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lulu2992 · 2 years

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How the role of women in Eden’s Gate apparently changed during the development of Far Cry 5, why I am glad it did, and what that can potentially explain

Despite being an extremist and violent cult, Eden’s Gate is surprisingly “progressive”: they accept everyone, no matter who they are and what they look like, as long as they are ready to follow the Father.

For the first time in the Far Cry series, we can play as a female character and, for the second time after the Izila in Far Cry Primal, we can face female enemies (aside from the secondary antagonists). In Far Cry 5 in general and in Eden’s Gate in particular, women and men are treated equally.

But it seems that things have not always been like this…

Screenshots from the Far Cry 5 Official Announce Trailer (left) & Inside Eden’s Gate (right)

In May 2017, when Far Cry 5 was announced, many people immediately assumed that the Seeds and their followers were white supremacists… which I have always thought was a bit strange considering that, in the very first promotional pictures and trailer, there clearly were non-white cultists. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that Eden’s Gate was ever supposed to have a racist ideology. However, I have never seen anybody note that, in early promotional material, none of the cult soldiers were women.

The first official visuals were these two images, clearly inspired by the famous painting The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (also included below):

In the top promotional picture, there is only one woman: Faith.

In the bottom picture, she seems to be talking to another female character:

This other woman is unarmed and, like the man next to her, is wearing simple clothes. Their heads are shaved and they look like (future) Angels, which means they are being or have already been “brainwashed”. Unlike the other cultists sitting at the table, they appear to be submissive.

Sure, in the original painting, all the characters (Jesus and his twelve Apostles) were male, but since Faith is in the two pictures and we know the cult has female fighters in Far Cry 5, there could have been women among the soldiers too. But there aren’t.

In the Official Announce Trailer (May 2017), all the Eden’s Gate soldiers we see are men. At one point in the video, two of them are dragging a woman to baptize her by force. Interestingly, she is wearing the same clothes as the two cultists praying in the water, which suggests she is already part of the Project. It is unknown whether or not the two aforementioned praying cultists willingly joined the cult, but this woman clearly did not.

In Inside Eden’s Gate, again, all the soldiers are men and wear “regular” clothes while all the female cultists wear a white t-shirt with a red Eden’s Gate cross on it. They look very docile, harmless, deeply devoted to Joseph… and are clearly drugged.

As you can see, not all the drugged cultists are women, but what I am saying is that all the women who are part of the Project are drugged. In the short film, with the exception of Faith, not a single woman in the cult seems to have free will and to be in her right mind.

Similarly, in the “Anything Can Happen, Everything Will” live-action TV spot, the only female cultists we see, aside from Faith and unlike all the men around them, are wearing white Eden’s Gate t-shirts. Again, they look passive and most likely drugged. Without the Bliss, would they even be here?

However, in Far Cry 5 (which came out in March 2018), while the cult still takes and brainwashes all kinds of people during the Reaping, there definitely are female soldiers in Eden’s Gate’s ranks. Women are active members of the Project, can fight, and are not just there to be kept under control and docilely worship the Seeds anymore, which is a welcome change compared to what we previously saw and what appeared to be the situation in earlier versions of the story.

But I recently found something that intrigued me. Actually, this discovery is what inspired me to investigate and write this post. In the game’s files, every location in Hope County has a codename. I was trying to find which location each code corresponded with and stumbled upon troubling comments about Eden’s Convent (called “F5_MEGA_02” in the files). They are all from Hurk:

I heard they brought all the cult wannabes up here for reprogramming. Suppose there's worse places for stuff like that.

We used to call this place brainwash camp for girls.

This is where the cult sent their ladies to make 'em all holy and stuff. They came out all holey in the head more like it.

This is where they used to brainwash the ladies. Kinda like patriarch society sorta dialed to 11.

