Web Video / Courier's Mind: Rise of New Vegas

Courier's Mind: Rise of New Vegas is a machinima series by 101Phase on YouTube, in the vein of Freeman's Mind and its imitators, transforming the source material's Heroic Mime into a Suddenly Voiced source of comedy.

The former mime of this series is a humble mail courier who finds himself nearly murdered and his mysterious package stolen by a man in a checkered suit in the Post-Apocalyptic Mojave Desert. He awakens in a doctor's shack with no memory of his name—but full memory of his own job—and a thirst for vengeance. Said thirst is tempered by lots of whining, itchy trigger fingers, and lots of bullets, shrapnel, and broken limbs coming his way, and no caps to show for it.

By virtue of being based on an expansive Wide-Open Sandbox game, it has lasted fourteen seasons as of this latest writing.

Compare to tropes present on the original game's main page, character page, and YMMV.

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Tropes present

• The Ace: Though he struggles at first, The Courier manages to succeed at everything from hunting enemy spies to doing rocket science to handling price negations for spices to just being a badass. At one point, he even boasts that his talent is getting shit done. Subverted into Broken Ace later.
• All for Nothing:
  • The Courier's attempts to get a disguise for his infiltration of the Powder Gangers' base turn out to be this, as they all see right through it and are willing to work with him anyway.
  • During the clearing out the Nightkin part of the "Come Fly With Me" quest, The Courier goes out of his way to resolve things with the Davidson and the Nightkin diplomatically... only to end up killing them all along the way and as a result, Davidson at the end, anyway.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: The Courier occasionally has these in-universe. Like assuming Doc Mitchell is running a mercenary recruitment program on the side, after seeing the options on the medical history papers.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • invoked The Courier is all too used to mutated giant insects, and is amused but not convinced of the myth that they used to be so small, you could kill them without weapons.
  • invoked He has to scratch his head at some of the "gibberish" in Phillipe's Meat Pie recipe, blissfully unaware that the words are French. While he considers the possibility that they might be from another language, he thinks it's more likely that Phillipe wrote the recipe down while drunk.
• Anti-Climax: Despite being worried he was going on a Suicide Mission before the attack on Nelson, the Courier expresses disappointment at how easy taking back the town was.
  The Courier: Come on, five guys and a robot is all it takes to defeat one of your outposts? You guys are useless! (In slow motion while shooting a Legionary) You disappoint me, son!
• Arc Villain: The Powder Gangers are the focus of Season Two, save for the last two episodes.
• Atomic F-Bomb: The Courier drops one when he realizes he can't remember his own name.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Courier's final judgement of energy weapons. ^note They're portrayed as more unreliable than they are in the actual game.
  • The anti-materiel rifle, while still a very powerful long-range weapon, has such an intense recoil it hurts the Courier when firing it.
  The Courier: Okay, believe it or not, this is going to hurt me as much as it's going to hurt you!
• Ax-Crazy:
  • The Courier casually talks about murder and torture, dismembers dead Legionaries, and considers killing the captured Powder Gangers just for fun.
  • The series also plays Boone up as this - he extorts the Courier into finding Legionaries to kill and threatening to kill The Courier for badmouthing the NCR. ^note The Courier also mentions Boone wanting to get high on Legion blood and fears that he will kill anyone who speaks out against the NCR.
• Badass Boast: As whiny as he can be, the Courier typically manages one Once an Episode and manages to make them sound genuinely threatening.
  The Courier: Do you know who I am?! I am the Courier, and I am here to deliver your DEATH! If you have any complaints about this delivery, please, do feel free to keep them to yourselves!
• Badass Crew/Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Courier slowly assembles one. So far, he's recruited a mysterious robot with a built-in laser gun^note ED-E, an elite and stoic NCR sniper with a tragic past^note Boone, a Brotherhood of Steel operative who likes punching and dresses^note Veronica, a cyborg dog^note Rex, a whiskey loving cowgirl^note Cass, a mysterious ex-Enclave doctor who's also a crack shot with a plasma pistol^note Arcade Gannon, and a grandmother who happens to be a hulking blue pile of muscle ^note Lily.
• Badass Decay: In-universe; The Courier lampshades that enemies that were a menace to him in the past are barely even a nuisance now.
