Ulysses and the inability to critically engage with media.
(Aka this has been ticking me off for awhile so I'm gonna write about it.)
Under nearly every comment section of a post pertaining to Ulysses from Lonesome Road, there's always a 99% chance you're gonna see the same 3 things; number one being of course the "bear bull" joke you've heard a million times, number two being a statement reducing ulysses down to "a pretentious, whiny yapper" or something of the same flavor, and three that the dlc was a slog and unenjoyable. In my opinion, all of this can be credited back to the fact that these people often times don't critically engage with the media.
To start, the "bear, bull" joke after maybe the second or third time starts to get insanely reductive. While yes, Ulysses' dialogue is very oblique, and his wording is often times based in imagery and symbolism rather than spoonfeeding you any literary meaning, this, regardless, fits directly into the dlc and into his character. The DLC itself is practically begging you to engage critically with A. The storyline of the game, B. Your own character and actions, and C. Impact and meaning, whether that be political, moral, or otherwise. Of course Ulysses' way of indirectly speaking after some time can seem overly repetitive and redundant if you refuse to engage with the new points and secondary meaning presented over the course of Lonesome Road. And on a more character based level, Ulysses' unique way of speaking is actually a good way of creating character depth without overexplaining. His words being less direct invites the player to think a little harder about their actions, etc, which is already established as a goal of his from the time you first speak to him. Ontop of this, it builds exposition that English most likely isn't his native tongue and that Ulysses tends to see the world through a more symbolic lense than literal. Whether this be the influence of his upbringing/tribe placing value on such, or spending alot of time reading into action and consequence. His use of Bear and Bull as faction indicators CLEARLY exemplifies this. Reducing his speech patterns down to such can make it seem like his wording carries way less weight than it does, and makes it easier to brush past the points hes trying to get across, and thus its frustrating to see this so often.
My second point is way more cut and dry, but reducing his character down to a whiny yapper is just a straight up refusal to engage critically with the media. "He just blames all his issues on other people and complains about it" as if this man doesn't have a damn good reason?? Hello?? Did we play the same dlc?? Ulysses' character is an insanely good analysis of The Legion, and the impact of history erasure, imperialism, and how complexes such as Caesarâs Legion completely destroy lives. It's not an insane thought to have that perhaps a man who had his entire tribe's culture thrown to the shredder and was forced into military service for a bunch of douchebags might just have some issues caused by said douchebags. And God forbid a man point this out as a way of expanding the themes meant to be explored through factions such as the Legion. And while he can originally come off as pretentious, it's my opinion that he's MEANT to make you question different things. Yes, Ulysses was trying to make you reevaluate different literary elements. Shocker. On the secondary point of yapping, yall are genuinely just complaining about RPG elements being in your RPG. Of course the DLC is going to be exposition and story dense, especially this late into the game where alot of threads are to be explored more before the final moments of the game.
And finally, of course the dlc is going to be "a slog" if you refuse to engage with any of the main elements. I'm just gonna say it, this statement says more about you than it does the game itself. While there are a hundred different ways to think of Lonesome Road and Ulysses, and a bunch of differing opinions to have, whether critical or positive, you actually have to give the text a shred of thought to get there. Genuinely there's no valid opinion to be had if you didn't atleast sit down with it like the game has been begging you to the whole time.
Anyways yall pmo and need to pick up a book or take any English class beyond 6th grade
