Fallout Spoilers - Tumblr Posts
Is he a little shit? Yes
Do I still love him? Absolutely
yes, we all going crazy over "there you are, you little killer" line but if you take the moment to think about it - it makes sense why Ghoul said that in the first place. he thought Lucy killed Wilzig bc she was after the bounty like he was. he saw her talking to "target" back in Filly like they knew each other and next thing you know - Wilzig is dead. decapitated. no signs of struggle or fight or involvement of other fractions so that leaves one suspect - damn vault-dweller and her sting gun (really?a sting gun? not even the real one with actual bullets? are you kidding me?) so of course when Ghoul catches up with her - he doesn't believe shit. vaultie is a good actress, all that golden rule talk could've worked on him but alas he doesn't have a soul. so let's see when her mask falls off. that's why he let's himself to indulge a little: taunt her here and there, push her over the limit and see what she'll do. and it worked. she bit his finger off. little killer.
The Heroine's Journey: Lucy MacLean
“The feminine journey is a journey in which the hero gathers the courage to face death and endure the transformation toward being reborn as a complete being in charge of her own life.” — 45 Master Characters
In her book 45 Master Characters, Victoria Schmidt outlines the steps and phases in the Feminine Journey as seen in many traditional stories such as myths and fairy tales. Unlike The Hero’s Journey, which focuses on the external, The Heroine’s Journey is about inner exploration. In the following analysis, I will examine Lucy MacLean’s journey so far in Fallout (2024). I believe it will be interesting to identify at what stage she is by the end of S1 which will give us an idea of what likely awaits her in S2. Note: This analysis is written for fun. It is my own reading of the character and her journey. You’re welcome to have your own. Spoilers ahead!
Schmidt’s Heroine’s Journey has nine stages:
ACT 1 Containment: 1. The Illusion of the Perfect World
2. The Betrayal or Realisation 3. The Awakening or Preparing for the Journey
ACT 2 Transformation:
4. The Descent – Passing the Gates of Judgement
5. The Eye of the Storm
6. Death – All Is Lost
ACT 3 Emergence:
7. Support
8. Rebirth – The Moment of Truth
9. Full Circle – The Return to the Perfect World
ACT 1
The Illusion of Perfect World
In the first episode, we meet Lucy content in Vault 33. We are shown a whole montage of her perfect life in her perfect shelter. It’s designed to protect her. Outside is dangerous but in her bubble, she is safe and sound. But is this good enough? Despite her obvious naivety, we get a sense she is after something else. In her first scene, she applies for marriage, which is telling of her being on the threshold of adolescence and adulthood. Now, if marriage is really what she is after, or if it is something she relies on to fit in the community she lives in, is up for debate. The thing is, the heroine knows deep down that her little world is not perfect. And she subconsciously seeks freedom so she can exercise her growth. Perhaps the prospect of marriage is the closest to freedom she has known in the vault. Or perhaps it is the thrill of meeting someone from outside her containment. In any case, she wants change; her shelter has turned into a cage.
2. The Betrayal or Realization
Here comes the moment when Lucy’s perfect world is shattered. On her wedding night, right after the consummation of marriage (the symbolic passing to adulthood), she is betrayed by her husband. This is the so-called “inciting incident”. He turns out to be a raider from the surface. Now, not only is she betrayed by him personally, but she is betrayed by her idea of the outside world. He is her first conscious contact with the world outside the vault. And it is a far cry from what she has believed in. Not only that but the danger has breached the walls of her shelter; she can’t ignore it. It turns out that her perfect world and the system she has lived in are broken. Her attempt at freedom ends with her husband’s hands around her neck. The history and ethics lessons have done little to prepare her for this. So a part of her begins to wonder what actually lies out there. To top it off, her father, who is an Overseer and the biggest authority by her glass bubble’s standards, is drugged and taken hostage before her own eyes. She encounters the villain for the first time in the face of Moldaver. With her convictions shattered and her dad gone, she must make a choice. 3. The Awakening, or Preparing for the Journey
Lucy’s world is in ruins, metaphorically and literally. The others’ refusal to send a search party only reinforces the idea that her world has let her down. This is her awakening. She decides to take the active road and do something about it herself, hoping to rebuild what was lost. From the story’s perspective, she has to find her dad. But as screenwriter Robertson-Dworet puts it: “As much as she leaves to find her father in the pilot, she also wants to fuckin' know what's out that door.” Moldaver also remarks in the final episode that Lucy’s curiosity greatly motivates her to leave the vault. Given the raiders’ attack and with no established authority to prohibit her from doing so, she ventures to do just that. With the help of Norm and Chet, she gathers tools and prepares for the journey. What she isn’t aware of but will soon find out is that no material tools will help her with what’s waiting outside. She has yet to learn to trust herself and her qualities which will ultimately help her. It’s time for the trial by fire.