I took him to the liberated outpost and, weirdly, he still says all those lines in the game:

I say “weirdly” because he is the only character who says Eden’s Convent was solely for “ladies”. Of course, a convent is usually a place where nuns, who typically are women, live, but nobody else says this particular convent was reserved for women or that Eden’s Gate ever had nuns.

What other companions say is simply that it was Eden’s Gate’s first church, that they built it themselves, and that Joseph used to preach there. Before the Reaping, “spiritual retreats” were held in the convent. They also say that it now belongs to Faith, who used to preach at the location as well, imply that “convent” is the term she uses, and explain that this is where the cult brainwashes people, usually to turn them into Angels.

The outpost’s description in the deleted in-game encyclopedia pretty much said the same thing:

The very first building set up by the Project at Eden’s Gate in Hope County. People came here for spiritual retreats and to learn the Word of Joseph. When they left, if they did, it was with a permanent smile on their faces.

And in Far Cry 5, the description simply says:

The devoted can rest here during their pilgrimages as they walk The Path to Eden's Gate.

Cultists never say that the Convent was used to brainwash women specifically, either. And while some female cultists reveal that this is indeed where they were converted…

“This is where I opened my heart to Joseph.” - Cult Follower Female 01

“Heard the sermon that finally converted me right at this spot. I know I'm not alone in that.” - Cult Follower Female 03

“I may as well have been born here.” - Cult Follower Female 04

…so do male cultists.

“I came here on my first pilgrimage, beautiful spot.” - Cult Follower Male 04

“I first heard Faith speak here, and right then and there, I knew I'd be saved.” - Cult Follower Male 03

“Found myself here. Have a feelin' I'll die here, too.” “I'll never forget findin' Faith here.” - Cult Security Male 02

“Guardin' the site of my own conversion…The Father's given me so much.” “I had so many pet moths when I was a new convert here.” - Cult Security Male 05

“Watching over where I was baptized is an honor.” - Cult Security Male 08

By the way, there only are “Cult Security Males” and no “Cult Security Females”, probably because of how the cult used to treat women early in the game’s development and because the decision to include female soldiers was made quite late.

Aside from talking about “ladies”, Hurk mentions another interesting thing: he is the only character who ever uses the word “reprogramming”. This word is familiar, though; I have seen it before in the Far Cry 5 Collector’s Edition Guide by Prima Games, in Tracey Lader’s presentation:

When Tracey was deemed a loose cannon by the cult and sent to be “reprogrammed,” she felt the sting of betrayal. She had given the Church everything. Now she’s bent on crushing them into a million pieces.

And, in the files, we can still find what her description in the deleted encyclopedia was going to be:

A woman determined to bring down Eden's Gate, especially Faith. They used to be friends and the sting of betrayal fuels her wrath.

There is no mention of any kind of “reprogramming” in the in-game description, only of her anger towards Faith and Eden’s Gate... However, the fact that the expression “the sting of betrayal” is used in the two descriptions is interesting, and I believe it is no coincidence. The short biographies included in the Prima Games guide, which was written several months before Far Cry 5 was released, were probably provided by Ubisoft. To me, it looks a lot like Tracey’s description in the in-game encyclopedia is a modified, updated version of the one in the official guide. I suppose that, after the book was written, her backstory was changed and no longer involved any kind of “reprogramming”.

And it is interesting that Hurk says it was at the Convent that Eden’s Gate used to reprogram people because there is still a note in the building written by… Tracey. Now, I wonder if the letter is there because, in an earlier version of the story, Tracey was one of the women who lived in the Convent and were going to be reprogrammed/brainwashed. The note was not removed and its content still makes sense, but maybe there used to be a bigger and darker story behind it.

The convent being a place where the cult used to brainwash “ladies” can possibly explain something else a bit better: Faith Seed. Not just Rachel, but also Selena, Lana, and maybe other women before them.

