Postal dude MPD theory

[Not Lee Harvey Oswald]

What my theory is is that the postal dude has a multiple personality disorder. But to make sure this case is true, heres the exact definition of MPD (thanks google):

"Dissociative identity disorder, previously called multiple personality disorder, is usually a reaction to trauma as a way to help a person avoid bad memories.
Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personality identities. Each may have a unique name, personal history, and characteristics.
Treatment is talk therapy.

People may experience:

Behavioral: impulsivity, self-destructive behavior, or self-harm
Mood: anxiety, feeling detached from self, or mood swings
Psychological: altered consciousness, depression, or flashback
Also common: amnesia or blackout"

Any of those symptoms sound familiar? Self-harm and self-destructive behaviour fit perfectly with the dude being able to commit suicide at any given moment in the game. Alter consicousness seems to go with the 2 different types of journal entries found within easy, normal, and hard mode. Easy and normal seeming like an insane mass murderer and hard mode seeming like a victim just trying to survive a viral outbreak. Blackouts sound familiar? The endings of redux and POSTAL's campaign ring a bell?

We can assume that the normal mode and the hard mode are two different views of what is going on based off of the normal journal entries and the war journal entries. It seems that normal mode and below is from the destructive personality or the "demon" personality. Aka the dude we all know and love. Than there's what I'm assuming to be the normal everyday personality who's just trying to get by like everyone else. He's moved into a new own and everyone there acts a little off. He starts bringing protection with him hidden in his trench coat. Than one day, he gets randomly evicted from his home and is soon attacked by the police having to force him to go postal. What I think is that hard mode and normal mode are two different realities. The normal and easy mode being the reality where the dude's demon personality takes the wheel knowing how to kill making it seem easier. The hard mode being the reality where the dude is still in control of his actions and not beiing as used to killing as his demon personality is. Making it seem harder. But the demon voice still be heard mocking the people who the dude is mowing down.

That's my inital theory.

[Vile Sentry]

Awesome theory (if not obvious) but what were you getting at with the black outs thing? Just for clarification, I'm pretty sure blackouts refers to lost time, not litterally "blacking out" like a drunk person might. It doesn't mean passing out it just feels like that to you.

A perfect representation of that in film is Fight Club. He says he "wakes up in strange places" but he's not waking up, he wasn't sleeping, that version of him (him) is just reimerging while the other personality was doing something or going somewhere.

I could be misunderstanding what you meant or the condition itself, if so my mistake.

I have the same theory, but I think it's less about the demon "taking the wheel" and more about both of them existing at the same time. Bassically it comes to the idea that we don't justify things then do them, but do them and then justify the actions with thought. He just has two simultanious realities to justify his actions by. One version of himself, the part of himself that isn't completely psychotic and violent, justifies his acts as acts of survival and even heroism and bravery. This version of himself expresses his identity as a victim of the world around him and his way of dealing with the feeling of being weak and powerless.
The other him is more of a machismo dark edgelord fantasy (you know, hatred guy) who just wants to see people suffer. This part of him is expressing the rage and hatred and making the host feel strong.

[Weirder Wonderland]

Here is what the person says at the end of the game:
Population pressure and the stress of modern life may cause an increase in violent tendencies. The urban environment is the incubator for all sorts of undesirable behaviors. However, much his atrocities disgust us, he may actually consider himself a hero. This is common among those who are referred to by the popular slang, 'going postal'. In his tortured mind, he may feel he was battling against impossible odds. It is not unusual for some individuals to believe that the entire fate of the world rest with them. In the end, our subject displays all the classic symptoms of a paranoid delusional. We may never know exactly what set him off but, rest assured, we will have plenty of time to study him.

And I think the demon part is simply an excuse to his acts. It is weird because in the game he once says something like ''Kill all evil''. I feel he's only bringing in superior entities to make his acts seem more grandiose, or justifiable to a point.

On their old website ( http://web.archive.org/web/19980127184357/http://www.gopostal.com/thebook.htm ) information about the Postal novel (something planned but I guess never happened) can be found, such phrases can be found :

-Learn the background of the "Paradise Postal Dude" who seemingly goes insane and indulges in the most extensive killing spree in American history. And what about all those Militia and Waco-related pamphlets the police found in his home? Is he a madman, or a man on a mission? (This could reference either the Waco siege or the Oklahoma City bombing, or both.)
-Learn about the military's possible involvement in the entire "Postal" affair, and the subsequent fate of the Paradise Postal Dude. Much of the game's backstory was buried so as not to slow down the game-playing experience; the book or books, however, go behind the scenes to tell the entire story of the deadliest day in Paradise.

On the description of the game on the old site ( http://web.archive.org/web/19980127184019/http://www.gopostal.com/postal.htm ), we can read things like :
-A mature theme about a character who goes postal when he uncovers a sick and twisted conspiracy that drives him to defend humanity from pure evil….or is it something else…

Side note : Notice how the Compound level in POSTAL 2 highly ressembles the Waco siege events (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege) as they both involve the ATF (and conspiracy), a very similar house structure (main tower, unused swimming pool) and a devoted cult. Check out the thread I made about this in the POSTAL 2 discussions.