• Bad "Bad Acting": In Season 1, Episode 8, The Courier finds a dead Powder Ganger and pretends he's dying, loudly talking about trying to save his life in order to hide the fact that he's trying to steal the dead Ganger's outfit so he can infiltrate the prison. While the Gangers present give no indication one way or another that they're falling for it, it proves fruitless because the NCRCF doorman sees right through it, despite not being present for the Courier's corpse-looting.
• Bag of Holding: Averted; The Courier carries a duffel bag on his back. During the REPCONN exploration, he lampshades the fact that he left it at his hotel room and thus can't carry as much loot.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: The Courier pretends to be an NCR contractor in order to get into HELIOS One. Unlike infiltrating the NCR Correctional Facility, his impersonation goes off without a hitch.
• Berserk Button: The Courier very quickly gets tired of the slogan-shouting advertisers outside Silver Rush and the Atomic Wrangler, and threatens to shoot them repeatedly. (He also gets pissed at the kid working for Mick & Ralph's, but even the Courier won't shoot kids.)
  • Also, killing innocents, being an Ungrateful Bastard, and failing to specify the details of missions (locations, pay, actual task) have all been shown as ways to make him angry.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The Courier says this is the reason one should be wary of "The Followers of the Apocalypse". Though this may seem like baseless paranoia at first, considering Caesar was originally a member, he may just be Properly Paranoid.
  The Courier: I bet whoever spilled his soup that day must be feeling pretty stupid about now.
• Big "WHAT?!": All of The Courier's companions do this, after he announces he's going to a meeting with Caesar.
• Bilingual Dialogue: The Courier can hold a conversation with ED-E's various beeps and boops and understand them perfectly.
• Blood Knight: The Courier makes no pretenses of being against killing if it'll get him ahead, and has no remorse for any of his victims. On the other hand, he's not into indiscriminate killing - Powder Gangers, Legionaries, Fiends and anyone who attacks him first are fair game, but he's not attacking innocents for their caps.
• Both Sides Have a Point: While The Courier and Arcade are trying to resolve the issues with the water in Westside argue over the ethics of what to do after learning the locals are tapping into the NCR's water pipeline for their own needs. The latter points out that that the locals are taking a resource that they need, that the NCR has enough of to survive, but are still trying to control more of for their own ends, even if it conflicts with the needs of the locals. The Couriers counters that the people of Westside choose to stay in an area that doesn't have enough water for them all and boast about being independent, while having to syphon off NCR recourses to survive, instead of sucking in the their pride and submitting to someone else's rule in exchange for accesses to recourses they lack and need to survive. As well as the fact that they are syphoning enough water to grow crops bountiful enough to sell a good amount of it. Which implies they are stealing more water than just what they need to survive. And it was the NCR that built the pipeline to begin with. Ultimately, The Courier compromises by not shutting down their operation entirely, but forcing them to agree to syphoning no more water than they need.
• Brain Bleach: The Courier has really needed some at times.
  • After being told by another Little Buster that he can probably piss off Cook-Cook and make him more reckless if he shoots the guy's prized Brahmin:
  The Courier: A rapist with a pet Brahmin. I'm just gonna end that train of thought right there.
  • After realizing James Garret wanted the sex bot for himself, The Courier is rather... disturbed.
  The Courier: I hope he at least uses some lubricant.
  • Later, The Courier is told the AI belonging to the "female" Securitron in Mr. House's penthouse is modeled after Mr. House's favorite girl, and that they do stuff, reminding him of James Garret's request.
  The Courier: Okay, all right, exit this conversation right now! I only managed to forget that whole fiasco by drinking Cass's special whiskey! I don't wanna go through that again.
  • He also needs some after going through the Legion's files.
• Broken Ace: The Courier by Season 14 after the events of Season 13 effectively break him, he leaves the Mojave with the belief that he's too arrogant and egotistical for others to be safe around him and that for the good of his friends he's better off not being around them. The events in Zion see him refusing to get involved in the struggles between the tribes there at least initially out of the belief that he would only make things worse.
