#trigger warning content

What I find absolutely fascinating about all of these villains is how they tell the story of the trauma and past experiences through their actions, dialogue, beliefs, and all while moving the main story forward. We do have some direct story telling in the sense of them telling us about those key moments that lead to their revelation and some backstory details, but the fact that even afterwards in a lot of what they do if not all of what they do we can potentially draw more inferences of how they came to be who they are? That is some very beautiful story and character construction in my opinion. In how the past influences their present and relatively speaking future events, so too does their present and future come circling back to tie to their past. This possible feedback loop of influence is just so neat in my opinion and is particularly pronounced here with the Seed family and how they are presented in-game. I feel it works exceptionally well for antagonists but could in theory also work for any main character. The sheer weight of how their past influences them so profoundly is really interesting, and while we all are shaped by our past, it’s particularly highlighted here with the Seeds. Often the trope of a character having a dark backstory is presented as the reason they’re doing X, or are prone to behaving in a certain way (one such popular demeanor being say brooding,) and is particularly common for villains. What I think makes the Seeds for me more interesting in that regard is how individualized their processing of their traumas is. It’s not just out to do evil because they are simply evil and have a backstory to facilitate handwaving as to why they are evil, they’re going about it in a particular way, and have all developed a nuanced system of belief relating to that and likely significantly influenced by those around them as well, with the Seeds all I would say influence each other to varying degrees. Them being a group of villains is part of that complexity with the layers of them having a family dynamic, the cult hierarchy, significantly different styles of managing their affairs while still sharing some core elements, and being such diverse personalities. The Seeds in their entirety as a group are what make or break the story in my opinion, since to have really good conflict I would say you need excellent villains or antagonists, and the Seed family fits that bill in my personal opinion very well. It feels like there was a lot of time and care put into each of the Seeds in different ways and in crafting their stories as well as fitting those stories to the main story of Far Cry 5. The speculation I personally take away from this in terms of developing interesting characters is that sometimes having a very detailed background and having it influence a character heavily and actively both in-scene and on the meta of writing the scene can be really interesting. Obviously sometimes not knowing a character’s past and leaving it a mystery works very well too. But if there’s been care put into how the character is developed and there are in-world, albeit unknown backstory reasons for their actions, words, and beliefs? Then even if we the audience don’t know the reasons, that can make for a very compelling character for audience members to speculate and fill in the blanks about. Obviously there are other builds and exceptions and such for making compelling characters and in particular villains and antagonists, but I do think this style of character construction in relation to the overarching plot is honestly quite gorgeous as a story infrastructure element in its own right and worth taking a look at should it appeal to one to examine it. It’s a really lovely echo of how much investment the dev team’s put into the characters themselves that those characters in-world also care and are heavily invested in what they’re doing and saying too, as an added accent to it all. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, hope you all have a good day/night! [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

This would tie in nicely with the “we love you and we will take you” and the “In the end you will thank us” slogans and graffiti we see here and there, including in John’s bunker. Both are very aggressive and unhealthy potential echoes of the Duncans adopting John and “teaching him the power of Yes” (ie beating the tar out of him and not giving him the option to say “no” with said option being respected.) The flaying may have come about as an evolution from self flagellation/whipping/flogging in order to earn the Duncans’ approval—which also potentially feeds into the possibility of John having some scars on his back and perhaps other locations on his body, such as the shoulders. After the Duncans died (through either natural or unnatural means depending on your headcanon), John either started or was already living a rock n’ roll lifestyle. Further speculation of themes and underlying motivations for John could include the following: