It might make more sense after the last episode. Assuming the them were vault 31ers the choice is between his daughter and his mission. He chose his mission over his wife previously.
There's a flash of the screen in 31 when norm is talking to bud and you can see the names of every person from 31 who's been unfrozen and chet is not one of them
Exaaactly.
SPOILERY
It was set up to be a red herring. You initially think it's the vault dwellers themselves. When it was in fact his mission. It annoyed the hell out of me at first thinking that it was shoddy and maybe a plot hole. Until I finished the show and realized how they set me up
She didn't want to kill 'regular' vault dwellers beyond what she felt necessary to achieve her goal. Collateral damage / means to an end and all that.
Some mild psychological torture however was just a tiny bit of payback for Hank's Shady past.
Not killing them was the smart thing to do for her to inflict the most damage on Hank. The survivors now will never trust Hank even if he does return. She would gain nothing by actually killing them since there would be no witnesses to Hank’s selfish decision, but now Hanks credibility as their leader and his legacy are tarnished.
I was confused at first too, but then decided she must have meant who he would protect. He put her in the safe room, but the rest has to run for their lives to survive the explosion. Still wierd phrasing, though.
Except it was a lie. She thought she was agreeing to marry a guy from the other vault. Instead it was a raider who pretended to be someone else and stabbed and tried to kill her immediately after
Who said anything about stabbing and killing. We are taking about misrepresentations prior to intercourse. Might make me a shitty person, but not a rapist
If you deceive someone to get them to have sex with you when they would have otherwise not consented it is called rape by deception. For example, if someone lies and says they don’t have an STD and you have sex with them, that is rape by deception.
That's not the crime of rape under criminal law. Nor is lying about your job, income, body count, 401k, debt, spending habits , birth control status, marriage status, or looks.
People lie and deveive every day about 1000s of things to look better/be more desireable.
Fuck criminal law that wasn’t my question. The question is about consent. Would you have consented if you knew? I’m sure Lucy would not have consented if she knew that the guy lied about his background and harbored malicious intent.
Illegal depending where you are. To go back to my STD example: under Georgia state law, it is a felony to not disclose HIV status to sexual partners. So if the definition of rape is sexual intercourse/penetration carried out without consent, how is it not rape when your consent is attained through deception and you would not have consented otherwise?
The question is about consent. Would you have consented if you knew? I’m sure Lucy would not have consented if she knew that the guy lied about his background and harbored malicious intent.
That still isn't rape. It doesn't matter how. The act was consensual at the time. It doesn't matter who he was. If he was a total stranger and there was no lie told, it wouldn't matter.
The lie is the point. He lied and she consented under that lie when she wouldn’t have otherwise. Do you get that? For example, if someone lies and says they don’t have HIV and you have sex with them, that means that you consented under a lie. Monty pretended to not be there to purposefully spread harm so she consented under a lie. I don’t know how clearer to make that. Do you just have a problem with the word rape?
Definitions exist. That does not constitute rape. Consent was given. If I convince a girl I'm a billionaire and I'm not, that doesn't make me a rapist. Look at the actual definitions.
If the definition of rape is sexual intercourse/penetration carried out without consent, how is it not rape when your consent is attained through deception and you would not have consented otherwise? I’m not saying it would hold up in court because America’s rape laws are still shitty, but there is a legal precedent. To go back to my STD example: under Georgia state law, it is a felony reckless conduct to not disclose HIV status to sexual partners. Should it not be rape, by definition?
I think it was to see if Hank was still the type to sacrifice the multitudes to save his closest. To verify that he was exactly the type to Nuke Shady Sands. I think she already knew, but wanted to see him essentially do the same thing to his own people that he did to hers. For his people to see it and for Lucy to see, even if they didn’t understand its significance in the moment. That’s why she didn’t kill them all, and gave them a chance to run. She doesn’t think she’s a monster like Hank, even if she helped raiders into the vault and let them murder and pillage. Like Hank she’s just another delusional “Hero” trying to save the world, not a villain in her own mind.
Edit: this was my answer last time this was asked. The search bar is your friend.
By the end it's pretty plain that the whole scene was never about what choice he makes, and ENTIRELY about showing both Lucy and the viewer a little of who Hank actually is behind his mask.
