleeing isn't a forever solution, but staying and fighting isn't going to stop them from running up against the Legion/NCR/other tribals eventually either. Unfortunately they have the same chances every small community in the area has (that doesn't possess a giant robot army). Their best chances of survival are probably to become useful to the NCR through trade or something, and that's honestly where fleeing might help since it keeps them from becoming just another tribe.
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Jul 23, 2022 16:51
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The better endings require some compromise between Daniel and Joshua's principles. If you fully embrace pacifism, the Sorrows suffer heavy losses during evacuation and mourn the loss of Zion. If you slaughter captured White Legs, the sorrows become violent and brutal. The two better endings involve killing some White Legs to clear a path for evacuation, or defeating the White Legs and then sparing the survivors. Maybe the intended message is that the truth is in the middle.
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Jul 23, 2022 16:52
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Ironslave posted:Joshua doesn't appear to give a drat about Caeser's Legion, or want revenge on it or Sallow. Why would he? They're what he helped build them to be. What he wants is revenge on the White Legs, who burned down New Canaan and killed most of the Mormons, and it is solely for his own gratification. The White Legs have no future if they can't find or kill the remaining New Canaanites, and fleeing accomplishes that same end--he just wants the one where he personally gets to make them suffer, and admits as much if you stay his hand during the climax of his path. In the ending where Joshua spares Salt, he says the subtext out loud, and in no uncertain terms states that revenge against the White Legs is a proxy for revenge against Caesar.
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Jul 23, 2022 16:59
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oh jay posted:In the ending where Joshua spares Salt, he says the subtext out loud, and in no uncertain terms states that revenge against the White Legs is a proxy for revenge against Caesar. They're not a proxy, it's part of it. Crushing the White Legs is, to him, a blow against Caeser since Caeser is the one who wanted New Canaan destroyed. He's not chasing the Legion for what it did to him, he's wanting to repay the atrocity done to his people.
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Jul 23, 2022 17:05
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Ironslave posted:They don't have de facto warriors, that's the entire point. They have people more able bodied to fight than others, people who are used to hunting around some of the awful fauna of Zion, but the issue isn't whether some of them can fight. The issue is how having a large number of them learn to take life and for those that can't to see life deliberately taken, will change who they are and what they will lose for it. In the same way if we had to shoot another human being--or worse, become comfortable with shooting another human being. I said de facto warriors because that's what they effectively are. They are armed and knowledgeable about survival. They have the skills to fight and kill, and they do kill (just not people but prey), they understand the concepts that are involved, they know about death, killing, violence. The only thing that's maintaining their "innocence" is the influence of Daniel, who is stunting them by infantilizing them, without him nature would have taken its course already. And as another poster mentioned, they do fight White Legs in game, though that can be written off as gameplay quirk and not an intended narrative element. However you are right that their first foray into self-defense shouldn't be lead by the most violent and cruel man on earth, and the game itself agrees, which is why you, the player, are there with the option to temper his character.
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Jul 23, 2022 17:06
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There is a tremendous difference between hunting a deer or getting mauled by a bear, and shoving a sharp weapon into another human being's heart. They've never had to understand that. I have no idea where you get the idea that this supposed innocence has been maintained by Daniel. The Sorrows were around before he was born, over a century. Daniel and Joshua are newcomers, and by their presence have brought the White Legs and their problems to these people.
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Jul 23, 2022 17:13
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Chamale posted:The better endings require some compromise between Daniel and Joshua's principles. If you fully embrace pacifism, the Sorrows suffer heavy losses during evacuation and mourn the loss of Zion. If you slaughter captured White Legs, the sorrows become violent and brutal. The two better endings involve killing some White Legs to clear a path for evacuation, or defeating the White Legs and then sparing the survivors. Maybe the intended message is that the truth is in the middle. There is no compromising on either path. If you choose to escape, you choose to escape, there's no third, middle, or optional added element to it. Choosing to crush the White Legs gives you the option to have Joshua spare Salt-Upon-Wounds, but by this point you've still taught the Sorrows how to kill and the brutality of war; Joshua sparing them shows them this can be tempered with compassion, somewhere, but before he does that he still backhead shot executes multiple unarmed prisoners. You also don't get an ending slide for Joshua if you pick escape, which is itself enough reason for me to always choose violence.
