The complicated realism of Delilah from ‘Firewatch’
After being drawn in by the beautiful art style of Campo Santo’s “Firewatch,” a couple of friends and I gathered around a monitor and started the life of Henry, from Boulder, Colorado. With tears building in our eyes faster than they did when watching Disney’s “Up” for the first time, we learned that Henry married Julia, who eventually begins to suffer from early onset dementia. After years of trying to take care of her, Henry slowly retracts himself from his wife, and hands her over to her parents while he moves to Wyoming to start a job as a firewatch post for the summer.
As we assumed control over Henry, we were quickly introduced to Delilah, another firewatch post voiced by Cissy Jones. Throughout the course of the game, we never see Delilah, but her voice through the walkie-talkie is one we quickly grew fond of. With sassy humor and a bit of flirtatiousness, we spent days and nights talking with our new friend and supervisor.
After building a deeper relationship with Delilah, Henry reluctantly explains his difficult marriage. He tells of his wife, who he basically ran away from and listens to Delilah’s background of cold feet in her long-term relationship.
Henry bonds with Delilah.
Through banter, in-depth conversation and simply time knowing there is someone on the end of the line, my friends and I began to feel the stress in Henry’s current situation.
Occasionally, one of us would spit out, “Can we just run away together?” It is here that we discovered the message of the game.
After our adventure came to a close, I reached out to our friend Delilah, voiced by Cissy Jones. A few weeks after its February release, I called Jones to gain a little insight into the mind forest ranger. It turns out that the creation of such I dynamic character came not only from great writing, but by recording actual conversation over the phone.
“Sean Vanaman (the writer of ‘Firewatch’)said that the game hinges on realistic conversation, so I want to record simultaneously,” Jones said.
According to Jones, this is a very rare way to create voice-overs. Not only were the conversations recorded at the same time, but they were recorded chronologically over the course of two years.
“It was so interesting because Rich Summers who was cast as Henry and I had never met.” Jones said. “So that first, kind of, awkwardness the first night, was real. We got to know each other over the course of two years.”
Jones said this is what made the game so real, because over time, they were able to see what jokes would land or what emotional moments had impact. If they did not seem to work, Jones said they re-wrote them on the fly.
As players approach the ending of the game, Henry and Delilah have one final conversation that leads to them parting ways. For some players, they plead with Delilah to stay. For others, they choose to go back to reality. For Jones, she believes this is how real life would play out.
“I think the message to Henry is ‘go figure your stuff out.’” Jones said. “As much as he has been using Delilah as a crutch and as much as Delilah has been using him as a crutch, he needs to go figure it out.”
Jones said life doesn’t always play out in grandiose ways and that is what makes ‘Firewatch’ so unique.
“I think we are so programmed to witness ‘the Big Mcguffin’ like in super hero movies, or something supernatural or the big happy ending.” Jones said “That’s what I think is so great about what Sean Vanaman wrote. We have all of this build up, but it ends in something so much more realistic.”
Jones compared the relationship to a summer camp experience. One where you meet someone and you swear that you would be friends forever, but over time, the relationship fades but you both still have those great memories.
A story between two people is one I believe we can all relate to. Even if we have never found ourselves in the middle of the Colorado wilderness with nothing but a walkie-talkie and a map, the compelling conversation and colorful writing makes Campo Santo’s ‘Firewatch’ a groundbreaking masterpiece.