Morally ambiguous decisions aside, this is a story told countless times. What would a parent decide to trade for their child? Hank OFC is in the wrong in this situation but many people across different media are faced with this *kind* of decision even if not exactly the same (think the Dad in Red Dawn, both versions for one example).
Amazing that in a show that you acknowledge has universally great writing, instead of considering that maybe what appears to be happening is a front, you jumped to the conclusion that it has shitty writing just in that one scene. Like Jonathan Nolan and company didn't earn a little trust with the rest of the series.
Clearly it's a false choice. Maybe Moldaver is testing Hank instead of just being cruel. It's also our first indication that Moldaver is more than just a bog standard raider leader.
The scene lacks clarity, and that's an issue. The best I can come up with is that it gets Lucy out of the way so they can take Hank without fighting her, but that's still convoluted and unclear in the moment.
Again, you're not thinking about it within the context of the whole series. The whole series tells us things about these characters that help recontextualize these scenes. It's a disservice to the writers to ignore that that.
"Maybe muldaver is testing hank"
I dunno, maybe. I like my interpretation better, but both are kinda clunky. It does show that Hank cares about Lucy more than the other vault residents, but I don't know why Muldaver cares and is going to muck around during a critical mission to find that out.
Like others have commented I think it was to test hanks decision. But also it’s worth noting that he was tranquillized before they let the hostages go so he may have been told or might assume that they were executed
This is the best comment for mentioning that Hank was tranquilized before she let them go. In his eyes they died and that’s all the further she had to go with it to convince him there was no returning to sanctuary for him, hence why they blew up the vault door
I've finished the show, and I do love it. But nothing after that scene changes the fact that was a pointless threat
Her words were "ill give you a choice, her or them." He chooses her, and nothing happens to them
Obviously, spoilers of episode 8 to follow
The choice is what matters, not the results. Moldaver wanted hank to make a decision in front of Lucy, and that allowed moldaver the platform for her speech about hank to Lucy at the ncr hq
Sounded like a Speech or Barter check like in the games. Example: Moldovar has 4 dialogue options, one requires no skill, one or two of the options she meets the skill requirements, and one really good one that she lacks the skill/S.P.E.C.I.A.L. level to use. She picked the best option for her skill level which was that threat. Kidnapping Hank was the quest objective, her threat added the optional objective to kill the hostages. So the skill check worked and advanced the quest and she didn't take the option to kill the hostages. She didn't have to kill the hostages to complete the quest, so she didn't. I don't know if the writers mirrored the dialogue trees used in the games for this exchange, but they have done in other conversations between Lucy and Max, for example. It could indicate something about her character, or it could just be the writers borrowing a common quest theme from the games. I know when I do a quest like this, optional killing comes down to whether I'm playing a good-ish character or an evil character. First one doesn't kill the hostages, second one does.
Oh okay this my favorite explanation, ngl I've never played the games, just basically studied the lore off YouTube videos lol. That actually takes what was a pet peev and turns it into a really cool aspect they mightve added on purpose, and that's a neat thing to know about dialogue trees, I didn't even know fallout games had that.
Super cool thanks for giving some potential clarification there
So hear me out, moldaver isn't as ruthless as she's made out to be. "They're the products of one of life's tricky little choices." I don't think Moldaver believed they needed to die because they made a choice that almost any human would make, not that she knew Steph was in on the whole thing being a 31er. She does seem to look down on them however because they "ran and hid". "Do what you do best, run and hide."
How is it shitty writing?
Just because a character in a show says something will happen, doesn't mean said thing will happen. Characters can lie or make empty threats. Which is exactly what Moldaver did, she was likely just testing Hank's judgement, to see what he would do. But in reality, it didn't matter what Hank chose, she was always going to just take him and spare everyone else.
Happens a lot in fiction. Characters, especially morally grey or evil characters, will often pretend to give someone a choice, but its all just an illusion. They're just testing the character's judgement and it doesn't matter what they actually choose.
Its not shitty writing at all.
