Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Prime Video's 'Fallout'
- The Ghouls in Fallout originated from the Great War's nuclear apocalypse, with regenerative powers and long lifespans.
- Being a ghoul in Fallout offers immortality and drug immunity, but also risks going feral, making them shunned in society.
- Fallout's Cooper Howard, once a Hollywood star turned ruthless bounty hunter, reflects the sinister beauty of ghoul existence.
The world has officially been set on fire with the premiere of Fallout, one of the most anticipated video game adaptations of 2024. Based on the Award-winning video games by Bethesda Softworks, Fallout thrust viewers into a post-apocalyptic wasteland that came from the wake of a devastating nuclear war. A diverse trio of characters represent the major figures of the new show. They include a naive Vault Dweller named Lucy (Ella Purnell), an aspiring Brotherhood of Steel knight named Maximus (Aaron Moten), and perhaps most intriguing of all, a bounty-hunting mutant named Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), sometimes simply called The Ghoul.
Cooper is easily one of the most fleshed out and complex characters in the new series, which is ironic given that much of his flesh has been burned off his body. While he might be known as "The Ghoul" he is far from the only one, as fans of the long-running franchise already know, there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of ghouls out there in the world of Fallout. Still, some may be wondering where the ghouls came from, what they're capable of, and why they're commonly shunned and feared by other Wastelanders.
Fallout
In a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants and bandits.
Release DateApril 11, 2024
CastKyle MacLachlan, Walton Goggins, Johnny Pemberton, Moises Arias
Main Genre Sci-Fi
GenresDrama, Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure
Seasons1
Creator(s)Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy
Streaming Service(s)Prime Video
The Ghouls of 'Fallout' Were a Direct Result of The Great War
The history of the ghouls in the Fallout universe begins at the very start of the nuclear apocalypse brought onto the world by The Great War. Predictably, unless you were one of the lucky few members of the upper class to have access to a Vault Shelter, the vast majority of the U.S. population was entirely eradicated by the nuclear fallout. Some were able to narrowly avoid the radiation, thus giving rise to a generation of surface-dwelling Wastelanders, but some survived the nuclear blasts but didn't quite walk away from the disaster unscathed.
Thousands upon thousands of people exposed to the deadly levels of radiation had their very skin burned from their bodies, with appendages like their noses disappearing. While their bodies were damaged beyond repair, their minds still remained intact (or as much as they could be in a nuclear disaster). They were likely left the only living survivors among their families and friends, and we get a glimpse of that in the pilot episode's opening scene.
Before he became The Ghoul, Walton Goggins' character was known as Cooper Howard, who was a decently famous acting star in Hollywood's Western films. After presumably falling out with his wife, Barb (Frances Turner), he fell on hard times right before the start of The Great War, having to resort to playing a cowboy at children's birthday parties just to make ends meet. It's not an ideal situation, but it certainly beats what would happen moments later. This tragic event would not only transform Cooper into a ruthless bounty-hunting ghoul, but it would also take everything he ever loved away from him. It's still unclear whether or not Barb and his daughter are alive by the end of the first season of Fallout, but considering this show's penchant for long-lived characters, it shouldn't be a surprise.
Being a Ghoul Is a Gift and a Curse
As you've probably already figured out, most of the world of Fallout's ghouls were there when the bombs first fell. That was over two centuries before the events of the show take place so that essentially means that ghouls are capable of living for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. That incredible feat of longevity doesn't end there either, as ghouls also have miraculous regenerative abilities that could arguably make them the next step in human evolution.
In Fallout's second episode, after Lucy shoots Cooper with a dart gun, the bounty hunter responds by saying: "Well, now that is a very small drop in a very, very large bucket of drugs." We see that after The Great War, becoming a ghoul is still possible when Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton) is given a mysterious elixir that heals his mangled foot but also transforms him into a ghoul. Most ghouls are immune to most drugs and are even entirely resistant to radiation (though many ghouls are known to be addicted to the dangerous Wasteland drug, Jet). Continuing with their regenerative powers, ghouls are historically resistant to most forms of harm. They can withstand various kinds of bullet fire, and in some cases, can even reattach body parts and appendages.
These feats of practical immortality may sound like something any person living in the Wasteland would kill for. However, there is a significant and debilitating drawback to the ghouls' price of long life and immunity from harm. While the cause and reasoning behind this phenomenon isn't entirely known, just about every ghoul in the Fallout universe goes feral eventually. It's just a matter of when. Instead of being the relatively lucid survivors of the war, they regress into mindless, violent zombies that will kill anything they see. On their own, Feral Ghouls are fairly easy to deal with, but if they're in a large group, they can easily overwhelm even the most experienced Wastelanders.
'Fallout' Cast and Character Guide: Who Stars in the Prime Video Series?
They (probably) don't want to set the world on fire.Ghouls Are Often Shunned by the Rest of the Wasteland
The ghouls' ability to unpredictably turn feral is a main reason why ghouls are often shunned by society. Or, at the very least, the few pockets of society that still remain in the Wasteland. Their appearance and stereotypically dangerous nature have effectively turned ghouls into second-class citizens in the world's settlements, even though they probably have more knowledge of the world and what existed before than anyone else on the planet.
That makes things even more difficult for Cooper in the Fallout television series. Not only is he a ghoul, he's a particularly infamous fhoul at that, with his reputation as a ruthless bounty hunter being known far and wide across what used to be Los Angeles. There's a true tragic irony in that, given that Cooper was once an instantly recognizable Hollywood star, who is now unrecognizable since becoming an ostracized fhoul. Cooper's part in the story is far more than just being a bounty hunter, however, what kind of part he'll play after Max restores power to Calilfornia remains a mystery.
The complete first season of Fallout is available to stream now on Prime Video.
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