Was he ashamed of his scars, as part of his self-loathing that’s mentioned in the Book of Joseph? Perhaps part of the rock and roll life style was that if he and his partner(s) were all high, maybe no one would notice or comment on them. It would also feed into living the lie of being “John Duncan” as John and Joseph may have seen it. Perhaps he was ashamed that his skin bore such obvious marks of his suffering, inflicted by his own hand and by the Duncans in one way or another. Perhaps transcending that shame is part of his whole “courage” trip. Perhaps that’s why he likes to scar and flay others, so that he’s not the only one with the marks. Maybe it makes him feel more “normal” by inflicting his version of normalcy on others to make it a more widespread experience—though that can be said of all the Seed family. For John in particular though, Sloth could be said to be his original sin in the sense of spiritual abandonment of self-cultivation, healing from his trauma, etc in running from his self-hatred and how his past overshadows his present day reality into the foreseeable future, but perhaps Joseph meant a different one rather than Sloth when he spoke to John at the Baptism scene. Perhaps it is Envy. Envy of the people who have not yet truly, deeply suffered through his idea of torment for their “actual” sins as he perceives sin. Envy of the people who won’t know the suffering and torment he endured for false sins—the ones who don’t “understand.” Envy of the people who don’t “care” about these matters that have shaped his entire world view and life whether he wanted them to or not—echoed in how he also inflicts them on people, willingly or not. That could feed into Wrath by inflicting harm on others, too, for added sinning-points. But that could feed right back into his supposed original sin of Sloth in the spiritual sense, since it could be said he’s seeking to change the world in a harmful fashion instead of seeking how to induce positive change in his own attitude from within. Which really just makes Joseph seem like he’s giving cryptic mystic-on-a-mountain-stereotype advice of “don’t take the dark path young padawan” instead of reining John’s activities in and actually telling John how to fix it...which mirrors Joseph’s relationship with the Voice again, and how the Voice effectively does not seem to offer moral guidance when Joseph goes full ham with the cult’s actions, pre-Reaping, during the Reaping, and after. Then we have Joseph’s recorded phone message to John, left at the Seed Ranch outpost: “After all the atonements, all the confessions, all that you’ve done for me and Eden’s Gate, it’s not enough, is it John? Cast away your past. You need to open up your heart. You need to see that there is more love all around you. All the pain and suffering you spread will not help us in the long run. These actions will only feed the sin inside you. It will grow stronger,  it will convince you to do wicked things. Those you scar too deeply, they will heal. They will become the carriers of your sin. They will spread that sin to others. I’ve seen your death in a vision. You are destined to be slayed by your own sin. It will come back around in a new form. It’s only a matter of when. I’ve seen you die young. I’ve seen you die old. The difference between the two outcomes is how much love you let into your heart. I want to see you become an old man in the paradise we prepared for. I love you brother. I love you.” One other thing Joseph points out in his phone message he sent to John is “Those you scar too deeply, they will heal. They will become carriers of your sin,” which very much echoes John becoming the abuser, as the Duncans were to him. Most ironically would be that Joseph’s lines are also applicable to Joseph’s own self with this possible interpretation of thematic motive and choices, among other interpretations. This also is likely sending mixed messages despite Joseph’s words being more positively-tagged in the words of brotherly love and all that, if Joseph’s idea of morality is skewed via labeling as stated above. I personally find this message and Joseph’s...inaction as the cult leader to be very conflicting. On the one hand, it sounds like a clear acknowledgement that Joseph is aware that morally, John’s actions are fucked up, dark, and bad objectively. This would easily be extended to Joseph also understanding that all of the dark things the Heralds do are indeed dark and fucked up, since he is arguably very aware of what all the Heralds are up to. So if he knows, why does he do nothing to stop or to guide the Project and its Heralds onto a better path? It could be a messy nuance that he knows it is wrong, but doesn’t know how to do better as of yet in the actual mechanics of the situation while still achieving their goals. Not having a better answer, as it were, despite knowing logically there must be a better way. But conflicting as it may be, it does fit if Joseph is perhaps unconsciously choosing to act as “the Voice” metaphorically (and