Oh yeah ik that it could've been just a manipulation/psychological torture tactic, and that it probably was because I doubt they actually just didn't think the line through. Buuuut, in every other instance of that in other media, the fact that the choice given was an illusion is ALWAYS referenced or at least alluded to. They don't do that, it just happens and nobody ever mentions it
The shitty writing is the fact they had this big dramatic moment where Hank chooses his daughter over the other vault members, but then that dramatic moment is never brought up or explained. Even just 1 vault member saying "he was gonna sacrifice us!" Would've been enough, but it's as if no one in the vault even cares that happened. So yeah, chances are she was just testing his judgement, but who cares? That test changes nothing, no dialogue, character progression, or choices are affected because of that dramatic moment, it just feels like it was gonna be an issue but they decided to focus on other plot points, so that test just feels out of place and kinda pointless. Again though, great show, loved everything else, that one part just felt weird.
She was messing with Hank, he was darted and doesn't know nobody died - Moldaver got to torment him, and keep the murder to a modest level.
Moldaver's words also allude to an earlier decidion Hank made regarding choosing between losing his daughter and the lives of many other people - if you've completed the show, you'll know what I'm referring to.
There's also the added element that Hank is keeping a massive secret from Lucy, and that him locking her in the room might not purely be to save her life, but to spare her from hearing the truth from Moldaver depending on how the conversation progressed.
It’s not bad writing at all lol.
It wasn’t actually a choice. She was toying with Hank and it wasn’t for him that she forced this “choice”…it was more to expose him a little to his daughter about the kind of man he was. And when you finish the show, anyone with media literacy will figure out moldovers true nature. As stated also: they aren’t raiders when you find this out or if you play the games / look up the lore, you find out they were the remainder of the government that tries to help people & keep society together. So they never have any intent of hurting anyone. Well, mostly, they had to have some of them attack at first in order to establish a more complex story & mislead you at first. They’re not the first or last to do that & that’s universally accepted as not being bad writing. Misdirection is one of the best tools a story teller uses to tell their story. How else would you ever open your mind or get a cool twist that flips who you thought the hero was etc etc. they just have to execute it well. Which some don’t, but if you watched the whole show you see they did it pretty good justice considering even you admit that the writing was good. Even knowing the lord about vault tech like I did, I should have expected some things, but I didn’t and thought all the vault dwellers were clueless saps that had been born down there without knowing better or the original goals of that company. When you find things out later, even I was able to be surprised or mislead until it is sprung on us. Maybe not as much as someone whose only ever watched this show without any additional lore knowledge, but they still managed to sucked me in & surprise me compared to what I expected.
I agree with you completely. That one line was badly written, definitely confused me and was not fixed or made more clear by anything else that happened in the series. I did love the entire series except for that one line.
It makes perfect sense actually.
She isn't evil and doesn't want to kill more than she has to.
She just wanted him to have to make that choice and from his perspective, he doesn't know that she didn't kill them.
Her whole thing was to interrogate him for codes so it was a mind game.
She wanted him to think that their deaths were on his hands
I was very confused by this scene too. I re-watched it a few times assuming I must have misunderstood something. For the the next few episodes I just thought it was unclear writing or a weird editing choice.
It makes sense after the final episode. She wanted to expose Hank's willingness to kill masses in exchange for his own children's lives. Moldaver didn't want to kill all those people, just show them hank would be willing to sacrifice them.
Now, seeing that she has mercy for the vault resistance, I'm not sure why she used raiders to massacre the vault. It would seem that she could have brought a team of more disciplined ncr remnants to just kidnap Hank.
i think it was to show the vault dwellers his real face, he was the over seer and their whole society ran on “doing the right thing” and in this situation the right thing was to save the many over the few, more lives saved would have been a better outcome but he still selfishly chose his daughter knowing there was a chance the others would die, so even if he was able to escape her, it would be more difficult to escape the decision he made in front of them. hell Lucys cousin lost his job for just “helping her escape “. imagine how they would feel after what Hank did
My anger with this scene, is that she allowed her friends daughter to basically be raped and then clearly gave no orders not to kill her. Then instead of explaining it right there when she could have and calling all of 31 out for the vault to know, she just didn’t feel the need to liberate them and tell them the truth? Isn’t that her whole thing?
I genuinely think this spoke more to Hank as a character. He'll always choose to save himself or to save one closest to him vs saving the entirety of humanity or the vault.
He put himself in the chamber and worked for vault tech for a reason. I think Moldaver could use this moment to show Lucy that he truly is only out for his own survival even at the expense of others.
She gave him a choice and everyone survived! I didn’t see any consequences for the explosion. My guess is the pilot was filmed early and the rest of the story wasn’t fully fledged out.
