#Harold they're Communists

[kiraziwrites]

the secret fourth thing is comrades! do not disrespect our I.W.W. brothers

Neither romantic nor sexual nor platonic but a secret fourth thing (bonded like stray cats who cannot be adopted separately)

[monkeyartfiend]

Harold,

They're

Communists!

[gaterrechinha]

Like not to rant about this yet again but Fallout 3 makes me so angry. It has literally almost no original plot points. Did you know that? The whole "the main character is the vault dweller" thing? Fallout 1. The ending where they don't let you return? Yeah. Fallout 1. Even the whole "talk to your friends that want to leave to see the world for the first time and to the supervisor that won't let them" is exactly the same. The Enclave being the Big Bad™? Fallout 2. The FEV virus? Fallout 1. Find a GECK? Fallout 2. The Enclave is modifying Deathclaws to use as weapons? Fallout 2. Even Harold, the fucking ghoul with a tree growing out of him is a character from Fallout 2. A city in a giant boat? Fallout 2. The Church of the Children of Atom? A rehash of The Children of the Cathedral and the hubbologists, from. you guessed it! Fallout 1 and 2.

And what's even worse is that they took everything interesting from the first games, and took a giant shit on it. Did you know that in the first two games there are no real inherently evil people? There are no zombies. Not really. The ghouls serve as heavy-handed commentary on ableism and racism. They are people. ALL OF THEM. Other humans dislike them because they look like zombies, and move like zombies, and that's scary. The radiation exposure they suffered was so bad it ate away at their skin and their muscles, and left them unable to do anything but hobble. Some of them can't talk. Their brain rots and they become husks of who they were. Weak, decomposing alive. The glowing ones can be found in very irradiated places because they're attracted to radiation like moths to a flame, but they're not violent. And you know what Fallout 3 decided to do? Fallout 3 looked at all of that and went "Yeah let's keep some of them 'normal' but the worse-looking ones are rabid zombies now." Why? Literally why? Why the fuck would you make in-world-humans' fear of ghouls go from "they disgust us" to "they disgust us AND SOME OF THEM DO TURN INTO ACTUAL RAGING ZOMBIES AND TRY TO EAT US" Like??? The level of dehumanization is astounding.

Same with Supermutants btw. In Fallout 1 a lot of them are "stupid" and "dumb" and, to be completely honest, sort of... child-like, almost, sometimes. They are the antagonists because they believe in something different than what you, as the player, believe in. Their leader has an objective you find abhorrent, and so they become the villains in the story. But none of them are inherently evil either. They don't attack you unless you break into their secret base or you try to kill them first. You can talk to them. Their leader's second in command interrogates you and you can have a long conversation with him trying to learn what their plan is. Fallout 3 looked at that and said: "Nah. They're brainless fucks who can't talk and will kill and eat everything they see, specially humans." And then try to make you feel bad for having The Enclave want to end them?? Of course The Brotherhood is irreproachable, with their "all supermutants must die" approach. Of course.

Same with Deathclaws, by the way. Sure they are generally dangerous, but did you know in Fallout 2 you can talk to the genetically modified Deathclaws? They're very nice people. Good luck getting close to a Fallout 3 Enclave's Deathclaw without getting disemboweled.

And all this without even touching on all of the racism and the propaganda in that godforsaken game. All the "ironic anti-communist propaganda" that is literal anti-communist and anti-chinese propaganda. The fact that the only Chinese people you encounter in the main game is a terrorist sleeper plant in a food factory. The fact that they're all zombie-ghouls and you can't even talk to them. The whole Tempanny Tower mess. The fact that one of your companions is literally your slave. Sure, he "works for you because he wants to". Sure.

[perestroika-hilton]

Harold they're communists

[mariocki]

Oh I enjoyed it a lot! I'm very grateful to you for tipping me off that it was showing. Like you say, the best thing about it is the kitchen sink feel and the ambiguity of the job they're doing. The kitchen-sink-spy-thriller is a small genre, certainly, but a rewarding one. As I said, I was put in mind of the Harry Palmer films (or really, just The Ipcress File, the sequels tend to forget the gritty realism in favour of bigger and more outlandish plots). It also brought Callan to mind more than once, but again this predates both of those.

Funnily enough, one of my first thoughts about this was "Blimey, this department clearly has as better budget than Callan's Section does" - specifically, the sheer amount of people spared to tail the suspects, and the ease of renting a cover shop. It becomes a running theme in Callan that the Section is horribly underfunded, with a bare minimum of man power and every single expenditure having to be justified. Just as I was thinking this, though, the scene in which poor Anton gets told off for losing too much money in the betting shop happened.

(Interestingly, Harold Goodwin tails the Doctor in a taxi for some of the film - this becomes a plot point in later Callan episodes, where Callan has a taxi bought for the Section, partly to ease the following of suspects and partly to justify the continued survival of Lonely. I wonder if James Mitchell had seen this film...).

The poster is shocking, not least because none of the figures on it are recognisable as characters from the film (I'm fairly certain nobody had a moustache?). I was a little surprised initially that Maxwell was American, but then he managed to do what most actors in these films don't, and keep his accent subtle (but then he had the benefit of actually being from America). He and Allen make for such an adorable team. I want more, more of their brilliant relationship.

I don't think I would have recognised Jack May either, at least by eye, but the second he spoke to a gate attendant I knew his plummy tones.

I did think it was interesting that the villains were immediately identified as Communist - in a lot of other Brit spy films from this era there's a tenancy to use euphemism, refer to 'them' or 'the other side'. Of course they always mean communists, but it felt unusual to hear them actually say it.

Poor Harold Goodwin. I didn't see that coming, but in a way it was a nice note of grimy realism at the end, just to ground things a bit.

I'm still not over people hiring swimming costumes. It's just. Gross. Gross.

The Traitors (1962)

“Don’t you realise we’re fighting a war?”

“How dare you -”

“It’s the communists versus the rest, and the man who stops to do the right thing loses!”