So what do people think of the characters?

[CT Phipps]

I wouldn't buy that Moldaver is dead at all. Yeah that's the impression the show gives you but Moldaver is also running a parallel plot we know practically nothing about, she tells half-truths to manipulate people into doing what she wants, and has no sentimentality for her own comrades. Nothing about Moldaver adds up, and while that's fine if you're planning on this being a long running mystery character, if you're planning on a fakeout and it turns out Moldaver isn't dead after all then that's just bad writing. It's a big fat cliche that anyone paying close attention can see coming from a mile away.

Unless they...don't do that.

 

[Hassknecht]

Unless they...don't do that.

Yeah, but as you keep on harping about how the show is done by the same hacks who did Westworld, can we really assume they won't pull some utter shite like that out of their arses? They have a track record, you know. If they can make a cinematic sin like dividing backstories over many seasons when they don't necessarily know their show will run that long their trademark thing, they can do other shit, too.

Now I don't believe that Lee will come back (although immortality and Wolverine healing factors are a thing now, administered with a single asthma spray, also didn't Dollar Store New Girl also fear she'd become a ghoul after drinking some radioactive water? Maybe that's why they could so easily attach a rotten thumb to her hand).
The actress of Lee already said she's a super-duper genius and probably figured out some clean longevity, so it's not out of the question that her genius also gave her healing powers.

See, that's my problem with the writing. There are not really any clear internal rules. By going "well its pulp and SCIENCE! and it's totally fine to make shit up on the spot" anything goes. The fact that it wouldn't be surprising if Lee Moldaver actually got back to life somehow means that there is little trust in the consistency of the writing. It's like Lost, where you expect a massive twist at the end of each season because that was its thing, but here the twist isn't its thing, it's just that there is little internal logic.

 

[Bradylama]

IMO all the evidence the show presents about Moldaver points towards her actually being a Vault-Tec executive who was also a member of Bud's Buds. It would explain why Moldaver is so unnecessarily cagey about her relationship with Rose. Moldaver also doesn't have any healing factor or else her bullet wound would have closed up instead of healing out, so she's not a ghoul. That means the most likely possibility is that she was in vault 31.

The problem remains though, that even with all of the details the show hints at about Moldaver personally, it explains nothing about her faction or what her followers actually believe. Fans of New Vegas are left to fill in the gaps for themselves by speculating up a headcanon, while new viewers will have no idea what the fuck the NCR even is. Nobody in the world of the show acts like the NCR was a real thing that actually existed.

 

[CT Phipps]

IMO all the evidence the show presents about Moldaver points towards her actually being a Vault-Tec executive who was also a member of Bud's Buds. It would explain why Moldaver is so unnecessarily cagey about her relationship with Rose. Moldaver also doesn't have any healing factor or else her bullet wound would have closed up instead of healing out, so she's not a ghoul. That means the most likely possibility is that she was in vault 31.

The problem remains though, that even with all of the details the show hints at about Moldaver personally, it explains nothing about her faction or what her followers actually believe. Fans of New Vegas are left to fill in the gaps for themselves by speculating up a headcanon, while new viewers will have no idea what the fuck the NCR even is. Nobody in the world of the show acts like the NCR was a real thing that actually existed.

I mean, they obviously believe she's rebuilding NCR. It's not a particularly deep concept.

Also, the show is very clear NCR is broken up into competing factions.

I feel like a lot of the complaints are the show is not treating its audience like a bunch of morons. Sort of like those idiots who complained they destroyed NCR and then NCR shows up in the final battle.

 

[Bradylama]

I mean, they obviously believe she's rebuilding NCR. It's not a particularly deep concept.

Also, the show is very clear NCR is broken up into competing factions.

I feel like a lot of the complaints are the show is not treating its audience like a bunch of morons. Sort of like those idiots who complained they destroyed NCR and then NCR shows up in the final battle.

No it's not. The show does none of the things you claim. You're speculating a headcanon. You can tell that there's something wrong and you're trying to fill in the blanks based on your own imagination. You just have to accept that the writing is bad.