ACT 2
4. The Descent – Passing the Gates of Judgement
The descent may not be a literal one. In Lucy’s case, it’s ascent. She looks behind her as the door is closed and locked. There is no way back, only ahead. Often, the descent is about passing the gates of the Underworld. One of the first shots outside the vault shows us bones and a skull on the ground. The Wasteland is very much portrayed as the Underworld with its own set of rules.
From here on, the real journey begins. The heroine faces the consequences of her life-changing decision in the form of tests that will determine her worth. She might be advised to return to her perfect world, as Dr. Siggi Wilzig does after she lights the bonfire. After she refuses, he tells her that she will have to adapt and become a "different animal altogether," summarising the point of this stage of transformation in her journey.
She will then try to use the tools she has at her disposal—literal and metaphorical—but they won’t work. With each encounter, she will lose weapons or belongings until she is left with nothing of the things she thought would help her. Think of the filtered water Lucy loses or how her dart doesn’t work against the Ghoul. She begins to look progressively worse as her jumpsuit gets dirtier and bloodier. She even loses her trigger finger.
The heroine may also face societal prejudice. Lucy is stunned by people’s opinions about Vault dwellers and Vault ideals in general. She is being proven again and again that her sensibilities, HR manuals, and ethics don’t work in the Wastes.
The heroine has to rely on her courage and instincts. She must let go of all control and surrender herself to the descent. After being stripped of everything, she must face her demons. Lucy strives to always do the right thing, but she needs to embrace the fact the fact that the right thing doesn’t always come in a neat little package. The world is more than right and wrong.
I believe the scene that best illustrates the first time Lucy actively trusts her instincts and by doing so, survives on her own, is Super Duper Mart. She uses threats, uses a makeshift weapon, holds a hostage (it’s a robot but still, it’s a big step for her), and most significantly, for the first time, murders another to ensure her own survival. Even though Martha had no humanity left, her murder is important in Lucy’s journey because her death becomes synonymous with doing the right thing, not for a cause or the greater good, but for Lucy herself.
She emerges victorious with her bloodied face and tank top, and this is the most disheveled state in which we have seen her. By helping out the Ghoul, she is the victor not only in terms of survival but also in terms of morality. She shows him that she is morally superior to him. She’s successfully beaten her demons this time without losing sight of her golden rule. Still, it has taken a lot out of her to survive. The heroine feels weary, reminiscing about easier times. She seeks to find the familiar comfort she once had and may consequently settle for something she doesn’t really want.
5. The Eye of the Storm
After this mini-climax, the heroine evaluates and comes to terms with what just happened. She concludes that she handled things well. Having survived the danger, she gains a false sense of security. In Lucy’s journey, this stage coincides with her meeting Max and their experience in Vault 4.
Finally, Lucy finds a person she can trust. The world feels a tad bit better with someone by her side. At the same time, she dreams of going back to her own perfect little world. It’s so lucky that they end up in another vault!
While Max discovers the joys of living a simple life, it’s interesting to observe Lucy’s behavior. Although she feels safe for a moment, she starts noticing the people and things around her. She’s become more perceptive than before. Try as she might, she can’t go back to her old ways due to her experience on the surface. She wants to feel safe, she wants to sleep with Max; she wants life to be simple again. But she can’t help but look twice over her shoulder. She feels uneasy and grows suspicious of everything around her. It’s the newly found survivor in her screaming at her to get out.
