#because why not i guess it works
Ok I’m still kinda confused about how exactly Faith controls people via the bliss. Like, I thought that when people “go into the bliss” it’s just a hallucination and their body is still there just like, lying down or stumbling around or something. And the glimpses of Faith around the Henbane are also hallucinations right? (If I’m interpreting the game correctly; I could be totally missing something. That happens to me a lot). So….the Faith in the bliss, is she a hallucination too? Like is that all in the drugged person’s mind? So they’re just kinda imagining what she’s saying? Or Joseph too for that matter? Or like, when the deputy is out, is Faith actually there physically saying those things into their ear while they trip? Just how did Faith get Burke to kill Virgil and himself? How does she control the angels? Or does she? Is it all illusion? Also pretty sure I’ve asked this before lol I’ve just totally forgotten any info y’all gave me. Honestly it doesn’t much bother me in the game itself but for fic writing purposes….also I don’t even want to tackle how Jacob’s whole mind control works….
Bliss basically works like all the other Far Cry drugs since Far Cry 3: it just does. I don’t think you’re misinterpreting anything, it’s just that it doesn’t make much sense when you try to understand and analyze it in detail.
To (attempt to) answer your questions, though, we don’t know for sure if “The Bliss” is a real place… and neither do the NPCs who visited it. Sometimes, Faith probably takes the Deputy to her bunker, and I always thought that’s where she kept the Marshal. At least, we know the Sheriff is definitely in Faith’s Gate at one point. I also think the Deputy did jump off Joseph’s statue (the “leap of faith” doesn’t necessarily kill you, other people say they’ve done it) so she must have… taken them there somehow.
When Faith randomly appears, it’s indeed a hallucination caused by the Bliss (which is everywhere in the Henbane River region). Other people have seen her, some even tried to shoot or touch her, but they say she disappeared in a puff of smoke or turned into an animal. I think it’s still the real Faith talking, though, not the Deputy’s imagination, and sometimes she can talk to them directly inside their head. Maybe she’s calling them using the radio… or maybe it’s simply supernatural.
The Faith we encounter in the Bliss must be the real one too but is she actually there? And again, where is “there”, anyway? Several people also mention seeing and hearing Joseph but I have no idea how that’s supposed to work, either.
Faith makes the Marshal shoot Virgil and then himself because… the Bliss gives her superpowers and she’s incredibly powerful thanks to it (as well as being immune to its effects). Really, I think it’s the actual explanation. She can be “everywhere, all at once”, appear to anyone who’s been exposed to the drug, and exert control over those who have been exposed to higher doses. But, while Jacob controls the Judges (according to various NPCs), I’m not sure Faith fully controls her Angels. They were “zombified” by very high doses of Bliss and react to music but I don’t know if she (or anyone else, for that matter) can give them precise orders. They can’t understand complex instructions anymore anyway…
So, how does Faith control people via the Bliss? She just does. She has supernatural abilities because the drug she uses as a weapon is basically magical. I might be wrong but, looking at some deleted content in the files, it seems to me that Faith and the Bliss went through a lot of changes during the game’s development, which is probably why the “final” result isn’t totally coherent.
So, yeah, if you’re worried about the Bliss and Faith’s powers not making sense in your fic… don’t be :)
