#will boyd

Evanescence vs My Chemical Romance

A long Interview with two major charismatic singers!!

INROCK (November 2006)

Photographer for Evanescence: FRANK OCKENFELS

I was wondering if you know anything about Lonny, John's subordinate? His wiki is pretty much blank, I don't own the Absolution novel myself so I won't be available to read it, and I can't seem to find any more information about Lonny online either.

Do we know what type of person he was? And what he did for John and/or Eden's Gate?

I am asking since I wanted to add him in my fanfic, but also respecting him as a character and to write him accordingly.

Hello!

We don’t know much about Lonny, and this character is only mentioned in Absolution. He’s one of the cult’s (but especially John’s) henchmen, and in the novel, he and Will Boyd, the protagonist, are asked to hunt down Mary May.

In terms of his appearance and personality, the book says:

He was bearded like all members of the church were and his two snake tattoos emerged from the sleeves of his T-shirt and coiled down his forearms to the backs of each hand. (...) The man was six foot, nearly as tall as Will, but skinny and lean. Those two forearms with the snake tattoos were all muscle and sinew and not much else. Will had heard Lonny could use them, too. Though he’d never seen the man hurt anyone, he had heard stories. A few saying how Lonny could strike out with each fist fast as any rattlesnake might bite.

Reading this, I imagine he looks a lot like one of the cultists from the live-action short film, Inside Eden’s Gate, who seemed to be more violent than the cult’s soldiers in the game, but I suppose the movie and the novel were based on an early version of Far Cry 5’s story in which, as I’ve already discussed, the cult’s methods were apparently more extreme.

Lonny isn’t very refined; he spits, picks “loose tobacco from his teeth and from his lips” before flicking it away at one point, and frequently swears. Saying “fuck” isn’t something cultists typically do in Far Cry 5, but I would say this is consistent with what the Project’s soldiers were like at the time in that version of the game’s scenario. It seems he’s significantly more violent and short-tempered, though, and Will has to intervene so he stops beating a man and his young son up. I think the novel suggests he went to prison, and he describes himself as “a survivor”. “All of us are riding in the ark and some of us just don’t know it yet,” he adds.

We also know that he smokes handrolled cigarettes, which is apparently not against the Project’s rules, and that he often drinks alcohol, even carrying a flask in his pocket. This, however, is not allowed in the cult, but “old habits die hard”, as he says. In spite of this, he seems to have faith in the Father’s message and to believe the Collapse is coming. He also explains people who have been helped by the cult and “suckled at the teat of Eden’s Gate” owe them a debt, which Lonny and the other men are apparently here to collect, whether that means people must give them food, supplies... or their soul. “We all have our purpose,” he says. “We all must do our duty for the church”.

And, I don’t know if you need this, but since it’s mentioned in the book, Lonny doesn’t speak Spanish.

Now, spoilers for Absolution, but the character dies in the novel. When they finally find Mary May, he tries to shoot her and Will stops him. A fight ensues, Lonny falls, and breaks his neck. When Will meets John after the incident, which the Herald and other cultists witnessed from afar, he doesn’t blame him for his death since he knows it was an accident, says Mary May is alive thanks to Will, and reveals he didn’t trust Lonny anymore anyway. “I saw how he was going. I should have seen it sooner,” John explains. “His drinking. The loosening of his faith. He was not a true believer. He was breaking away from us, breaking away and falling in among his own past sins. (...) I should have known all of it, all he said and all he did, was all leading up to this.”

Later, another cultist, Holly, will say about him, “He was an asshole to begin with. Always trying to fuck every single one of us.”

After your wife and child left this Earth we feared for your life. We feared that you had let the weakness overtake you. But you did not. You became the hunter and not the hunted. You gave up sin. You gave up vice and all the evil that had overrun your life. We put our hands upon you and together we took away your sin. We cut it from your chest, just as every member here has also given up their sin.