“Lucy is in many ways an echo of who The Ghoul once was; a polite, moral person, who believed people were going to do the right thing. He certainly doesn’t like to be reminded of his naivety when he looks at her. After all, it isn’t just that he used to be good; it’s that he used to be nice.”
one of the most infuriating things about becoming an adult is when you realize that it actually is 10x easier to solve problems by making a phone call vs literally any other communication method
Did Fallout casually drop a non-binary character out of the blue like that? I love them, very gender. But I did not expect that from the Brotherhood?!?!
Folks going “WHAT they made a show about the Fallout franchise?? I’ve been hearing people say Bethesda messed it up, but I haven’t watched it myself, so I’m going to trust the word of other people – some of which also haven’t finished watching it” is driving me insane.
Being a hard core fan of something obviously brings with it a lot of passionate feelings when adaptations come into play. Of course, there’s going to be people going “but in 8 episodes of the first ever season they made, they didn’t explore Theme C or D, didn’t introduce factions E and F and G, and because the source company is notorious for its scams, we and everyone else who’s a TRUE fan should hate it”.
The Amazon Original series Fallout follows the videogame franchise of the same name. It is a labour of love and you can tell by the attention to detail, the writing, the sets, and YES THE THEMES ARGUE WITH THE WALL. It’s clearly fan service. I mean, the very characterisation of Lucy is a deadringer for someone playing a Fallout game for the first time. She embodies the innocent player whose expectations drastically change in a game that breaks your heart over and over again. Of course, she’s also the vessel through which we explore a lot of themes, but I’ll get to that.
There’re some folks arguing that the show retcons the games, and I gotta say… for a website practically built on fandom culture, why are we so violently against the idea of someone basing an adaptation on a franchise that so easily lends itself to new and interesting interpretations? But to be frank, a lot of what AO’s Fallout is not that new. We have: naive Vault dweller, sexy traumatised ghoul that people who aren’t cowards will thirst over, and pathetic guy from a militaristic faction. We also have: total atomic annihilation, and literally in-world references to the games’ lore and worldbuilding constantly (the way I was shaking my sister over seeing Grognark the Barbarian, Sugar Bombs, Cram, Stimpaks, and bags of RadAway was ridiculous). Oh, and the Red Rocket?? Best pal Dogmeat? I’m definitely outing myself as specifically a Fallout 4 player, but that’s not the point you should be taking away from this.
The details, the references, and the new characters – this show is practically SCREAMING “hey look, we did this for the fans, we hope you love it as much as we do”. Who cares that the characters are new, they still hold the essence of ones we used to know! And they’re still interesting, so goddamn bloody interesting. Their arcs mean so much to the story, and they’re told in a genuinely intriguing way. This isn’t just any videogame adaptation, this was gold. This sits near Netflix’s Arcane: League of Legends level in videogame adaptation. Both series create new plots out of familiar worlds.
Of course, those who’ve done the work have already figured out AO’s Fallout is not a retcon anyway. But even if it was, that shouldn’t take away from the fact that this show is actually good. Not even just good, it’s great.
Were some references a little shoe-horned in to the themes by the end of the show, such as with “War never changes”? Yes, I thought so. But I love how even with a new plot and characters, they’re actually still exploring the same themes and staying true to the games. I’ve seen folks argue otherwise, but I truly disagree. The way capitalism poisons our world, represented primarily through The American Dream and the atomic age of the 45-50s that promoted the nuclear family dynamic – it’s there. If you think it’s glorifying it by leaning so heavily into in the adaptation, I feel like you’re not seeing it from the right angle. It’s like saying Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck glorifies the American Dream, when both this book and the Fallout franchise are criticisms of it. If you think about it, the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout is a graveyard to the American Dream. This criticism comes from the plots that are built into every Fallout story that I know of. The Vaults are literally constructed to be their own horror story just by their mere existence, what they stand for, what happens in each of them. The whole entire show is about the preservation of the wrong things leading to fucked up worlds and people. The missions of the Vaults are time and again proven to be fruitless, unethical, plain wrong. Lucy is our brainwashed character who believed in the veritable cult she lived in before she found out the truth.