• Broken Pedestal: Downplayed with The Courier's view on Mr. House. While the former always had his doubts and reservations about House, he did gradually start to develop some genuine respect for the man the more he learned and began to see him a good potential governor for the region if he could be made to work with the NCR. But this viewpoint was shattered when The Courier learned just how strong House's desire to have The Brotherhood of Steel wiped out. Stubbornly refusing The Courier's attempts to sway him into working with The Brotherhood. Even when he went through the trouble of not only building a good a relationship with them personally, but even stacked the deck so House would have the advantage at the negotiating table. Cumulating in Mr. House making it clear that despite what The Courier may have thought, he only sees him as an "employee" to follow his orders. This ultimately results in The Courier turning on House and killing him.
• Butt-Monkey: Gunshots, broken limbs, laser burns and Cazador stings all hinder the Courier in his travels... and he has to deal with these in the first two days of his journey.
• Call-Back:
  • The Courier only remembers how much nettle plants sting in Season One after trying to collect some. Fast-forward to Season Five, while he's following First Recon, he makes sure to swing around a small patch of them.
  • After Doc Mitchell has him do some tests on the "arcade machine", The Courier asks if this is the standard. Later, in the New Vegas Clinic, he finds out that it is.
• Chekhov's Gag: Sunglasses. The Courier usually mocks people for using them when they shouldn't. At one point, after being blinded by the sun, he regrets not wearing them.
• Character Development: The Courier has a noticeable character arc throughout the seasons, becoming increasingly respectful of his companions, invested in the well-being of the Mojave Wasteland, and disillusioned with the leaders of the various factions fighting over New Vegas.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: As much as it aggravates him, the Courier just can't go through one area without having to solve everyone's problems.
  • The Courier actually starts discussing this to himself in season 10. Pointing out that despite constantly complaining about the matter pay and how he regularly gets shafted in that area, he now has plenty of caps to his name and better ways to make a steady income than running around doing (often dangerous) odd jobs for people. He even half jokingly wonders if his personal addiction is playing hero.
• The Comically Serious: Most Non Player Characters come across as this now, given just how casually they respond to the Courier's unique manner of speaking. This is most notable when The Courier acquires The Mark of Caesar, as the Legionnairs and especially Caesar don't seem even slightly offended by The Courier's insults and caustic reminders of how much he's set them back.
• Contrived Coincidence: The Courier notices that both sides of the NO VACANCY sign in Novac are damaged in such a way that they spell "NO VAC," and assumes one side was deliberately damaged for the sake of publicity.
• Conversation Cut: How 101Phase handles fast travel. The Courier begins monologing about a particular subject, then after a black screen, we hear the end of the monologue at the destination.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Most of the people who make the mistake of trying to kill the Courier and his friends quickly end up on the receiving end of one.
• The Cynic: During the psych test in Season 1 Episode 2, The Courier makes this comment when asked about how he feels about the statement "I ain't given to relying on others for support":
  The Courier: "As far as I'm concerned there are more assholes out there than saints. And even if you know some good people, they still wouldn't appreciate doing everything for you. Hell, if they do then they're the ones you should beware of. Next thing you know you're lying on the road with empty pockets and a bullet hole in your chest. And then you wish you asked someone else for directions. Agree."
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: The Courier makes many over the top threats, many of which involve cutting off someone's balls.
• Deadpan Snarker: Being a 'Mind' series, expect a lot of this. The NCR is a common target (see Giving Up on Logic below).
  The Courier (to NCR soldiers): Knowing you guys, it's probably two Fiends and a landmine in the middle.
• Deconstruction:
  • Of course, it's a Mind series. The entire show basically gives a middle finger to many of the game's mechanics. For example:
    • Performing medical operations on broken limbs while in the middle of the wasteland is very painful.
    • Doors made of 200 hundred year-old wood aren't bulletproof just because they're locked.
    • You can't collect meat and hides off animals without a knife, let alone carry all that meat around with you in your pocket without the blood getting on your clothes.
    • The Courier needs a duffle bag to carry all the loot he collects throughout his adventures. And even then, there's a limit to how much he can stuff into it.
    • Energy weapons that have been around for 200 years are leaky and risk running out of charge in the middle of a fight. Additionally, it's difficult to gauge how many shots they have left even if they're fully functional.
    • The Courier mentions you have to set an injured limb with a medical brace, before treating it with a stimpack, or else it won't heal properly and you could end up with crooked limbs. Later while saving a wounded Ranger from Vault 3, The Courier also has to remind him that the stimpack he gave him may have healed his wound, it can't instantly reverse the effects of prolonged blood loss and possible infection.
