Welcome to Gaia! ::

I didn't get far enough into Fallout 2 to vouch for it, but one thing I know about Fallout 3 is that it is rife with racist themes. It's usually understood by the player (via Karma stamps) that being anti-Ghoul is supposed to be the "Evil" option. Even in cases where said Ghouls are evil assholes themselves (Tenpenny Tower, Mister Crowley, etc.), helping them results in neutral karma.

Have you ever taken a step back and thought about it from the perspective of the Lone Wanderer? When you first meet Gob in Moriarty's Saloon, one of your speech options is "Gah! ********, what are you?"

Is that really so surprising? How the hell were you supposed to know that he wasn't some sort of mutant test subject or self-mutilating cultist? Gob is pretty friendly about it, asks you if you've never seen a Ghoul before, and the conversation can go pretty smoothly after that, if you play your cards right.

But what if Gob wasn't so nice? What if he'd just had a bad day, and decided to lash out at the Wanderer? That would mean that the first Ghoul the Wanderer ever met freaked the ******** out over a simple question. The Wanderer probably would have gone about his/her business thinking that ghouls were crabby, oversensitive douchenozzles, and he/she may even have thought that the thundercunts in Tenpenny Tower had the right idea.

Now, I'm not saying that the Wanderer would automatically have been prejudiced for the rest of his/her life. I'm just saying that first impressions mean a lot. What if, for the sake of being a decent human being, the Wanderer then proceeded to meet Roy Philips and convince the residents of Tenpenny Tower to let him and his comrades move in?

Well, then the Wanderer would have been in for a nasty shock. This would further reinforce the Wanderer's idea that Ghouls are untrustworthy beings.

And what would such a Wanderer think of Arzukhal's treatment of Charon? Would he/she even stop to ask questions, or would the Wanderer just assume that all Ghouls are slavers?

I'm not saying that making sweeping generalizations about demographics is right, but it's not even always conscious. Before I visited Georgia, I just assumed that all black people were super friendly, because that was what I had experienced. It wasn't a conscious decision to believe that. I didn't even realize that I believed it until I met a b***h in Georgia and wondered how the hell I could have assumed everyone with a certain skin color was nice.

Well, imagine this happening over generations. Children as they grew up would pick up on subtle hints from their parents that Ghouls are cranky and untrustworthy, and would grow up seeing Ghouls in this tainted light. They would have an even more negative view of Ghouls than their parents did, and would pass it down to their children. Before long, we have full-blown, unjustified racism.

And the best part is, what happens when you get treated like s**t? You get mad. When humans started treating Ghouls like talking zombies, what do you think the Ghouls did? They reinforced the stereotype.

In short, Anti-Ghoul Bigots are still wrong, but they got that way for a reason.

Fallout's treatment of Ghouls plays into a common theme in world history: Making another group of people seem degenerate and inferior when compared to others, in order to escape the harsh realities of life.

A societal safety net for the truly inferior.