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Jul 23, 2022 17:23
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Ironslave posted:There is no compromising on either path. If you choose to escape, you choose to escape, there's no third, middle, or optional added element to it. Yes, there is. If you choose to escape without completing Joshua's quests to fight the White Legs, this is the ending you get: quote:Daniel evacuated the Sorrows from Zion, but due to the Courier's neglect, the White Legs butchered many along the way. Those who survived barely reached Grand Staircase, but once there, the Dead Horses and New Canaanites helped them settle. The unfamiliarity of their new surroundings, and the loss of loved ones, evoked a terrible and lasting grief among the Sorrows. For two generations, many would die still lamenting the loss of Zion. If you weren't aware of this, that would probably change your understanding of the DLC.
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Jul 23, 2022 17:31
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No, I knew it, I disagree with the idea that this is somehow a middle ground, in the same way I disagree with the idea of keeping Joshua from killing one person is a middle ground. This isn't a compromise you're making, it's the degree to which you're committing to a course of action. Like, Daniel doesn't really have an issue with you or the Dead Horses shooting people. He has an issue with the Sorrows doing it out of his combination of infantilizing them and desiring to protect them from his and Joshua's sins.
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Jul 23, 2022 17:34
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isn't daniel's whole thing that he's very much not cool with how joshua specifically teaching the people to defend themselves is going to rub off on them due to the kind of person he is and how the dead horses basically already treat him like a walking god? like, he'd be fine with them learning about self-defense and whatnot from anyone except the "This isn't self-defense, this is an extermination" man because the way joshua engages in 'war' is different from self-defense that's nitpicking since fundamentally the whole thing is about saving the soul vs. saving the body and the value of peace and innocence in a world that is driven by violence but i always see folks saying that he's a complete naive pacifist when it never really came across that way ingame despite all of his other issues either way even without the added shittiness of daniel as a person, fundamentally daniel's position probably would remain unpopular since there's probably not a lot of people who have that kind of "if make makes right, then love has no place in this world" kinda view who would be playing NV
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Jul 23, 2022 18:07
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I think it's a bit off to call Joshua a Legion man through and through. He dragged himself back to New Canaan and they forgave him and put him on a path to healing. His sins followed him home to punish him, however and this what tips him over the edge on his descent back into darkness. He tried to move on from the Legion path.
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Jul 23, 2022 18:55
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This is a great discussion, and certainly more complex than Dead Money's moral: "If you prepare properly, you can and should steal a thousand pounds of gold from a rich rear end in a top hat."
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Jul 23, 2022 18:58
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Calling Joshua a legion man isn't really accurate. But he is basically doing the same thing to the Dead Horses as he and Caesar did to the Blackfoots. He's still being the Malpais Legate.
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Jul 23, 2022 18:58
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Chamale posted:This is a great discussion, and certainly more complex than Dead Money's moral: "If you prepare properly, you can and should steal a thousand pounds of gold from a rich rear end in a top hat." who the gently caress is scaeming "LET GO" at my casino. show yourself, coward. i will never let go
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Jul 23, 2022 19:23
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The vibe I get from Joshua, especially if tempered by the Courier and not allowed to go completely off the deep end, is that he fully embraces being the "necessary evil" guy who will go off and murder all the problems and then hopefully by that time he'll be dead and the next generation can profit from the peace his bloodshed (hopefully) attained. Which is still a pretty hosed up and unpleasant worldview (and probably won't work anyway) but ultimately it's likely to be real drat close in nature to what the Courier is already doing in the Mojave so it's hard not to be biased towards it, at least in comparison to Daniel. Arc Hammer posted:And the Sorrows do fight and kill White Legs in the valley, and Waking Cloud does kill and attack when she is a companion. It is a shame that the game doesn't let you talk to her about this, I'll admit. KOTOR 2 has a couple of pretty memorable quotes from your party members about how uncomfortable they are killing people but how it seems to come so easily to them when they're in your party. I'd have liked to see that explored again with Waking Cloud, since her main profession is midwifery and not white leg executioner. It really stuck out to me that there's no delay between siding with Joshua and the Sorrows joining the fight. Maybe that's just down to the DLC having a budget of "change found under the couch cushions" and "a leftover Wendy's straw" but 
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Jul 23, 2022 19:32
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Ironslave posted:who the gently caress is scaeming "LET GO" at my casino. show yourself, coward. i will never let go  I made this for the hell of it right after finishing Dead Money. 