    • The Courier never considers attempting to loot a body that's been completely incinerated or liquefied by laser or plasma weaponry, nor does he try to search ghouls and most Nightkin, who have little to no clothes to hide loot in.
  • More broadly, the series can be read as a deconstruction of the RPG protagonist and the worlds they inhabit as a whole: being seemingly the only person in the entire Mojave that can get anything done and often the only one that seems to even try to take any form of initiative leads to The Courier questioning the competence, intelligence, and/or work ethic of nearly everyone he meets in his adventures, needing to hold the hands of most people to solve even the simplest of issues as well as his own inability to say no to helping someone sort out their issues is a constant source of frustration for him, and also allows his ego and arrogance to quickly grow to increasingly insufferable degrees. And on top of that, being suddenly placed into a position that he, formally just a simple courier and freelance mercenary, can drastically alter the fate of the entire region begins to way heavily on his mind and by season 13, finally breaks him.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • While skinning and gutting the geckos he and Sunny Smiles killed earlier that day, he didn't stop to think about how he was going to carry all those hides and chunks of meat without a bag or how suspicious he would look returning to Sunny covered in blood and with several items he had looted between leaving her and returning on him, until it's too late.
  • While battling Lakelurks on a scavenger platform, The Courier briefly tries to invade them by jumping into Lake Mead, only to immediately realize he's screwed if he tries to fight them in the water, and goes back to the platform.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Courier's justification for robbing The Gun Runners and selling their secrets to their competitors is that one of the sales reps was a dick.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Despite being set up to be the Big Bad of the series, Caesar is slain at the end of Season 8, the same season in which he's introduced. Word of God says this event is only the series' halfway point.
• Dramatic Irony: Karl, The Legion ambassador to the Great Khans, warns The Courier that he's "dangerously close to becoming an enemy of Caesar." The Courier, having just killed Caesar two episodes prior, smugly tells him to call Fortification Hill to get an update on Caesar's opinions of him.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: He keeps doing things that should improve his reputation with the NCR, but keeps running into NCR troopers who rarely recognize him or shower him with the praise he feels he deserves.
  • Inverted when The Courier arrives at Red Rock Canyon. After being confused by the lack of hostility when entering The Great Khans' base camp, The Courier finds himself blindsided when one of the guards thanks him for "all the help he's given The Khans" previously and even points him to a place where he can buy special weapons. The Courier at first grumbles about their ridiculous indifference to a stranger entering their camp, and has no idea what she's talking about regarding helping them previously. After a few minutes, he does remember negotiating safe passage for the Khans out of Boulder City and is shocked they remember it, pointing out how it took much more work to get recognition from the NCR.
  • Whenever he overhears Mr. New Vegas reporting on his exploits, The Courier will complain about how they didn't mention him by name.
  • This is also played with, whenever an NPC thanks him, but fails to recognize the contributions of all of The Courier's companions, he will call them out on it.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first season episodes have the HUD and dialogue options in full display. Subsequent seasons omit them entirely.
  • Also, The Courier is much more polite and subdued for much of the first season, and doesn't really acquire his ego or Hair-Trigger Temper until Season Two.
• Economy Cast: Zig-Zagged. The creator used a mod that allowed The Courier to travel with multiple followers at the same time, and even repurposed their dialogue to make it sound like they were talking to each other at times. Starting Season 10, however, The Courier scales back the number of companions he has traveling with him at any one time, allowing for more focused character interaction.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Despite his love of explosions, mayhem, and death, the Courier still thinks the Boomers are out of their minds and understandably believes getting them their bomber will either end with them failing miserably or result in disaster for everyone if they succeed.
  • Despite being a trigger-happy killer with a burning hatred for the Legion, Boone refuses to take part in mutilating their corpses with the Courier.
  • During the twin raids on Cottonwood Cove and Fortification Hill in the Season 8 finale, Arcade expresses horrified disbelief at The Courier's fondness for mutilating Legion corpses. Granted, everyone else has called him out on it at some point or another, but he's the only one to raise his voice on the subject.
• Evil Laugh: The Courier does one while reminding Benny that he's now completely at his mercy in Caesar's tent.
