Analyzing Nick and Hancock (FO4)
Jun. 14th, 2023 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haii2uFor the past week or so I've been playing Fallout 4 for the same reason why I played 3, that being I wanted to better understand the criticism surrounding it... I like being able to form my own opinion on stuff firsthand, you know. Anyways I really get why people don't like it now. But that's a story for another time maybe. Instead I want to talk about something I noticed while playing earlier.
Last night I recruited Hancock as a follower and raised up his affection enough to hear some of his backstory (I've already completed the main quest, so now I'm just going around collecting the rest of the bobble-heads and tying up any unfinished side quests).
His backstory is a bit interesting: his brother is the current mayor of Diamond City and, long story short, ordered all the ghouls to leave (this is back when Hancock was a human known as John McDonough). Knowing they wouldn't be able to survive on their own in the Commonwealth, Hancock relocated them to the shady town Goodneighbor, which was then-ruled by a ruthless mob boss. Not being able to adapt to life in the slums, a majority of refugees fled and ended up dying.
Hancock felt so guilty over not being able to better help the ghouls that he spiraled into depression and turned to substance abuse, eventually leading to him taking some kind of radioactive drug that transformed him into a ghoul. When you first meet him and ask him his story, he mentions this but writes it off as if it were just something he randomly took during a drug binge. As you spend more time with him though, he drops the facade and tells you the truth in a surprising display of vulnerability:
"The drug that did this to me, that made me a ghoul, I knew what it was going to do. I just couldn't stand looking at the bastard I saw in the mirror anymore. The coward who'd let all those ghouls from Diamond City die. Who was too scared to protect his fellow drifters from Vic and his boys. If I took it, I'd never have to look at him again. I could put that all behind me. I'd be free. Didn't seem like a choice at all. Turns out it was just me running from somethin' else in my life."
The final sentence makes it sound like he regrets making such a drastic decision, but higher-affinity dialogue seems to ignore that entirely:
"Maybe all my running, from my life, myself... maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all."
Nick was one of the first prototypes created by the Institute to test how synths handled independent thought and personalities. He holds the identity and memories of a pre-war police officer and often struggles with knowing what parts of him are his own, and what parts are just remnants of the original Nick Valentine. He wants to become his own person, independent from the personality forced onto him:
"For as long as I can remember, I've been getting these... flashes. Memories of places I've never been. Things I've never seen. Memories of Nick's. They're not bad. They're just [...] this inescapable reminder. That I'm not the person I think I am. That I'm not a person at all. I'm just a machine, pretending to be human."
"I know I got it good, but... my entire life I owe to Nick. Everything that makes me who I am - my judgment, my speech, hell, even my name - they're his. And I can't do a damn thing about it because without them [...] I'm nothing. A shell. All I want is a life where I have something I can call my own."
Both he and Hancock live in the shadows of men who're long since dead, but Hancock does so intentionally and with pride. John McDonough no longer exists, and Hancock makes it sound like shucking off his original identity and running from his problems was ultimately a good thing... but who's to say it'll last? Regardless of how much you try to clean it up, Goodneighbor is still a seedbed for drug-pushers and criminals. I don't think there's anywhere left for him to run should something bad happen again.
It is important to note though that their treatment from others and the situations they were put through likely played a part in their differing outlooks.
Nick was incredibly lucky; when he left the Institute, the first group of people he encountered treated him kindly, as not a lot of people knew about synths back then. He was even more fortunate that later on he managed to stumble across the mayor of Diamond City's daughter, who'd been kidnapped. After bringing her home, he was deemed a hero and allowed to live within the city despite the ever-growing distrust of synths plaguing the Commonwealth.
As the citizens warmed up to him and he found his place within the community, he was able to safely and comfortably take all the time needed to reflect on his past and identity.
Compare this to Hancock, who's life was one hard knock after another with little to no breaks in-between, and you can almost understand his way of thinking. There's no time to confront his own issues head-on when he has a town to run, and judging by his dialogue it's fair to say he doesn't even consider them to be his anymore.
By doing this, he's locked himself into an identity that might one day fail him again. And when that happens, I suspect that John McDonough's problems will waste no time rushing back in to fill the empty spaces.
Honestly though I'm probably giving the game way too much credit by thinking this much about it. Hancock could've been handled better, but you could say that about nearly everything else in this game.
At least Nick was cool.