John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Jul 23, 2022 |
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Jul 23, 2022 19:33
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Rope Kid has talked about how engine limitations affected Honest Hearts. Most importantly, the tribes were meant to be made up of multiple races, since they're the descendants of scattered survivors, but in order for them to have tattoos they all had to have the same skin tone. Of course, then you get into questions about authorial intent versus death of the author, and the fact that it was a conscious decision to choose the tattoos over diverse skin tones.
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Jul 23, 2022 19:40
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Chamale posted:This is a great discussion, and certainly more complex than Dead Money's moral: "If you prepare properly, you can and should steal a thousand pounds of gold from a rich rear end in a top hat." dean domino is the most moral character in dead money confirmed
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Jul 23, 2022 19:51
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John Murdoch posted:
Great minds think alike.
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Jul 23, 2022 19:53
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Chamale posted:Rope Kid has talked about how engine limitations affected Honest Hearts. Most importantly, the tribes were meant to be made up of multiple races, since they're the descendants of scattered survivors, but in order for them to have tattoos they all had to have the same skin tone. Of course, then you get into questions about authorial intent versus death of the author, and the fact that it was a conscious decision to choose the tattoos over diverse skin tones.
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Jul 23, 2022 19:53
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That's fine. Forget the name of the comedian who had a bit about all the different colors of humanity loving into one beautiful caramel colored race. If you have a problem with that you're just a bigot.
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Jul 23, 2022 20:09
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Zeron posted:Daniels is at least a good person. i whole-heartedly disagree with this. he definitely THINKS he's a good person, but his entire schick is that he wants to protect his noble savages, and the best way to do that is to deny them agency in case they disagree with his plans. it's pretty explicitly taken from the real-life treatment of indigenous people and how that attitude has resulted in things like generations of lost birds and loss of languages, which have not been particularly appreciated by the peoples affected regardless of good intentions, and imo precludes him from being a good person. daniel certainly has good intentions in a way joshua does not, but intentions are not the whole of the story and i don't recall joshua flat-out lying to or manipulating the zion peoples the way daniel does.
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Jul 23, 2022 20:16
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Raygereio posted:Nah, this was a hardware limitation. Having the tribes have various different skin tones would have required loading those different skin textures into the video memory and consoles (PS3 in particular) just didn't have room in the memory budget for that. There is an interesting conversation to be had about how hardware/technical limitations effects narrative of a game but I'm not familar enough with NV's specific development nightmares to have it
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Jul 23, 2022 20:24
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MariusLecter posted:That's fine. Not a comedian but Lemmy talked about this once and he figured that even if we eventually get to a nice coffee colour we'll still find someone else to yell at. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skGEBgePHtk
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Jul 23, 2022 20:25
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CaptainViolence posted:i whole-heartedly disagree with this. he definitely THINKS he's a good person, but his entire schick is that he wants to protect his noble savages, and the best way to do that is to deny them agency in case they disagree with his plans. it's pretty explicitly taken from the real-life treatment of indigenous people and how that attitude has resulted in things like generations of lost birds and loss of languages, which have not been particularly appreciated by the peoples affected regardless of good intentions, and imo precludes him from being a good person. daniel certainly has good intentions in a way joshua does not, but intentions are not the whole of the story and i don't recall joshua flat-out lying to or manipulating the zion peoples the way daniel does. He's trying to preserve their culture not destroy it. And he doesn't have a choice to not have them move. You're assumptions are taken in a box. The genocide is sitting on their doorstep, they cannot just sit there and keep living on the same way.
