Harold (Fallout)

Harold is a recurring character in the games. He was voiced by in and , and by in , who also voiced Codsworth and Nick Valentine in .
==Overview==
===Background===
Harold is a unique denizen of the wasteland. He survived the Great War in a vault and has witnessed many pivotal events and met a multiplicity of influential people throughout his travels across the former United States.
Rising to prominence as a caravan master in the formative years of the Hub, he would meet the future Master, travel to Mariposa Military Base, undergo a change into a ghoul-like mutant through exposure to FEV, lose everything, then become a wasteland traveler.
His journey then took him to the town of Gecko, enjoyed a new life for a period of time, but eventually becoming an unwilling deity for the Treeminders in the Capital Wasteland, on the opposite end of the continent of where he began.
Harold is a kind-hearted soul with a comical personality. He made many friends throughout his travels, potentially including the Vault Dweller, the Chosen One, and the Lone Wanderer.
He is kind to children and treats his branching appendance with respect. Despite his afflictions, Harold remains light-hearted and will chat with the player character about various past and present wasteland happenings.
==Biography==
===Background===
Born in 2072, Harold was only five years old when the war started and he entered Vault 29. He still remembers the sirens on that day and the terrible days that followed, living in an overcrowded Vault with little food and water to go around. The reason was that Vault 29 was populated with young children separated from their parents.
Said children were placed under the care of Diana, a human scientist immortalized by merging her human brain with a supercomputer controlling the vault and the nursery, a repository of seeds and genetic records preserved in case of a global thermonuclear war. Diana would control the unrest by periodically releasing young dwellers to scout the surface and report whether it was safe to settle. They never returned, as Diana would take them to the nursery, where they'd either be able to join her or leave, after being conditioned with the inability to speak of the nursery or the vault.
Harold left in 2090, aged 18, and began to make his fortune as a trader, making the circuit between survivalist communities that emerged throughout New California. Over the next twelve years, he made steady income, rising to prominence in The Hub. However, Harold's success ran up a hefty bill due to attacks by gangers, scavengers and mutant creatures that made it necessary to employ entire armies of guards just to keep them at bay. This was all the more apparent to him since he became the head of his own caravan outfit in 2096.
Eventually, he'd had enough. On 22nd May, 2102, Harold financed one of the first adventuring parties in New California together with Richard Grey, a mysterious scientist and doctor from The Hub. The expedition set out from the Hub and tracked the mutants to the northwest, deep into the Californian Central Valley. After fighting through what seemed like an endless stream of mutants, they finally reached Mariposa Military Base on 23rd June. However, infiltrating the base's defenses proved no small feat.
Eventually, the entire group was whittled down to just Harold and Richard. Francine was wounded and Mark was sent to the surface, never to be heard from again. The two of them penetrated all the way into the base's central core, where the vats of FEV were located. The expedition was finally routed when the robotic crane crashed into them, sending Richard into a vat of FEV.
The crane badly injured Harold, and he passed out, only to wake up in the wasteland days later, in the throes of change due to exposure to FEV, when he handled a contaminated item in the base. He was found by traders four days later, on 27th June, and taken back to the Hub. His horrifying transformation caused him to lose his business, since his employees and partners turned away from him. Soon, he was left a beggar, living in a derelict ruin in Old Town. His resolve and hardiness allowed him to survive, despite poverty.
===Fallout===
By the time he met the Vault Dweller around 2161, he was the oldest person alive in all of The Hub, known for his stories and knowledge - not just about days long past, but also contemporary events. For example, he knew how to find the deathclaw suspected of attacking caravans and was aware of the fact that Decker's men captured Brother Jonathan of the Brotherhood of Steel recently, and would happily share that knowledge for a modest amount of bottle caps to keep himself afloat.
Harold left sometime after 2162, having managed to bring a measure of equality between the impoverished population of Hub's Old Town and the rest of the city. He traveled north, accompanied by a sapling (Bob) that took root in his head. By 2238, he arrived in Gecko.
===Fallout: BoS===
After the destruction of the Master's Army, Harold left The Hub and became a traveler who visited various places around the wasteland. It's known that he traveled in Texas to Carbon where he had a sexual encounter with Carbon's prostitute, Ruby, and the ghoul-city of Los around 2208. He wanted to have a good time in Los after leaving Carbon but the arrival of super mutants and the loss of his hand, his toe, and his eye in the city changed the deal. The Initiate helped Harold to recover his parts so he could leave the city before its destruction. Harold's travels ended in Gecko in 2238.
===Afterwards===
Noticing the careless way in which the power plant was managed, he decided to stick around and do his best to help the ghouls with the running of the facility, becoming the de facto mayor and leader of the local community. He would be one of the key players in the struggle between the ghouls and the bigoted inhabitants of Vault City to solve the Gecko powerplant problem. Afterwards, he set out once more. The tree growing out of his head continued to grow larger and bear fruit. Its remarkably tough seeds were able to withstand even the toughest environments and thrive.
