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distantattraction) wrote2022-11-11 04:38 pm
Until Blog - Dearest Joshua Washington
[Sam, Chris, and Ashley voice] I want to get off Mr. Josh’s wild ride, please!
There’s a lot to Josh that’s explicitly covered by the story of Until Dawn, but there’s so much about the year between lodge incidents that’s implied, and I want to start there because it’s just as insane as the shit he actually does.
Josh believed his friend group to be responsible for the disappearance of his sisters, and he kept hanging out with them for a full year after it happened. Hating them the whole time, planning a truly unhinged revenge scheme that must have taken a huge amount of time, money, and commitment. There’s technically no evidence that the friend group stayed tight after the disappearance of the twins, but no one really talks about how long it’s been since they last saw each other, just that it’s weird to come back to the mountain after a year and/or without the twins.
To me, the weirdest thing about Josh’s big Saw games plan has always been how little of it focused around the people who were most directly responsible for Hannah and Beth’s disappearance. Ashley is the only victim of Josh’s “game” that actually had anything to do with the prank; Sam and Chris weren’t involved and were unduly punished, whereas Mike, Emily, and Jess all got off scot free somehow. I wonder if maybe it was only ever about Sam and about pushing Chris and Ashley towards each other, and if revenge was just Josh’s excuse for how out of control the plan was. It’s really scary and sad how unhinged he is about his friends (or “friends,” depending on how you feel).
There’s a page in Hannah’s diary that’s very, very sad where she says that she didn’t realize how sick Josh was until he had to be hospitalized. It’s so crazy to read knowing everything Josh did and how hard of a time he’s had with treatments. The fact that he could be completely falling apart and one of his sisters, who he lived with, didn’t even know? That says a lot about his behavior and his ability to act like nothing is wrong. It explains why everyone came back to the lodge for the anniversary of Hannah and Beth’s disappearances. It can’t have just been guilt because of how few of them seemed to feel guilty. But if they stayed friends with Josh after his sisters disappeared, if they kept hanging out with him and going through their regular high school and college lives like Josh’s entire world wasn’t destroyed because of a mean prank his friends pulled, well. Then there’s more than just the guilt to bring them to the lodge again, there’s also the obligation of not letting a friend down (again).
I’ve always found it really upsetting that Until Dawn is pitched as a story in which you can save all of the characters even though you really cannot save Josh. There’s no cure for becoming a Wendigo in canon, so that’s a permanent transformation that does not count as “being alive” as far as I’m concerned. It feels quite a lot like he gets punished for being the most mentally ill character, and that feels terrible. That boy has enough problems without also being doomed to die.
I didn’t know very much about antidepressants when I first watched a playthrough of Until Dawn, but I have a non-zero amount of knowledge now. It sucks big time that Josh is apparently chemically resistant to SSRIs and SNRIs because those are the more modern antidepressants. Between the older technology of MAOIs and the higher dose they had to put Josh on, I’m not surprised that his health didn’t actually improve. It’s not that I think his doctors did him dirty or that I think Josh didn’t go off his meds (he may have, I don’t know), but I do think Josh’s problems are just bigger than his doctors are prepared to handle.
The other thing that’s wild about Josh is how little we see of his friendship with Chris. It’s basically only present at the very beginning of the game, before they get into the lodge. After that, it’s all Saw games and being angry for perfectly legitimate reasons, and then they never share a scene again. The one thing Chris and Josh’s friendship really has going for it is the fact that Chris seems to be one of the few people who knew already that Josh had a mental health issue. I’m assuming it was a secret, though I wouldn’t put it past this group to be told that one of their friends has a serious health condition and for everyone but Sam to just brush it off.
In conclusion: Someone please get Josh a new storyline branch, some proper medical help, and new friends who don’t like pranks. I like him, and I want better for him than this.
no subject
This is such an interesting observation! I can't imagine what the inside of Josh's head must have looked like during that year.
Josh targeting Chris and Sam is definitely puzzling. I wonder whether, on some level, he just wanted to know whether Chris would choose Ashley over him.
