Maccready makes me feel something sometimes (surprise) but what i specifically feel this time around is a sort of different grief for his life that i cant exactly word & how i think theres a profound thing that can also b taken away from his story. long post im not even putting it lightly its like over 2k words because im a total nut. (Edit: i copied and pasted from my notepad wrong. sorry everyone you got to read my rough draft as the introduction i fucking guess)
i also wanna dive into some themes/reflections that have been cooking in my brain. long post that takes ideas and runs with it blehhh
so we know he learned how to start sharpshooting at age 10, all by himself, out of survival. We also know that that's also about the time he stepped up as the mayor of little lamplight… i think around ages 11-12 is for sure like ages where your key traits, or at least, things that are important to the rest of your life start coming into play.
i think the fact that he had to learn to keep a settlement full of children--mind you, kids that were essentially his only community and family when growing up, as much as lamplight shrewdly admitted and let go of kids over time--alive by deadly means & maybe even saw older kids before him be responsible for doing exactly that (monkey see monkey do) MUST have left a strong message in his mind, that, "this is how survival/regular life works," "this is who I am, this is what I will be specialized in/do/pursue for life," and perhaps without him fully recognizing how the irregularity of his upbringing might've ran deeper than he thought…
He becomes a good shot, and it is the only thing that will keep his stomach remotely full/his heart beating for another day, in a world where there's no safety nets or peace and security. But no matter the reality, in times of unrest or stability, he puts this idea of survival into a questionable degree. Work to defend and keep a settlement (his own) alive, starts to manifest as mercenary work, to keep him & his own family alive. You start to wonder, couldn't he just be at least a bit more scrutinizing of what he does to get by? To do by the world right, with virtue, rather than the wrong that it does onto him?
Maccready, since childhood, held onto a manner of which is described as belligerent. A person, who has been repeatedly failed, disrespected, and dehumanized--they may turn bitter and angry, quick to shoot off and rage at someone in an act of self-advocacy/righteousness--"I'm not soft! I'm not a fool! I'm a person! I'm human too!". a child may see less reason to inhibit their feelings, for better or for worse. i don't imagine little lamplight had many emotional mentors for all the kids growing up in there. i feel like fallout struggles to create stories where there are dynamic/round characters who really internally change over the progression of the plot (like besides the player character i cannot think of a character who the player character gets to witness changing as a person over the course of knowing them… like befriending a companion is one thing but literally none of them have moments where you really get to change their mind/open a door abt something like how it sometimes happens w real people tbh ðŸ˜theyre like 'oh thats interesting, player.' and then nothing happens after) but then again this is not like. a character-study or profound politics based game, it's moreso large scale worldbuilding & aestheticism & comedy overriding sentimentality & the shit Kill bandits and Fantasy Races & not think about it sorta game.
on that same sort of note, i do think there's only so much scrutiny you can hold to something when the bar is already low, i think. you don't look at your 3 year old self and get mad at them for not knowing how to do advanced calculus, or how to navigate the feelings they got when their favorite toy broke. you don't look at a 90s videogame series that got adopted by a corporate game company that highkey cares more about profit than crafting high-quality works of art/media, and expect it to be trying to say something with actual venom or criticality in it. you don't look at an orphan who grew up with other kids & scrapping for just a tiny inch of life, and expect him to know better than the life that was given to him. in my opinion, mac really isn't foolish. his instincts are what made him a capable leader out of all of those kids in lamplight, and they're what make him less of an easy-pickings sucker than most poor settlers just trying to make a living in the wasteland. he's perceptive and skeptical, and i think that he's made the most of all the information and knowledge/resources he's had access too. i think for that reason, it is easy to look at a guy who's head seems to be on the same page as most players but is the way he is, making one question why that's so, and if it's indicative of like. A Moral Failing/him being just an irredeemable individual etc.
i consider myself to experience cognitive dissonance about a lot of stuff (and i've been trying to recognize what and where it happens) and i think i don't poke about the fact that many of my favorite/liked characters encroach militant territory due to the medias being FPS's or about war/fighting and revolve around death… in real life, i am highly disgusted by killing & the nature of militias/mercenaries/armies, esp in relation to imperialism and pushing exploitation. when i think about like barney calhoun (hl1/hl2) or maybe demoman (tf2) or sugimoto/tanigaki/ogata (gk) they all have their own stories and specific contexts, but there remains the fact that like barney's a cop, demoman's a merc, and those three are japanese soldiers from the 1800s… i do think there's a huge difference between being amused or engaged by a character/writing a character, from condoning them, but there still stands the reality that most of these characters take a position that's of The Oppressor, or could be able to perform reprehensible things from their position of power. what am i doing/saying, by having these characters be my 'blorbos'? i always felt harshly about the practice of faning over real people/celebs, especially serial killers. why don't i feel absolutely the same about these fictional footsoldiers, with a vivid passion? maybe its the way these medias frame their actions, putting things lightly, or just unacknowledging them to the point of inexistence. maybe because those who are wrongly taken are unelaborated, dehumanized… stifling the impact of the implications. it's one thing to be told someone's a tough/killer. it's another to understand and feel the breadth of what that means. how would i treat a real life mercenary, someone who doesn't choose who gets it, but are still willing to take the shot? i have family that is police/army/military, and i know people who were. my emotions towards those people is largely scorn, but because i know them, it's moreso disappointment. feelings of frustration and wishes that they would recognize the falsehoods from the truth, all at their grown ages, their valuable human minds… how can you do that for a living?
