Vault boy's thumbs up. What's your take?

[K.C. Cool]

Hey guys,

Apologies if this was posted before (I searched), but I was curious as to what's NMA's take on vault boy's thumbs up is. Supposedly, vault boy isn't thumbs-uping, he's actually measuring the size of an atomic cloud to estimate if he's safe or not. Sounds feasible considering the "Duck and Cover" era. A few articles have circulated around the internet mentioning this about Vault Boy, but sources always point back to this Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories...out_fallout_vault_guy_is_not_actually_giving/

This came up as a debate over the weekend between me and a friend. I've followed NMA for many years now and never caught this reference, so I'm calling bullshit. I tweeted at Tramell Ray Isaac in an to attempt to get to the bottom of this:

https://twitter.com/Dirty_Camaro/status/529308243404017664

He mentioned "its just a thumbs up, basically saying everything is ok, when it really isn't ..nothing more than that." This seems to be evident as most of the pre-Fallout 3 vault boy's are thumbs-uping with their elbow bent. However, the Fallout 3 illustrator Natalia Smirnova may have had a different vision.

Here http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?175923-Pete-Hines-interview-on-Spong Pete Hinds mentions: "You know, the humour in Fallout 3 is that you can get a weapon and blow a guy to a bloody mess, then when you pull up your interface, you see a little smiling cartoon character holding his thumb up. Like that's funny…" But it wouldn't really be funny if vault boy was estimating the size of an explosion?

What's your take? Does anyone have any real world / Fallout canon examples of this?

 

[No Man]

Seeing how Vault Boy images are mostly black humour, this is highly likely.

its just a thumbs up, basically saying everything is ok, when it really isn't ..nothing more than that.

He might as well have said 'totally not a problem here, move along'.

There is other stuff in the discussion that indicates so, like the fact that he only has one eye open (to align the thumb) or that there is light shining on him from the direction he's looking.

Then again, the eye that is open is open wide. There is little indication of staring into a light source visible on his face (other than light shining on it). But his eye is a dot, so that's hardly telling.

It's most likely made like this specifically to be ambiguous in order to screw with people. Impressive.

BTW Key to surviving a nuclear apocalypse? Big thumbs.

 

[Yamu]

I always took the closed eye as a simple wink, hence the other one being open so wide. I mean, what's Vault Boy's actual in-universe purpose for existence, if not to advertise for Vault-Tec? "Don't worry about that silly ol' bomb," he winks knowingly at you, "Vault-Tec's got you covered."

It is definitely possible that the "mushroom measuring" procedure was an influence on that particular drawing, but as @No Man points out, there really aren't any of the other key visual indicators that that's what's going on there and he'd been drawn in similar positions before. I wouldn't be all that surprised to find out that it was a coincidence.

 

[5545Trey]

My take on his thumbs up would be, "The world might be screwed, but at least Humanity is still rebuilding! Well, the West Coast is, anyway."

 

[No Man]

But the depiction in question (this one) was listed on The Vault as a promotional Vault Boy from FO3. A game that has little to nothing to do with the West Coast, rebuilding or, in fact, humans at all.

 

[BigBoss]

Bethesda is now known to have read way to hard into the things Black Isles did with FO, and they were also known to overuse Black Isles own images way past their intended use.

Bethesda likes to squint to hard at stuff, or try to "read in between the lines" when there is nothing their, or "squint at it till it looks like what we want it to look like/be".

My take is that BIS just made the Vault Boy winking just for the sake of what Yamu said above, but then someone pointed out to the illustration team when the game was in development what it looked like, and a big smile grew across their faces.

So what does it mean, simple wink or mushroom cloud measuring position? Probably both. Originally intended as a wink, the BIS team realized it could be two different things, depending on how the individual player preceived it.

We have to remember, Fallout was made with the fact that they wanted each individual player too look at certain aspects differently so that it could (it being the aspect) mean different things to different people in mind. This was made as a "true RPG", meaning just as they wanted there to be multiple choices and freedom of choice, they also wanted there to be multiple ideas and the freedom for the player to decide for him/herself what "that weird and oddly shaped rock really is or means". They wanted there to be as many alternatives to as many things possible so not to create a close-ended/minded game. They wanted every story, every mission, every character , every-everything to mean and be something different to everyone. That's why people have more questions about the in-game Fallout world than most other games.

The developers purposely made shit to have (possibly) multiple meanings because you can't have a RPG without words freedom and multiple.

 

[alec]

What's your take? Does anyone have any real world / Fallout canon examples of this?

I'm sure that Tramell Ray Isaac will know what he's talking about, but I've always wondered about this Vault Boy:

Is he measuring and laughing with my genitalia or what?

 

[BigBoss]

Like that bitter old hooker who laughs at you, but you keep going back to her because she's the only hooker you can afford.

 

[No Man]

Given the nature of Fallout and Bethesda's 'as shallow as possible' take on it, seeing the Vault Boy measuring a nuclear explosion is somewhat appropriate. However, I find myself unable to comprehend why would the Vault Boy (wearing a suit, no less) would be staring at your cock and use his fingers to measure it, alec. I am rather thankful for that.

Also, if you're standing up, your penis would have to be erect in order for him to put his fingers like this to measure it. Seeing how close they are to one another, it'd be somewhat embarrassing. Not to mention the inherent awkwardness of the Vault Boy watching your boner.

On the other hand, the Vault Boy coming out of the screen to laugh at the viewer's crotch? Damn, talk about 'Fourth Wall Won't Protect You'.

 

[K.C. Cool]

What's your take? Does anyone have any real world / Fallout canon examples of this?

I'm sure that Tramell Ray Isaac will know what he's talking about, but I've always wondered about this Vault Boy:

Is he measuring and laughing with my genitalia or what?

Maybe he just plain old likes 'em small? Though, you make an excellent point. I think we need to rush a Reddit on this one and convince the internet of what we found.

 

[Atomic Postman]

I would say that it's definitely a simple wink and a reassuring thumbs up.

The Vault Boy is a mascot, he's saying "Hey! Don't worry about that bomb!"

I think it's much more suiting of Fallout's satirical Nuclear Age style that he's a simple happy mascot giving a thumbs up rather than some other alternate meaning.