The show says nothing about what Moldaver's followers actually believe. The lead farmer's son even says that Moldaver is building something worth dying for, but he doesn't say anything about the NCR. He doesn't even say what Moldaver plans on building. There is also zero clarity that there are different factions among the NCR remnants, because nobody actually claims the mantle of the NCR! The remnants have NCR memorabilia but nobody wears the colors.

 

[CT Phipps]

No it's not. The show does none of the things you claim. You're speculating a headcanon. You can tell that there's something wrong and you're trying to fill in the blanks based on your own imagination. You just have to accept that the writing is bad.

The show says nothing about what Moldaver's followers actually believe. The lead farmer's son even says that Moldaver is building something worth dying for, but he doesn't say anything about the NCR. He doesn't even say what Moldaver plans on building. There is also zero clarity that there are different factions among the NCR remnants, because nobody actually claims the mantle of the NCR! The remnants have NCR memorabilia but nobody wears the colors.

Um....no.

There's literally a fucking cult that has a ritual where they unveil her flag with her face on it and talk about how they will rise again with NCR.

They rub themselves with the ashes of Shady Sands and get naked because the episode establishes they're NCR refugees.

They have the big NCR flag, she has NCR as her base at Griffith Observatory, and the guy claiming to be NCR's President hates her because she's recognized as NCR's leader.

She also talks about using her cold fusion to rebuild. She's all about: Rebuild NCR.

How the hell did you watch the show and not get that?

 

[Bradylama]

Moldaver's followers worship her as their messiah and you think that means they want a democratic republic? They say that Moldaver will bring back Shady Sands and "blood must be spilled" to do it. You are injecting your headcanon into the blank spaces of the script.

 

[CT Phipps]

Moldaver's followers worship her as their messiah and you think that means they want a democratic republic? They say that Moldaver will bring back Shady Sands and "blood must be spilled" to do it. You are injecting your headcanon into the blank spaces of the script.

Nationalism in Fallout ends up being perverted into a cult of personality? The Devil you say.

Moldaver is clearly lacking a few screws by the fact she leads a band of Raiders into Vault 33 and keeps Lucy's mother's feral ghoul as her girlfriend.

But it seems clear they believe she's the only person who can bring back the Bear.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Maximus also chooses the most violent option at every turn. A lot of that can be chalked up to him being raised in the Brotherhood, but he also acts inconsistently with someone who grew up in the brotherhood. It hints at the beginning that Maximus is a fanatic but it turns out he's not even familiar with the Brotherhood's tenets. He drops a line about "Eden" during his interrogation like that's something the Brotherhood believes, and the show never explains to the audience what the Brotherhood believes either. He doesn't know about sex and masturbation even thought the Brotherhood has a mixed sex recruitment pool and long lines of lineal descent, so they would have sexual education. It's just bad writing for the sake of bad jokes.

Eh, it makes some level of sense that Maximus though professing to care about the Brotherhood's values wouldn't really understand it. Ask the average American GI what he was fighting for in WW2, he'd say something about freedom and that bastard Hitler, but I doubt he could give you an Enlightenment-philosophical justification for why liberalism ought triumph.

As to him not knowing about sex and masturbation, and the fact that the Brotherhood is mixed-sex: In the show, we see exactly one female member, and they're transgender. Everyone else is a male. The show wanted to sell a vision of the brotherhood as a fascistic chauvinist group. The fact that they're historically more like an ethno-religious group where men and women are both active participants in social and political life is forgotten in favor of a vision of the Brotherhood as a fascistic chauvinist organization bent on world domination. It's stupid, but that's what it is.

I suppose you could reason that, with the rise of Maxson and the destruction of NCR, the Brotherhood has turned towards recuriting male orphans from the Wasteland as cannon fodder, rather than sending out its own ancient lineages to fight and die, and they don't really care much about their upbringing or development aside from giving them the most basic tenets of the organization and riling them up enough to fight and die.

The fact that Maximus doesn't know what masturbation is is particuarly funny given that we literally see someone jacking off under a blanket in broad daylight in one of the barracks scene.

Nationalism in Fallout ends up being perverted into a cult of personality? The Devil you say.