The question of whether the group members (other than Chris) knew about Josh's mental health struggles is an interesting one. Chris says 'he's definitely off his meds' in front of Mike, Sam and Ashley, which might suggest that they know (or at least that Chris would expect them to know), as it would be a very personal thing to disclose about Josh otherwise. But, then again, after what Josh just put him through, it's not unreasonable for Chris to be a little freer with Josh's secrets than he might usually be.
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Josh consciously wanting Chris to get together with Ashley by picking her but subconsciously wishing that Chris would choose Josh certainly does sound like the kind of thing Josh would do. Josh is the type to set himself up to fail and then be disappointed when things go badly for him, even though self-sabotage was a part of that.
It's hard to pick Josh as your least favorite character in the therapy session, but it's also by far the most fitting choice. Josh does hate himself.
This is not a group that has a ton of respect for each other's secrets, so I would unfortunately not be that surprised if Josh's mental health was something he got outed about instead of telling people about. Honestly, considering he apparently never grieved his sisters in front of anyone but Sam and maybe Chris, I wouldn't be surprised if Josh never told anyone about his mental health and the rest of the group found out via his sisters or parents instead. Josh talks so little about his own feelings and mental state that sometimes I'm shocked that Chris knew Josh was on medication, even if they are best friends.
More details please, Supermassive!! I know it's been seven years, but I am very curious.
Have you ever noticed that Josh is weirdly hung up on the idea that if Chris doesn't hook up with Ashley, that Mike will? It comes up twice, which is two times too many. No offense to Ashley and full offense to Mike, Ashley is obviously not Mike's type, so it's super weird that Josh keeps suggesting it. What a hard to understand guy.
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I love this idea. It's very easy to envision.
It's hard to pick Josh as your least favorite character in the therapy session
(innocent whistling)
(Josh is my least favourite character, which is a surprise to me, because I'm usually drawn to self-sabotaging characters who make terrible decisions and struggle with their perception of reality! I'm not sure why Josh didn't entirely click for me. But I can't deny that he's interesting, and your observations about him make him even more so.)
Have you ever noticed that Josh is weirdly hung up on the idea that if Chris doesn't hook up with Ashley, that Mike will? It comes up twice, which is two times too many.
Huh! I definitely remember 'you might as well let Ashley sleep with Mike' because Mike's alarmed look over at Chris is so hilarious, but I hadn't registered that it came up multiple times. Stop shipping your friends, Josh!
no subject
I think it's most difficult to say "I like Josh the least" at that therapy session on a person's initial playthrough, though. At that point, Josh is mostly just this guy whose sisters were killed by his friends and his friends don't seem to feel very bad about it for some reason. Between that and the more obvious mean girl picks (Emily), I think it's just less likely for a first time player to pick Josh during the therapy session, even though it's best for the storyline. Josh does hate himself quite a lot, so knowing they're his therapy sessions, I would pick him every time for the tasty dialogue.
I don't think Josh's character is executed as well as it could have been, which might be why he didn't click for you. We barely see Josh doing anything other than being really unhinged and hell-bent on revenge, whereas most of the other characters' good developments come as a result of seeing and dealing with Wendigos. Josh doesn't really have that on screen, unfortunately. I would love a kind of director's cut of the game that gives us more Josh content. He's such a central figure to the storyline even though he gets shunted to the side whenever he's not dressed up like the Psycho.
(My least favorite character in the game is Matt, but I'll get into that in a later post LMAO)
The first time Josh mentions Mike hooking up with Ashley is all the way back in Chapter 2, if you pick "Protest" when Josh asks Chris about taking Ashley to the famous "bone zone."
Josh: I mean if you don't wanna bang her... maybe Mike'll take up the case.
Such a weird thing to suggest. [shakes Josh gently by the shoulders] sir what are your intentions with your friends
Mike's look over at Chris is so funny at a stressful time. I'm sure that even other kids at their school who aren't in their friend group know about the whole Chris/Ashley will they/won't they situation, so I bet Mike is just out here trying to communicate "Bro, I promise I have never thought about hooking up with Ashley" to Chris using only his eyeballs.