#BUT I GOT SIDETRACKED THINKING ABOUT THE ADVICE WILL TAKES VS. ADVICE HE DOESN'T TAKE

[666prophet]

Fallout S1:E3 - The Head

I think this one was solid. Moved the plot along some, but mainly a character development episode. This again I feel is geared to not fans of the games (no offense). It does a good job of showing you how things are and why certain characters react the way they do. Also a good juxtaposition of the differences between the Wasteland and Vaults. Did raise a lot of nit picky things though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Spoilers and Deep Dive ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok so The Ghoul was an actor before the bombs, got it cool I can dig it. What is interesting to see is if the go further into how he became so cold. Granted yes being alive for 200 years and becoming and irradiated time bomb will do that to you. I'm interested to see what chem he keeps using, it doesn't look like anything that has been in any game yet. Also just as a thought, maybe wrap up the severed head. Walking around with a head is just gonna make you seem like a Fiend or a Raider. Just food for thought. Its amazing the upgrades that Vault dwellers made to the Pip-Boy seeing as neither the 3000 or Mark IV had any kind of tracker feature.

Sir....in your boot....that would be the most uncomfortable way to carry around caps ever. Its pretty lucky this random person is skilled and knowledgeable enough to fix a component off a suit of power armor. Ok, at this point its safe to say that Maximus can't fight for shit. He also seems to have an odd obsession with toilet seats. They sent over a new squire amazingly quick, but also how are you surprised he is there? You just talked on the radio and they said they would send a new Squire. Oh its the asshole bully, how convenient. So how far are we gonna take the bully my bully trope.

Its funny that they have a prominent Sunset Sarsaparilla logo on the truck. Considering that Todd Howard has had this weird relationship with Fallout: New Vegas. He doesn't dislike it or speak badly about it, just more tries to avoid talking about it. I would say New Vegas is probably my number one in the series. It feels like a good successor to Fallouts 1 and 2, seeing as Fallout 3, 4, & 76 ditched the west in favor of the east. If any of the older games deserve a redo/remaster it's New Vegas. I see Lucy took my advice. So wait the first sign(not actually the first but still) of wildlife we see in an UNMUTATED FAWN?!?!?! Where is the mother? Did deer on the West Coast just not suffer from mutations due to the fallout? Also weird choice to have a Fallow fawn and not go with something a but more common and widespread in California like Blacktail or Mule. Alright a gulper, I mean you could have also gone with a mirelurk or lakelurk but sure I'll take it.

I think this gives a good incite into how some Vault dwellers are. They are very we are better and nicer. Very naive and very cheery, which gives a good contrast to Norm. The fact that they keep hammering the ghoul hate feels like ham fisted foreshadowing.

Leaches were never in the games. Its interesting to see The Ghoul panic when the winch locks up. Almost like he cares about Lucy for some reason, or he isn't as sadistic as we are lead to believe. Ummmm why does that gulper look like an axolotl? Yes they are also salamanders but not a common species in the US. Ok...gross....it has mouth fingers. I feel like there is some shenanigans going on with this gulper. The white lab coat kind of shenanigans. So either The Ghoul is SUPER addicted to chems or there is something special about these vials. Also that line about getting sidetracked might as well be the new tagline for all the games.

Well here is the "he was just misunderstood, not a bully" trope. More showing the difference between Vault 33 vs Norm as character. I like it. Also showing the cracks with the Overseer comment. The classic waterchip is broken mechanic, a Fallout staple.

Oh were being spoiled in this episode, a whole five seconds of a what looks like a bloatfly. So wouldn't the geiger counter just spike because of the fact that most all water is irradiated? It dies by puking its guts out? That's it? That's underwhelming. Oh look the head, that's plot armor if I've ever seen it.

So is The Ghoul trying to do a tough love mentor thing? I'm confused. Ok so he sold out because of his wife and she is tied to Vault-Tec somehow. Its interesting to see that she seems to know what kind of company Vault-Tec is.

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Its good. Lots of little things but we can chalk it up to me being fussy about detail. Shows more behind the curtain on the characters. We are starting to see more of the world, but I feel like I'm being breadcrumbed on that front. Hope we can start to more widen the scope because part of the story of Fallout is the world. Not just the "main quest".