So then consider the Brotherhood of Steel. I really don’t think it exists in the story to glorify the military. We see just how much the Brotherhood has brainwashed people like Max (also, anything ominously named something like “the Brotherhood” should raise eyebrows). Personally, I don’t like Max, but I am intrigued by his characterisation. I thought the end of his arc was rushed the way he “came good” basically, but [SPOILERS] having him embraced as a knight in the Brotherhood at the end against his will – finally getting something he always wanted – and him grimly accepting it from all that we can tell? Him having that destiny forced upon him now that he’s swaying? After he defected? If his storyline is meant to be a tragedy, it wouldn’t surprise me, because Fallout is rife with tragedies anyway. And a tragedy would also be a criticism of the military. That’s what Max’s entire arc is. It goes from the microcosm focusing on the cycle of bullying between soldiers to the macro-environment where Max is being forced to continue a cycle of violence against humanity he doesn’t want to anymore because a world driven to extremes forces him to choose it to survive (not to mention what a cult and no family would do to his psyche). Let’s not forget what the Brotherhood’s rules are: humankind is supreme. Mutants, ghouls, synths, and robots are abominations to be hated and destroyed. If you can’t draw the parallels to the real world, you need to retake history and literature classes. The Brotherhood is also about preserving the wrong things, like the Vaults (like the Enclave, really). They just came about through different method. The Enclave is capitalism and twisted greed in a world where money barely exists anymore. The Brotherhood is, well, fascism plain and simple.
Are these the only factions in the Fallout franchise? Hell no. But if you’re mad about that – that they’re the main ones explored, apart from the NCR – I think you’re missing the point. These themes, these reminders, are highly relevant in the current climate. In fact, I almost think they always will be relevant unless we undergo drastic change. On the surface-level, Fallout seems like the American ideal complete with guns blazing that guys in their basements jerk off to. Under that surface, is a mind-fuck story about almost the entire opposite: it’s a deconstruction of American ideals that are held so closely by some, and the way that key notion of freedom gets twisted, and you’re shooting a guy in-game because it’s more merciful than what the world had in store for him.
I mean, the ghoul’s a fucking cowboy from the wild west character he used to play in Hollywood glam and his wife was one of the people who helped blow up America in the name of capitalism and “peace”. There are so many layers of this to explore, I’d need several days to try and keep track and go through it all.
The Amazon Prime show is a testament to the Fallout franchise. The message, the themes? They were not messed up or muddled or anything of the sort, in my opinion.
As for Todd Howard, that Bethesda guy, I’m sure there’s perfectly valid reasons to hate him. I mean, I’ve hated people for a lot less valid reasons, and that’s valid. We all got our feelings. But the show is about more than just him. My advice is to keep that in mind when you’re judging it.
in my experience nobody stops having a favorite animal when they grow up but people DO stop asking. well now i’m asking. what’s everyone’s favorite animal mine is the noble manatee
Not a good look when you refuse a famous plastic surgeon and genocide survivor entry to your country with history like Germany’s…. lol.
this is what i was just posting about, and it’s not just that he was denied entry: he was meant to speak at the Palästina Kongress, a congress that was supposed to be held this weekend in Berlin. they not only denied him entry into Germany at Berlin airport, but also informed him that he would not be allowed to join the congress via zoom or even send a recording of his lecture.
at the same time, German police stormed the stage at the congress and eventually shut it down completely. according to the organizers, there were about 2,500 cops present (for an event with 250 attendees). several people have been arrested, including a guy who did nothing other than hold a sign saying “Jews against genocide”.
the organizers have called for international solidarity in the form of protests in front of German embassies and institutions on Sunday, April 14th:
let your local orgs know about this!
you can also look at their instagram page @ palaestinakongress for info on how everything went down and the repression from police