[Not Lee Harvey Oswald]

Originally posted by Weirder Wonderland:

Here is what the person says at the end of the game:
Population pressure and the stress of modern life may cause an increase in violent tendencies. The urban environment is the incubator for all sorts of undesirable behaviors. However, much his atrocities disgust us, he may actually consider himself a hero. This is common among those who are referred to by the popular slang, 'going postal'. In his tortured mind, he may feel he was battling against impossible odds. It is not unusual for some individuals to believe that the entire fate of the world rest with them. In the end, our subject displays all the classic symptoms of a paranoid delusional. We may never know exactly what set him off but, rest assured, we will have plenty of time to study him.

And I think the demon part is simply an excuse to his acts. It is weird because in the game he once says something like ''Kill all evil''. I feel he's only bringing in superior entities to make his acts seem more grandiose, or justifiable to a point.

On their old website ( http://web.archive.org/web/19980127184357/http://www.gopostal.com/thebook.htm ) information about the Postal novel (something planned but I guess never happened) can be found, such phrases can be found :

-Learn the background of the "Paradise Postal Dude" who seemingly goes insane and indulges in the most extensive killing spree in American history. And what about all those Militia and Waco-related pamphlets the police found in his home? Is he a madman, or a man on a mission? (This could reference either the Waco siege or the Oklahoma City bombing, or both.)
-Learn about the military's possible involvement in the entire "Postal" affair, and the subsequent fate of the Paradise Postal Dude. Much of the game's backstory was buried so as not to slow down the game-playing experience; the book or books, however, go behind the scenes to tell the entire story of the deadliest day in Paradise.

On the description of the game on the old site ( http://web.archive.org/web/19980127184019/http://www.gopostal.com/postal.htm ), we can read things like :
-A mature theme about a character who goes postal when he uncovers a sick and twisted conspiracy that drives him to defend humanity from pure evil….or is it something else…

Side note : Notice how the Compound level in POSTAL 2 highly ressembles the Waco siege events (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege) as they both involve the ATF (and conspiracy), a very similar house structure (main tower, unused swimming pool) and a devoted cult. Check out the thread I made about this in the POSTAL 2 discussions.

Now only if we had that book...

[Vile Sentry]

haha, I brought up his connection to the Waco cult in 2 being an interesting thing to note, possibly showing that the game is just how he sees reality in his paranoid delusional mind, People didn't think it made sense I guess. Thank you, that's a nice little feather in that theory. Is that how that phrase works?

Postal 2 makes so much more sense with that one line, gives some insight into how he sees the world compared to what the world is. A paranoid delusional is a bit more likely to suspect that the sewer pipe behind his trailer leads to a secret underground terrorist right, that the local HINDU store owner is actually leading an islamic terrorist sleeper cell base. That the ATF are gleefully napalming the waco cult (yeah kind of true but that's another story) or that the government is spraying mind altering chemicals over paradise.

Yeah, the zombies and monsters of the other games make perfect sense as him trully breaking completely from reality, possibly his dying or coma dream after shooting himself.

[Not Lee Harvey Oswald]

Originally posted by DriscolDevil:

haha, I brought up his connection to the Waco cult in 2 being an interesting thing to note, possibly showing that the game is just how he sees reality in his paranoid delusional mind, People didn't think it made sense I guess. Thank you, that's a nice little feather in that theory. Is that how that phrase works?

Postal 2 makes so much more sense with that one line, gives some insight into how he sees the world compared to what the world is. A paranoid delusional is a bit more likely to suspect that the sewer pipe behind his trailer leads to a secret underground terrorist right, that the local HINDU store owner is actually leading an islamic terrorist sleeper cell base. That the ATF are gleefully napalming the waco cult (yeah kind of true but that's another story) or that the government is spraying mind altering chemicals over paradise.

Yeah, the zombies and monsters of the other games make perfect sense as him trully breaking completely from reality, possibly his dying or coma dream after shooting himself.

I always thought of it that way. That's how HE sees things.

[Vile Sentry]

Originally posted by ColaCoon:

Originally posted by DriscolDevil:

haha, I brought up his connection to the Waco cult in 2 being an interesting thing to note, possibly showing that the game is just how he sees reality in his paranoid delusional mind, People didn't think it made sense I guess. Thank you, that's a nice little feather in that theory. Is that how that phrase works?

Postal 2 makes so much more sense with that one line, gives some insight into how he sees the world compared to what the world is. A paranoid delusional is a bit more likely to suspect that the sewer pipe behind his trailer leads to a secret underground terrorist right, that the local HINDU store owner is actually leading an islamic terrorist sleeper cell base. That the ATF are gleefully napalming the waco cult (yeah kind of true but that's another story) or that the government is spraying mind altering chemicals over paradise.

Yeah, the zombies and monsters of the other games make perfect sense as him trully breaking completely from reality, possibly his dying or coma dream after shooting himself.

I always thought of it that way. That's how HE sees things.