Moldaver is clearly lacking a few screws by the fact she leads a band of Raiders into Vault 33 and keeps Lucy's mother's feral ghoul as her girlfriend.

But it seems clear they believe she's the only person who can bring back the Bear.

In this recent exchange I do tend to agree with you more than Brady, but Brady is right in that the NCR is treated as some very local "flash in the pan" for the purposes of the show, practically like the Divide, some up-and-coming community that was cut too short. Doesn't really come across that this was industrial civilization reborn, a massive regional power.

For a comparison - Just look at how America is represented in Fallout 76 as the recent government that ruled the land, versus how NCR is depicted in Fo:TV

 

[Yossarrion]

Of the three main characters I didn't mind them. Lucy was a lot less of a girlboss than I thought she would be. I felt the finger thing was dumb but I enjoyed her.

Maximus felt like an Everyman in the fallout universe and I could see myself doing some of the same motions like he did with power armor or how he didn't pay attention to anything really other than the power armor classes.

Cooper was cool. He was always going to be cool goggins was great. I felt like he got away with a lot of plot defying things especially at the end with the fight in the hallway but I ended up just chalking that to him being a level 50 character in a room full of level 15s

 

[Bradylama]

Nationalism in Fallout ends up being perverted into a cult of personality? The Devil you say.

Moldaver is clearly lacking a few screws by the fact she leads a band of Raiders into Vault 33 and keeps Lucy's mother's feral ghoul as her girlfriend.

But it seems clear they believe she's the only person who can bring back the Bear.

No dude, this is your headcanon. They don't say anything about the Bear or the NCR or anything like it. The NCR flag and the posters are just mementos. Nobody acts like the NCR was real. They talk about "Shady Sands" as if it was the same thing. You're filling in the blanks with your knowledge from the games and not evaluating what the show is literally showing and telling you.

Eh, it makes some level of sense that Maximus though professing to care about the Brotherhood's values wouldn't really understand it. Ask the average American GI what he was fighting for in WW2, he'd say something about freedom and that bastard Hitler, but I doubt he could give you an Enlightenment-philosophical justification for why liberalism ought triumph.

As to him not knowing about sex and masturbation, and the fact that the Brotherhood is mixed-sex: In the show, we see exactly one female member, and they're transgender. Everyone else is a male. The show wanted to sell a vision of the brotherhood as a fascistic chauvinist group. The fact that they're historically more like an ethno-religious group where men and women are both active participants in social and political life is forgotten in favor of a vision of the Brotherhood as a fascistic chauvinist organization bent on world domination. It's stupid, but that's what it is.

I suppose you could reason that, with the rise of Maxson and the destruction of NCR, the Brotherhood has turned towards recuriting male orphans from the Wasteland as cannon fodder, rather than sending out its own ancient lineages to fight and die, and they don't really care much about their upbringing or development aside from giving them the most basic tenets of the organization and riling them up enough to fight and die.

The fact that Maximus doesn't know what masturbation is is particuarly funny given that we literally see someone jacking off under a blanket in broad daylight in one of the barracks scene.

The Brotherhood does have female recruits and mixed-sex units. If you blink you'll miss a shot during the Prydwen's arrival from the hangar where there's an unambiguous woman looking in wonder with all the other aspirants. Maybe all women in the Brotherhood are compelled to be trans men but if that was relevant they would have shown in. Explaining it away is headcanon. Based on that shot alone it's logical to conclude that the Brotherhood is still a mixed sex organization, even though the show features almost no women in the Brotherhood.

Therefore, the Brotherhood should have a sexual education program that helps them control their reproduction. And yet Maximus knows nothing about sex at all. He doesn't even know what masturbation is even though he's seen guys jack off and cum.

The Brotherhood is also more or less a cult. It's ridiculous to compare someone fighting in WW2 to someone fighting in the Brotherhood. Wartime propaganda is not the same thing as a mystical society that reinforces their beliefs through elaborate and occult ritual, and forces their members to cut all outside ties to the Wasteland because they have to dedicate their entire lives to the Brotherhood. At least a few of them should take their own religion seriously, but nobody does except the clerics, and they don't tell us anything about the Brotherhood's beliefs either.

