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 — a nobody 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, a professor at a prestigious university 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. Henry, riddled with guilt and a sense of failure, escapes to Wyoming to start a job as a fire watch post for the summer.
As we assumed control over Henry, we were quickly introduced to Delilah — Henry’s supervisor voiced by Cissy Jones. Throughout the course of the game we never see Delilah, but through a walkie-talkie, her voice is one we quickly grew fond of. With sassy humor and a bit of flirtatiousness, we spent days and nights talking with our supervisor.
Just as most relationships progress, Henry reluctantly explains his difficult marriage to Delilah. He tells of his wife, who he basically ran away from. In turn, Delilah shares her story of getting cold feet in a long term relationship of hers — and running away as well.
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 was then that we discovered the message of the game.
After our adventure came to a close, I reached out to Cissy Jones, the voice of our friend Delilah. A few weeks after its February release, I called Jones to gain a little insight into the mind of the mystery supervisor. 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 he wanted 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 landed 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 s*** 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 Wyoming wilderness with nothing but a walkie-talkie and a map, the compelling conversation and colorful writing makes Delilah a complex, realistic and groundbreaking masterpiece.
