In Fallout, The Ghoul is no nonsense, ruthless gunslinging bounty hunter but he wasn’t always this way.
Once upon a time, he was Cooper Howard. A soldier turned movie star slash family man. He was a good man who loved his country and his family.
So what happened to Cooper Howard?
Who was Cooper Howard before the Great War?
Before the bombs fell, Cooper Howard was a United States Marine who served during the early Sino American War. That experience shaped him into someone disciplined, but also deeply patriotic. He believed in the idea of America, even when the illusion of what the country represented was starting to crack.
After leaving the military, Cooper became a Hollywood actor. He starred in Westerns, playing clean cut heroes who stood for justice.
He married Barb Howard, a rising executive at Vault Tec. Together they built a comfortable suburban life with their daughter Janey. From the outside, it looked perfect.
It wasn’t.
The betrayal
Through his work with Vault Tec as a spokesman, Cooper begins to see how corrupt the company really is.
With help from Lee Moldaver (who was using the identity of Kate Williams at the time), Cooper plants a bug on Barb’s Pip Boy so he can eavesdrop on their meeting. What he hears is worse than he imagined.
He learned that the vaults are meant to conduct experiments ranging from creating Super Mutants to manipulating human behavior. It’s also implied that Vault-Tec was willing to start a nuclear war just to ensure they’d be the ones to benefit financially. And reshape what’s left of the world in their image.
Horrified, Cooper ends his marriage with Barb. His acting career comes to an end with the implication that Vault Tec had him blacklisted.
The Great War finishes the job
By the time the bombs fall, Cooper is a broken man. He recreates his cowboy persona to entertain kids at birthday parties with Janey at his side.
When the bombs drop in the Hollywood Hills, he’s separated from his daughter.
He survives the radiation, but it turns him into a Ghoul. Ghoulification keeps him alive while he inhales a mystery drug that prevents him from going feral. He has no idea what happened to his family or whether Barb and Janey are still alive.
Over the centuries, Cooper Howard becomes The Ghoul. A feared bounty hunter who kills without hesitation. He’s cruel, cynical, emotionally distant and an efficient badass. All he needs to survive the Wasteland is himself, his chems, his guns and nothing else.
Lucy MacLean changes everything
When The Ghoul meets Lucy MacLean, he sees her as an obstacle. To him, she’s just some naive vault dweller who doesn’t understand how the world works.
He treats her accordingly. He uses her as bait. Cuts off one of fingers after she bites off one of his. Gives her to a bunch of organ harvesters. He frames his treatment of her as a preview of what she’ll turn into over time.
Yet Lucy doesn’t break.
She survives everything he puts her through. She learns to survive the Wasteland in spite of her naivete. Despite what The Ghoul puts her through, she still chooses to help him by giving him the vials containing his meds. She treats him like a person, not a monster.
Lucy sees the Wasteland for what it is, yet she refuses to surrender her humanity. She’s a mirror of The Ghoul’s past life as Cooper Howard.
Slowly, The Ghoul begins to change. He doesn’t turn into some kind teddy bear, but he does start to grudgingly respect Lucy. By the finale, he invites her to travel with him to find her father. This time as a partner instead of a prisoner.
Can Cooper Howard get his humanity back?
Betrayal and the Great War stripped Cooper Howard of his faith in people. Becoming The Ghoul was how he survived that loss.
Lucy doesn’t erase his past or absolve him of his actions. Instead, she offers proof that humanity can still exist in a broken world. Survival doesn’t mean you have to become cruel to adapt.Whether Cooper will fully regain his humanity remains to be seen. His story is more about recovering lost parts of himself than a full-blown redemption arc. For someone like The Ghoul, that might be more than enough for him.