Final Score - 8/10

[bluebeardsbride-archive]

about your tags on the gifset of 3.7: I notice he does something similar with Bedelia later. in their conversations in late s3 his voice starts to take on a breathiness similar to hers, and it makes me wonder about their discussion re: the injured bird (tho one could argue, considering Will's incarnations in other media, that he applied her advice to Francis). either way, Will learning from Hannibal's previous wives (and his ends in doing so) is an A+ point I'd love to read more about

(referring to this post)

That’s something Will does in Red Dragon, too! (And something Hugh Dancy captures perfectly in his performance!)

Anyway— onto the wounded bird. Hannibal is a show that deals with the purposes and repercussions of violence. Sacrificial violence, sacred violence, cathartic violence, righteous violence, violence for the sake of violence— you name it. What Bedelia is discussing with the bird metaphor compassionate violence: violence born out of empathy. 

BEDELIA: You’re walking down the street and you see a wounded bird in the grass. What’s your first thought?WILL: It’s vulnerable, I want to help it.BEDELIA: My first thought is also that it’s vulnerable. Yet I want to crush it. A primal rejection of weakness which is every bit as natural as the nurturing instinct. Of course, I wouldn’t crush it, but my first thought would be to do just that. 

To revisit some of my tags on an old post: 

#thinking of that time in class where someone said #one of the theories for why humans like to pet animals #is to remind ourselves that we can kill them #i don’t know how true it is but it’s a striking thought #that maybe the nurturing instinct and the instinct to destroy weakness #come from the same root (x)

The underlying implication being: the reason some of us cannot bear weakness is because we cannot bear suffering. It’s because of our empathy that we crush the bird, not because of malice. Or, in the show’s words: “Extreme acts of cruelty require a high degree of empathy.” 

In other words, when Bedelia is talking about the bird, she is talking about mercy. Will has difficulty with this, I think, because the truth is mercy is only a kinder word for violence. (Compare his lines in 2x12: “There is no mercy. We make mercy,manufacture it in parts that haveovergrown our basic reptile brain.”) It may be violence born out of compassion, but it is still violence. Its end results are indistinguishable from the end results of cruelty. 

Bedelia wants those end results: she doesn’t care how she comes by them. She doesn’t want Hannibal a wounded bird on the side of the road, she wants him dead or imprisoned: unable to hurt her. 

BEDELIA: Extreme acts of cruelty require a high degree of empathy. The next time your instinct is to help someone, you should really consider crushing them instead. You might save yourself some trouble.

So she means for Will to apply this idea of mercy to Dolarhyde and Hannibal. And he does apply it to Dolarhyde (and I would also argue Chilton) and intends to apply it to Hannibal (as their exchange on the cliffside before the fight indicates)—

HANNIBAL: You intend to watch him kill me?WILL: I intend to watch him change you.

But in the end, Will does not stand by and let mercy have its way. Instead, he reaches for his gun. Will couldn’t kill Hannibal, and he couldn’t watch him die. Why not? 

I want to talk about another form of cruelty, a type that masquerades as kindness. You find a bird on the side of the road, dying a long, painful death, and there is nothing you will be able to do to save it. The ending is already written. But let’s say you try: and you prolong its life by a few hours, a few hours the bird spends suffering. That seems pointless, and for most of us it would be an easy choice: kill the bird. Crush it with a rock. Be merciful. But the choices we are faced with as human beings— hurt or harm, crush or help— are often not so simple. After all, it’s easy to crush a wounded bird lying by the side of the road: it’s far more difficult to crush someone that you love.

When we love someone we are not capable of mercy. Instead, we are capable of prolonged cruelty. That cruelty may disguise itself as tenderness, but it is still cruelty. I’m thinking of the scenes in 3x07 where Hannibal tends to Will’s bullet wound and feeds him soup— what purpose do his actions serve? He’s going to kill Will anyway. It’s not kindness. It’s cruelty. Love takes compassion out of us. Will can’t apply Bedelia’s advice to Hannibal, because Hannibal, unlike Dolarhyde, isn’t a wounded bird on the side of the road. He loves Hannibal, and love is not merciful. Love cannot be merciful, or else it would not be love.