Is Preston Garvey The REAL General of The Minutemen while The Sole Survivor Serves As A Figurehead?

[TheKingofVault14]

Okay this is kind of a theory, but it's mainly a question that's been on my mind for quite sometime.

To this day, I never really understood the dynamic between The Sole Survivor and Preston Garvey in regards to their roles within The Minutemen. Like even though "officially" The Sole Survivor is supposed to be The General, while Preston serves as the right hand man to said "General", it feels and seems like it's the other way around. I mean seriously, most of the time it's Preston ordering The Sole Survivor (YOU) around to go save some settlements, while he just simply lays back and bums around Sanctuary! You know, I wonder if this was Preston's plan all along, to have somebody be the figurehead, the face of The Minutemen while he, (being the actual General) leads them from the shadows via the in-name only General in The Sole Survivor. Oh, and he also doesn't have to do the heavy lifting when it comes to things like making the tough decisions. That's up to "The General" to deal with!



I don't know, what do you guys think? I know this post is kind of a ramble, but I've been wanting to know some other people's thoughts on this topic.

So what is it then, is The Sole Survivor nothing but a puppet for Preston Garvey?

 

[william dempsey]

It's par for the course really. Most games use the same tired old format, go here do this, get me that.

It would be so refreshing if a game did not treat you as a gopher.

Scenario: Older guy in the town/village/settlement is laid up with a broken leg. You ask him to teach you the basics.
After this he gives you HIS stuff to set you on your way. From a pool of kids your age you choose 2 friends. 1 is athletic a good swimmer but is shit scared of heights, he can turn on the charm at times.

The other lad is burly but far from stupid, he can climb like a monkey but cannot swim. At a very young age his mother taught him first aid etc etc etc.

After you venture forth with your buddies you realise the other kids need training up to suit their hidden strengths.
After finding the boots of bouncy bouncy you return to the tower with your pals. After blowin up the strongroom you go back to town and give the old guy tons of wonga ;p

 

[PaxVenire]

I find theorizing like this when it comes to Bethesda Fallouts is less of an actual theory with evidence to be had/found and more so just us trying to cope with the reality of their writing. Same goes for the theory that the ghoul kid in the fridge wasn’t actually in there since the Great War, but rather since the Battle of Quincy since he doesn’t specify. He doesn’t need to specify, because the Great War is obviously what the writers intended, but the theory serves as a coping mechanism to counter the lack of logic put into that quest.

With the Minutemen, it’s the same thing. There’s no logic to them. They’re Bethesda’s attempt at a faction with historical roots similar to the Legion modeling themselves off Rome, except Bethesda takes the gimmick of the Minutemen’s historical roots way too far. Caesar talks about how everything he did forging the Legion came from the valuable lessons he learned from old books, twisted to his own benefit in this post-apocalyptic world they live in. He models his faction off Rome, but also uses other ideologies such as Hegelian dialectics and the ideas present in fascism to create a stronger hold on his faction that he believes will make up for the shortcomings of the past Roman Empire that fell.

The Minutemen on the other hand are a bunch of LARPers who found a museum and thought a confederacy of settlements was a good idea and that retaking the Castle (which should be obliterated after the war) was awesome because it was the base of the faction they model themselves after. That’s about all the thought put into them. They don’t adapt to the age they live in, rather they believe their morals are unbreakable. When it came to the Battle of Quincy and they are absolutely destroyed by the Gunners after being betrayed by their leader they were destroyed in a snap. Now Preston has to lug around the survivors all across the Commonwealth which he fails to protect most of them, and by the time you arrive to the museum, they’re already as good as dead (of course Bethesda doesn’t allow this, and no matter how long you wait or avoid helping them, they’ll always be fine until you do).

And the moment you help them out, Preston immediately offers the role of General to someone he’s barely just met because he doesn’t have the balls to lead himself. That or he’s just lazy. He isn’t smart or cunning or politically motivated to use the Sole Survivor as a puppet, he’s just another form of Bethesda writing on display.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

I find theorizing like this when it comes to Bethesda Fallouts is less of an actual theory with evidence to be had/found and more so just us trying to cope with the reality of their writing. Same goes for the theory that the ghoul kid in the fridge wasn’t actually in there since the Great War, but rather since the Battle of Quincy since he doesn’t specify. He doesn’t need to specify, because the Great War is obviously what the writers intended, but the theory serves as a coping mechanism to counter the lack of logic put into that quest.

Personally I find the theorizing to make the Bethesda games make sense is a really fun exercise, but you are right: It's, for the most part, just cope. Very rarely are you actually uncovering any kind of real creative intent behind the things in the game, more ofoten you're just trying to fix things that Bethesda put only a little thought into. I love the exercise, as I said, but there are some people out there (the worst of the Bethesda apologists) who try to take these fanon theories and pretend as though this is obviously what was intended and Bethesda is such a subtle story teller that they just don't want to spell it all out.

 

[PaxVenire]

there are some people out there (the worst of the Bethesda apologists) who try to take these fanon theories and pretend as though this is obviously what was intended and Bethesda is such a subtle story teller that they just don't want to spell it all out.

This is literally r/FalloutLore over on Reddit. They'll pull the most flashy nugget of shit from their ass to get out of admitting the faults in Bethesda's writing.

Personally I find the theorizing to make the Bethesda games make sense is a really fun exercise

It's fun, but me personally, I find it a lot more fun to rewrite Bethesda's stories/lore from the ground up. I love getting creative with the potential the final products had. Despite what some people on here think, I find a lot of potential in Bethesda's games -- squandered as it might be. Hoping to share what I've come up with on here soon and get people's opinions.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

It's fun, but me personally, I find it a lot more fun to rewrite Bethesda's stories/lore from the ground up. I love getting creative with the potential the final products had. Despite what some people on here think, I find a lot of potential in Bethesda's games -- squandered as it might be. Hoping to share what I've come up with on here soon and get people's opinions.

Agreed. I've had a concept for a version of Fallout 3 written in the style of the original game with a map of similar size, stretching from Virginia Beach to Pittsburgh, taking bits and pieces from the actual Fallout 3 and working them in.

I'd love to see your ideas some time.

 

[PaxVenire]

Agreed. I've had a concept for a version of Fallout 3 written in the style of the original game with a map of similar size, stretching from Virginia Beach to Pittsburgh, taking bits and pieces from the actual Fallout 3 and working them in.

That's actually almost exactly what I'm working on as well, except I unashamedly borrowed AtomicPostman's format for his Van Buren worldbook for my document. I just find it to be a nicely formatted way to explain the lore and quest ideas of mine.

Oh, and right back at ya, I'd love to see your ideas.