Exactly! I love that idea. It explains all of the silliness because in real life, people constantly mock the "Crazy people" and their crazy beliefs becuase to them it is so silly.
It's not silly to postal dude though, it's his life. Terrorists are everywhere, offended protestors are violent psychopaths, your boss is only firing me to laugh in my face and I did absolutely nothing to warrent it, the butcher shop is using human meat, the rednecks are secretly kidnapping and raping people, and everyone is laughing at my penis size.

Literally everything about the game kind of reads perfectly in that sense.

[Weirder Wonderland]

Could the Air Force Base level be reference to the shooting at the Fairchild Air Force Base Hospital, occured on June 20th 1994?
http://fairchildhospitalshooting.com/incidents

''On 20 June 1994, a man opened fire in a hospital on Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington.''
''The gunman was a former airman who had mental health issues when he joined the Air Force in 1992. ''
''He armed himself with a rifle and took revenge on a hospital full of men, women and children. '' ...

Read more, it could be very interesting!

[Not Lee Harvey Oswald]

Originally posted by Weirder Wonderland:

Could the Air Force Base level be reference to the shooting at the Fairchild Air Force Base Hospital, occured on June 20th 1994?
http://fairchildhospitalshooting.com/incidents

''On 20 June 1994, a man opened fire in a hospital on Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington.''
''The gunman was a former airman who had mental health issues when he joined the Air Force in 1992. ''
''He armed himself with a rifle and took revenge on a hospital full of men, women and children. '' ...

Read more, it could be very interesting!

It's very possible.

[Tiffany A.]

Personally I think of the backstory of the Dude in POSTAL is like this: He watches a great deal of violent films and plays a load of violent games. He becomes so enthralled by them, that he decides to be the star of one himself. And so within his mind, he creates a game called POSTAL, in which he's the hero, fighting crazed gunmen and a horrible conspiracy. He enjoys it so much he plays it again, and again, living out violent fantasies in his mind. But of course, these fantasies can prove fatal to those who live in them, those who no longer connect with reality. And so one day he grabs an smg, goes outside to play his story out in the real world Unbeknownst to him, in the real world, stories don't always end happily...


Obviously this isn't at all what's happening in POSTAL, but I like my little headcanon, y'know?

[Not Lee Harvey Oswald]

Originally posted by Oddheads:

Personally I think of the backstory of the Dude in POSTAL is like this: He watches a great deal of violent films and plays a load of violent games. He becomes so enthralled by them, that he decides to be the star of one himself. And so within his mind, he creates a game called POSTAL, in which he's the hero, fighting crazed gunmen and a horrible conspiracy. He enjoys it so much he plays it again, and again, living out violent fantasies in his mind. But of course, these fantasies can prove fatal to those who live in them, those who no longer connect with reality. And so one day he grabs an smg, goes outside to play his story out in the real world Unbeknownst to him, in the real world, stories don't always end happily...


Obviously this isn't at all what's happening in POSTAL, but I like my little headcanon, y'know?

It's pretty good.

[Weirder Wonderland]

On the new items for Redux, the card 'This is the Police!' states : ''On this day, the demons have brought us together, so that each may help the other strike out against The Man.''
According to the Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia, The Man is a reference to an authority, often the military head or the government.
Let's not forget that in the 1990's, government conspiracies ideas were very strong in the media. Per example, Half-Life (the first one) depicts such conspiracy idea (the G-man, secret laboratory, special forces are sent to kill the security and scientists of the laboratory so no words can be spread about the Black Mesa incident, so on).

It can be very possible, along with what I said earlier (...And what about all those Militia and Waco-related pamphlets the police found in his home?...) and the events (Think about it: why would the Postal dude aim for the Air Force Base?), that the Postal dude...

is going mad due to the governement conspiracies he discovers.

[Not Lee Harvey Oswald]

Originally posted by Weirder Wonderland:

On the new items for Redux, the card 'This is the Police!' states : ''On this day, the demons have brought us together, so that each may help the other strike out against The Man.''
According to the Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia, The Man is a reference to an authority, often the military head or the government.
Let's not forget that in the 1990's, government conspiracies ideas were very strong in the media. Per example, Half-Life (the first one) depicts such conspiracy idea (the G-man, secret laboratory, special forces are sent to kill the security and scientists of the laboratory so no words can be spread about the Black Mesa incident, so on).

It can be very possible, along with what I said earlier (...And what about all those Militia and Waco-related pamphlets the police found in his home?...) and the events (Think about it: why would the Postal dude aim for the Air Force Base?), that the Postal dude...

is going mad due to the governement conspiracies he discovers.

Maybe.

[Bohandas]

I thought that multiple personalities were already clearly established in Paradise Lost.

What this game establishes is that the Postal 1 Dude and the Postal 2 Dude are indeed the same guy (I had previously bought into the theory that the Postal 1 Dude was "P. Dude Sr." who is buried in the cemetary in Postal 2)

[Mr Deanster]

In the original game you saw demons, have not seen any yet, but only done the first 3 levels.

[Not Lee Harvey Oswald]

Originally posted by #R-T-La-Re:

In the original game you saw demons, have not seen any yet, but only done the first 3 levels.

What, like the CD copy of the game?