literally) to the Heralds and his followers. Basically, “you’re doing it wrong, go do it right” without really giving clear orders tailored-to-the-individual’s-psychology as to how, so as to get them to successfully want and start moving past their trauma. They have all internalized and recreated their past suffering, so...Joseph telling John to cast away his past is both hypocritical and ultimately unhelpfully vague in this interpretation of them. Another potential additional theme for John is that his actions may tie back to his past as an addict—presuming he’s largely off of all the more heavy hitting addictive substances and has curtailed the obvious overindulgence-behaviors (but may still drink in more restrained fashion, iirc I think he had alcohol in the form of whiskey at the Seed Ranch? Weed isn’t being counted in this case,) it might be that underneath it all he’s still got those base patterns of high-chasing from his addictions but in a new form. Another possible option that Joseph is referring to as John’s sin is rather his continued addiction behaviors, via the “it’s not enough, is it John?” noted earlier in the phone call message. That line from Joseph could be interpreted as noting how chasing highs can be an essentially endless pursuit with no real clear ending, where there’s no such thing as enough. This would fall neatly into Sloth within the theme John has for classifying people’s sins. In this case, it could be the new addiction to getting people to say Yes. An addiction to the thrill of victory, of learning things about others that no one else knows about—a power trip. The sheer exhilaration John has with getting that Yes from Nick, and flaying the man? The way he needs a moment to clean up and catch his breath before moving on to the Deputy’s Atonement (it’s also great pacing for the scene imo.) The way John says Wrath is the Deputy’s sin? Maybe Wrath for John is one of the most addicting highs of the sins, anger and violence fueled by the adrenaline rush and power over others’ lives, to end them as the Deputy so chooses. As John says shortly after the Deputy escaping the bunker in the Confession sequence, "Your sin consumes you. Blinds you to all the harm you inflict. It allows you to dispense of human life so easily. Have you ever given so much as a second thought to killing?” Combining that with John‘s earlier comment during the Confession:  “But it was Joseph who showed me just how selfish I was being. Always receiving. Always taking. The best gift isn’t the one you get, it’s the one you give, and giving takes courage. The courage to own your sin. To etch it on to your flesh and carry its burden and when you have endured—when you have truly begun to atone—to cut it out like a cancer and display it for all to see. My God that’s courage.” It could be interpreted that John is projecting his addictive tendencies onto the Deputy, an addiction to Wrath as it were. To killing. To violence. Addicted, without consideration of the people it hurts, much like how more severe addiction cases might drive a person to partake in similar veins of behaviors with violence, theft, etc (but obviously less high in the body count department since this is an FPS game.) Perhaps John’s world view also includes seeing all people outside the Project as being addicted to their sins. Perhaps what John thinks as owning his sin is to admit to his addictive tendencies and trying to turn it towards purposes that are “for the good of the Project and others.” Joseph apparently doesn’t agree, and could indeed be looking at it as John still chasing the newest high in another form as theorized earlier. Maybe Joseph recognizes some form of John’s behavior from his time working at a psychiatric hospital—that’d be dark, now wouldn’t it. A possibility though, mayhap. Of course there’s also the option of “Why not both” interpretations of the Envy and Sloth ideas, to add even more nuanced layers to John’s motivations. Whichever it is of those options in this particular examination, it does all tie in to John repeating his experiences as a theme for how he brainwashes and tortures people in his indoctrination process. It is perhaps a tad ironic that John might still have underlying themes of addiction though, given that Faith’s method of brainwashing is very heavily drug-based with the Bliss, with a hearty heaping addition of emotional manipulation. Perhaps that’s part of a possible motivation of John not liking Faith much given the little dig he has for her via the line also during the Confession mission, “In the east...well. Let’s just say too much Bliss can go to one’s head. Faith created her “Angels” but she never did treat them all that well...” This line is certainly part of the basis forming John’s animosity in A Cold and Broken Hallelujah towards Faith. If anything, it creates a very interesting line of contrast between John and Faith, and perhaps it is a matter of John hating something about Faith that he hates about himself. [Link to part one here.] [Link to part three here.]