• Evil Weapon: The Courier is convinced that the Mysterious Magnum is possessed by demons due to the jingle that plays every time he equips or holsters it. He even makes semi-serious comments about feeding the demons with human deaths.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The first three and a half seasons of the show somehow fit into the span of a single day.
• Fantastic Drug: The Courier is convinced that Simon (the guard outside the Silver Rush) snorts plasma regularly, and that this habit has given him telepathy (he can somehow determine that a guy on the other end of the street is coming to shop) and x-ray vision (because he can somehow check a man for weapons without touching him). The Courier, naturally, wants in on these psychic powers. He's also disturbed because Simon gave him a standard check with lots of bad touch instead.
  • After finding a cave where radiation suits and Rad related medicine are, The Courier's list of loot includes Rad-X, Rad-Away, and Rad-Viagra.
• Fantastic Racism: Played with. ED-E accuses the Courier of being racist for underestimating a robot's intelligence, only for the Courier to turn the tables on his friend after the former brushes off Slim Primm as just a Protectron model.
• Giving Up on Logic: The Courier witnessing the inefficient NCR tactics/M.O. when handling various situations.
• Hypocrite:
  • The Courier is audibly disturbed when he learns he has to bring back the heads of the major Fiends to collect his bounties, despite, on his own initiative, hacking limbs off of dead Legionnaires and dragging their bodies into fires to Make an Example of Them. Granted, he didn't bring the limbs halfway across the wasteland to present to someone, but still. This seems to be a recurring thing for him, as he is also critical of Joshua Graham leaving heads on spikes to scare he and the Dead Horses' enemies. Despite all the things he's done to make an example of people.
  • ED-E complains when The Courier makes an insulting remark about robots (specifically, that they might as well replace the NCR troopers at the Outpost with robots since they could hardly get more useless) and calls him a racist. When The Courier points out that he didn't exactly get the best impression from Primm Slim, ED-E (apparently) replies that "he's just a Protectron model". The Courier does call him out on this.
  • The Courier is also skeptical of the mechanized revolver, That Gun, which he feels is just ridiculous and impractical design... while adopting it as his primary side arm from then, until he gets his hands on Maria.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: The Courier uses this trope on Ringo when he threatens him with a gun. He immediately concedes that it's just as likely Ringo would be able to shoot him first, but points out that ED-E "would happily melt his face off" if it came to that.
• Ignored Vital News Reports: Or rather, ignored Foreshadowing rumor. In Season 8, Episode 4, a Legionary remarks that the slaves have been talking about The Burned Man again. The Courier assumes he's talking about one of the many dead Legionaries he threw into fires and remarks "In that case, they're going to have to be more specific."
• Insistent Terminology: The Courier tends to refer to Nightkin as "Chupacabras" after a remark No-Bark Noonan made before his first encounter with one. He keeps calling them that even after Davison refers to their kind as Nightkin, presumably out of habit, though he mostly shakes the habit after a stay in Jacobstown.
• Insult to Rocks: The Courier's attempt at standup comedy involves a joke based on this.
  The Courier: So God was sitting on his throne one day when Satan suddenly appears, throws a couple of Legionaries at him and says "Here, you take them. They were starting to make me look bad in front of my minions!"
• Irony: The Courier muses that despite probably being the biggest blessing the NCR has had in awhile, he's also their biggest critic.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The Courier is a cynical borderline misanthrope who gets easily annoyed with everyone he talks to, even those who aren't Obviously Evil. However, he nearly always chooses the most morally upright solution to any problem that comes his way. In particular, he's genuinely concerned for the welfare of Goodsprings, fearing Cobb will massacre them in retaliation for the NCR's assault on the prison. The few times he considers being a straight Jerkass are quickly rebuked by ED-E. The Courier mocks him for his idealism, but often indulges the little guy's moral compass. He goes into severe Sarcasm Failure when he reads the Bill of Sale that ended with Boone's wife sold into slavery.
• Knight in Sour Armour: The Courier isn't exactly enthusiastic about doing the right thing and is frustrated that he always has to play the hero, but he does it all the same.