Eventually, Lucy learns that she has made the wrong assumptions about Vault 4 because of her ignorance and her raw instincts. They leave the vault unscathed, with Lucy fantasizing about a future with her and Max living together back in her perfect world. Soon they find the head but are forced to separate. Lucy gets the head, the kiss, and the promise that Max will find her in Vault 33. It looks like the journey is nearing its end. But it’s only the beginning.
6. Death – All Is Lost
The heroine believes that her journey will soon be over, but it is time for her to face her biggest fear yet. Lucy delivers the head and finds her dad, thinking they can safely go back to how things were. Then, all of a sudden, her world is spun on its axis once more.
She learns about her mother’s fate and about what her father did to Shady Sands. And perhaps most jarring to her is that her father really believes that he’s done the right thing by dropping a bomb over a thriving city. Lucy’s role model turns out to be a fraud. The ideals she has lived and fought for, too. And it’s Moldaver, the villain, who seems to be on the right side of the story, despite her murdering her fellow people. It looks like the world isn’t simply divided into right and wrong after all. This is the ultimate betrayal that leaves the heroine’s thoughts in inner turmoil. She feels humiliated and confused. All this time, she’s lived in a perfectly constructed lie. The events build up to her mercy killing her own mother, which is exactly what the Ghoul did to Roger in front of her. Purnell says: "She's learned from him. She has turned into him." She faces the death of her old self.
Schmidt notes that few female protagonists make it past the stage of their “death”. Some of them die in the literal sense, some go back to their old lives defeated, and others fall into a spiral of depression. I believe this is Lucy’s final stage in S1. What will become of her in S2? Let’s speculate!
ACT 3 Emergence:
7. Support
The heroine’s journey is about building bridges between the individual and the group. Her inner awakening leads to her being more open to the help of others and helping them in turn. She isn’t afraid of betrayal anymore because, at the end of the day, she has herself.
In Lucy’s final scenes in S1, we actually see the beginning of this stage with the Ghoul offering her to travel with him and find out more about the past. She leaves Max behind and goes with the Ghoul. According to Schmidt, it’s during this stage that the protagonist will accept herself as she is and go on to share her knowledge with others. She will define her own world without an external authority. Her journey of self-discovery will guide the others around her to make amends with their own problems.
We have already seen the Ghoul’s influence on Lucy. In S2, I believe we’ll see how Lucy affects the Ghoul for the better by balancing his sharp edges. But before that, she will need his help to get herself up on her feet so that she can be reborn and come full circle in a new perfect world. Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts!
☢️ INTEREST CHECK ☢️
Oki so I'm way too new to Fallout (yesterday I binged watched everything babe, I'm in the trenches now LMAO) but if there is one thing about me is that I always have ideas XD AND every fandom I'm in (currently) has shipping servers and so on and I LOVE THIS because that's how you meet peeps, new friends, share knowledge and more and from what I've seen here, the VaultGhoul ship is more than active! So I humbly comes forth (with a bunch of Nuka-Cola caps and some good ol' memes) and propose a concept: A Ghoulcy/VaultGhoul shipping server! I'm a mod for many shipping servers and I have some experience with bots and such and I would love to create it! What I'm proposing: 🔸 Friendly Community: Whether you're a ghoul, human, or synth, everyone is welcome here! 🔸 Games: Regular events where we team up for some Fallout fun! 🔸 Lore Discussions: Dive deep into the rich history of Fallout with fellow fans. 🔸 Memes and More: Share your favorite memes, fan art, and stories. I already have a name for it and some emojis ready to be used there but I want to know if you peeps would be interested!! Feel free to vote/comment and such so I can get back to you when it's up and running babe!💛💙
Still got a bunch of stuff to finish for it but it's happening!!
The server will probs be ready before the end of the weekend (hoping to open it tomorrow, Saturday 6th of July) !!!
