Fallout: New Vegas - The Psychology of Joshua Graham

[Music] here's a piece of interesting trivia there are 30 companions available to quest with in fallout new vegas eight of those companions can become permanent followers while 22 of them are only available for a limited time all of those followers have a neutral karma stat save for one joshua graham he has a good karma stat i would like to pose a question to those who already know joshua's story does this seem right to you depending on your temperament and your willingness to forgive joshua's good karma might seem thematically appropriate or it might seem like an

aberration by the developers the fact is joshua is responsible for committing some of the most heinous and vile crimes that one can imagine that said one could make a compelling argument that he suffered the requisite punishment for his crimes and successfully rehabilitated himself some religious followed fans have gone out of their way to cite joshua as a solid representative of a born-again christian a standard worth emulating some have even said that joshua graham was what motivated them to go back to church it is joshua's capacity for both moral extremes that separates him from so many

other characters in not just video games but any work of fiction it is for this reason that so many people for so many years have asked me to analyze fallout new vegas's story and to make joshua graham one of my first subjects ever since i first encountered joshua graham a few months ago i've been trying to wrap my head around the structure of his psyche what mental predisposition would cause someone to go from being a mormon missionary to the right hand of a fascistic dictator and then what would that person's state of mind be like

when said dictator sets you on fire and throws you off of a cliff never mind the feelings of betrayal that would induce what about the divine significance you would attribute to your anomalous survival all of these events happened to joshua graham events which weaved together a mind that not even the most abstract art would be able to illustrate nonetheless i've obsessively tried to understand him it might sound strange to obsess over a fictional character's mental state like this yet i do so because even though joshua's life and the things he has suffered border on the

mythical they are not entirely implausible it disturbs me to think that somebody like joshua graham could exist in our reality somebody whose cruelty and love are so profound that they flirt with the supernatural today i intend to go through the events of joshua graham's life and provide a vivid picture of his changing mental state along the way by doing that i hope you will understand my and others obsession with this character joshua graham was born in the early 23rd century in the state of utah he grew up in a mormon settlement known as new canaan

during his youth he demonstrated a natural aptitude with the tenets of the mormon faith as well as his ability to interpret languages soon after he began work as a missionary a secular humanist organization known as the followers of the apocalypse encountered him during an expedition to the grand canyon the followers were eager to recruit him for his interpreting skills not only because it would make it easier to provide humanitarian relief to the tribes there but to also understand their cultures and languages their first and last stop would be the blackfoot tribe though joshua performed his

duties well there must have been a mistranslation or misunderstanding at some point for the blackfoot went from receiving the followers with hospitality to hostility the tribe held the followers for ransom on account of their unknown transgression but this did not last for long the blackfoot were at war with several other tribes at the time and they were losing fast it is with this situation that a separate member of the followers saw an opportunity a man named edward sallow using joshua as an interpreter he offered to help train the blackfoot teaching them how to build and

maintain weapons and how to use them most effectively in small unit combat these were skills that edward had learned on account of his interest in the ancient roman empire and how it was established which he studied rigorously during his days as a student thanks to edward and joshua the blackfoot went from being in their death throws to the sole power of the region as a tribute to the success of his roman style tactics edward changed his name to caesar over the course of 30 years caesar would go on to conquer the other tribes of utah

as well as others in the state of colorado arizona and new mexico he was infamous for his unique brand of brutal warfare but that reputation was not gained solely by his efforts for every dictator has his second in command turns out caesar's first warchief the mal pays leggett was a new canaanite joshua graham legend goes that graham was the meanest toughest son of a in the whole damn legion the new canaanites wouldn't talk about him they were ashamed yes i can't blame him though it is not unusual for religious fundamentalists to develop a murderous appetite

be it in fallout new vegas or real life joshua graham developed his murderous appetite with both a breathtaking lack of hesitation and an unconscionable level of barbarity joshua's explanation for this is as follows this way lies the path to hell ed caesar needed me to translate translation became giving orders giving orders became leading in battle leading in battle became training punishing terrorizing a series of small mistakes before a great fall the information provided thus far gives us a few important details regarding joshua's psychological makeup for the majority of his life joshua fostered a sheepish faith

in a greater authority be it with caesar or with god at no point did he view himself as a potential source of authority as an individual with his own will he was always an extension of some other will this love of exterior authority completely negated joshua's capacity to self-reflect or glean any logical consistency in any doctrine he adhered to and why would he he garnered a positive identity as both an arm of god and an arm of caesar and he did all of this without thinking for himself this is why he slips into the role

