Here's an angsty-ish idea that I haven't seen any fics dabble in: the deputy having the appearance (face, eyes, hair, etc) and voice of the Seed brothers birth mother. Like obviously not actually HER (I find it unlikely she's even alive, much like Old Man Seed), but a kind of spitting image of her from their childhood (if younger-ish, or not, it doesn't really matter), and the Seed bros just having to process that upon seeing this deputy at the arrest (well, mostly Joseph and maybe Jacob, since John was probably too young to remember her, and had more prominent maternal figures from his foster care years... like with Mrs Duncan).
I do feel there's this untapped, untouched... something there (or if there has been talks of it, most of it is very misunderstood thanks to Ubisoft's inconsistency with their own lore and characters), especially with Joseph's relationship with the maternal presence. Like we know very little about Mrs Seed, cause the more prominent influence in the Seed Bros lives was their father (as seems to be the pattern from the antagonists before & after them), and the best we get of her is, if I'm correct, Joseph in The Book of Joseph describing her as "like a ghost", kind of "barely there" y'know? (Nothing about if she was apart of Old Man Seed's abuse, though I can see it being implied she was a victim of it too).
And we can also discern from that one Greg Bryk comicon(?) speaking panel that Joseph kind of still yearns for this "maternal aspect", that "feminine, mother earth energy" in his life, which is probably apart of the conception of the Faith role, even though Faith seems more to be kind of a mix of other prominent feminine roles that he's lost in his life (wife and daughter), turned into another role he's never had in his life (sister).
I don't know... the idea of Joseph (and maybe his brothers, but let's give Joseph some spotlight here) always associating his mother as this distant, far-off memory, that he kind of yearns for (but not as much as the other prominent presences he's lost), but isn't something that necessarily rules his life (like the physical abuse from his father and the mission from who he perceives to be the ultimate father, God/the Voice). And then, on the day (a very important day) that he's been anticipating for decades, preparing for, readying himself to face, and when he turns around to finally see the person, the Hell that would follow the Whitehorse, who he knows is more than capable of taking away his family from him if their sins got the best of them (am I referring to the dep or his siblings here? ...does it really matter?).
And he does turn around as the Sheriff and Marshal part and comes face to face with... not a stranger. A familiar face, with familiar eyes and hair and nose and all those details that he thought lost to a distant dream, now here in the flesh. His mother, no longer a flittering and absent ghost, but a living corpse that's found its way from his past to here and now. Except he reasonably knows it can't be his mother but oh does she look like her. And sound like her too, barely a difference from a voice he's rarely heard but can vividly remember. What is God's plan here? What is He trying to tell him? This can't be some play of a cruel joke, right? (personally, I think the Voice isn't above playing a cruel joke on Joseph... look what happens to his family despite him being shown visions of them alive in the New Eden with him, a dangling carrot to lift Joseph's hopes up so it would be made all the more sweeter to crush).
I find this a very intriguing idea. Like we as a fandom have visualized how we think the Seeds would be with a romantic partner or raising their potential child (and in Joseph's case, seen how he treated his inexplicable existing son conceived through divine conception courtesy of the Voice, that trolling bastard) or an additional sibling figure. So I thought: why not make this forced family dynamic towards the deputy even messier for the Seed Bros, y'know? (can't really include Faith here since Mrs Seed isn't her birth mom, but I'd still like to hear your thoughts on how you think she'd look at the situation from a kind of non-personal, outsider-perspective... which is kind of sadder now that I think about it).
And don't we also have this kind of subtle consideration of mothers as a perfect Judge-like figure over the lives/actions of their children, especially in adulthood... Food for thought.
What do you think of this?
That’s a very interesting idea!
I also think the Voice could totally play this trick on the brothers, and that Joseph would probably be the most troubled by it because he would desperately try to understand what God’s plan is.
It was at SacAnime 2018 that Greg Bryk said he thought there was “something missing” in Joseph’s life, and that Faith represented “the maternal aspect of the feminine energy” to him (here, for those of you who’ve never seen this). I imagine Rachel doesn’t even know what the Seed brothers’ mother looked like, but if someone with her face showed up and Joseph started being obsessed with her, what would Faith think? Would she feel threatened? Could that affect her role in the Project?
Jacob is the one who’s spent the longest time with their mother, and maybe he was lucky enough to actually feel like he had a mom for some time, before her husband’s abuse turned her into a “ghost” and she seemingly stopped caring about… anything, really. He would surely recognize “her” immediately, but I wonder how he would react. He doesn’t really show his emotions, but he still certainly feels them!
As for John, yeah, he probably barely remembers her, but if Joseph told him about that Deputy having their mother’s face and became obsessed with that, I’m sure John would also be fixated on understanding what’s going on. He would want to solve this mystery not only for Joseph, but also for him, considering how little he must know about his biological mom.
Food for thought, indeed!
