weekend-writer:

I’m replaying FC5 again (shocker) and now that I’ve met all three Seeds for the first time again, I noticed something interesting:

The dynamic of how Jacob, Faith, and John all treat the Deputy and the residents of Hope County really shines through in the way they tell their origin stories to the Deputy. 

Jacob and Faith, arguably the most devious of the Seeds in the way that they manipulate people’s minds and play off of their weaknesses, both tell their origin stories in ways that are meant to manipulate the Deputy’s choices moving forward. 

Faith purposefully uses diction and tone to paint a story of sadness, of a lonely, ostracized young girl who had nothing going for her before she found the project and converted. She’s fishing for the deputy’s sympathy, using a story of a tragic and distressing past to manipulate the way that the deputy thinks about her and, potentially, about Joseph because of his acceptance of her. It’s intentional. It’s Faith’s way of trying to guide the Deputy’s actions moving forward is by planting a seed of doubt and appealing to the Deputy’s morality and humanity. And it’s done without telling the Deputy what she’s truly doing to the county, and to the other residents. It’s a facade. 

Jacob is the exact same way: when he finally shares something of himself and his background, it’s of a story of impossible survival at the expense of another human being. Jacob tells this story of his past to intentionally ground the Deputy even further to him. Much the way Faith does, Jacob intentionally chooses his words and his tone to spin a story that will instill a sense of fear in the Deputy in the hopes that that fear will manipulate their actions moving forward. It builds a sense of absolute fear in the Deputy that really shows when they complete the trials. Failure is not an option, and the fear of not just failure but of failing Jacob is the motivator that brings the Deputy through multiple trials of murder that they might not have otherwise survived. But that manipulation is still present when Jacob trains the Deputy for a cause that he intentionally does not reveal to them – killing Eli.

But interestingly enough, John’s story doesn’t do the same. True, John’s tone during the bunker scene could be interpreted as him trying to make the Deputy afraid in his bunker, I don’t believe that’s what he was attempting to achieve because of the story itself that he chose to tell. Instead of telling a story of a little boy abused by all for sympathy or painting himself in a horrific light by describing the flesh he’s torn from people in the name of his family to build fear,  John tells the Deputy about being beaten by his parents in what seems to be a simple explanation of why the power of yes came to be. An explanation isn’t as much a tool of manipulation as appealing to somebody’s heart or sense of fear; no, there doesn’t seem to be any outright  manipulation with that story. John truly seems to believe in what he is doing and wants you to understand what he is doing and why he thinks that it is right. It’s a straight-forward admission, one with clear intent. 

Don’t get me wrong, I have always said and will always continue to say that the Seeds are all terrible people and are all villains in their own right. But what the Seeds choose to reveal of themselves and how they tell stories of their past make it seem as though John is the only one of the cult who really gives it to the Deputy straight the entire game and tries to appeal to their unaltered sense of logic and understanding rather than manipulate the Deputy into joining their ranks.