of a brutal warchief so well he effectively negates any personal will by deferring to authority conforming to the status quo and blindly asserting an ideology at every possible opportunity these three elements authority conformity and ideology are common explanations given in regards to war crimes and other circumstances involving excessive cruelty one real world example that i think is comparable to joshua graham is one laid out in a book titled ordinary men by christopher browning this book describes a nazi police battalion filled with quote-unquote ordinary men men that were often middle-aged and grew up with moral and

political frameworks that differed from the nazis nonetheless these ordinary men quickly accepted the top down orders given to systematically round up jews and other undesirables march them out into a forest and shoot them to death i should note that these ordinary men were given the choice by their commander to not participate in the killing but only 10 to 20 percent opted out the other 80 to 90 percent who willingly participated experienced physical and mental repercussions at first but they eventually settled into an unconscious routine of extermination a common excuse given by these men when they

were put on trial for their crimes is that they weren't going to leave their comrades to do the dirty work it was easier for them to take another human's life than to be a non-conformist joshua graham is similar in that he grew up with the moral framework of mormonism yet quickly converted to caesar's moral framework or lack thereof both joshua and the nazis were in environments that encouraged and rewarded this lack of independent thought or will where joshua differs from the majority of those nazis is that there is no evidence he ever experienced revulsion he

was seemingly fine killing men women and children right from the very beginning he did not question he did not protest he was quick to obey orders and conform though joshua's military career was mostly characterized by enormous success he made one fatal mistake in attempting to take over hoover dam in the state of nevada a location controlled by their political competition the new california republic as the legion attempted to take over the dam the ncr soldiers baited them into the nearby boulder city once the majority of the legion soldiers were there explosives were detonated in all

the nearby buildings these buildings became in effect large fragmentation bombs killing and maiming most of the legionaries this forced joshua and the few remaining survivors to retreat now most reasonable people might be willing to forgive this mistake even if it was one of considerable gravity remember up until this point joshua never failed during a military excursion nonetheless caesar could not accept any form of failure even at the highest ranks caesar made an example out of joshua by covering him in pitch lighting him on fire and throwing him into the grand canyon let me ask all

of you this would it be possible in reality to survive being lit on fire and thrown into the grand canyon i'm sure most of us would comfortably say that 99 of the time that would result in death but would it happen 100 percent of the time let's hypothesize that it would be possible to survive that imagine you not only suffered the physical pain of live immolation and an enormous fall but also the emotional pain of betrayal a crime which would sentence its committer to the lowest ring in dante's hell if you survived all of that

might you be inclined to attribute divine meaning to your survival sure it's easy for some of you to say you wouldn't as you sit comfortably in your chair watching this youtube video it's another thing to lie helplessly under the harsh utah sun with only god real or not to save you two things are for certain though one most people in joshua's situation would not have the strength to get up and travel for three months back to their town of origin which is what he did two neither you nor joshua could offer a scientific explanation for

how he physically managed to do that however i will offer a mental emotional reason for why joshua was able to do this of the things that joshua was now deprived of one could argue that the most painful loss he suffered was his identity he based his entire identity on belonging to the collectives of mormonism and the legion now the legion has rejected him and there couldn't possibly be any way the mormons would take him back without that collective identity what of joshua's identity as an individual as the fire around joshua's body dissipated and the dark

specter of death clouded his eyes in darkness he was gifted a fire from within whether that gift was a natural outcome or a product of god is up for debate but nonetheless that inner light that inner gift was the ability to self reflect it is with this newfound ability that for the first time joshua began to develop his identity as an individual he began by asking himself how did i get here how did i survive why did i survive should i survive is what i feel now what my victims felt as i killed them these

questions from a psychological point of view were more precious than any of the territory or treasures wrongly inherited under caesar's reign as michael mahoney says in his book human change processes episodes of intense emotional distress and disorder often reflect natural and yes even healthy expressions of an individual struggles towards reorganization given that joshua went through the most extreme form of distress it stands to reason that this might induce the most extreme form of self-reflection and by proxy the most extreme reward i imagine that the negative euphoria that resulted from the immolation and the fall would

put joshua in an almost psychedelic transcendental state where he could peer deeper into his soul than almost anybody that has ever lived if joshua could survive that and take the lessons he learned from this deep introspection his efforts to right the wrongs of his past would bear an almost supernatural quality and that's exactly what happened not only was joshua able to survive against impossible odds he was able to reorient his deeply perverted moral compass and commit deeds that not only merited good karma but turned him into a legend of mythic proportions the legend of the

burned man as i just said joshua managed to not only walk away from the incident but travel for three months back to new canaan where he was surprisingly gifted with love and acceptance by the mormon community joshua equated the love that he received with the fire that burst forward from within as he laid at the bottom of the grand canyon the fire that had kept me alive was love their love god's love i will never be able to repay the debt i owe to them but i must try word of his survival spread throughout the