In the final version of the game, we are not given a lot of details about Faith’s predecessors. In fact, we know so little about them and their fate that it has always seemed to me that this subplot had gone through many rewrites and that what remains in the game is a mix of outdated and still relevant information. Those changes must have been made quite late into development because, for example, Faith (Rachel) and the Henbane River are still frequently called “Selena Seed” and “Selena” in the files... Maybe, at one point, the plan was to only have one previous Faith, Lana, and players were going to uncover the dark secret surrounding her replacement.

Or maybe, because the note written by Tracey was for Rachel, and this is why I think Hurk’s lines are very interesting, there were going to be many previous Faiths, and Eden’s Convent was where they were all “made”. During the development of Far Cry 5, maybe Joseph, who, in earlier versions of the story, was not always the well-intentioned and somewhat unconventional cult leader he ended up being, used to have all his female followers forcibly converted at the convent, and would sometimes pick a new brainwashed Faith Seed among them after brutally getting rid of the old one. Maybe, Faith (Rachel) was not always a girl who chose to join a group that made her feel loved, accepted, and empowered, no matter the cost for herself and others, but used to be one of Joseph’s “nuns”: controlled, drugged, passive, and unable to think for herself, like many other cultists and women before her. In short, at some point, Joseph’s character and Faith Seed’s story might have been a lot darker and more uncomfortable than what they are in Far Cry 5.

I believe that Hurk’s lines about Eden’s Convent, combined with what we can see in early promotional material, are a glimpse of what the Project used to be and could have been, a testimony of an outdated and scarier past of which a few remains can still be found and give us some answers. Eden’s Gate is bad but, especially when it comes to the role of women and how they are treated, things apparently could have been worse.

#I’ve been trying to write a similar post about john for months and wrote this one in like three days #ok me #anyway I’m glad they changed that #far cry 5 #inside eden’s gate #eden’s gate #hurk drubman jr #tracey lader #joseph seed #faith seed #far cry 5 spoilers #my videos

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agonybow · 1 year

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HEADCANON.

post-beacon, sebastian was ostracized and made an outcast by his peers. with the madness of the world he had just left behind still fresh in his mind, all of its dangers opening his eyes to a conspiracy he thought myra insane for, he then pursued every avenue to get beacon mental hospital investigated. he adamantly spoke of what he saw, the things he endured, of STEM and beacon and even ruvik. at the end of the day, his increasingly desperate pleas to at least believe him enough to seek out joseph, missing in action, were turned away.

maybe he finally got fed up of your bullshit, he heard one too many times up until he was eventually let go, with the reason being that he could no longer handle the stressors of being a homicide detective.

survivor’s guilt plagued sebastian, one of the few truths the fake psychiatrist who they assigned to him gleaned. haunted by what he left behind, more importantly, he was plagued by an intense guilt of who he left behind that manifested in self-destructive behaviors.

his previous dependence on alcohol, once ‘functioning’, worsened so drastically he was almost always drunk, trying desperately to numb phantom pains and stinging memories. he went through double the number of cigarette packs a day he previously used, burning a hole in his wallet. by the events of the second game, he was on the verge of eviction, contemplating suicide, and a shell of the man he had been so many years ago.

it took being told by kidman that lily was still alive for him to shape up. post-union, he quits everything cold turkey, for withdrawal symptoms were just cheap tricks compared to old memories of being gutted alive. he became a private detective for hire, moved back into the old house he and myra had refurbished after the fire, but could never stomach returning to, and forcibly got his life back on track for his daughter.

but he is still haunted daily by his survivor’s guilt.

why was it him, the drunken failure, who got to live? why not joseph, who always had a promising future had he not let go of the dead weight that was his partner? why not myra, who had the determination and tenacity to go through hell and back for their daughter?

some days are harder than others, waking up and simply wondering why.

if it were not for lily, the guiding beacon in his bleak, dim life, he would likely be dead already.

#« ⌜ headcanon ⌟ → I’M WRONG. I WILL GET OUT. BUT WITHOUT YOU.#suicide mention/#me: im gonna talk about his survivor's guilt!#me: (goes on five other tangents instead)#ok me

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