I finally want to explain exactly why I hate Joseph and I’m tired of people assuming that the only reason there is to think Joseph is a bad person is the cult ending. That’s really NOT the primary reason why I hate him. I hate him because he’s a shady, fake asshole, even in the standard ending, and I’m surprised so many people missed his narrative of fraudulence.
There are so many instances of him being a manipulative fraud, and without even taking the cult universe or him cheating on his wife multiple times into account. I just wanna mention a few big ones that I think people have missed or just haven’t thought about enough.
I know him and Robert’s relationship is a big one that people love to debate but I just wanna break it down based on what canon info we have. Based on the photograph we see of Robert in Joseph’s sweater, the significance behind his hand tattoo, and Robert’s clear indication of betrayal when warning you about Joseph, it is very safe to say that the game wanted us to put the pieces together and discover that Robert and Joseph were in an intimate relationship. Robert now canonly hates Joseph, and when confronting Joseph about Robert’s words, Joseph LITERALLY, COMPLETELY brushes off their canon intimate romance as a fucking one night stand. He explicitly lies to you about their relationship to gain your trust back and then proceeds to fuck you before ditching you.
Not only that, but at least in his “good” ending he has enough respect for you to break ties with you instead of stringing you on. I could not believe (I mean I could) that in Joseph’s bad ending, he kisses your neck before telling you that he’s staying with Mary and then asks you to be his fucking SIDE PIECE. When he KNOWS full and well that you have romantic feelings for him. It’s so fucking disrespectful that he would reduce you to that and take advantage of your feelings for him. You know what most of the other dads’ bad endings consist of? Being honest and respectful enough to tell you that they would just like to be friends. Whereas Joseph wants to make you his damn side hoe. Not only that, but even after you EXPLICITLY TELL JOSEPH “that’s not what I want” he literally proceeds to try to convince you otherwise EVEN AFTER YOU SAID NO. He makes the dadsona nervous as hell and afraid to pull away from him. I was so revolted when I watched that and it just shows the kind of person Joseph is.
And even if you don’t choose him as your dream daddy, he still acts creepy as fuck to you during Amanda’s grad party when he knows youre with another man? He basically implies to you that he’s still willing to do things with you and makes the dadsona really uncomfortable. It’s like he’s addicted to infidelity and it’s kind of sick.
All these reasons and more is why I don’t fucking trust Joseph and I don’t understand when people call him their “precious cinnamon roll” or whatever. He’s a shady, fraudulent scumbag and I’m convinced that he has the same “don’t judge people before you get to know them” narrative that Mary and Robert have. Where Mary and Robert are the ones who are initially perceived as shady and untrustworthy but you soon discover their endearing qualities, Joseph is initially perceived as a sweet, friendly and down-to-earth neighbor who youre supposed to discover is actually a shady fraud.
And you know what, I wouldn’t even mind all that if he wasn’t still so fucking bland. I actually tend to like villainous characters a lot (I know thats surprising since Mat is my favorite lol). I find them to be the more interesting and complex characters but... Joseph isn’t those things? The life he’s living and the characters he’s associated with are complex, but Joseph himself? He’s a bland Gary-Stu, even down to his fucking design. I cannot for the life of me be invested in his character.
Joseph is fake and gross and I cannot understand his popularity. And I kind of don’t want to.
