#great character but i think bethesda has a habit of striking gold and going
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How do you think Nick's questline could have changed if all he found at the end was a skeleton inside that room?
lets go boys more reason for me to go off about
Nick and his purpose
So, Nick's purpose is to finish off the last thread of the guy he's a ghost of. It isn't, actually, but he thinks it is. He thinks he must tie up Valentine's loose ends so the guy can rest knowing that someone carried out his revenge.
Nick is not a man who cares for revenge. He isn't that cold, or eye-for-an-eye. This is not a moral he carries. Nick is not a "get them how they got you" kind of person. But Valentine is someone he feels he wronged by existing, fundamentally. This cop gets abused by the system he thought was supposed to protect him, which he thought was protecting others, and then they violate him further by scanning and copying his brain. Nick is the result of this ethical violation and betrayal. Nick could not exist without this. This is a guilt he carries.
Nick doesn't care for revenge, but he does believe in doing right by people. Valentine is someone he wronged; when Valentine died, he died never getting what he wanted, in a time of extreme hurt and trauma. He didn't get his revenge. So, Nick, a walking freeze-frame of all this pain and probably discomfort (Valentine was in a sketchy university, undergoing a sketchy procedure he didn't want to do), and he thinks this is what he has to do. This is what Valentine wanted, and he owes it to the guy.
Some people like to think Nick is an exact copy of Valentine, but I think circumstances, context, and experiences are what make a person. If I was put in different circumstances, I wouldn't be the me I am now. Valentine was not a robot in the post-apocalypse struggling with identity issues. Nick and Valentine cannot be the same. Valentine was the baseline Nick was built off of.
So, all this to say, Nick probably doesn't have the best, clearest idea of what he's meant for, or what he owes to the world. His idea is built off how he knows Valentine felt. But Valentine was going through it when his brain was scanned. His ideas of morals and justice were skewed. That's how anger and grief work.
Considering this, Nick walks into the bunker, and no, Eddie wasn't a ghoul. Just a guy who died God knows how long ago.
There is no thread for him to tie up.
There is no way for him to make it up to Valentine.
This is a wrong he has no way to right.
I think Nick is a lot more emotional than people give him credit for. He just keeps it all inside. Emotion you don't see is still emotion. Pain not expressed is still pain. I think in the moment, he'd try making it a joke. "Well...would'ja look at that. Something did the job for us and didn't even leave a note to save ourselves the trouble. I guess courtesy went out the window long before the bombs."
If Eddie Winter is already dead, Nick has nothing to do, functionally. He thinks that was his ultimate goal. His goal was done long ago. It was never something he needed to stew over. Valentine got what he wanted even if it wasn't by his hand or the ghost of it. But the thing with revenge is that it has to be you. If the person you hate most, who hurt you most, tripped on a weed and ate shit, is that revenge? Or is that just life not playing favorites?
Is it enough if life goes on?
Is it enough to say you don't have any obligations and can live despite someone else? Whether it's someone you feel you owe, or someone who owes you? Moving on without that gratification is not satisfying. You want an answer. You want "It's okay" or "I'm sorry."
Nick sees he has no end. There is no Eddie Winter. Valentine's only mark on this world, the only person who remembers him, is Nick. Nick is the only one to grieve him, or know his pain, or what he would think of all of this. Maybe, deep down, Nick wanted to find Eddie Winter not just to kill him, but to prove to himself that he isn't the only ghost. That it wasn't just him, keeping a good man from a good rest. That Eddie was what was really keeping that book open.
But if Eddie is dead, it's just Nick. Nick is all that's left.
You go in the bunker and Eddie Winter is dead.
From here, Nick has a different goal, whether he likes it or not; move on. Be Nick. Figure out who Nick is and accept himself as such. See that he is more than a copy of memories because he's made his own. That looks like a lot of things. Finding family in Ellie and the Survivor.. Finding community in Diamond City. Finding purpose in helping people. Finding himself in what he does now, how he does it, what he thinks of it.
Before he can do any of that, he has to accept that Eddie is dead, and so is Valentine, and just because they are doesn't mean he has to be..
His only path is to accept that he has no answers, and owes no answers. For someone who holds himself so responsible, who thinks he has to fix whatever he comes across, who hates that someone had to hurt for his existence...this seems impossible. To accept that he doesn't have to fix anything.
That there is nothing he can do for what he has of Valentine. That he can't take a dead man's anger away.
That he has nothing of the man he remembers being.
#nick valentine#fallout 4#fo4#this is so messy im sorry but nick had so much potential#great character but i think bethesda has a habit of striking gold and going#oh cool we can plate our plastic spoons with this#like no buddy theres a better use for this put down the smelter PLEASE
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