Mello

sketchesssss

Thank you! I really like thinking about this game and its characters, and I love writing, so… combining the two just seems to work out lol.

Short answer: John loves you and he hates you. Like… hateloves you. Like “hate the sin, love the sinner” hatelove. It’s all Wuthering Heights, Catherine and Heathcliff-y hatelove. We gothic Americana romance up in this shit.

Long answer: … well, read on.

Note: I’m gonna be pulling from the meta I type up in tags on John posts, so this may seem a little scattered and odd–but to state my argument here: John hateloves you because you two are the most alike in Hope County, and the both of you help and harm each other in equal measure because of that similarity.

(Cosmic coincidence: CHVRCHES’ “My Enemy” started playing as I typed this. You could be my remedy / if you would show me love / if I could stop remembering / all the time that you used up.)

I always thought John showed a lot of painfully on-the-mark traits for someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. But to be fair, BPD traits are unpredictable, unstable, and dramatic–so I think you’re onto something by saying he’s a bit scattered behavior/character-wise. It’s all there–the splitting (someone is either good or bad, things are black or white, nothing in between); the rapid mood changes, the history of physical abuse (in that he’s a survivor of it); fragmented, unhealthy, unstable relationships; the reckless behavior (sadism), history of addiction; chronic emptiness, unstable sense of self. I’m not saying the writers nor Seamus Dever intentionally made him BPD-similar. I’m just saying there’s a lot in John’s behavior that lines up with BPD traits, which I recognized quickly, and so I applied that filter over how I interpret John’s behavior. Just bear the above in mind when I go into my analysis.

The game pushes you to go to John’s region first, which I didn’t know ‘til I played, and I thought that was rather interesting. I figured Faith would be the first one–y’know, the lady pumping drugs all over the fuckin’ place. Might wanna make sure people’s minds were clear before you tackle anything else. But nope, John’s your first target. And I think the game wanted this not just because as some have said, that John’s region is a tutorial of sorts, but because John and the Deputy are pretty tightly linked. For starters, you’re the rookie, the (arguably) youngest and the newest to the crew of the Marshal, the Sheriff, and the other Deputies. You’re the baby of that family–and John’s the baby of his (biological) family. And your position in the Resistance and the Project respectively line up pretty closely with each other, which I’ll elaborate on later.

The game urges you to go to Holland Valley by showing you the video John made that’s half an infomercial recruitment reel and a blatant taunt to the Deputy/Hope County. And you know that had to be John’s idea. You know that once the Deputies and the Marshal were split up among the Heralds, that John took stock of his current situation and said, “y’know, I’m gonna send a little message.” And he does this to you, personally, even though he never says your name or never directly calls you out in the video. And we can see in the video that the set for this is elaborate and over the top–flowers, a trellis; there’s a damn camera crew set up for this video because it cuts to different angles! Someone knows exactly how to frame John and how to keep him in the shot, which begs the question: how many times did they film this? This video is something John took his time on. It’s a message he gave a lot of time and thought into crafting–so let’s look at what he’s saying:

What if I told you you could be free from sin? What if I told you that everything you ever dreamed could come true?

This sounds more like the messages cults give out to their flocks than anything Joseph says, IMO. And it’s John saying it, so I think we should rightly assume that John’s the one who wrote this. He’s speaking about things he thinks sounds the most appealing, things he think will grab people, reel them in, make them amenable to the Project. And what’s he saying? You can be free from sin. Your dreams can come true. And not just a dream but every dream. Every hope, every wish, all of it can be yours. And yeah, I know he’s saying it all with a snake oil salesman’s smile, but the thing about John, the thing that gets me the most? He doesn’t lie to you. What he says is twisted. What he says is terrifying. What he says is ugly and painful, but it’s never a lie. If anything, he tells the unvarnished, cruel, bitter truth, truths he’s had to face all his life and try to make sense of.

Which brings me back to this message–if he’s saying this as a callout to you, the Deputy, then look at what he’s saying: You can be freed from the terrible urges and feelings that drive you. Everything you’ve dreamed about can be yours, as long as you just say yes. You give in. You let yourself be taken when they come for you:

You will be cleansed, you will confess your sins, and you will be offered atonement. Don’t worry! You don’t have to do anything–we’ll come for you.