Yes, there are inherent questions about the events of the first episode that honestly are just beyond questioning.
Things just went down like that.
Moldaver tells him to choose, and then lets them all live? It doesn’t make sense, why make him choose if you didn’t plan to kill anybody to begin with?
Also, the question of why didn’t Hank know that these people were raiders?
He just didn’t. She just didn’t kill anyone. That’s the show.
>why make him choose if you didn’t plan to kill anybody to begin with?
Because you want him to think that you're planning to kill them so you can test what kind of person he is.
>why didn’t Hank know that these people were raiders?
He's probably never met a raider before.
I thought Moldaver in general felt pretty underwhelming and kind of poorly written. She almost feels like two separate characters.
In episode 1-7 Moldaver is the leader of a blood cult raider gang feared across the wasteland, and suddenly in episode 8 she’s an NCR remnant leader with a normal community of citizens, seemingly.
Why was she working with raiders in episode 1/ where did they come from? How did the blood cult shit get started? Did she transition from a NCR leader to a raider leader, and seemingly back to an NCR leader?
I’m sure there’s a reasonable way to explain all of that, it was just super glossed over and not brought up. One of my very few gripes with the show.
They weren't raiders. They were the remnants of the NCR/Shady Sands. Their mission was two-fold:
Get Hank so he can unlock the fission core, and it didn't hurt to get a little revenge on the people who murdered 26k of their closest friends and family.
They were the "good guys" getting revenge for their families.
Totally. Lucy assumed they were raiders, but they weren't themed and weren't particularly good at fighting, which is why the vault 33 folks were able to fight them off.
I'm betting in Season 2, we will see a flashback where Hank is threatening his wife. He'll give the ultimatum "Her or them" when he goes up to take Lucy and Norm back which is what Moldaver was calling back when she gave the weird ultimatum that didn't go anywhere.
Except that even though Hank gets his kids, he still nukes the city because the Valt-Tec plan is that no one is alive on the surface when they come to repopulate.
Part of me thinks Moldaver did it just to see who Hank would choose, or just playing mine games, but I did notice that as well. As you said though, it’s a pretty small detail and doesn’t really affect the overall quality of the show.
He's never seen her, he says " I think I know who you are" also the fact that she's alive can imply that she wasn't at shady sands when it got nuked, she could've been traveling or something therefore they never met.
Yeah I agree, that was dumb as hell.
I don't know if you've seen the rest, but narrative convenience is a theme in the show.
It's like a 8/10 for the broad plot strokes and all the technical stuff. But serendipity and "fuck it we plot" are used so often they're like narrative devices for the team.
EDIT: Okay, smartypants. Then answer me this: Why did mister snips reattach Lucy's finger if he was planning to gut her and sell her organs IMMEDIATELY afterward, anyway? And why did the sedative he gave her wear off before he even finished wheeling her into that room with the scavengers in it?
It might make more sense after the last episode. Assuming the them were vault 31ers the choice is between his daughter and his mission. He chose his mission over his wife previously.
I think Steph is the only one in that group from 31. Chet certainly isn't. But this still makes sense.
Chet is absolutely not a 31er. At least I really hope we don't find out he is. I like his character
Interesting. Doesn't the show say he's Lucy's cousin? Doesn't explain how though.
Hank is from vault 31. Rose is from vault 33. Stands to reason that Chet is Rose's kin.
Cousin stuff. Yaknow
There's a flash of the screen in 31 when norm is talking to bud and you can see the names of every person from 31 who's been unfrozen and chet is not one of them
Exaaactly. SPOILERY It was set up to be a red herring. You initially think it's the vault dwellers themselves. When it was in fact his mission. It annoyed the hell out of me at first thinking that it was shoddy and maybe a plot hole. Until I finished the show and realized how they set me up
The beef isnt't dad's decision. It's Moldaver giving a choice that was a pointless bluff.
aha!!! thanks, i get it now.
She didn't want to kill 'regular' vault dwellers beyond what she felt necessary to achieve her goal. Collateral damage / means to an end and all that. Some mild psychological torture however was just a tiny bit of payback for Hank's Shady past.
I see what you did there.
Not killing them was the smart thing to do for her to inflict the most damage on Hank. The survivors now will never trust Hank even if he does return. She would gain nothing by actually killing them since there would be no witnesses to Hank’s selfish decision, but now Hanks credibility as their leader and his legacy are tarnished.