  • For most part of Fly With Me, he's been complaining almost constantly about the hard work, the dangers, the way Jason Bright's not on the up-and-up with things, and the fact that it's becoming increasingly clear that he's not going to be paid a single cap for it all. Then finally comes the launch, and seeing them fly off triumphantly (set to Ride of the Valkyries, too), he admits it was all worth it.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After witnessing The Nipton Massacre, The Courier makes a point to desecrate the bodies of dead Legionnaires by throwing them into fires or hacking off their limbs.
• Left the Background Music On: Subverted. The Courier assumes the guitar twangs being played every time he draws and holsters the Mysterious Magnum is done by ED-E trying to be funny. When he finds out it's not - and that ED-E doesn't even hear it - he worries the gun might actually be possessed.
• Manipulative Bastard: The Courier accuses Boone of this after the latter tricks him into ending up on the front-lines and later, when they conveniently end up in an NCR medical tent after their first run in with the Fiends.
• Married to the Job: The Courier suspects this is the case when he can remember his job title just fine, but not his own name.
  Courier: Talk about being dedicated to your job! Employee of the fucking month, here I come!
• Mirror Character: The Survivalist is shaping up to be this for The Courier during the "Honest Hearts" arc. As he, like The Courier, The Survivalist was a badass, who tried to run away and hide from his problems, thought he had failed those he cared about and was too wrapped up in his failings to see the good he did do for those around him.
• Morality Pet: ED-E is usually the one to talk the Courier out of doing morally questionable things, or convince him to go out of his way to do the right thing. The Courier typically talks down to him for it, but does it anyway.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The Courier has offhandedly mentioned New Reno and Vault City, two locations from previous games.
  • While talking to himself about the concept of karma, The Courier asks if you can balance out the negative karma murdering someone with [[giving a beggar enough bottles purified water, as an example of how ridiculous the idea apply a value to your moral choices is.
  • The Courier snarks about The Bright Followers worshipping an atom bomb during the ending line of S3 E8, apparently not knowing about The Children of Atom on the east coast, who do just that, among other things.
  • During the Word Association Test The Courier gives to ED-E mentioned below, ED-E responds to "Brotherhood" with (apparently) "Pentagon", a reference to The East Coast Brotherhood of Steel's base in the former Pentagon in Fallout 3. Though The Courier doesn't get the connection.
  • While complaining about the food at Samuel's restaurant at the 188 and it being the only place a around, The Courier say he could be selling "iguana" on a stick as made out of human flesh for all they knew and get away with it. A reference to Iguana Bob from the original game.
  • After finding a copy of The Wasteland Survival Guide, he remarks that the co-writer chose the most cliche pen name.
  • In Season 8, Episode 3, The Courier notes "Whoever's in charge of this mortal realm is displeased with humanity's recovery after 200 years of getting shat on." In context, it's a followup to a Rage Against the Heavens commentary he made, but it may be a Take That! at Chris Avellone's disdain with the in-story progress humanity is making in the Fallout series.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Many of the Courier's lines in the trailers are taken out of context.
• The Nicknamer: The Couriers has given a few nicknames throughout the series. Including referring to Nightkin (and super mutants to a lesser extent) as Chupacabras after hearing No-Bark refer to one as such, dubbing the horrors of Vault 22 as "the green coalition", and calling Mr. House "Bobby".
• No Name Given: The Courier can't remember his own name when he wakes up in Doc Mitchell's house...but remembers his job title just fine.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The Season 13 finale: The Courier turns on Mr. House and kills him after realizing that he's no better than the NCR, just a power-hungry megalomaniac that refuses to listen to anyone else's suggestions and didn't realize that the Courier might take umbrage with being told to kill the only thing a close friend of his has to a family. He subsequently leaves the Mojave for Utah leaving the rest of the crew behind with a pre-recorded message explaining why he did it and why's he leaving. The death of House is also this for New Vegas and the Mojave wasteland as a whole as it leaves the city wide open to be annexed by the NCR provided they manage to defeat the Legion.
• Not So Above It All: As the Courier points out, ED-E doesn't complain about looting when he's gathering spare parts for the latter.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • After hearing how proud the residents of North Vegas and West Side are of their communities and their independence, and how much they resent the NCR's attempts at taking over, The Courier remarks that ironically, the NCR probably started out as just another proud and independent little community trying to survive in the wasteland.
  • More dramatically, after finally going after Mr. House, The Courier notes that they're both arrogant men, who foolishly thought they by themselves could shape the future of the entire Mojave.