I mention all this to point out that from word go, John’s been focused on getting your attention, holding it, and in the holding of it, putting fear into your heart. He wants to hold your attention and through it, hold you captive (figuratively or literally–considering in-game events, it seems like both). And I think the reason for this is pretty understandable, as far as villain motivations go. You’re the newcomer and the newest, biggest problem. You are the biggest threat to the Project and to the Seed family (mainly for the brothers–I’m not sure John cares much for Faith, considering what he says). You are dangerous, capable, clever, determined–and you have to be stopped. And on the way to stopping you, if he can scare you, humble you, bring you to his way of thinking, then all the better.

John knows you’re a problem because of how much he loves and trusts Joseph. Joseph saw you coming, he knew the threat you posed, and knew you had to be stopped. John was most likely trying to do his part in that process while keeping it within the scope of the cult’s premise.

If we take the Seed brothers’ pasts into consideration, any time they had threats and dangers dangling over their heads, they’ve destroyed it. Jacob with the arson that saved his brothers but got him sent to juvie; Joseph and John reuniting and taking down the Duncans, anyone who tried to sneak into the cult and expose its darker elements, and the previous Faiths (who were likely disposed of when they started to turn against the cult). Anything and anyone who was doing them harm was taken out in an act of righteous violence–so why should you, the Deputy, be an exception to this? John doesn’t want you to be–but to Joseph you are and should be, because you and John are quite alike. You both pose a threat to the cult through your actions, through your violence and viciousness–you both possess the potential to destroy everything Joseph is building.

And that’s why Joseph hinges John’s salvation to the Deputy’s. If John doesn’t change, and if the Deputy doesn’t change with him, then there’s no hope for either of you. Because both of you threaten to tear the Project apart from inside and outside–John with his sadism, his viciousness, his unrestrained use of both in the name of the cult; you with your work with the Resistance, how systematically and unrelentingly you tear down cult outposts, supplies, statues, etc.

John is just as much of a threat to the cult as you are, and I think a part of him knows that–knows that about himself, and obviously knows that about you–and he hates the both of you for it. This is another reason that makes him hyperfixated on you, because if anyone in Hope County knows what it means to be both a threat and a thing to be saved, it’s you. Thus, his radio call to you, saying he knows how you feel “intimately”–that he knows what drives you, how you feel. Thus, his repeated insistence that he will know exactly how empty you’ll feel once you indulge yourself in your sin. John knows exactly how that feels. John has lived that life for years. And there’s no one in Hope County who will know exactly how that kind of living will drag you out, wear you down, empty you, gut you, humiliate you, and leave you worse for wear besides John.

John doesn’t hide anything from the Deputy. Not in his words, not in his looks, not in his behavior. He’s open and honest and terrifying–and then there are moments where this honesty is vulnerable and therefore painful to behold.

Take for instance John’s expression when Joseph catches him trying to drown you. It’s one of almost boyish shame and fear. He knows he was caught doing something wrong, and he knows that punishment is the only proper response for this. And he does get punished for it–he gets punished with kindness: “You have to love them, John.” This, coupled with Joseph’s warning that the Deputy must reach Atonement, or John will be cast out, is probably like a living nightmare for John. He has to love you, as in, care about you? He has to want you to survive and endure and be taken into the fold? He has to look at you with some measure of regard and sympathy, instead of using the Cleansing, the Confessing, and the Atonement (re: carving the sin into you and cutting it free) as a way to channel his darker impulses? He has to hate the sin but love the sinner?

And to John’s credit, he does rein himself in after Joseph chastises him. He turns to you, still seething, but subdued, and he falls back into the Baptist role. But he can barely hold himself together, most likely because he’s still reeling from what Joseph said and from being caught, and from having to look at you and see too much of himself in how you are. Not only that, but you are a witness to his embarrassment. You stood there as a silent audience, watching as John was scolded and punished. You, of all fucking people–is it any wonder that he seems to struggle for breath as he stands there, swaying a little as he watches Joseph leave?

John knows he shouldn’t have done this to you–but he was doing it anyway. And his justification for it, besides the seething bitterness he clearly shows on his face, is one the cult can’t really argue against: “This one’s not clean.” And you aren’t, but neither is he.

A brief aside: I’ve said before in some other post that John and Joseph project their sins onto the Deputy. I’d like to briefly expand that to say that all the Seeds project onto you–with John it’s Wrath, with Joseph it’s Pride; with Jacob it’s his insistence that you need him, that you are not a hero (he’s projecting both what he wants [to be needed] and what he thinks about himself [not being a hero] onto the Deputy). Faith projects via manipulation, calling you selfish, saying she doesn’t want to hurt you, that you’re leaving her no choice. She’s blaming you for what she does to you–and John’s very similar.