☢️ INTEREST CHECK ☢️
Oki so I'm way too new to Fallout (yesterday I binged watched everything babe, I'm in the trenches now LMAO) but if there is one thing about me is that I always have ideas XD AND every fandom I'm in (currently) has shipping servers and so on and I LOVE THIS because that's how you meet peeps, new friends, share knowledge and more and from what I've seen here, the VaultGhoul ship is more than active! So I humbly comes forth (with a bunch of Nuka-Cola caps and some good ol' memes) and propose a concept: A Ghoulcy/VaultGhoul shipping server! I'm a mod for many shipping servers and I have some experience with bots and such and I would love to create it! What I'm proposing: 🔸 Friendly Community: Whether you're a ghoul, human, or synth, everyone is welcome here! 🔸 Games: Regular events where we team up for some Fallout fun! 🔸 Lore Discussions: Dive deep into the rich history of Fallout with fellow fans. 🔸 Memes and More: Share your favorite memes, fan art, and stories. I already have a name for it and some emojis ready to be used there but I want to know if you peeps would be interested!! Feel free to vote/comment and such so I can get back to you when it's up and running babe!💛💙
I just don’t know why, if you save Danse’s life, that if you turn on the BoS he hates you. Like, come on, homie, I put my neck on the line for you, and then because I turn on the people who WANTED TO KILL YOU, you’re giving me the silent treatment?
It hurts my soul, Danse Danse Revolution.
The fact that it’s possible that Elder Maxson does not always kill Paladin Danse (or force you to kill him) at the end of blind betrayal is honestly baffling to me. Here you have an extremist whose goal is literally to destroy the institute and all their synths but he leaves this one. Why? Because he values you?
If this experience taught him anyting it should be that anyone he trusts could be a synth. The Sole’s instistence on sparing Danse should be a sign that they’re a synth sympathizer. They don’t line up with the Brotherhood’s ideals. Maybe this person that just popped out of nowhere claiming to be from a random vault is a synth too.
At least if he does end up sparing Danse.. He shouldn’t let YOU come back. He shouldn’t promote you. It makes no GODDAMN sense. YOU LITERALLY DIDN’T EVEN DO WHAT HE TOLD YOU TO. Idk man that decision could have been a really difficult one to make if there were actual consequences… It should have been the Brotherhood or Danse’s life.. no way you should be able to have both…
“Fallout TV show retconned New Vegas-“
Stop. Listen to me. Look me in the eyes. “Canon” isn’t real. I’m completely serious. It’s whatever you want it to be. This franchise is rooted in games where you literally choose what ending you want based on your actions. Please, please for the love of god tell me that this whole time some of you have not been deciding that in games with multiple endings there is actually one “real” ending and all the others are “not canon.” If you really want my opinion half the fun of this whole series is that EVERY SEQUENCE OF EVENTS IS EQUALLY “VALID.” It’s time to kill the Todd Howard in your head and realize that literally no one is stopping you from choosing what to believe is part of this series. Incorporate every game, including the ones that never got made and only exist as details on the wiki. Or don’t. Decide that only the first two games and New Vegas are real and pretend 3 & 4 don’t exist. Create a new timeline in your head where EVERYTHING happens BUT Fallout 3 and yet Fallout 4 still fucking happens. Incorporate the fan theories you like and disregard the ones you don’t. Add your headcanons. Just MAKE SHIT UP. It doesn’t fucking matter! And that’s beautiful!!!! War never changes but goddamn canon sure will, but only if you believe!!
Single funniest thing they could do for season 2 of the Fallout show is make Arcade’s canon ending him killing himself
Rafi Silver as ROBERT HOUSE Fallout (2024—)
Actually the reason New Vegas is a abandoned in the show is the Courier got too turnt at the craps table and accidentally spilled all the cloud resin they were carrying from the Sierra Madre and created the worlds deadliest hot box.
i guess my gripe with people who are just writing off the tv show as lore-breaking and bad without watching it is that the show itself actually addresses a lot of the complaints that fandom always makes and people are instead taking information out of context to rage bait about it.