(By the way, I don't understand why when Hancock was talking about his inaugural address before becoming the new mayor of Goodneighbor, he felt compelled to say "Of the people, for the people". That's from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address... like more than 50 years after the real John Hancock died...)
Last night I recruited Hancock as a follower and raised up his affection enough to hear some of his backstory (I've already completed the main quest, so now I'm just going around collecting the rest of the bobble-heads and tying up any unfinished side quests).
His backstory is a bit interesting: his brother is the current mayor of Diamond City and, long story short, ordered all the ghouls to leave (this is back when Hancock was a human known as John McDonough). Knowing they wouldn't be able to survive on their own in the Commonwealth, Hancock relocated them to the shady town Goodneighbor, which was then-ruled by a ruthless mob boss. Not being able to adapt to life in the slums, a majority of refugees fled and ended up dying.
Hancock felt so guilty over not being able to better help the ghouls that he spiraled into depression and turned to substance abuse, eventually leading to him taking some kind of radioactive drug that transformed him into a ghoul. When you first meet him and ask him his story, he mentions this but writes it off as if it were just something he randomly took during a drug binge. As you spend more time with him though, he drops the facade and tells you the truth in a surprising display of vulnerability:
"The drug that did this to me, that made me a ghoul, I knew what it was going to do. I just couldn't stand looking at the bastard I saw in the mirror anymore. The coward who'd let all those ghouls from Diamond City die. Who was too scared to protect his fellow drifters from Vic and his boys. If I took it, I'd never have to look at him again. I could put that all behind me. I'd be free. Didn't seem like a choice at all. Turns out it was just me running from somethin' else in my life."
The final sentence makes it sound like he regrets making such a drastic decision, but higher-affinity dialogue seems to ignore that entirely:
"Maybe all my running, from my life, myself... maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all."
The reason why I'm bringing this up is I think it's interesting, though likely not intentional since as far as I know it doesn't really get brought up in-game, to have this juxtaposition of Hancock and Nick Valentine, the synth detective from Diamond City (they even knew each other before the Sole Survivor came along though unfortunately this is only shown through a single line of dialogue and doesn't reveal much about their relationship).
Nick was one of the first prototypes created by the Institute to test how synths handled independent thought and personalities. He holds the identity and memories of a pre-war police officer and often struggles with knowing what parts of him are his own, and what parts are just remnants of the original Nick Valentine. He wants to become his own person, independent from the personality forced onto him:
"For as long as I can remember, I've been getting these... flashes. Memories of places I've never been. Things I've never seen. Memories of Nick's. They're not bad. They're just [...] this inescapable reminder. That I'm not the person I think I am. That I'm not a person at all. I'm just a machine, pretending to be human."
"I know I got it good, but... my entire life I owe to Nick. Everything that makes me who I am - my judgment, my speech, hell, even my name - they're his. And I can't do a damn thing about it because without them [...] I'm nothing. A shell. All I want is a life where I have something I can call my own."
It is important to note though that their treatment from others and the situations they were put through likely played a part in their differing outlooks.
Nick was incredibly lucky; when he left the Institute, the first group of people he encountered treated him kindly, as not a lot of people knew about synths back then. He was even more fortunate that later on he managed to stumble across the mayor of Diamond City's daughter, who'd been kidnapped. After bringing her home, he was deemed a hero and allowed to live within the city despite the ever-growing distrust of synths plaguing the Commonwealth.
As the citizens warmed up to him and he found his place within the community, he was able to safely and comfortably take all the time needed to reflect on his past and identity.
Compare this to Hancock, who's life was one hard knock after another with little to no breaks in-between, and you can almost understand his way of thinking. There's no time to confront his own issues head-on when he has a town to run, and judging by his dialogue it's fair to say he doesn't even consider them to be his anymore.
By doing this, he's locked himself into an identity that might one day fail him again. And when that happens, I suspect that John McDonough's problems will waste no time rushing back in to fill the empty spaces.
Honestly though I'm probably giving the game way too much credit by thinking this much about it. Hancock could've been handled better, but you could say that about nearly everything else in this game.
At least Nick was cool.
(By the way, I don't understand why when Hancock was talking about his inaugural address before becoming the new mayor of Goodneighbor, he felt compelled to say "Of the people, for the people". That's from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address... like more than 50 years after the real John Hancock died...)