Obviously one can make some assumptions of Whitetail Militia imagery being used here, particularly given that one of the slides on the projector screens during the Trials includes a picture of Eli with antlers iirc (that may be only during the later trials or the last one, I am uncertain.) Ties right into the whole “the weak must be culled,” and “you are meat,” slogans Jacob’s got all over the place. The “only you” slogans and graffiti could also serve to foster the loneliness and isolation aspect of making the choice “to make the sacrifice” ie, the symbolic choice of killing Miller, or his surrogate equivalent in the case of everyone else that Jacob puts through his trials. I haven’t seen a lot regarding Miller’s ties to Jacob from in-game content but I could have missed something easily. The wiki labels Miller as Jacob’s friend, though I wish we had more detail on that. Most certainly, Miller was a member of Jacob’s unit, which based off of some reading and browsing on the internet, should still be a pretty close tie whether or not they were friends. The following speculation is based on my own interpretations of the matter and I have no history of serving in the Armed Forces, so if I’m mistaken or such feel free to drop me a line to let me know. Continuing: even if they theoretically hated each other’s guts, they were still a part of the unit, a part of the Army. That means they and their other brothers-in-arms lived together and fought together. They ate as a group, slept as a group, watched each others’ backs while on watch or during a firefight, fought along side each other, and did their best to keep each other alive while fulfilling the mission objective, working together as individuals brought together in a cohesive unit that also was a part of the whole. They all knew they had each others’ backs and that the others did the same for them in turn. Shifting between life-or-death situations and more peaceful times, it creates a bond and social structure that is very unlike most common, modern civilian social structures. There certainly at least seems to be a bit of culture shock in the US between the two environs, and Jacob seems to have experienced that, based on what we hear of his backstory in The Book of Joseph of having little to no support once back in civilian life (ie: deeply traumatized and staying in veteran hospitals until he ran out of money and ended up in homeless shelters) after being discharged from the Army. In the Armed Forces it’s about the group, rather than the individual. Imagine having that, knowing that, after being through all that Jacob has potentially been through. To have brothers in arms if not by blood by his side who he protects, who also protect him against the hostility of the world they’re fighting against. This is not to ding Joseph or John as characters by the way, all three of them were children at that point and shouldn’t have had to deal with any of that. Jacob loses what ties of family he holds dear with his blood brothers once he’s put into Juvie, perhaps makes friends there but is likely on his own once he’s out again, with very poor prospects given his history, and then he enlists. He’s alone and without support before he joins the military, and then suddenly he’s in an environment where there IS a form of support, and it’s predictable and structured down to the last bootlace (note: that’s a very broad statement and does not include variance and personal experiences, nor possible issues with potential power abuse or other flaws that might arise in such group structures.) Imagine Jacob being in the Army long enough to get used to that, to enjoy that aspect of it all, to share the camaraderie of bitching about the heat of the sun, sand in their socks, and getting yet another package of their least favorite MRE while trying to wheedle a trade with someone else for something better. Imagine him doing that with Miller, knowing how the other man likes the sugar cookie desserts in one MRE package and hates how the chocolate bars melt from the desert heat in another. Knowing what each others’ tells and bluffs are from playing poker on their down time while on a tour. Swapping stories about home...and noticing who doesn’t want to talk about the life they had before enlisting. Talking about the things they miss, the people they miss. Knowing who snores, who’s a light sleeper, all those things you learn when you’re in close proximity to a person for perhaps up to two years or so depending on deployment length. It could also be they’ve been deployed together more than once, as Jacob certainly went out on multiple tours per The Book of Joseph once again. Imagine Jacob knowing all of that and more about Miller. Then, day after day after day of being lost in the desert, with starvation eating away at their rationality, that hollow pain in their guts as their bodies start burning through their own cells and reserves to try to stay alive, running out of water and having to take chances with any drinking source they can find in the environment and having to expend precious energy to try or die early from dehydration, probably not sleeping