Why Ghouls Look Different Across the Fallout Games (Not because of Stylistic Differences)
This is going to be long long. I am going to include a break to save your dash but I do encourage you read it, I’ve worked on it for a long time and I’m proud of it. See you on the flip side!
You have probably seen this set of images float around the fallout 4 community here on tumblr a couple of times. It rags on the fact that the Fallout games have progressively changed their models to look more like burn victims than actual, well rotting corpses. See the difference between Set from Fallout 1 and 2 and Hancock from Fallout 4.
(I also want to say Jason Bright is mislabeled, he’s from New Vegas not Fallout 3. Just in case people are not aware.)
Now I know what everyone is going to be saying, they aren’t rotting corpses or burned by radiation, but ghouls made by massive amounts of radiation are (Randall Clark can kiss my radiation-free ass, Ghouls can’t also be infection proof.). That is a simple fact of external radiation exposure. You burn like you are Irish and out in the Sahara shirtless and then someone dunked you in a cauldron of boiling water. Red, hot skin covered in peeling and blistering wounds. This is a symptom of something called CRI or Cutaneous Radiation Injury and it develops a few days to weeks after significant exposure under normal conditions. Normal being where you can leave a rad rich environment and go somewhere safe. But constant exposure like one would receive after the Great War would speed up this process.
Now I hope you all know how ghouls survive the massive amounts of radiation, but for those who don’t: Ghouls probably have a genetic mutation, from when they were human, that allows them to withstand massive amounts of radiation that would normally give people lethal radiation poisoning. It’s also probably in the same vein as the gene that makes people immune to radiation. (like some of the Children of Atom are.)
(Now to preface this next part, I am not a nuclear scientist. I am a high schooler who is not well versed nor interested in nuclear science, I don’t know how dropping the same type of bomb multiple times in the same area would work. I’m trying to use deductive reasoning.)
The bombs dropped during the Great War had 200-750 kiloton yields. To reference how massive they are: using the measure of yield of the Fat Man, which is probably the closest nuclear bomb to what was dropped during the war had a yield of 19-23 kt. At each of the bombs’ smallest yields, that's still just over 10 times the yield of the Fat Man! At their largest, it's 32 times the Fat Man. Each bomb would give off roughly 25,100 rads. A lethal dose of radiation is about 5,000 rads.
Now that doesn’t explain the molting look to Ghoul skin or the fact that some ghouls (Hancock) were not changed by outward radiation but inward. The molting look (from the diseases I looked into) is probably caused by either Eosinophilic Fasciitis or Cutaneous (and Subcutaneous) Radiation Injury, or both. Starting with sunburn/heat radiating off of your body and continuing on as ulcers, raw skin, severe pain, necrosis, lack or loss of blood flow to injuries, skin atrophy, and skin deformities. The skin deformities and atrophy are the most important to explain the ridging and texture of their faces. Muscles could permanently contract and harden, connective tissue could thicken blood vessels could pinch or burst causing huge hematomas or parts of their face to die and rot off.
People who were turned like Hancock would still have the deformities and whatnot, but a lot of the physical damage wouldn’t be there because they weren’t smacked around by a giant cloud of hot air and radiation. Basically, they wouldn’t have the tough and leathery skin immediately as other ghouls would. That would come with time and the mutation of the cells in their bodies. Ghouls who were turned slowly over time would look noticeably different too. Basically what I’m saying is that Hancock and ghouls turned by background radiation, but Hancock specifically, would have softer skin with less cracking and flaking. (Ghoul fuckers, do what you must.)
Now onto the topic that started the essay that took WAY too long, rot and infection. As I said above, I was looking at the set of photos ragging on the change in ghouls over the games when a thought hit me like an eighteen-wheeler with malfunctioning brakes riding down the side of the Grand Canyon. There was a Film Theory from 2016 talking about how The Walking Dead writers were lengthening the show by moving the characters north. To get to the important part, Matt talks about how decay slows in cold weather and speeds up in warm and changes depending on where it is located (underground, in water, open-air). This is a huge piece of the puzzle. Using the Koppen-Geiger Climate Classification map, specifically of the USA, we can determine which places would rot faster.
The Commonwealth is in between Cfa, Dfa, Dfb, and the occasional Dfc. Under the main climate section: C means warm temperate and D means snow. Under the precipitation section: f means fully humid. Under the temperature section: a means hot summer, b means warm summer, and c means cool summer. The Mojave and Southen California sits for the most part in BWk, BWh, BSk, Csb, and Csa. Under the main climate section: B means arid and C means warm temperate. Under precipitation: W means desert, S means steppe, and s means summer dry. Temperature: k means cold arid, h means hot arid, b means warm summer, a means hot summer.
Ghouls in the Mojave and Southern California have a warmer climate with lots of sweating, intense sunburn, and dirt. Their chance for infection is greater than ghouls in the north. That would explain why Set looks like his face is sloughing off. He may have an intense skin infection causing his face to literally rot. Hancock, living up north where winters are cold and summers are mild, would have less of a chance of his wounds being infected, especially if he took care of his skin. And because the air in the north is typically more moist than down south he doesn’t have to work as hard to keep his skin from drying out.
Infection could also explain the idea of going feral. Once the infection reaches their brain and parts start to die off they would be reduced to animalistic drives. Something that could prevent this would be proper hygiene and care for their wounds as well as preventative measures. If you can stop the opportunity for infection then you don’t have to work as hard to stop one.
In conclusion, Ghouls are victims of intense radiation burns that cause them to develop diseases and injuries that create the classic ghoul look. Ghouls created by ingesting or living with background radiation will have less superficial scarring and sores while ghouls created by witnessing a nuke go off will likely have more wounding and scarring. The region they live in will also affect how easy it is to take care of their wounds and if their wounds become gangrenous or infected, with the south having more trouble than the north. Therefore if you are caring for a ghoul, make sure they are clean, well-fed, and have pain management available. I hope this was informative and interesting! It took longer than I expected.
Scources!
Film Theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xEJusROWN4&list=PLHLoLiL1nL8F-5ksWWgX4cGTuUodJnFJs&index=28
I could bore you with the difference of vanity vs today's measurements but the summary is: Marilyn had an extreme hourglass figure that gave this illusion of her being extremely busty. She wasn't. Her waist was extremely small even for the time, which accentuated her curves. For much more details on her true size here.
The pictures below are often used as memes to promote her as a "plus sized woman". The caption rarely tells you that Marilyn was actually pregnant when those were taken in 1957. They're hardly a true depiction of her size and shape.
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Separately to this, what is often forgotten about her childhood is that Norma Jeane was a Depression era kid. Her early model shoots show her at the thinest she probably ever was. In "My Story" she mentions food multiple times and going hungry while trying to get her break:
"I made enough money for room rent and a meal a day although sometimes I fell behind on my eating".
Her starlet contract allowed her to get two hot meals at the studio canteen. This was a huge relief for anyone in the post-war time she lived in.
So Marilyn went hungry and she put on baby weight. So Marilyn wasn’t “fat” and Marilyn wasn’t plus-sized. And so what? Marilyn is always *empowering*. She made a name for herself using her extremely shaped body and curves and not shying away from them.
She believed nudity wasn’t a sin and would probably be appalled at seeing people being shamed for their physique today. Critics were scathing about her size in Let’s Make Love (seriously?!)
This is a reminder that the media and society has been trying to shame beautiful women for decades over not conforming. There is no perfect shape, only ever-changing random and toxic standards. Be the shape that makes you happy on the inside.