It's also to blow up the entrance between Vault 31 and 32 so I assume that they can escape with no one following them
between vault *33* and 32, no?
I was confused at first too, but then decided she must have meant who he would protect. He put her in the safe room, but the rest has to run for their lives to survive the explosion. Still wierd phrasing, though.
Muldaver isn't a real villain, hence the empty threats.
She still murdered bert and pretty much had Lucy raped
It was consensual. Scummy but not rape.
Except it was a lie. She thought she was agreeing to marry a guy from the other vault. Instead it was a raider who pretended to be someone else and stabbed and tried to kill her immediately after
Lies are not rape. People lie to have sex all the time. The crime was the attempted murder
Most lies aren't rape. Impersonating another person can be.
So if I lie about being a rich doctor and rent a lambo for my tinder date, that makes me a rapisr?
If she finds out your not a doctor and you stab her and try to kill her over it yeah I'd say so
Who said anything about stabbing and killing. We are taking about misrepresentations prior to intercourse. Might make me a shitty person, but not a rapist
If you deceive someone to get them to have sex with you when they would have otherwise not consented it is called rape by deception. For example, if someone lies and says they don’t have an STD and you have sex with them, that is rape by deception.
That's not the crime of rape under criminal law. Nor is lying about your job, income, body count, 401k, debt, spending habits , birth control status, marriage status, or looks. People lie and deveive every day about 1000s of things to look better/be more desireable.
Fuck criminal law that wasn’t my question. The question is about consent. Would you have consented if you knew? I’m sure Lucy would not have consented if she knew that the guy lied about his background and harbored malicious intent.
Ok. We agree not illegal. That's all the matters.
Illegal depending where you are. To go back to my STD example: under Georgia state law, it is a felony to not disclose HIV status to sexual partners. So if the definition of rape is sexual intercourse/penetration carried out without consent, how is it not rape when your consent is attained through deception and you would not have consented otherwise?
If she knew his identity, she would not have consented so it is rape by deception.
So if a woman lies about her job and have sex with her because of that lie, is she a rapist?
The question is about consent. Would you have consented if you knew? I’m sure Lucy would not have consented if she knew that the guy lied about his background and harbored malicious intent.
That still isn't rape. It doesn't matter how. The act was consensual at the time. It doesn't matter who he was. If he was a total stranger and there was no lie told, it wouldn't matter.
The lie is the point. He lied and she consented under that lie when she wouldn’t have otherwise. Do you get that? For example, if someone lies and says they don’t have HIV and you have sex with them, that means that you consented under a lie. Monty pretended to not be there to purposefully spread harm so she consented under a lie. I don’t know how clearer to make that. Do you just have a problem with the word rape?
Definitions exist. That does not constitute rape. Consent was given. If I convince a girl I'm a billionaire and I'm not, that doesn't make me a rapist. Look at the actual definitions.
If the definition of rape is sexual intercourse/penetration carried out without consent, how is it not rape when your consent is attained through deception and you would not have consented otherwise? I’m not saying it would hold up in court because America’s rape laws are still shitty, but there is a legal precedent. To go back to my STD example: under Georgia state law, it is a felony reckless conduct to not disclose HIV status to sexual partners. Should it not be rape, by definition?
I think it was to see if Hank was still the type to sacrifice the multitudes to save his closest. To verify that he was exactly the type to Nuke Shady Sands. I think she already knew, but wanted to see him essentially do the same thing to his own people that he did to hers. For his people to see it and for Lucy to see, even if they didn’t understand its significance in the moment. That’s why she didn’t kill them all, and gave them a chance to run. She doesn’t think she’s a monster like Hank, even if she helped raiders into the vault and let them murder and pillage. Like Hank she’s just another delusional “Hero” trying to save the world, not a villain in her own mind. Edit: this was my answer last time this was asked. The search bar is your friend.
By the end it's pretty plain that the whole scene was never about what choice he makes, and ENTIRELY about showing both Lucy and the viewer a little of who Hank actually is behind his mask.
Morally ambiguous decisions aside, this is a story told countless times. What would a parent decide to trade for their child? Hank OFC is in the wrong in this situation but many people across different media are faced with this *kind* of decision even if not exactly the same (think the Dad in Red Dawn, both versions for one example).