well from the hunger, exhaustion, stress, possible enemy presence, dangerous wildlife... The brain starts shutting down real quick once we don’t have the resources it needs to run optimally. Some faster than others, but in Jacob and Miller’s case, their ordeal is definitely long enough to put them into that mindset of feeling that primal fear of a slow death by famine, weakness, scarcity. The psychological toll would have been heavy without a doubt, and that might’ve been compounded by experiences in Jacob’s childhood if his parents were not dutiful in buying food more regularly, which easily could be the case. Old Mad Seed needs more whiskey this month to fuel his raging, drunken fits of spewing biblical verses in a tyrannical fashion? There goes the money for the last few days of food. Easily could be how Jacob got into stealing candy (and likely also food in that case) for himself and his brothers. So Jacob would have a good idea of some of what’s coming down the pipe in that case. He knows how long the trip is, can reckon how fast the two can travel. Maybe he starts out hopeful in a grim way to start... ...but over time as things get more and more desperate (and it could be a familiar desperation he’s felt before as a kid going hungry, only worse,) “And I looked at Miller and I could tell we were as good as dead. And I accepted that. And in that acceptance...came clarity.” That clarity could very well be that Jacob decided that morality was futile if it meant you didn’t survive, which could very well be a very world-breaking revelation for him, since he is mentioned in his backstory to have had a praiseworthy sense of honor among other things. Certainly is potentially spirit breaking to go from being the older brother, the brother-in-arms who relied on and was relied on, who was trusted, to being a betrayer of that trust. A Judas, one could say, as he calls Pratt in his video after Pratt has helped the Deputy escape. And what does Jacob make the Deputy become, in relation to Eli? Eli, the man the Deputy was rescued by, was aided by, has been working alongside this entire time. Eli, who trusts and relies on the Deputy. Eli, who it could be said betrayed Jacob’s friendship with him by choosing not to hand over the Whitetail Militia and join Eden’s Gate (from Jacob’s perspective, based on his final fight dialogue.) “Hey. Only you could have gotten this close. Only you could have earned his trust. It was always only ever you. Good work. You did it. You passed your test. You made your sacrifice. But now...you’re alone. And you’re weak. And we know what happens to the weak.” That might seem contradictory at first, since in theory making the sacrifice should make one “strong” by Jacob’s line of reasoning, one might think. But the Deputy is a “traitor” now—to the Whitetail Militia by brainwashing (temporarily as we the audience know, pending Jacob’s death,) and to Jacob by choice, if one takes the following lines from Jacob into consideration: “You’ve forgotten your purpose, Deputy. You were on the path of the Chosen but now you’ve strayed. Fear did this to you, but don’t worry, I can help with that. I can remove your fear and give you strength. It’s not too late. Come back to me. Remember your purpose.” ”Deputy, know that I still have hope for you, but if you continue to support Eli and his merry band of cowards, that hope will cease to exist. Your judgement is cloudy because your mind is weak, but I have confidence you’ll make the right choice in the end. If not—you’ll all pay in blood.” Link to the audio for the above two lines here (credit and appreciation to hopecountyradio once more.) As with the other Seeds, Jacob starts out trying to persuade the Deputy to “see the light” and join the Project, but as with all of them, as the resistance meter rises and we draw closer to the final confrontation with him, he and the others abandon that idea in favor of trying to end the Deputy instead. So in this possible interpretation, it could be that Jacob views both the Deputy and Eli as traitors both. However...the two situations while both likely quite weighty with the Deputy being “the chosen one” to kick off the Collapse (or a herald of the Collapse if one wants to be cute with wording,) and Eli being an ex-good-friend or perhaps even ex-best-friend of Jacob’s, are potentially vastly different in emotional weight to Jacob. The Deputy is all tied up with this Collapse business, and while Jacob isn’t sure if Joseph talks to God, he does support him, what with being a Herald in the cult and all that. It involves the fate of the family, and in particular, Jacob’s family—his brothers and sister. Eli, however, Jacob has known for a while, likely years, back during the construction of the bunkers which Eli helped with, possibly and likely before then. I personally lean towards interpreting that as they struck up the beginning of a friendship, and Jacob hired Eli and his crew to help with the construction of the cult’s bunkers. Where they had their falling out is less clear as far as I’m aware. It could be it was during or after construction that Eli got a bad feeling about all of this