 

[CT Phipps]

No dude, this is your headcanon. They don't say anything about the Bear or the NCR or anything like it. The NCR flag and the posters are just mementos. Nobody acts like the NCR was real. They talk about "Shady Sands" as if it was the same thing. You're filling in the blanks with your knowledge from the games and not evaluating what the show is literally showing and telling you.

Right, your argument is that they incorporate the flag, NCR Rangers, the fact that they list Shady Sands as the first capital of the place, and deal with all the refugees and trauma from having it nuked but none of this indicates NCR is real because you clearly the producers don't know anything about the setting and are just making things up.

You seem to REALLY want to stretch your argument.

Therefore, the Brotherhood should have a sexual education program that helps them control their reproduction. And yet Maximus knows nothing about sex at all. He doesn't even know what masturbation is even though he's seen guys jack off and cum.

I feel this does ignore Max is high off his gourd but he's an idiot.

The Brotherhood is also more or less a cult. It's ridiculous to compare someone fighting in WW2 to someone fighting in the Brotherhood. Wartime propaganda is not the same thing as a mystical society that reinforces their beliefs through elaborate and occult ritual, and forces their members to cut all outside ties to the Wasteland because they have to dedicate their entire lives to the Brotherhood. At least a few of them should take their own religion seriously, but nobody does except the clerics, and they don't tell us anything about the Brotherhood's beliefs either.

Isn't Quintus' whole thing that he's disgusted by how the Brotherhood has degenerated from its roots and ceased to be a bunch of zealots?

 

[Hardboiled Android]

The Brotherhood does have female recruits and mixed-sex units. If you blink you'll miss a shot during the Prydwen's arrival from the hangar where there's an unambiguous woman looking in wonder with all the other aspirants. Maybe all women in the Brotherhood are compelled to be trans men but if that was relevant they would have shown in.

Fair enough, I don't recall any women in the show but I'll take your word for it. That does make my explanation all the more tenuous.

Explaining it away is headcanon.

I don't disagree. It's really just poorly written for the most part. I'm just having a little fun with gymnastics.

He doesn't even know what masturbation is even though he's seen guys jack off and cum.

Now, in the interest of fairness, I am compelled to note that YOU are head-canoning now. We now as a matter of fact that Maximus has seen other guys jack off since we see it with him - However, that he ever sees anyone CUM only exists in YOUR IMAGINATION. We never SEE or are TOLD that he saw ANYONE ELSE CUM.

(:p)

The Brotherhood is also more or less a cult. It's ridiculous to compare someone fighting in WW2 to someone fighting in the Brotherhood. Wartime propaganda is not the same thing as a mystical society that reinforces their beliefs through elaborate and occult ritual, and forces their members to cut all outside ties to the Wasteland because they have to dedicate their entire lives to the Brotherhood. At least a few of them should take their own religion seriously, but nobody does except the clerics, and they don't tell us anything about the Brotherhood's beliefs either.

You're being a little silly on this count. How deep do you think some Frankish moron footsoldier would be able to discuss Christology or the fine points of Old Testament chronology during the First Crusade? The fact is most people don't really know much about the things they fight for, whether they be fighting for god or country. Those with just a sparknotes-level knowledge are on the higher end of the bellcurve.

Though I will grant, this line of reasoning doesn't quite work with how small and insular the Brotherhood is in the past of the setting, given they're effectively a monastic order who as you say are only in contact with each other and are absorbed in their worldview.

 

[CT Phipps]

You're being a little silly on this count. How deep do you think some Frankish moron footsoldier would be able to discuss Christology or the fine points of Old Testament chronology during the First Crusade? The fact is most people don't really know much about the things they fight for, whether they be fighting for god or country. Those with just a sparknotes-level knowledge are on the higher end of the bellcurve.

Though I will grant, this line of reasoning doesn't quite work with how small and insular the Brotherhood is in the past of the setting, given they're effectively a monastic order who as you say are only in contact with each other and are absorbed in their worldview.