“This one’s not clean” is a projection of John’s views of himself, as well as a way to blame you for what he does to you. And how fitting that John says this to you while standing in a river, where he has to look at the both of you, you under the water, and the faint image of his reflection in that water. The river is both a mirror and a window that forces John to look back at himself while looking at the Deputy. And he hates what he sees in himself and in you, just as much as he wants to be free of it and free you from it. Because you’re bound to him now. Your salvation hinges on his. Neither of you can hope to be saved if only one of you is. And for the first time in his life, John’s had to care for someone outside of himself and his family, but it’s not through his own choice. His regard for the Deputy is a choice made for him that is also a threat.

So, hatelove.

So. How does John process this? How can he make sense of this task, of loving you? He falls back on the easiest, most familiar, most basic frame of reference he has for any kind of intimacy, both the expressing of it and the feeling of it: pain.

John’s views of sin and weakness are pretty apparent. They were literally beaten into him by his biological father, and then again systematically drilled into his head by the Duncans through literal physical and psychological torture. He not only tells you this outright when he has you strapped to a chair (as quoted in this edit by @buttercup–bee), but when he’s straddling you in the church (which he decorated up all nice and macabre-like, as if for a wedding–which speaks for itself). Sin and weakness should not be hidden; they should be carved out of you (ubiquitous you) so you can be free of it. And not only so you can be free, but so you can be honest, open, vulnerable–the way he is. And that openness, that vulnerability, is a kind of intimacy in itself.

I’m honestly surprised I haven’t seen more people talking about this, but John’s role as the Baptist and Reaper/one who hears Confessions is wrapped up in the larger role of mortifying the flesh:

Mortification of the flesh is an act by which an individual or group seeks to mortify, or put to death, their sinful nature, as a part of the process of sanctification (Source)

And I’m gonna say this here because I doubt many people are reading this, and so I feel safe in going against a common fan headcanon, but my headcanon is that John doesn’t have a torture fetish. John is obsessed with mortifying the flesh as a means of destroying sin and finding freedom and relief in that pain.

Pain as a means of spiritual catharsis isn’t exactly odd or uncommon in the histories of major world religions, and not just Christian-based ones. Self-flagellation is perhaps the most extreme version of it, but there’s also things like fasting, abstinence, pious kneeling in meditation, etc. Any form of physical discomfort done in the service of your faith is a form of mortification.

John’s first experience with this was abuse by his father, and then even worse abuse by his adopted parents. It’s not the infliction of pain that John likes, it’s the release, the relief, the promise of absolution and freedom. “Swim across an ocean of pain and emerge… free.” And he wants to give this freedom to you–he wants you to see it, to want it, to accept it.

He wants you to trust him with the absolution of your soul and the mortification, humiliation, and pain inflicted on your body–he wants you to know that it will have a higher purpose. Because how else can he express any sort of concern for you, a fellow sinner? How else can he make you worthy of atonement, you who is far too close to his own dark nature? How can he not put you through what he experienced? If he doesn’t, then all that pain, all that horror, all of it was for nothing–and he can’t accept that.

Which brings me to my last point, to a single word: Yes.

Yes is a powerful little word. It gives permission, it accepts, it allows, it confirms. John’s fixation on the word is a clever bit of complexity, in that he urges you (and others) to say it (thereby sort of removing the whole point of someone wanting to say it themselves), and he sees a power and freedom in it because of his past experience (laughing and saying yes as the Duncans beat him). The power of “yes” is that you accept, you permit, you allow–you open yourself up to what’s being offered. You accept. You give in. You embrace.

John’s almost bizarre fixation on getting the Deputy to say Yes to him is really intriguing to me, because he has you within his power more than once. He shouldn’t care about verbal consent in any of these situations, especially since he doesn’t seem to care about it with others–but he does. For you.

You’re strapped to a chair, threatened with a knife sharpener; you’re Marked and gunned down; he can call you up and hassle you on the radio whenever he pleases. He can do all these things to you–and does–but all of them mean nothing if you don’t want it. None of this has value if you don’t say Yes to it.

But he wants you to say Yes, so he wears you down bit by bit; he tells you about his past, he says that this act (the confession and the absolution) is a gift for the both of you. If you choose to confess first (in the scene where you and Hudson are sitting across from each other), John’s reaction is one of absolute delight. He’s thrilled, ecstatic–but it’s a sort of… tender kind of joy. You said yes. You showed courage. You made a choice. And he promises that you won’t regret it.

