In my opinion, postal dude is a very very good representation of mental illness. And while i am not a psychologist, i do have much experience with mental illness myself. I relate to the dude quite a bit. In my opinion, dude shows signs of obviously some sort of psychotic disorder. And while we dont see a lot of his personality, i am going to assume schizophrenia. He suffers from these delusions that are so strong that they lead to real life consequences. And he seems to suffer from hallucinations. Especially shown in the endings of both postal 1997, and postal redux. In the original ending of the game, dude ends his rampage on october 23rd, 1997. At the elementary school. This level doesn’t have a war journal entry so we dont have his word to go on. But we have the visuals of the game itself. You can see at the end where he falls so the floor and everything starts spinning and getting distorted. And then it cuts to postal dude in a psychiatric hospital. In postal redux, the ending is similar but instead of an elementary school, he is at a church. Dude is shown looking down at a grave with one more person standing down as well. We are not shown who the grave is for, but many people theorize that it is dudes father. But i personally see it as a representation of postal dude and his future, which has basically been ended by his actions. After this, we see the same visuals and the same psychiatric hospital. But in this ending, you can actually hear dude say "oh no". Many people can't hear it but this scene is so so important to me. I think it shows the reality setting in for dude, and him realizing that he really wasnt doing the good thing he thought he was. This does NOT excuse his actions, but i sympathize with his situation so so much.Besides schizophrenia, i actually also suspect that dude may be autistic. Now hear me out. Im aware that so many people keep headcanoning characters as autistic but i promise i have a reason. In postal, we NEVER hear dude actually speak. The voice we hear is the voice in his head. I think dude could be semi verbal. The only times we hear his voice is his groans when hes hurt. Also in some of the advertising of the game, theres a quote that states, "He was such a nice, quiet boy". This may not seem significant but so many high functioning autistics are seen as quiet and well behaved. Many high functioning autistics are rule followers. I say this as a high functioning autistic myself. Research also show that autistic individuals are 3 to 6 more times likely to develop schizophrenia compared to the general population. The next thing i want to talk about is the demon theory. I HATE the demon theory. Basically the demon theory is where postal dude is not mentally ill, but is actually being controlled by a demon. And in my opinion, that takes away all of the depth of the story. It also tries to take away the weight of his actions and make him seem innocent and like he isnt at fault. While i sympathize with him, dude IS at fault in this situation, and should be treated as such. The wikipedia actually states thata hallucinatory voice (voiced by Rick Hunter) can be heard absurdly taunting victims throughout gameplay. Which proves my point of it being mental illness In conclusion, i think this game was such a great representation of mental illness, and was way ahead of its time. Its unfortunate that it was so controversial, but its amazing to see more people starting to enjoy it