I think it's kind of funny that Quintus clearly thinks the candidates of the BOS are sub-par these days and it's actually his character arc that he wants to start over and reform the Brotherhood. I don't believe it's linked to the fact Maxson lowered recruitment standards and started bringing in massive amounts of Wastelander kids like Lyons (like Maximus).

It's an argument that Arthur and Lyons were wrong as they're ignorant wastelanders versus true Brothers and Sisters.

But it's apparently deliberate and not poor writing that Maximus is a moron and brothers aren't very good at what they do.

(Maximus also can explain the BOS' mission coherently to Lucy--even if it's just the bare bones, "We confiscate technology to save the world from nukes.")

 

[Bradylama]

Right, your argument is that they incorporate the flag, NCR Rangers, the fact that they list Shady Sands as the first capital of the place, and deal with all the refugees and trauma from having it nuked but none of this indicates NCR is real because you clearly the producers don't know anything about the setting and are just making things up.

You seem to REALLY want to stretch your argument.

I feel this does ignore Max is high off his gourd but he's an idiot.

Isn't Quintus' whole thing that he's disgusted by how the Brotherhood has degenerated from its roots and ceased to be a bunch of zealots?

See, you don't understand what the show is telling you. The lead farmers aren't part of NCR, they're wearing ranger armors to do their work, which is sifting for lead in the desert. Their use of the armor is pure costume, and ranger armors aren't featured again. Moldaver's goons don't even wear any NCR uniforms despite being remnants. Their most identifying piece of clothing is the green berets, but the NCR used red berets. You saw an NCR flag and NCR propaganda posters and filled in the blanks with knowledge from your brain, but the show treats all of that as meaningless ephemera. It's pure fanservice.

Quintus is indeed dissatisfied with how the Brotherhood is going, but it's ridiculous to portray the Brotherhood as an organization that literally nobody takes seriously. Not even a knight acting on direct orders from the high clerics in the Commonwealth.

Fair enough, I don't recall any women in the show but I'll take your word for it. That does make my explanation all the more tenuous.

It's impossible to tell even if presenting the Brotherhood as an all-male organization was intentional or if the lack of women was an afterthought. I mentioned in my notes "where are the women" right before that one shot came up, but I don't think there are any women in the rest of the season that I can recall. Maybe if you look closely at the faces of the aspirants and squires you might spot one, but they've probably got crew cuts or buzzcuts like Dane's, so you wouldn't be able to pick out the women from the pretty boys.

Now, in the interest of fairness, I am compelled to note that YOU are head-canoning now. We now as a matter of fact that Maximus has seen other guys jack off since we see it with him - However, that he ever sees anyone CUM only exists in YOUR IMAGINATION. We never SEE or are TOLD that he saw ANYONE ELSE CUM.

(:p)

I literally said that he HAS seen it. Maximus tells Lucy that guys make a move and their thingy gets better and explodes. Which means he's seen it, but doesn't know what it is, and has apparently never done it to himself.

You're being a little silly on this count. How deep do you think some Frankish moron footsoldier would be able to discuss Christology or the fine points of Old Testament chronology during the First Crusade? The fact is most people don't really know much about the things they fight for, whether they be fighting for god or country. Those with just a sparknotes-level knowledge are on the higher end of the bellcurve.

Though I will grant, this line of reasoning doesn't quite work with how small and insular the Brotherhood is in the past of the setting, given they're effectively a monastic order who as you say are only in contact with each other and are absorbed in their worldview.

A Frankish crusader might not know all the details of the litanies or Latin, but he does know that Christ is Lord & Savior, that God is the Trinity, and whatever else his priests told him - because that was how pre-modern and illiterate people received religious ideas. They were derived solely from ecclesiastical authorities. So that Crusader wouldn't know everything about Christianity but he would fanatically believe in Catholicism and the righteousness of his mission to the Holy Land. Nobody in the Brotherhood cares about anything. Titus jeopardizes a critical mission because he's "bored," and Titus is presumably a highly ranked knight since he was dispatched directly from the Commonwealth.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

It's impossible to tell even if presenting the Brotherhood as an all-male organization was intentional or if the lack of women was an afterthought. I mentioned in my notes "where are the women" right before that one shot came up, but I don't think there are any women in the rest of the season that I can recall. Maybe if you look closely at the faces of the aspirants and squires you might spot one, but they've probably got crew cuts or buzzcuts like Dane's, so you wouldn't be able to pick out the women from the pretty boys.

