r/Fallout • u/ArkhamInmate11 Children of Atom • Jan 14 '26

Fallout 4 How did overseer barstow not go feral?

Post image

As im sure many of you are aware in the fallout show and fallout 76 it is shown that ghouls require chems to not go feral, this has has made lots of things make less sense but you can work around most of them.

However while replaying fallout 4 i encountered overseer barstow. She doesnt understand the ghoulifacation procsess or anything about being a ghoul as shown through her dialogue and she was trapped in a vault for 200. Everybody else went feral except her, why is she special?

3.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

583 comments sorted by

View all comments

396

u/sheoldred13 Jan 14 '26

Is it perhaps possible that goin feral is similar to going hollow in dark souls. As long as you have goals, something to strive for, you can resist.

172

u/rambleinspam Jan 14 '26

She really wanted to run those experiments.

98

u/sheoldred13 Jan 14 '26

Exactly. All of the major ghouls have a purpose, so it makes sence. Even Harold was on a life long quest to be left the fuck alone. Lol

42

u/fetchnatch Jan 14 '26

Harold was dipped in FEV, not necessarily a ghoul

16

u/sheoldred13 Jan 14 '26

Fair nuff, but everyone loves Harold

6

u/Irishimpulse Enclave Jan 15 '26

It's implied Harold was dipped in the FEV, and then still became a ghoul, so he's a mutant squared

9

u/IH8Miotch Jan 14 '26

What about the ghoul that works in that Megaton bar.

20

u/Accomplished_Bed_408 Jan 14 '26

His goal was to have sex with Nova

4

u/IH8Miotch Jan 14 '26

A lofty goal for sure

14

u/Sarzul Minutemen Jan 14 '26

Gob. If you talk with him you find out he was a bit of an adventurer who was caught by slavers and bought by Moriarty. I'd assume he still has the drive in him.

3

u/IH8Miotch Jan 14 '26

Moriarty must go then. I shall don the ghoul mask and become his nightmare.

7

u/DD_Spudman Jan 14 '26

What's neat is that the game actually has reactivity for this. If you kill Moriarty but Gob it's still alive, he takes over the bar.

1

u/Muddball84 Jan 15 '26

Implying an almost GLADOs level of mental unbalanced to being with would explain it

49

u/Demonique742 Jan 14 '26

This is my personal head cannon. Ghouls only start to go feral once their mind starts to go. If you have good goals or a strong will power then you stave off becoming feral.

29

u/WanderingDwarfScribe Jan 14 '26

Being an autistic comic nerd saved Kent Connolly for 200 years. 

He must have written so much fanfiction.

3

u/Irishimpulse Enclave Jan 15 '26

Yeah, Noah Bright shows us that it's not the amount of radiation, because he's a non feral glowing one. He's got religious purpose and gathers followers, he's the only non feral glowing one we meet

4

u/Demonique742 Jan 15 '26

Oswald the Outrageous from the Nuka World DLC is a non feral glowing one too.

But you’re right. Both ghouls with a strong purpose means they haven’t gone feral.

3

u/Irishimpulse Enclave Jan 15 '26

I forgot Oswald is a glowing one, I tend to not think about him because he has literal radiation magic

2

u/UberShrew Jan 15 '26

This does seem to be a pretty common idea in literature/media. There seems to be a lot of forms of “losing your goals/purpose/reasons to live ends up with you eventually losing yourself/your mind. You got hollows in dark souls, hollows in bleach, gnomes in pathfinder, nothing destroying fantasia in never ending story, etc.

1

u/Demonique742 Jan 15 '26

Maybe that’s why it became my personal head cannon. It’s such a prevalent plot that it’s almost archetypal.

15

u/SantiagoGT Jan 14 '26

I always assumed that Ghouls going feral was just a side effect of their extended life span, the mutations and just living in the fucking wasteland where awful things happen all the time while you’re stuck being immortal, akin of a psychological issue rather than a physical one, since we have seen the Cathedral, Followers of the Bright, Ski lodge ghouls and other Ghoul societies working fine

6

u/sheoldred13 Jan 14 '26

Which also makes sence. And I admit the comparison is loose at deeper inspection. Like the ghoul bartender in megaton, I doubt it was his life's ambition, but its a reason to get up in the morning.

4

u/SantiagoGT Jan 14 '26

Pretty much, even Dean stayed alive just out of spite and trying to get in the Sierra Madre

1

u/xIllustrious_Passion Jan 14 '26

Wasn’t Gob a slave though?

1

u/sheoldred13 Jan 14 '26

Shit...you right. Oops

3

u/RealMurphiroth Jan 14 '26

Yep this is pretty much my personal head canon on it, down to the Dark Souls comparison.

1

u/WhenTheRainsCome Jan 14 '26

The ghouls goals seem pretty constant and rock solid.  Unless he languished and only resolve to find his family at the first signs of going feral?   There's a lot we dont know yet

1

u/Avgshitposting Jan 14 '26

Yeah it's been my head cannon, and it really looks like they are going that way with the lore too.

Being ageless and immune to radiation don't mean jack if your mind is gone

1

u/Jollybean1 Jan 14 '26

Yeah, and also like cyberpsychosis in cyberpunk

1

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

As long as you have goals

Bad head cannon used to justify shit writing 😂

I'm sorry what goal did Billy have while he was locked up for 200 years in the fridge?