If you don’t say yes, however, he keeps trying to goad you into it. “Someone’s got to choose!” he says, staring at you specifically, clearly making it obvious that there’s no choice in this at all, since if you sit in silence he’ll make it for you. “Someone’s got to choose!” he says, knowing full well that he’s in this situation because someone else (Joseph) made a choice for him. “Someone’s got to choose!” he says, wanting you to realize this–that your salvation is tied to his, that he wants you to want this–wanting you to cooperate and care.

When you confront John again in the church (which, again, is ALL MADE UP LIKE A WEDDING), we again return to the issue of opening yourself up/letting all your secrets and sins pour free; we again return to the issue of John wanting you to trust your body’s mortification to him so that he can free you; we again return to the issue of John wanting you to want this, because he has to love you and this is the only way he knows how to process such a command or express it himself. Which is why when you say yes there, his face lights up with the most… loving, sweet expression. You said Yes. You said it. Finally, you said it! And for just a few seconds, he can’t help but love you for it–and then you try to shoot him in the face.

I know I’m kind of rambling at the end here, so I guess I just want to wrap it up.

John spent most of his life, by his own admission, looking for things to say yes to. And then you come along, a danger and a threat and a thorn in his side–someone whose salvation is wrapped up in his own–and for the first time it doesn’t matter what he says or wants. He has no power over himself anymore. It’s your voice that rules (much like the Voice is to Joseph–and what a bitter bit of irony that the Deputy is a voiceless protagonist). Your word is law–your acceptance, your permission, your consent, and all the other ways you can say Yes matter more than what John says or does, and he wants so badly for you to say it.

John knows that he has to love you (in whatever way you choose to interpret that word). He knows he has to put you through the process of Atonement, and he has to do so in such a way that you aren’t harmed. He has to get through to you, to show you all the potential and promise and hope that the Project can offer you. So he resorts to pain, to mortification, to all his old habits–but that’s what led him to this punishment in the first place.

Joseph’s already reached out to John, expressing his concern and disapproval with how John behaves. He knows that if John continues on his path, that he will not only jeopardize the Project but will die because of it.So John can try to reach out to you, reason with you, get you to trust him and listen to him and want to be a part of it all. He wants you to care–which is why that’s the word he yells the loudest as he lies dying at your feet: “You don’t understand, you don’t believe, you don’t care!”

...A bit of both?

On the one hand, yes, we all more or less project onto fictional characters in general and you know a ship doesn’t need to be supported by any evidence in canon to be shipped.

On the other hand, in the case of John and the Deputy, there definitely is… something. Resistance members tell the Deputy they’re driving John crazy while Eden’s Gate members worry about him because he used to always have control and to never lose his cool… until he met the Deputy. Everyone can see John is not his normal self anymore.

But what is this something, exactly? Adelaide and Sharky interpret it as sexual desire, which is not really surprising coming from them. I mean, Addie is even clearly attracted to John. Talk about projection...

It would make sense for John to just hate the Deputy but, in my opinion, this is not how you look at someone you hate when you believe they finally care about you and your message:

And this is not how you look at them when you understand they don’t (and that things will end badly for them):

John has every reason to hate the Deputy but he clearly doesn’t. Again, there’s something more here. He wants to save them, he wants this “relationship” to work and he’s visibly hurt when he sees the Deputy doesn’t reciprocate.

To me, Adelaide isn’t wrong when she says John “might be in some kind of love” with the Deputy. And the “some kind” is important because it’s awfully messy, violent, and not what love is supposed to be like, but it’s also all he was able to give and he gave it all. Joseph told John to love the Deputy and that the key to his salvation (to their salvation, actually, because he implies one cannot be saved without the other) was love. Even though John doesn’t know how love works and can’t recognize it anymore, he ended up doing just that: loving the Deputy, the only way he could and without even realizing it.

So does John really have the hots for the Deputy? Sort of, but I think it’s more complicated and profound than that. There’s definitely “something there that wasn’t there before” and that not even John can identify. To me, this something was “some kind” of one-sided, chaotic love and it consumed him.

Ref under the cut <3

i am your favorite mutual

whenever i make a joke you have to laugh at it and say haha thats so funny

you have to be nice to me

im correct about all characters if you disagree you die

i am never "cringe"

i am always "based"

i am your favorite mutual

i am your best friend

you love me so much