Even if there were more women scattered around that I missed, I do think that the decision to cast mostly men was intentional. These are the kind of things that casting directors and extra wranglers have to think about, and given how tipped in favor of men things are there must have been some rationale at some level.

Now, whether that came down as a mandate from the showrunners or was just a vague aesthetic decision of a casting director, we cannot say. But the imbalance is definitely there, and is notable.

I literally said that he HAS seen it. Maximus tells Lucy that guys make a move and their thingy gets better and explodes. Which means he's seen it, but doesn't know what it is, and has apparently never done it to himself.

Joking aside, I think it's pretty clear that the primary implication from that scene is that Maximus has made his own cock explode (to borrow his term), he's just embarrassed to admit it because he doesn't realize it's normal for some reason (same with not wanting to admit his cock gets hard). He talks about hearing about those things happening to other guys, but it's very clearly a "Hey doc, my friend's got this problem..." situation.

A Frankish crusader might not know all the details of the litanies or Latin, but he does know that Christ is Lord & Savior, that God is the Trinity, and whatever else his priests told him - because that was how pre-modern and illiterate people received religious ideas. They were derived solely from ecclesiastical authorities. So that Crusader wouldn't know everything about Christianity but he would fanatically believe in Catholicism and the righteousness of his mission to the Holy Land. Nobody in the Brotherhood cares about anything. Titus jeopardizes a critical mission because he's "bored," and Titus is presumably a highly ranked knight since he was dispatched directly from the Commonwealth.

I agree, the typical crusader would forthrightly and honestly believe in his religion to some degree and have some basic idea of its tenets - Just the same as Maximus has some basic ideas of the tenets of the Brotherhood. He's just not a particuarly bright.

As to Titus - I didn't realize we were talking about him, I thought we were just talking about Maximus. While, as we've established, I think the typical Frankish Crusader would forthrightly believe in his religion, that wouldn't hold true universally: there will always be cynics, opportunists, and outright sociopaths among the ranks. Indeed, this is true for the historical Crusades: The First Crusade by all accounts was in large part motivated by genuine sentiments (though there were also material considerations, conscious and unconscious), but as the programme of crusades proceeded the "mercenary" and material motives began to take greater prominence.

As to Titus dicking around more generally: I don't think someone being a cruel and vindictive dickbag is at all at odds with anything. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there were probably a lot of Crusaders that were cruel to their squires or their camp followers. There are cruel and malicious people out there, regardless of what they may believe in. He thought he could get away with toying with a young Aspirant, and he did until he didn't.

Now that said, I think they go over-the-top with how cruel and vindictive Titus was - Why on earth would someone who just got mauled and has their life in the hands of someone else say "I'm gonna kill you, we're gonna rip you apart and eat your bones when we get back to base?" etc. etc. - but that's just a problem with basic character writing, not some fundamental rupture in the idea of the Brotherhood.

 

[Bradylama]

As to Titus - I didn't realize we were talking about him, I thought we were just talking about Maximus. While, as we've established, I think the typical Frankish Crusader would forthrightly believe in his religion, that wouldn't hold true universally: there will always be cynics, opportunists, and outright sociopaths among the ranks. Indeed, this is true for the historical Crusades: The First Crusade by all accounts was in large part motivated by genuine sentiments (though there were also material considerations, conscious and unconscious), but as the programme of crusades proceeded the "mercenary" and material motives began to take greater prominence.

As to Titus dicking around more generally: I don't think someone being a cruel and vindictive dickbag is at all at odds with anything. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there were probably a lot of Crusaders that were cruel to their squires or their camp followers. There are cruel and malicious people out there, regardless of what they may believe in. He thought he could get away with toying with a young Aspirant, and he did until he didn't.