"{Nervous} My wife Lucy gave this to me right after we met. I… I uh, told her I was a soldier and she made it for me. {Somber} Never could bring myself to tell her the truth… that I was just a hired killer. {Somber} The soldier story was the best thing I could come up with. I didn't want to lose her because of what I was."
The difference between a merc, a soldier, and a killer is small. one kills specifically for contractual money/gain, one kills specifically to push forward a movement/empire, and one kills for immediate thrills or personal reasons. but to me, they ring all the same. they all kill people, and all of them are capable of being hammers that'll hit any nail, anyone, anything. no matter the reason behind it, to hold that power and positioning, to commit those acts, has huge ramifications. taking life, human, animal, plant, in my opinion, is inevitable, but when it becomes your specific livelihood--your specialty, your 'duty', a 'hobby', it becomes… horrific and reprehensible, with the way one revels or stews in the act of taking. my thought surrounding industrial agriculture is that maybe we don't need to produce so much, because there are always costs. not everybody's a green thumb, or may know how to handle animals, but should we really have become like this, where we do not at least respect and give back to the nature we expend for our survival? why is it normal to take and not give, when time and time again, nature has show it doesn't like imbalance. the earth, its plants, its animals, humans, we all don't benefit from being in deficit/being exploited/stretched thin (i mean, unless that floats your boat, but even bdsm fuckers understand the importance of boundaries/limits/aftercare… it's basic respect for another entity's existence).sometimes we don't have a choice, when it comes to taking and taking (we'd all starve if we didn't eat, you'd die if you don't hurt or kill someone relentlessly trying to kill you, you have to expend oxygen to breath for godssake), but almost always, we do have choices we can make (do we really need all this corn to make and sell alcohol? do we really need to sic militarized police on citizens for protesting/kill a bunch of innocent people to steal their land/resources? do we have to make or do so many things that make our natural world uninhabitable?)… mercs, cops, soldiers, and killers all make their choices everyday. whether their (in my eyes) lack of sight outside of their chosen choices is their fault or not, their acts remain fact. they remain in a state of perpetual taking, and in earnest/the least emotional way possible, it is greed & selfishness. they wield a position of power/authority/strength, to make a means to an end, and often, those who get to be served by those means, who get to benefit the most from the killings, are full of greed & disregard for others. there is no respect in that.
as a gun-wielding mayor, maccready was never the authoritarian type by principles alone, and i don't imagine it was shoot on sight for every mungo that came to lamplight--he only took as necessary, and he only made the hard choices when there was desperation. but, as an adult, maccready might fight to keep his baby alive, but does it excuse the work he's done? did he need to take all of those hit jobs, to be a gunner and 'secure the perimeter',,,? how many lives has he claimed that were innocent, especially, and were taken out of an excess need for Taking? he could've scraped by another way, in a way that didn't disregard and add to the grief in an already challenging world… could've. he expressed distates for the gunners, how they were ruthless and unscrupulous. he regretted taking work with them, stating how things… 'caught up to him,' he guesses…and he took out his old squadron with the help of the sole survivor. would one consider that a due payed back? he talks about liking to keep the books balanced, and he even shows that by returning the hiring fee he charged sole at first. for a guy who's supposedly greedy, and in Everything Just For the Money, he shows something that feels a lot like the opposite.
recently, i'd thought about how my relationship with my environment & selfhood was like. am I the one who's like this, or am i simply a reflection of my traumas & unhospitable childhood environment? how does my unique internal and external life factors come into play? am i broken, an extreme magnification/warped funhouse mirror of what i observe? or is it no matter, my properties something neutral, whilst the way i navigate myself and the world/society needing more important attention? i bring this up, because i think an important question can be begged from maccready as a character. how much of the mercenary is a role-modelless 12 year old, repeating the same lessons learned in his head? maybe, how much of maccready is a despicable and selfish, greedy, do-bad, utterly disrespectful & disregarding person? i think i could fall in love with his character, because i dug for answers, and the conclusions i made, showed me a struggling young person, still learning, but keeping his head up, just like me. i cannot foul a person who without a doubt is trying, and knows to be kind. if it had been otherwise, i think it would've very much been a prisoner 701 au situation (sorry this is my gregory berrycone reference of the day) where i just would. have a very intense love and hate relationship w him that struggles to have grounds for anything hugely meaningful. i think there is still room for criticality, just as there is room for understanding and love for someone. such things can coexist. i feel like he's in a ditch, and he digs, he just keeps digging, thinking it'd get him out…not knowing that the same old actions to make change/keep himself moving is keeping him stuck, maybe wearing him down, maybe digging himself deeper… it is tragic to see, and tragic to experience.
