Fallout: New Vegas: Honest Hearts Analysis (Pt.1)

Honest Hearts was the second DLC to Fallout:New Vegas. It takes the Courier to Zion National Park where he is ambushed by violent tribals and gets embroiled in a greater conflict. But first, some history...

Joshua Graham was a Mormon missionary who accompanied an expedition into the Grand Canyon put together by the Followers of the Apocalypse to study the dialects of the tribals there. Graham served as the translator as he was familiar with the tribes languages. However, Joshua Graham, Edward Sallow, Bill Calhoun and the rest of their expedition were captured by the Blackfoot Tribe. Whether this was caused by a miscommunication between Joshua and the tribals or that it was an ambush from the start is not clear.

As it turns out, the Blackfoots were at war with several other tribes and losing. Edward decided he could use the situation to his advantage instead of dying along with them. Against the advice of Calhoun and the doctrines of the Followers, Edward abused the knowledge he gained studying with them to teach the Blackfoots in the ways of war. He taught them how to use guns, explosives and apply combat tactics. He impressed them enough such that he was made their leader. Edward took the title of "Caesar" and began dividing and conquering the other tribes brutally and without mercy. Bill was allowed to leave but Joshua remained, serving as Caesar's translator.

Soon, Joshua not only translated orders for Caesar but became the military commander of Caesar's "legion", forged from the conquered tribes. Joshua became known as the "Malpais Legate" and committed numerous atrocities. His brutality became legendary among the Legion warriors as well as the NCR, who Caesar was chomping at the bit to start a fight with. Joshua was also notorious for being hard to kill and survived at least five assassination attempts from NCR snipers.

Despite his brutality, Joshua was no strategist. He lost the First Battle of Hoover Dam and Caesar had to make an example. Failure would not be tolerated even in the higher ranks. Joshua was covered in pitch, set alight and thrown into the Grand Canyon. That was the end of the Malpais Legate...or was it?

The Courier's story begins when he/she signs up to join an trade expedition by the Happy Trails Caravan Company. The caravan hoped to establish a trade route to New Canaan through Zion National Park. However, the expedition was a disaster. A group of tribals known as the White Legs ambushed the caravan and slaughtered everyone except the Courier, who had a knack for avoiding certain death.

To go on about the story in Honest Hearts would take quite a lot of time so I'm just going to assume you, the reader, have played through it and are familiar with the events in it. After all, if you aren't, you wouldn't be reading this would you? Let's go on to the themes of Honest Hearts and why this game has a lot nore to offer than would first appear.

The Nature of Man

If we're going to anlyze a story, where do we start? Simple. Let's start with ourselves, or rather, with how the subject matter treats the human being. How are human beings portrayed in HH?

HH presents us with a scenario where there are tribals fighting for a land called Zion. Not too subtle, eh? The religious symbolism isn't tossed about recklessly. Joshua, at one point, calls Zion a "natural temple" and "monument to His glory."

 Zion National Park, despite being a park of the Old World, is presented as a nature that is pristine and almost primordial even. Compared to the barren Mojave desert and the desolate hellhole that was FO3's Capitol Wasteland, Zion provides a rare opportunity for the player to see an unspoiled wilderness in the Fallout universe that was spared from the ravages of the Great War. Keep this "uncorrupted nature" idea in mind.

It's not just the nature that's reduced to a pure state, so too are the people who call (or would like to call) Zion home. Here we have people living in the most basic form of human organization which is the tribe. The tribals live off the land and are generally ignorant of technology and even suspicious of anything related to the Old World. To put it simply, we are given a situation where everything is a "clean slate", man and nature in it's simplest form.

What is the nature of man? Let's answer the question by looking at some of the happy locals.

 The White Legs

These guys are the very first tribe the player meets. They also murder everyone in the caravan but the player barely manages to escape. Not a warm welcome to Zion. The White Legs are a savage tribe who attack anyone not of their own. They are always hostile to the player and all the other tribes.

But why? Joshua offers an explanation. Apparently, the White Legs do not have the means to sustain themselves and don't know basic stuff like agriculture. Instead, they found it easy to just take from others and so built their society off raiding and pillaging. Immediately, Thomas Hobbes classical philosophy comes to mind. The natural state of man is a state of war simply because he has license to take from others whatever the hell he wants. The game goes no further to establish the need for a government as Hobbes did but still, the idea is here. Man is warlike in nature simply because he is driven by his needs.

The White Legs have a bigger role in the story however. For reasons not explicitly mentioned but easily inferred, they want to join up with Caesar's legion. If war is your way of life, why not join up with the biggest, baddest warband in town? The fact that the White Legs scalp their victims implies a culture that is centered on and celebrates war.

In exchange for their membership, they were given the task of destroying New Canaan and everyone in it. Why? Because Caesar didn't like Joshua Graham and decided to order a literal genocide against Joshua's "tribe". Caesar is that goddamned petty. The White Legs eagerly obliged and killed almost everyone in New Canaan, even the children and elderly. They even salted the earth afterwards.

It's depressing but yeah, the White Legs show that man's nature is one of conflict and bloodshed.

The Sorrows

Way waaaaay over on the other side of the spectrum are the Sorrows, a tribe of peaceful people living by a cave system called The Narrows. They are led by Daniel, a surviving Mormon missionary from New Canaan.

Daniel describes the Sorrows as peaceful and, more importantly, innocent. It's true. By complete contrast to the White Legs, the Sorrows seem like a bunch of hippies. The Sorrows are kind and hospitable and are a very emotional people. Daniel even mentions how the Sorrows feel and weep for the dead even if they are their enemies, the White Legs.

Here's the interesting bit. The Sorrows are not a kind and gentle people because they were born that way. The Sorrows worship this being called, The Father in the Caves. The Father taught them to be kind to one another and left Zion to them as a gift to make up for all the sorrows man has visited on man. I'll explain what this "Father" is much later but the point here is that the Sorrows appear to live a peaceful modest and self-sustaining existence because of the teachings and influence of the Father.

So what does this imply? It means that man can be taught to avoid a warlike existence and that man can live a good life free from war but needs some kind of rules or code. This, my friends is what you call morality. The Sorrows needed to be told that hurting one another is to be avoided. So you have a people here who were given a set of morals by a seemingly supernatural being telling them to love one another. Sound familiar? The Sorrows are doing quite well for themselves too if it weren't for the White Legs.

 The Dead Horses

The Dead Horses tribe are led by none other than Joshua Graham. They originally lived in Dead Horse Point but were convinced by Joshua to move to Zion after teaching them how to use guns and how to fight. Remember this ugly fact.

The Dead Horses occupy the middle ground. On the one hand, they're not as violent as the White Legs but they're no strangers to war either. However there are strong hints in the game that they're slipping into dangerous territory with their idolizing of Joshua and his ways as well as their decorating of their tribal clubs with the .45 shell casings of Joshua's trademark weapon. They're not warlike but they're getting there.

I guess this creates more of an interesting conflict between Daniel and Joshua. On the one hand, Daniel wants to preserve the Sorrows' innocence while on the other, Joshua is nudging the Dead Horses down the bloody path. Joshua would never admit it though (Remember this) and seems to act repulsed when told Follows-Chalk regards him highly.

Conclusion

Honest Hearts seems to imply that man, by nature, lives a warlike existence (White Legs). But man can be influenced to be above this sort of thing (Sorrows) or the other way around (Dead Horses). Notice that it's a man corrupting the Dead Horses while the Sorrows are influenced by a seemingly otherworldly being.

I will explain the Father in the Caves next time as well as the strong religious symbolism in the game.