"why isn't civilization advancing" it WAS advancing! shady sands was a beautiful city with thriving crops and a bus system. it got burned down because vault tech is not interested in letting civilization advance on their own terms.
"why can't fallout ever be hopeful" the season ends with infinite renewable energy being implemented into the world so that society can finally start healing and advancing. it's just currently at the hands of the wrong people.
"why does bethesda hate the NCR and have such a boner for the brotherhood" this one makes me laugh because the show portrays the NCR as ultimately the ones who are really trying to help the world in meaningful ways and it portrays the brotherhood as these big cultish losers who are obsessed with the past. the show even points out that their obsession with the past makes no sense.
"why was shady sands nuked in 2277" it wasn't. it started to DECLINE in 2277 and eventually it got nuked at a later date.
"why is everyone on the surface portrayed as savages" because lucy is the POV character and that's how she initially sees them. she was literally raised to be a colonizer and her view eventually gets challenged first with the inhabitants of vault 4 and then when moldaver explains to her the real history of shady sands and her father's involvement with the state of the world.
Lee Moldaver x Rose MacLean is living real long-term and rent-free in my head for something that only hit me in the last 5 minutes of an 8-hour TV show
My dream for Season 2 of Fallout is a musical episode with 4-6 original songs, especially since New Vegas opens up a location like The Tops or characters akin to the lonesome drifter that would really compliment that format. A lot of popular 30s - 50s songs are either showtunes (such as Fallout staple Anything Goes) or showtune adjacent in sound, so it wouldn't be out of place. Also shamelessly committing to having the characters sing and then never acknowledging it again would be very Wild Wasteland of them.
i guess my gripe with people who are just writing off the tv show as lore-breaking and bad without watching it is that the show itself actually addresses a lot of the complaints that fandom always makes and people are instead taking information out of context to rage bait about it.
"why isn't civilization advancing" it WAS advancing! shady sands was a beautiful city with thriving crops and a bus system. it got burned down because vault tech is not interested in letting civilization advance on their own terms.
"why can't fallout ever be hopeful" the season ends with infinite renewable energy being implemented into the world so that society can finally start healing and advancing. it's just currently at the hands of the wrong people.
"why does bethesda hate the NCR and have such a boner for the brotherhood" this one makes me laugh because the show portrays the NCR as ultimately the ones who are really trying to help the world in meaningful ways and it portrays the brotherhood as these big cultish losers who are obsessed with the past. the show even points out that their obsession with the past makes no sense.
"why was shady sands nuked in 2277" it wasn't. it started to DECLINE in 2277 and eventually it got nuked at a later date.
"why is everyone on the surface portrayed as savages" because lucy is the POV character and that's how she initially sees them. she was literally raised to be a colonizer and her view eventually gets challenged first with the inhabitants of vault 4 and then when moldaver explains to her the real history of shady sands and her father's involvement with the state of the world.
Fallout spoilers + minor theorizing:
As much as I like the idea of Lucy x the Ghoul, I'm 99% positive the show is going down the route of him ending up being some sort of a father figure to her. Not just saying that because it's trying to set her up with Maximus.
Hank turned out to be evil and flew his ass over to New Vegas, so now Lucy's without a dad (one she respects at least) and Cooper is still without the daughter he's been looking for all these years (and is continuing to look for. Whether she's alive or not, or her condition, no one knows).
Not to mention, I think that whole scene with the finger is symbolic of that. Lucy bit off Cooper's finger in defence when they were enemies, and in turn he cut off one of hers and stitched it back onto him in place of his old one. Lucy is quite literally a part of him now.
Fallout (2024) I 1.03 The Head
I’m from a place where the worst someone can do to you is forget to say thank you. bonus (#wilderness progress):
Imagine not loving Maximus. Cringe fail king. Never makes the right decisions. Quite literally Lucy’s knight in shining armor. Doesn’t know what sex is. Stole his power armor from an asshole. Cannot use his power armor properly.
His loser boy personality has captivated me