Now that said, I think they go over-the-top with how cruel and vindictive Titus was - Why on earth would someone who just got mauled and has their life in the hands of someone else say "I'm gonna kill you, we're gonna rip you apart and eat your bones when we get back to base?" etc. etc. - but that's just a problem with basic character writing, not some fundamental rupture in the idea of the Brotherhood.

You're missing the forest for the trees here. I'm talking about the whole faction as it's portrayed. Yes, of course there were non-believers and self-serving cynics among the crusaders, but everyone in the Brotherhood is a self-serving cynic. Nobody among the rank-and-file expresses any kind of religious fanaticism, except when they have to perform it in the presence of the clerics. When Maximus brands Thaddeus they treat it with all the seriousness of a frat hazing ritual. It breaks suspension of disbelief that nobody in the Brotherhood seems to care about what they're doing, and Titus is emblematic of it. If Titus was such a problem that he defied orders from the highest authority in the brotherhood, why wasn't he demoted and replaced with a more suitable squire? Not even the clerics care about the righteousness of their own enforcers.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

You're missing the forest for the trees here. I'm talking about the whole faction as it's portrayed. Yes, of course there were non-believers and self-serving cynics among the crusaders, but everyone in the Brotherhood is a self-serving cynic. Nobody among the rank-and-file expresses any kind of religious fanaticism, except when they have to perform it in the presence of the clerics. When Maximus brands Thaddeus they treat it with all the seriousness of a frat hazing ritual. It breaks suspension of disbelief that nobody in the Brotherhood seems to care about what they're doing, and Titus is emblematic of it. If Titus was such a problem that he defied orders from the highest authority in the brotherhood, why wasn't he demoted and replaced with a more suitable squire? Not even the clerics care about the righteousness of their own enforcers.

I think this is a very valid criticism that can be applied to a lot of media titles in portraying religion where no body believes that crap and the entire enterprise is purely cynical or sinsiter, including the Fallout franchise, but I'm not sure if we can really level it towards the Brotherhood in Fo:TV if only because we meet so few characters from it. Maximus vaguely believes in it but is a dullard, Titus is a psycho, the trans guy seems to vaguely believe in it (?), Superstore guy seems to vaguely believe in it, and Quintus certainly believes in it. The organization just barely exists outside of "vague mean military guys", which denudes our capacity to make a lot of stronger critiques of them... that's an issue in itself certainly, a pretty huge one in fact.

 

[Bradylama]

I think this is a very valid criticism that can be applied to a lot of media titles in portraying religion where no body believes that crap and the entire enterprise is purely cynical or sinsiter, including the Fallout franchise, but I'm not sure if we can really level it towards the Brotherhood in Fo:TV if only because we meet so few characters from it. Maximus vaguely believes in it but is a dullard, Titus is a psycho, the trans guy seems to vaguely believe in it (?), Superstore guy seems to vaguely believe in it, and Quintus certainly believes in it. The organization just barely exists outside of "vague mean military guys", which denudes our capacity to make a lot of stronger critiques of them... that's an issue in itself certainly, a pretty huge one in fact.

You're making assumptions about characters' beliefs based on nothing. None of the people you've listed express any kind of religious belief except Quintus, and he has to in order to perform his duties as cleric. Thaddeus speaks to 'Titus' in the subservient language of a squire, but that's protocol in a nominally honor-based hierarchy. Maximus drops a line about "Eden, or whatever" and that's the most we get out of the Brotherhood's tenets from Maximus, and he obviously doesn't care about "whatever" that is. They are all frankly way too normal. Where are the zealots?

 

[Hardboiled Android]

You're making assumptions about characters' beliefs based on nothing. None of the people you've listed express any kind of religious belief except Quintus, and he has to in order to perform his duties as cleric. Thaddeus speaks to 'Titus' in the subservient language of a squire, but that's protocol in a nominally honor-based hierarchy. Maximus drops a line about "Eden, or whatever" and that's the most we get out of the Brotherhood's tenets from Maximus, and he obviously doesn't care about "whatever" that is. They are all frankly way too normal. Where are the zealots?

You're right, I'm just giving vague impressions. But I think that's rather the point: We don't get into depth with any of these characters or with the faction enough for me to feel like we can really level this particular critique.