Eden’s Gate business, or perhaps even as late as the beginning of the Reaping if that’s when Jacob gave Eli the “chance” to hand over his Whitetail Militia members, as mentioned in his final boss battle red-bliss section. That could’ve been the breaking point for Jacob and Eli, and if Jacob was expecting Eli to side with him due to friendship and perhaps some shared beliefs...perhaps Jacob took that...poorly. And by poorly I mean went full out on revenge of having Eli killed by betrayal of someone he’d chosen to trust—someone that Jacob had already gotten his hooks into. Someone Eli needed, in this fight against Jacob. Someone like the Deputy. The Deputy, who’s been put through starvation, exposure, and ingrained through conditioning and likely a liberal use of Bliss to facilitate said conditioning, to hunt. To train. To kill. To sacrifice. “You take away a man’s basic needs, and he will revert to his primordial instinct in just ten days.” [Chuckles.] “Ah, that’s a difficult thing to understand unless you’ve lived it...” This is what Jacob is putting the “recruits” and the Deputy through—his revelation. His experience. His choice. In the end as Jacob succumbs to his injuries, he is weak, he is dying, and he knows it, looking at the Deputy in his final scene. This time, he is the one who is sacrificed, by the Deputy, and in Jacob’s eyes by Joseph, to either try to end the chaos spread across the county, or to break a seal respectively. Jacob’s death is a means to an end—as Miller’s was. And Jacob “accepts that,” as he puts it. Does he accept it because now he’s betrayed the trust and faith of potentially two people he might’ve been close to? Miller, and then Eli? Is Jacob conditioning the Deputy during that red-bliss sequence of his boss fight to kill Jacob, based on how there are bliss-hallucinations of Jacob to shoot while destroying the beacons? There’s the generic Whitetail fighter, Judges, and Jacob himself scattered across the landscape before ending that sequence as far as I’m aware. Both Jacob and the Whitetail fighter present could be interpreted in this line of thinking as echoing the supposed betrayal of both sides and being “alone” against the world in a nightmarish fashion while Jacob potentially tries to break the Deputy through talking and said nightmare. The way Jacob talks though...is he strictly speaking to us, or is the Deputy actually a mirror as it were, with the things Jacob says being applicable to himself? “Don’t you find it ironic that everyone you try to help ends up worse off? Eli...Pratt...Tragedy just follows you. If you really wanted to keep people safe, be a hero...you’d just off yourself. Safer for everyone that way.” Is Jacob REALLY talking to us, or to himself through a medium? Through a glass darkly, as it were. He “tried” to “help” Eli and Pratt, in his twisted fashion, by trying to get Eli previously to join the Project and to make Pratt strong enough via brainwashing to also join the Project, which in Jacob’s perspective if he’s following his and Joseph’s dogma, is the only way to survive the Collapse. But Jacob has failed, repeatedly, to protect the people he held dear—his family. His friends. He’s become the threat they need protecting from. He has irrevocably perhaps proven to himself that under the right circumstances? He’s willing to betray people he holds dear for his own survival. Would he betray his family? That is the question, isn’t it. Perhaps Jacob fears finding out. Maybe he fears, that under the right circumstances, he would. Maybe that’s why he goes so willingly to be Joseph’s sacrifice, in part. Maybe having orchestrated Eli’s death, the death of yet one more person whom he was once friends with, yet one more person Jacob himself has betrayed, maybe Jacob doesn’t want to continue either. Maybe that’s the last straw, the nail in the coffin of underlying beliefs that Jacob is inherently not someone who can be fully trusted. Maybe he genuinely thought Eli would join him if given the chance. Maybe Jacob was still hollow and brittle as hell from the first time he’d killed a friend, when he killed Miller. All the Seeds bear the weight of their pasts heavily, and Jacob’s no exception. Jacob survived the first time, barely. He survived the second time, but not by long. He starts talking about his potential death at the Deputy’s hands quite early on during the red-bliss segment. Neither John nor Faith nor Joseph to my knowledge do so. Maybe he was waiting for the Deputy to be strong enough to finish what no one else could. Maybe that was what he wanted. “There’s no “win” for you here. It all ends bloody. For everyone. You die now, or you die later. It’s up to you. But either way? You won’t die a hero.” Perhaps that line from Jacob also is one of the things he fears most—dying without purpose. Dying being not a hero, a person who’s done good for others, but rather the opposite. Ironically so, given that he and his family are all in the torture and brainwashing business, but Jacob in particular gave up on being a good person a long time ago, I think, even by the cult’s standards. [Link to part two here.] [Link to part three here.]