• Not Worth Killing: Or rather, Not Worth Killing yet. The Courier is flabbergasted and utterly disappointed when Benny gets over his initial shock at seeing The Courier still alive when the latter confronts him at The Tops, especially when Benny seems to sincerely offer him a chance to rule New Vegas as his right-hand man and especially since The Courier recognizes it as a vain attempt to get him to let his guard down so Benny's goons can kill him. For that reason, The Courier allows Benny to escape and, after dealing with his hit squad, lets him know they failed, because The Courier won't be satisfied until he breaks Benny first.
• Now What?: After finally catching up to and killing Benny in gladiatorial combat, The Courier has a subdued version of this trope, and realizes that now the central goal of his quest is gone and he's now left to figure out which side to pick. Than again, he's also disappointed that he couldn't draw out Benny's suffering.
• Oh, Crap!: The Courier has this reaction after cleaning up Correctional Facility, when he realizes Joe Cob, the man threatening Goodsprings, the whole reason he started this question to begin with, isn't among the dead and he knew The Courier came from Goodsprings.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: For the most part the Courier's first impression of Colonel Mooreis about as positive as you would expect. But he does give her credit for at least not trying to sugar coat what she's asking of him.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Averted. The Courier tries to disguise himself as a Powder Ganger with actual Powder Ganger gear. It doesn't last long.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Whenever the Courier sleeps, he will dream about his (somewhat dark) past.
• Perpetual Poverty: The Courier has a nasty tendency to stumble into jobs that might improve his reputation... but rarely fill his wallet. One of the few people to pay him, Ranger Milo, technically screws him out of his payment by sticking his caps into ED-E, where they'll be stuck until the Courier reaches a workbench.
  • Seemingly subverted by Season Seven, after finally earning a decent amount of money and looting the late Van Graffs' energy weapons store, The Courier's gang have more than enough money to walk into the strip, and with Mr. House providing a luxury suite for them to use as their base, money no longer seems like an issue.
• Percussive Maintenance: The Courier and Boone resort to using this ED-E when he acts up at Gibson Scrap Yard. The Courier later employs this to get the maintenance robot at Helios 1 working.
• Rage Against the Heavens: A good chunk of The Courier's complaints and Badass Boasts tend to single out God for the many, many unlikely but frustrating obstacles thrown his way throughout the series. Played for Drama in Season 14 after learning that a survivor of the nuclear appocalypse went through one hell of a Trauma Congaline that includes several hope spots culminating in him losing both his new wife and child in childbirth, causing the Courier to go on an angry rant that either there is no God or that God is a sadist that toys with people by giving them false hope of a better future.
• Self-Surgery: The Courier is often forced to pull out bullets and mend his own open wounds, while out in the desert, especially in season one, when he didn't have any companions and was mostly left to his own devices.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Unlike energy weapons, the Courier still walks out with a high opinion of the assault rifle and to a lesser extent, the grenade launcher.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Try counting how many times the Courier drops an f-bomb in any given single video.
• Shout-Out:
  • While running up a Gecko filled ridge to save Barton Thorn's "girlfriend" (really he's just using The Courier to get to a stash of loot), The Courier thinks about what if he got there and it said your girlfriend is on another ridge.
  • During his meeting with Swank after arriving at The Tops, The Courier explains the situation with Benny via a rhyme, styled after The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song.
  • After being forced to hand most of his weapons over to The Legion for his stay in Fort Hill a second time, The Courier remarks how he doesn't trust them, calling them Crimson Fuckers.
  • For that matter, when Caesar subtly insults The Courier's intelligence while trying to explain Hegelian Dialectics to him, The Courier rebukes him by telling him he does, in fact, read books, and jokes that defining a "Resonance Cascade" would blow his mind.
  • While interrogating Silus, The Courier makes a crack about a a poster on the wall of his cell with a hole behind it.
  • After finally killing Benny, the next episode opens with The Courier asking himself what he's going to do today in the same manner Pinky would ask The Brain that and responding to himself how that latter would normally, except replacing "take over the world" with kill Benny… before wondering Now What?, since he just did that.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • While Benny's trying to explain his "motives" for trying to take control of New Vegas (mostly just trying to be as suave as possible), the Courier calls him out on just being another greedy, self-serving, Manipulative Bastard wannabe trying to make a power grab and tells him he'd respect him more if he admitted that his real motive was just plain Greed.