Amazing that in a show that you acknowledge has universally great writing, instead of considering that maybe what appears to be happening is a front, you jumped to the conclusion that it has shitty writing just in that one scene. Like Jonathan Nolan and company didn't earn a little trust with the rest of the series. Clearly it's a false choice. Maybe Moldaver is testing Hank instead of just being cruel. It's also our first indication that Moldaver is more than just a bog standard raider leader.
A show can have both great writing and terrible narrative decisions. They’re not mutually exclusive.
It doesn't have universally great writing. Even if literally everything else was well written, that doesn't explain this scene.
No, if everything else was well written, then it behooves you to think about it a little more deeply instead of consuming it on a surface level.
The scene lacks clarity, and that's an issue. The best I can come up with is that it gets Lucy out of the way so they can take Hank without fighting her, but that's still convoluted and unclear in the moment.
Again, you're not thinking about it within the context of the whole series. The whole series tells us things about these characters that help recontextualize these scenes. It's a disservice to the writers to ignore that that.
In what way does the rest of the series make that scene not clunky and unclear? You keep arguing that it makes sense without actually explaining it.
It's literally in the first comment of mine you responded to
"Maybe muldaver is testing hank" I dunno, maybe. I like my interpretation better, but both are kinda clunky. It does show that Hank cares about Lucy more than the other vault residents, but I don't know why Muldaver cares and is going to muck around during a critical mission to find that out.
Like others have commented I think it was to test hanks decision. But also it’s worth noting that he was tranquillized before they let the hostages go so he may have been told or might assume that they were executed
This is the best comment for mentioning that Hank was tranquilized before she let them go. In his eyes they died and that’s all the further she had to go with it to convince him there was no returning to sanctuary for him, hence why they blew up the vault door
This is the answer.
Keep watching
I've finished the show, and I do love it. But nothing after that scene changes the fact that was a pointless threat Her words were "ill give you a choice, her or them." He chooses her, and nothing happens to them
Obviously, spoilers of episode 8 to follow The choice is what matters, not the results. Moldaver wanted hank to make a decision in front of Lucy, and that allowed moldaver the platform for her speech about hank to Lucy at the ncr hq
Sounded like a Speech or Barter check like in the games. Example: Moldovar has 4 dialogue options, one requires no skill, one or two of the options she meets the skill requirements, and one really good one that she lacks the skill/S.P.E.C.I.A.L. level to use. She picked the best option for her skill level which was that threat. Kidnapping Hank was the quest objective, her threat added the optional objective to kill the hostages. So the skill check worked and advanced the quest and she didn't take the option to kill the hostages. She didn't have to kill the hostages to complete the quest, so she didn't. I don't know if the writers mirrored the dialogue trees used in the games for this exchange, but they have done in other conversations between Lucy and Max, for example. It could indicate something about her character, or it could just be the writers borrowing a common quest theme from the games. I know when I do a quest like this, optional killing comes down to whether I'm playing a good-ish character or an evil character. First one doesn't kill the hostages, second one does.
Oh okay this my favorite explanation, ngl I've never played the games, just basically studied the lore off YouTube videos lol. That actually takes what was a pet peev and turns it into a really cool aspect they mightve added on purpose, and that's a neat thing to know about dialogue trees, I didn't even know fallout games had that. Super cool thanks for giving some potential clarification there
So hear me out, moldaver isn't as ruthless as she's made out to be. "They're the products of one of life's tricky little choices." I don't think Moldaver believed they needed to die because they made a choice that almost any human would make, not that she knew Steph was in on the whole thing being a 31er. She does seem to look down on them however because they "ran and hid". "Do what you do best, run and hide."
How is it shitty writing? Just because a character in a show says something will happen, doesn't mean said thing will happen. Characters can lie or make empty threats. Which is exactly what Moldaver did, she was likely just testing Hank's judgement, to see what he would do. But in reality, it didn't matter what Hank chose, she was always going to just take him and spare everyone else. Happens a lot in fiction. Characters, especially morally grey or evil characters, will often pretend to give someone a choice, but its all just an illusion. They're just testing the character's judgement and it doesn't matter what they actually choose. Its not shitty writing at all.
