When a friend of mine recommended Far Cry 5 to me, I had high expectations from the get-go. I trusted his judgement and although I wasn’t intimately familiar with the series at the time, I’d heard enough about it that I knew it was going to be good. What I did not expect from the experience, however, was having to pause directly after the opening segment just to process the emotional charge and everything going through my head — and I remember immediately texting my friend to say that Joseph Seed had already left me floored.
When I think of a good character, I naturally think of characterization itself, as well as writing. But although I would not by any means discredit these things in terms of Joseph, I would say that The Father played by anyone other than Greg Bryk would never have been the same. To reach a point wherein an antagonist is no longer just a ‘villain’, but something somehow far more complex and compelling takes more than just writing; it takes charisma to make believable, passion, tiny little quirks and vocal nuances that were, in fact, present, and never once left me aware that I was sitting in my living-room wearing cat pajamas and playing videogames.
Every moment that The Father was on-screen, everything else in my mind was put on hold and I felt exactly like I imagine each and every one of Joseph’s converts must have at some point: enraptured. Often times I found myself camping out around Hope County and just listening to the broadcasted sermons, absolutely blown away by the conviction in his tone and the truth in his words. And — without spoiling anything — each and every video broadcast from The Father throughout was another nail in a coffin of genuine, deep-set guilt, each one leaving me more emotionally bankrupt than the last. Whenever Joseph Seed looked me in the eye, I actually felt intimidated and wrong for hurting these people who were irrefutably doing horrible things.
I think of all the ways in which that could have just not been the case for me: if Joseph had been portrayed as more of a blank slate, more of a stock villain — reciting the same words and ideologies, but without the portrayal that carried him. I truly believe it would have been possible, if not easy, to avoid being as affected by him as I and many others apparently were. But instead, the ending of Far Cry 5 rolled around and I realized that I could not in good faith call The Father a villain. At that point, to me, he was just a man with a misguided means to an noble end. That, at the end of the day, is exactly what I was meant to feel — exactly what Eden’s Gate as a collective would have wanted me to feel.
Greg Bryk WAS Joseph Seed.
To my utter delight, I found that fact to also extend into the live-action trailer and short film! Both of which absolutely scream how well Greg knows and understands his character, as well as serving to remind us all how incredible a full-length Eden’s Gate movie would be — even if that’s entirely unrealistic a desire.
Far Cry: New Dawn also proved to intensify the complexities of an already complex portrayal, and I think it may have been the first videogame I've played which actually left me entirely unsettled long after I’d finished it... The final scene with Joseph was so high-strung and well-played with emotion that I could feel crushing pity and sorrow physically weighing down my chest throughout. I spent the rest of that night eating chocolate and feeling bad about my choices in the melancholic aftermath of a stunning performance.
In conclusion, Greg’s work as The Father has been absolutely inspirational to me. I’m so grateful for the chance recommendation that led me to experience it and I look forward to seeing whatever the future holds for Greg as one of my new favorite artists. I went into this expecting to have a little fun and waste some time, but I came out of it deeply evaluating the bigger picture and with a motivation to better myself and my own skills. I’d like to think a conversion like that would be satisfactory in the eyes of The Father. At the very least, I hope so. xx