Major Themes
Two phrases keep repeating themselves through Dead Money: "letting go" and "begin again". Now what do these phrases mean? It's important to remember these because providing context for them helps us understand the theme of the story. Greed is an important element also and ties-in with the whole problem of "letting go". Keep thinking of the two phrases. Their meaning will come later and the lessons will explain themselves.
One way to tell if a story is good is if the characters all tie-in to the theme and story in a way. This is what makes characters "strong", stand out more and the story is better understood through them as well. To use a different game as an example, this is the reason why characters in Mass Effect are so beloved by their fanbase. Players wouldn't give two shits about something like the Krogan genophage unless a character like Wrex or Mordin would give us a better understanding of how it affects people (or aliens?) and make us care. The same can be said in Dead Money. In DM, the characters are not just important to help the player progress but also to service the plot.
So let's use the characters. I think that's a good method. Let's start with the very first person you meet.
Elijah
Elijah is the disgraced former Elder of the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel and is the main villain of DM. He was such a genius that even as a Scribe, he rose to the rank of Elder despite Elders normally being from the Paladins. His leadership was unorthodox to say the least. The Brotherhood's doctrine is to hoard advanced technology in order to keep it out of the hands of your typical clueless waster. But Elijah wanted to provide tech to the people of the wasteland to get more recruits, a plan he passed on to Veronica, one of the Courier's companions. He was forward-thinking and well aware of the Brotherhood's stagnation.
But then he found the HELIOS solar power plant and wanted to claim it for the Brotherhood. This bought them in conflict with the NCR who also wanted it for themselves. Despite being outnumbered, Elijah continued to insist on holding the plant despite the advice of the Brotherhood Paladins. It was a disaster and the Brotherhood eventually lost HELIOS and many men with it. Elijah simply disappeared afterwards and set out to find "one of the greatest treasures of the Old World".
He found the Sierra Madre and became absolutely obsessed with it. He captured people and put bomb collars on them, enslaving them to help him crack it open. His crimes did not go unnoticed. The Brotherhood decided that Elijah was just too dangerous and sent an assassin after him.
Elijah's flaw is his ambition. All he cares about are his goals and damn anyone who gets in his way. He originally intended to use technology to establish the Brotherhood's dominance. But now, he sees the technology in the Sierra Madre as a way to establish his vision of a new order. Before he does however, his plan involves killing everyone in the Mojave with the poison cloud in the Sierra Madre to start over, to begin again or "Wipe the slate clean." as he calls it. To put it simply, Elijah is an obsessed, delusional, genocidal madman whose grand vision of a better future for mankind is betrayed by his cruel treatment of people as disposable tools.
Elijah is as much a prisoner of the Sierra Madre as the people he's enslaved. Greed is not limited to money. Greed is an obsessive, inordinate desire to acquire something (anything) and keep it to yourself. He's completely oblivious too. He expresses confusion as to why his prisoners succumb to greed and kill each other to get more loot. He probably thinks he's above them all because his cause is noble. Obviously not. Greed is greed. It's also interesting to note that he encourages the player to "kill the others" after the break-in for seemingly no reason. And he still thinks he's not like the common greedy killer?
Like many others, he was lured to the Sierra Madre to reverse his fortunes and "begin again". Unfortunately, he cannot let go of his ambition and it leads to his comeuppance when he makes the mistake of crossing the wrong badass, the Courier. His figurative trap becomes literal when the Courier outsmarts him and traps him inside the vault he so desperately wanted to get into - a poetic death. The Sierra Madre claims another fool who wanted to gain what it promised.
"But getting there - that's not the hard part. It's letting go."
Dog/God
Dog/God is a super mutant who once served in The Master's army in the original Fallout. He appears to be a nightkin and as is common among nightkin, has a split-personality disorder. He has two personalities. The Courier can switch between which personality would be dominant by playing an audio tape of either Elijah's voice (Dog becomes dominant) or his own voice (God becomes dominant).
Dog is what his name implies. Dog is a dumb beast who can barely communicate with the Courier. Dog is consumed with a powerful hunger and I don't mean a metaphorical kind of hunger. I mean dog will literally eat anything from ghost people to his own bomb collar (which he did). Dog also desires a master-figure, someone who will tell him what to do. He found this master in Elijah, who quickly saw potential in having this strong brute as a tool. Dog obeyed, happily too, and went about capturing "assistants" for Elijah, one of which was the Courier.
God, or "The Voice", as Dog calls him, is the exact opposite. God is articulate, cunning (as his attempts to subvert Elijah seem to indicate) and strong-willed. He hates being under the thumb of Elijah and does not take kindly to the Courier who he perceives as just another greedy scavenger. He argues a lot, doesn't like being told what to do and is very hard to order around in the game. Earning God's trust takes a lot of effort and it's tempting to just use Dog and be done with it.
God hates Dog (it seems, at first) and Dog feels the same to God. God tortures Dog by being a voice in his head, perpetually trying to wrest him away from Elijah control at every waking moment. Dog physically abuses himself in horrible ways in an effort to block the voice of God.
Dog and God have very interesting character dynamics. One desires to be controlled while the other desires to be in control. One is consumed by the baser instinct of hunger while the other is obsessed with something far more complex. Maybe there's an intended reference to the Freudian model of the psyche. Dog is the id while God is the superego. All dog wants is the simple gratification of sating his hunger and having everything thought out for him by a master. God wants to control Dog to achieve freedom from being helpless.
In the bad ending, Dog cannot take his inner conflict anymore and kills himself in an effort to destroy God. However, in the good ending, the Courier manages to combine the two personalities and Dog/God is made whole again. God even admits that he doesn't really hate Dog and only wants what's best for him. When they are combined, they become a rounded out individual that balances the needs of both. Dog/God's ego emerges as well as his sense of self-identity. In other words he becomes the master of himself.
How does this character relate to the theme of DM? While Dog's hunger can be considered as greed, Dog/God is more of a comment on the nature of the individual and less about the Sierra Madre treasure (which doesn't matter to neither Dog nor God). Both personalities are extremes from each other and are both harmful. Dog cannot control his hunger and thus, himself by extension. Because he cannot control himself, he cannot accept God, who is actually himself trying to force control. God is driving Dog crazy in the process despite his best intentions and it all eventually leads to attempted suicide.
The message here is temperance, which is the opposite of Dog's gluttony and also kind-of the opposite of Greed. Dog is found in all of us perhaps. Everyone has a "Dog" inside of him or an "id" if you prefer. Our baser instincts lead us to harm ourselves and do stupid things. Dog's hunger, Elijah's obsession, people's greed, lust etc. are all the same.
The message, I guess, is to let go of our greed and master ourselves. It was Dog's gluttony that trapped him, albeit indirectly, as a slave to Elijah.
"Dog forgot himself, as did the voice that raged within him. After their
passing, a new voice spoke within the mutant's shell. It was difficult
for the voice to remember the two it once was... there was the beast,
Dog consumed by hunger... ...and the other in reverse... the one
consumed by control. Both were driven by need for the other. The Courier
brought them together, somehow, joined the two into one."
Continued in Part 3
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