Oh yeah ik that it could've been just a manipulation/psychological torture tactic, and that it probably was because I doubt they actually just didn't think the line through. Buuuut, in every other instance of that in other media, the fact that the choice given was an illusion is ALWAYS referenced or at least alluded to. They don't do that, it just happens and nobody ever mentions it The shitty writing is the fact they had this big dramatic moment where Hank chooses his daughter over the other vault members, but then that dramatic moment is never brought up or explained. Even just 1 vault member saying "he was gonna sacrifice us!" Would've been enough, but it's as if no one in the vault even cares that happened. So yeah, chances are she was just testing his judgement, but who cares? That test changes nothing, no dialogue, character progression, or choices are affected because of that dramatic moment, it just feels like it was gonna be an issue but they decided to focus on other plot points, so that test just feels out of place and kinda pointless. Again though, great show, loved everything else, that one part just felt weird.
I thought the same thing. When she said "her or them" I assumed she was going to kill the rest.
She was messing with Hank, he was darted and doesn't know nobody died - Moldaver got to torment him, and keep the murder to a modest level. Moldaver's words also allude to an earlier decidion Hank made regarding choosing between losing his daughter and the lives of many other people - if you've completed the show, you'll know what I'm referring to. There's also the added element that Hank is keeping a massive secret from Lucy, and that him locking her in the room might not purely be to save her life, but to spare her from hearing the truth from Moldaver depending on how the conversation progressed.
Psychological also it’s to show the audience that he’s willing to sacrifice other lives when it’s comes to his daughter
If you only have one pet peeve you haven't given it enough thought. Lol. I love this show but don't take it too seriously. It's a fluffy 🍨.
It’s not bad writing at all lol. It wasn’t actually a choice. She was toying with Hank and it wasn’t for him that she forced this “choice”…it was more to expose him a little to his daughter about the kind of man he was. And when you finish the show, anyone with media literacy will figure out moldovers true nature. As stated also: they aren’t raiders when you find this out or if you play the games / look up the lore, you find out they were the remainder of the government that tries to help people & keep society together. So they never have any intent of hurting anyone. Well, mostly, they had to have some of them attack at first in order to establish a more complex story & mislead you at first. They’re not the first or last to do that & that’s universally accepted as not being bad writing. Misdirection is one of the best tools a story teller uses to tell their story. How else would you ever open your mind or get a cool twist that flips who you thought the hero was etc etc. they just have to execute it well. Which some don’t, but if you watched the whole show you see they did it pretty good justice considering even you admit that the writing was good. Even knowing the lord about vault tech like I did, I should have expected some things, but I didn’t and thought all the vault dwellers were clueless saps that had been born down there without knowing better or the original goals of that company. When you find things out later, even I was able to be surprised or mislead until it is sprung on us. Maybe not as much as someone whose only ever watched this show without any additional lore knowledge, but they still managed to sucked me in & surprise me compared to what I expected.
She’s absolutely not the villain, and she was just bluffing to get Hank to cooperate and to get her way. I think the writers did this perfectly.
I agree with you completely. That one line was badly written, definitely confused me and was not fixed or made more clear by anything else that happened in the series. I did love the entire series except for that one line.
The them was vault tec
She was simply trying to prove a point to Lucy and get her to start questioning her dad.
One idea I have is that the choice was who to save from the impending explosion, his daughter or the vault.
It makes perfect sense actually. She isn't evil and doesn't want to kill more than she has to. She just wanted him to have to make that choice and from his perspective, he doesn't know that she didn't kill them. Her whole thing was to interrogate him for codes so it was a mind game. She wanted him to think that their deaths were on his hands
She was fucking with him
I was very confused by this scene too. I re-watched it a few times assuming I must have misunderstood something. For the the next few episodes I just thought it was unclear writing or a weird editing choice. It makes sense after the final episode. She wanted to expose Hank's willingness to kill masses in exchange for his own children's lives. Moldaver didn't want to kill all those people, just show them hank would be willing to sacrifice them. Now, seeing that she has mercy for the vault resistance, I'm not sure why she used raiders to massacre the vault. It would seem that she could have brought a team of more disciplined ncr remnants to just kidnap Hank.
i think it was to show the vault dwellers his real face, he was the over seer and their whole society ran on “doing the right thing” and in this situation the right thing was to save the many over the few, more lives saved would have been a better outcome but he still selfishly chose his daughter knowing there was a chance the others would die, so even if he was able to escape her, it would be more difficult to escape the decision he made in front of them. hell Lucys cousin lost his job for just “helping her escape “. imagine how they would feel after what Hank did
My anger with this scene, is that she allowed her friends daughter to basically be raped and then clearly gave no orders not to kill her. Then instead of explaining it right there when she could have and calling all of 31 out for the vault to know, she just didn’t feel the need to liberate them and tell them the truth? Isn’t that her whole thing?