land the legend of the burned man made it all the way to caesar upon hearing this he not only made discussion of the burned man forbidden in legion circles but he also employed every method available to him to hunt joshua down one method involved a utah tribe known as the white legs who were seeking membership within caesar's legion caesar promised them membership if they successfully killed not only joshua but the new canaanites that protected him the white legs were almost successful they killed the bulk of the new canaanites leaving the rest of them to flee

into zion canyon there joshua assumed the position of warchief he resolved to protect the remaining new canaanites along with a separate tribe from the area known as the sorrows though the situation would be excruciatingly difficult to solve joshua saw this unfortunate turn of events as an opportunity if he could save the new canaanites from the white legs he would not only be able to pay them back for the love they showed him upon his return but make another substantive step away from his dark past when i first met joshua the pain he suffered and the

wisdom that pain conferred became immediately apparent it radiated no pun intended off of every word he spoke the best example of this that i can provide is when slash if you threatened to harm one of his compatriots a missionary named daniel every word in his response feels as if they were methodically chosen for the purpose of maximizing fear there are many reasons why that would be a bad idea i will illuminate three first do not believe that because daniel is a missionary he is incapable of or unwilling to defend himself second if you harm daniel

or any of the sorrows or dead horses i will find you make no mistake god willing you will not leave this valley lastly waging war against good people is bad for the soul this may not seem important to you now but it's the most important thing i've said every word that joshua speaks here is filled with divine resolution fueled by the fires of love and of pain this is a man who knows both love and pain better than anybody not only how to feel both but how to distribute both i imagine this is helped in

part by the constant pain he feels from his bodily injuries it constantly reminds him of what he did in his past and why he must never stop trying to repay the debt he owes to those he wronged that said it is clear to me that the unimaginable pain he feels and has felt does have its deleterious effects though the fire did burn away much of his former personality one thing that remains is a tendency towards extreme violence i want them to suffer i want all of them to die in fear and pain i want to

have my revenge against him against caesar i want to call it my own to make my anger god's anger to justify the things i've done while i think it is fair to say that joshua made a genuine change of heart and has done good deeds it's stuff like what he just said that makes me question whether or not his good karma status is earned even though joshua seeks justice for his tribe and cites scripture as justification for his brutality he seems to forget that the god he worships not only seeks justice but also dispenses mercy

they are seemingly opposite elements but so are cruelty and love joshua integrated both the extreme capacity for cruelty and for love into his personality and as i said before it is his ability to dispense both in equal and extreme measure that makes him so profound although unless he can develop the capacity for mercy he risks reverting back to his old ways especially if he fails to protect the ones he loves one other thing that some of the atheists in my audience might add is that he should develop this capacity for mercy not on account of

his religious mandate but on account of his own will but i wonder if his thoroughly tortured psyche would be able to endure that though he moved past his crisis of identity by willing one for himself i wonder how he would fare with a crisis of faith what if there was no transcendent purpose to his morality would he be like the character of randall clarke who maintained his sanity and morality despite his atheism i fear given joshua's persistent taste for violence and his enduring pain that he would become an even worse monster than he was before

but i wonder if that is a necessary risk so that joshua could fully earn his good karma not just in the eyes of his tribe but gamers all over the world i think that joshua would fully earn his good karma provided he completes two separate tests one is overcoming a crisis of faith and the other is granting mercy to the leader of the white legs at the end of his storyline granted joshua's choice is determined by the player's interactions with him but you understand why i am framing this as if he is making his own

choice if he lets the leader of the white legs live and survives his crisis of faith then joshua's legacy would be so great that it would undoubtedly inspire its own religion like the aforementioned randall clarke inspired the religion of the sorrows best of all that religion will worship joshua just as the mormons worshipped their god though their god was wrathful meeting out divine justice in the form of the flood the plagues and much more their god was also merciful loving and most importantly forgiving but i believe that our lord was made flesh as jesus christ

and died to redeem me and you and the sorrows even the white legs everyone before i conclude i would like to offer special thanks to two people thank you arcane for reviewing the script for this video and for discussing the fallout universe with me and special thanks to corbin for motivating me to play fallout new vegas in the first place and for telling me to seek out joshua graham and also thank you both for supporting me at the highest tier on patreon it is thanks to you and all the others who support me on patreon

that i can continue to make these videos not just for the purpose of entertainment but for my greater goal of one day having video game narratives taught in classrooms worldwide if you like this video make sure to hit the like button and maybe consider checking out my other video on fallout new vegas where i analyze the aforementioned randall clark and before you go let me know in the comments section what part of fallout new vegas you would like me to do a video on next until my next video just remember as always and as per

usual stay yellow