Languorous_Maiar said:
For me, Ulysses is kinda hypocrite. Entire "courier need to be part of apocalypse" is bullshit, really, he want to nuke entire state because some small community got wiped out by accident? Not even saying that he's glorifying old USA, but by the way he's making same mistake as USA did, and he want to destroy something, what is most similar to USA (NCR.)
I really don't get entire plot with Ulysses and his motivations. Wasted potential, but entire Lonesome Road sucks. (gameplay value - killing hardest enemies in entire game in many cases HP walls, plot value - absurdity on absurdity in FO3 style)
My take on him was that after the loss of the Divide, there was nothing but the bitter lessons he had learned and his overriding obsession with the Courier. Imagine a figure that walks the Mojave, testing people by bringing change through destruction.
That was probably how Ulysses saw the Courier, a symbol of the times that shaped the world as he knew it. The Courier brought life to the Divide, and wiped it out without caring. While it was true that he/she didn't know, it ultimately didn't matter to Ulysses. What was more important was that the Courier remained ignorant of what the Divide meant. What angers Ulysses more than anything else was people used symbols without understanding them, when they taught others without learning themselves. He probably thought of the Courier's lack of insight all the time, after the fires consumed the Divide. An ignorant and powerful wanderer such as the Courier would twist history, shape the future into something terrible, and break nations where others would create.
So, he sought to outwit the Courier that brought change wherever he/she went. He would become the Courier. To teach the destroyer of the Divide, the wandering messenger that carried life and death, he manipulated events so the next road walked was the one Ulysses walked. The city where a legend was made into reality, the valley where history was put at stake, and the shattered mountain where the Old World's history slept. All three related to aspects of the Divide, and how it met its end. All three necessary for the Courier to understand the Divide's value.
Everything ended at the beginning, where the Courier completed the circle and walked the Divide from the opposite side. Every step along the way of the final road, Ulysses had to taunt and prod the Courier into walking further, getting him/her to see things like he did. Dragging yourself through the ruins of a once-hopeful land, haunted by a voice from the past that never stopped speaking of hollow philosophy and false wisdom. His personal hell, and the final element needed for the Courier to understand both Ulysses and the harsh lessons he had learned.
But in the end, Ulysses was still willing to be learn and hear out the Courier's side. If the Courier shows him that he/she learned the lessons that were being taught, had understood what he/she had done and was willing to correct those mistakes, Ulysses would choose to surrender. After all, he had proven his point. And it was no longer part of what he represented. He was not the agent of change he opposed for so long, but the last of the Twisted Hairs and a man who had to take responsibility for his crimes.
To atone for his mistakes, he had to help the Courier so that the new nation that could be born would come to fruition. The Courier was no longer a wandering agent of change, but the one who brought hope and could revive the Old World. To Ulysses, the Courier's newly found understanding would create something that could finally embody the ideal that he had been obsessed with for so long.
In that sense, I think Lonesome Road is the best piece in the entire Fallout franchise.