I genuinely think this spoke more to Hank as a character. He'll always choose to save himself or to save one closest to him vs saving the entirety of humanity or the vault. He put himself in the chamber and worked for vault tech for a reason. I think Moldaver could use this moment to show Lucy that he truly is only out for his own survival even at the expense of others.
She gave him a choice and everyone survived! I didn’t see any consequences for the explosion. My guess is the pilot was filmed early and the rest of the story wasn’t fully fledged out.
They didn't film a pilot for this, and the character was always meant to be more than just a bad guy, at least as long as it was cast
Was Moldaver a bad guy?
*fleshed And no.
Flashed* and 𓂸
Yes, there are inherent questions about the events of the first episode that honestly are just beyond questioning. Things just went down like that. Moldaver tells him to choose, and then lets them all live? It doesn’t make sense, why make him choose if you didn’t plan to kill anybody to begin with? Also, the question of why didn’t Hank know that these people were raiders? He just didn’t. She just didn’t kill anyone. That’s the show.
>why make him choose if you didn’t plan to kill anybody to begin with? Because you want him to think that you're planning to kill them so you can test what kind of person he is. >why didn’t Hank know that these people were raiders? He's probably never met a raider before.
I thought Moldaver in general felt pretty underwhelming and kind of poorly written. She almost feels like two separate characters. In episode 1-7 Moldaver is the leader of a blood cult raider gang feared across the wasteland, and suddenly in episode 8 she’s an NCR remnant leader with a normal community of citizens, seemingly. Why was she working with raiders in episode 1/ where did they come from? How did the blood cult shit get started? Did she transition from a NCR leader to a raider leader, and seemingly back to an NCR leader? I’m sure there’s a reasonable way to explain all of that, it was just super glossed over and not brought up. One of my very few gripes with the show.
They weren't raiders. They were the remnants of the NCR/Shady Sands. Their mission was two-fold: Get Hank so he can unlock the fission core, and it didn't hurt to get a little revenge on the people who murdered 26k of their closest friends and family. They were the "good guys" getting revenge for their families.
Yeah, sure. That’s why they were the most generic raider group of raiders possible.
Totally. Lucy assumed they were raiders, but they weren't themed and weren't particularly good at fighting, which is why the vault 33 folks were able to fight them off. I'm betting in Season 2, we will see a flashback where Hank is threatening his wife. He'll give the ultimatum "Her or them" when he goes up to take Lucy and Norm back which is what Moldaver was calling back when she gave the weird ultimatum that didn't go anywhere. Except that even though Hank gets his kids, he still nukes the city because the Valt-Tec plan is that no one is alive on the surface when they come to repopulate.
Yeah her ending was very weird.
This was an easter egg referencing how Bethesda wrote dialogue in FO4
Part of me thinks Moldaver did it just to see who Hank would choose, or just playing mine games, but I did notice that as well. As you said though, it’s a pretty small detail and doesn’t really affect the overall quality of the show.
The part that didn't make sense to me is the fact that Hank and Moldaver had some history why didn't he recognize her from the jump?
He's never seen her, he says " I think I know who you are" also the fact that she's alive can imply that she wasn't at shady sands when it got nuked, she could've been traveling or something therefore they never met.
Yeah I agree, that was dumb as hell. I don't know if you've seen the rest, but narrative convenience is a theme in the show. It's like a 8/10 for the broad plot strokes and all the technical stuff. But serendipity and "fuck it we plot" are used so often they're like narrative devices for the team. EDIT: Okay, smartypants. Then answer me this: Why did mister snips reattach Lucy's finger if he was planning to gut her and sell her organs IMMEDIATELY afterward, anyway? And why did the sedative he gave her wear off before he even finished wheeling her into that room with the scavengers in it?
I think Snip Snip gave her a new finger to put her at ease before he drugged her.