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Jul 23, 2022 20:28
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Improbable Lobster posted:There is an interesting conversation to be had about how hardware/technical limitations effects narrative of a game but I'm not familar enough with NV's specific development nightmares to have it I think a big one is the scale. The tribes involved are all, like, 50 people. It's feasible for an outsider with military training to singlehandedly choose their fates by gunning down most of the White Legs. If there were several hundred people involved, that changes.
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Jul 23, 2022 20:36
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Gaius Marius posted:He's trying to preserve their culture not destroy it. And he doesn't have a choice to not have them move. You're assumptions are taken in a box. The genocide is sitting on their doorstep, they cannot just sit there and keep living on the same way. he's not preserving their culture by moving them to grand staircase any more than indigenous cultures were preserved by moving them to reservations. he's making a decision on what parts of that culture HE wants to preserve, what parts HE feels are important, and--again--lying to get his way because the tribes themselves may not agree. why is it his place at all to make those decisions, and not the people of zion's? edit: the more i think about it, the more i'm realizing that the father in the caves is meant to contrast daniel specifically: the survivalist protects and infantilizes the people of zion because they're literal children, and his entire arc is helping them to survive on their own through mostly indirect means, and then trusting that they've grown beyond him. he treasures them as people, and dies confident in their self-determination as a people capable of carving a future for themselves. daniel is the polar opposite: he believes them naive children incapable of surviving without his guidance, and any attempts to teach them are wrong because their agency is inherently inferior to his own. he couches it as "i just care about them and don't want them hurt" but he cares more about what he wants than what they want because he treasures them as an artifact and not as human beings. CaptainViolence fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jul 23, 2022 |
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Jul 23, 2022 20:43
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Gaius Marius posted:He's trying to preserve their culture not destroy it. And he doesn't have a choice to not have them move. You're assumptions are taken in a box. The genocide is sitting on their doorstep, they cannot just sit there and keep living on the same way. Running away from danger isn't their own reaction, it's what Daniel's talked them into to preserve what he feels their culture should be and should do in face of danger. He's built a whole ethnographic narrative in his head that the Sorrows have to fit, and he's doing his best to keep them from deviating from it. The Sorrows deciding to stand their ground isn't "destroying their culture", it's their culture adapting to its conditions, it's growth. The question, however, is if the Sorrows have a choice either way, or if they are just pawns in both scenarios; but I think their hunters saying and fighting for the well-being of their tribe is the more natural course of action, especially when they have the Dead Horses as an example. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jul 23, 2022 |
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Jul 23, 2022 20:57
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Gaius Marius posted:He's trying to preserve their culture not destroy it. And he doesn't have a choice to not have them move. You're assumptions are taken in a box. The genocide is sitting on their doorstep, they cannot just sit there and keep living on the same way. We must relocate the ignorant tribals to New Oklahoma. It's for their own good.
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Jul 23, 2022 21:14
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Chamale posted:This is a great discussion, and certainly more complex than Dead Money's moral: "If you prepare properly, you can and should steal a thousand pounds of gold from a rich rear end in a top hat." I liked that because it's one of the only times I can remember figuring something like that out in a game.
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Jul 23, 2022 22:02
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Chamale posted:This is a great discussion, and certainly more complex than Dead Money's moral: "If you prepare properly, you can and should steal a thousand pounds of gold from a rich rear end in a top hat." That one is true and applies to real life too
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Jul 24, 2022 00:51
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If you couldnshove 800 pounds of gold into the severed foot of a crazy old man and the only downside was you had to walk it to the exit wouldn't you do that in real life?
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Jul 24, 2022 00:52
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There's no cops to hassle me about the severed foot right?
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Jul 24, 2022 01:33
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The NCR won't arrest you for the murder but you will have to pay import duties on the gold
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Jul 24, 2022 01:35
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