  • He also repeatedly calls bullcrap on the Legion's philosophy and Caesar's motives.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: The Courier's companions are all Straight Men to some degree or another, but Boone is easily the Straight Man to his Wise Guy. Nowhere is there a bigger contrast in personalities than between cold, taciturn, No-Nonsense veteran and a loud, obnoxious, and cheerfully bloodthirsty mailman.
• Tempting Fate: While he, Boone, and ED-E are attacking a Legion camp at the beginning of season four, The Courier says it's a good thing they're just armed with machetes, right before they start firing bullets his way.
• Thanatos Gambit: The Courier briefly theorizes that the Legion infiltrator at Camp McCarran is Esteban, the dead ranger whose mutilated body he retrieved from a Fiend ambush earlier, who arranged his own (possibly fake, possibly real) death in order to be "the last person you'd suspect".
• Uncanny Valley: Discussed and Lampshaded in regards to Victor, early on. While talking to Trudy, the bartender and de facto leader of Goodsprings, the Courier questions why she would find Victor creepy. Especially since he always has that happy face.. with an unmoving smile, on flickering monitor. Never losing that same happy expression and tone. invoked
• Unexplained Accent: The creator voices the Courier with his Chinese accent (with a British English vocabulary), which, while not implausible as far as Fallout lore goes,^note there's a large population of Chinese descendants in San Francisco and the Courier displays some familiarity with that area sounds quite out of place in-universe.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • The Courier and ED-E often squabble over various things.
  • Same goes for Boone and his other followers to a lesser extent.
• Walking Armory: The Courier occasionally comments on the large arsenal he's built up over the series. Though downplayed, as we only ever actually see him use three or four different weapons at a time, as he keeps most of them stored in his bag or else where.
• Warrior Therapist: The Courier constantly finds himself providing a voice of reason to his dysfunctional crew, and often goes out of his way to help them solve their problems in their personal sidequests. He even lampshades this by apologizing to Raul for not having time to help him sort out his issues before Breaking the Fellowship at the end of season 13.
• Welcome to Corneria: The Courier notices the many, many times NCR soldiers say "Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter," and wonders if it's some sort of password or code. He eventually chastises a First Recon sniper for saying it, thinking he's "stealing" it from normal NCR troopers.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • The Courier repeatedly gives these to the NCR. Mainly for just sitting around waiting for someone like him to solve their problems instead of taking any real initiative.
  • He also calls them out for being overly ambitious and claiming the entire Mojave before they even realized if they were a defensive force or an occupational force.
  • He also calls out Manny for his hostility to Boone's wife (who happened to go missing, but not because of him), saying he should have been happy his friend found someone or just avoided her altogether instead of getting all jealous about it.
  • He later gives one to Boone for dragging him into the NCR's war with the Legion.
  • He gives another one to Veronica for openly talking about the Brotherhood of Steel in an NCR base, while next to his NCR-aligned companion.
  • He's on the receiving end of this from his companions for deciding to accept Caesar's invitation to meet him at Fortification Hill. He makes it up to them by leading them to storm Fort Hill and kill Caesar.
  • And he gives yet another one to Mr. House after House admits point-blank that part of the reason for his dislike of the Mojave Brotherhood of Steel is because he finds them ridiculous, which the Courier finds deeply hypocritical.
• Wham Episode: The Season 8 finale ends with the Courier and co. attacking Fortification Hill and killing both Caesar and his Praetorian Guard, before the series is even half-way done.
  • The season 13 finale ends with The Courier finally being fully disillusioned with Mr. House and opting to kill him. Following this, the Courier opts to break the fellowship for the safety of his companions and leave the Mojave entirely out of disappointment with his own actions and moral failures.
• Word Association Test: The Courier gives an impromptu one to ED-E early in season four, to help try and figure what the robot's hiding.
• Would Not Hurt A Child/Would Hurt a Child: Zig-zagged. The Courier does allude to slapping a child for annoying him, but seems to be disgusted at someone doing any more than that.
• You Are in Command Now: In the Season 13 finale, The Courier's message to Arcade tells him that if the Courier's companions choose not to disband in his absence, that he should take control of the team.

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