#just a chill conversation between two tungles

[casino-lights]

I don't want to sound mean but like Joseph hasn't got good intentions, as a cult leader he is manipulative and has killed a number of people in the process. Sure you might say he's not abusive depending on how you see abuse and the different levels of it but Joseph is a cult leader remember, he's not a good man even if he seems to be.

I mean I don’t know where I said he’s a good man. I think he’s very morally grey, as is everyone in FC5 and FCND. All I said was that him being a cult leader doesn’t mean he is, by default, abusing his siblings or any potential significant other. John, Faith, and Jacob have minds of their own and agency of their own and while they may be seeking Joseph’s favor, that doesn’t mean Joseph manipulated them.

In New Dawn, he writes that he thinks he gave his siblings too MUCH agency and he regrets that. He let them do what they wanted. I see too many people saying the Heralds - especially John - were abused and manipulated by Joseph and that if he hadn’t used them like tools they wouldn’t be the way they are, and honestly I just don’t think that’s true. Jacob, John, and Faith all has their own issues and working with Joseph just gave them opportunities to unleash their traumas upon others. Jacob’s worldview was colored by his experience in Iraq and he considered it his test, so he tried to “test” others in the same manner. John’s adoptive parents abused him under the guise of purging him of sins he’d never committed and he thought it freed him, so he tried to “free” other people the same way. Faith was cut off from her peers and made to feel like an outsider before she found the Project, which then made her feel welcomed and loved, so she tried to systematically cut people off from one another in order to show them the love of the Project.

And that’s not even to mention the fact that most of not all of Joseph’s followers GENUINELY believe in him AND his Heralds (listen to some audios of cultist chatter you can hear and you’ll see what I mean). I personally don’t think a leader is responsible for EVERY action of his follower(s) - is the deputy responsible for Sharky setting everything on fire? I think Joseph saw the Project through rose-tinted glasses and convinced himself that he was doing the right thing and that his followers and Heralds were just doing what was necessary to make that right thing happen. The Heralds throw around the phrase “this is the will of the Father” a lot, but we don’t have any concrete proof that Joseph actually authorized anything they do, and later in FCND we see that he wishes he paid more attention to EXACTLY what they were doing.

idk I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Joseph Seed and sure I’m probably biased but at the end of the day... I’m a fic writer. I spent approximately a year of my life working on my headcanons. I’d like to think that I’ve been paying attention to what lore we have for this game enough to make educated judgements about the characters. You can take this all with a grain of salt, but it bugs me to see so many people excuse the actions of the other Seeds by condemning Joseph. Nobody is truly “good” in FC5, and imo, nobody is truly “evil” either.