===Fallout 2===
In 2241, Harold is a very old but still spry-looking mutant. The Chosen One runs into Harold in Gecko, the ghoul town not far from Vault City. After the destruction of Necropolis, most of the ghoul population of the town migrated far to the north to form a settlement around an old nuclear power plant built by Poseidon Oil before the Great War. When Harold arrived, the plant was being run dangerously and ineffectively. Harold quickly took over and fixed the reactor. When the Chosen One arrives in Gecko, Harold asks them to help solve the subsequent power plant problem.
===Fallout 3===
Harold's tireless legs eventually carried him all the way to the opposite end of the continent, to the Capital Wasteland. Overwhelmed by Bob, he stopped to rest, only to realize that he was unable to move anymore, rooted to the ground by his companion. He became part of the tree, sustained by its photosynthesis and nutrients taken from the ground. He took root in the northern Capital Wasteland and was found by a wanderer named Birch in the late 2250s.
Birch beheld Harold's glory and knew that other wanderers would seek to do the Great One harm. He founded the Treeminders, a group of pure-hearted individuals that would protect the Great One as his last line of defense. Once Harold and Bob truly became a part of the environment, a verdant vale of growth spread from the tree, washing the barren hillside over with life and greenery, and enticing animal life to inhabit the area.
With the Treeminders' care and attention, Bob started to take root further; over time, his root system carried away Harold's internal organs far throughout the cave system below, making it plain that Harold would remain forever in one spot, if not for a merciful death. Harold used his ability to spread Herbert's seeds to attract wanderers, at first to amuse himself, and then to find a solution to the problem he was in. The key issue was that the purification ceremony necessary for outsiders to gain access to Harold involved drinking hallucinogenic sap derived from Bob, resulting in psychosis and other severe mental problems in most who came to Oasis.
He kept trying, hoping to attract someone capable of helping him through his ordeal. Finally, in 2277, he managed to attract the Lone Wanderer. Upon their acceptance into the cult, Harold requested that the Lone Wanderer kills him, to spare him the agony of being rooted in one spot for all eternity. Suffering from depression, he pleaded with the Lone Wanderer to end his life, something that the Treeminders could not do. His requests for them to end his life wound up interpreted as tests of their moral and spiritual aptitude, rather than genuine pleas for mercy.
Harold and Bob genuinely enjoyed only the company of Sapling Yew, the youngest of the group, who listened to him without reservation. Others, treating him as a god, always looked for hidden meanings or had their own designs for him. Tree Father Birch and Leaf Mother Laurel held two opposing views of what should happen: Birch wished to contain Bob's spread to protect Oasis and Harold, while Laurel desired to share their god's gift with everyone. One can euthanize Harold, or persuade him to live on and either have Bob spread out or be contained.
==Physiology==
===Mutation===
To the untrained eye, Harold appears to be an ordinary ghoul. Ghouls are the result of significant and/or long-term radiation damage to a human body, but Harold is a product of the Forced Evolutionary Virus. Unlike most people who are exposed to the FEV, Harold did not become a super mutant, but is the result of a unique combination of radiation damage from constant low-level environmental exposure and contact with FEV, resulting in a hybrid type of species.
===Tree===
The tree growing out of - and eventually overwhelming - Harold, is named Bob. Bob sprouted from Harold's head a long time after his exposure to the FEV at the Mariposa Military Base. In the beginning, Bob was a small sprig, but its growth accelerated, turning into a full-sized tree, overtaking Harold, and rooting itself to the ground in the Capital Wasteland region. As of 2277, the two have been rooted to the location for roughly twenty years.
Harold considers Bob his friend, and speaks to him as if he was thinking aloud. Harold will sometimes jokingly refer to Bob as Herbert and makes several comments regarding the closeness of their relationship - both physical and emotional. When the Lone Wanderer approaches Harold (and Bob) for the first time, Harold will share that he was able to see their approach through the leaves of other trees, and although impressive, makes Bob jealous.
==Quotes==
Topic 	Quote
Richard Grey	"Brilliant guy. A doctor and philosopher. Long ago he lead the expedition where I got changed into a mutant."
The Master 	"Who? Is he some sort of sex therapist? I could use one, you know."
Ghouls 	"Mutants. Doesn't matter what they call themselves."
Loxley 	"Him. He leads the Thieves Circle. Thinks he's Robin Hood. He's alright, I guess."
Cathedral 	"I've seen religions come and religions go, and I hope this one goes. Soon."
Vault 	"Yeah, I came from a Vault. Too many people, not enough food and water. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you."
War 	"Horrible. The world just went insane. Long ago, but I'll never forget it. Never."
Decker 	"Trouble. Nothin' but trouble."
==Gallery==
HaroldFallout3.jpg
HaroldBurning.jpg
HaroldBurnt.jpg
==Trivia==
*Harold is one of few characters to appear in multiple games.
*He was planned for inclusion in both Van Buren and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2.
*A mutant named "Harold" with a tree growing out of his head appears in Fallout Tactics.
*A group called "Harold's Cult" is mentioned in a piece of concept art by Adam Adamowicz, which was released after Adamowicz's death. It portrays three characters in clothing similar to that of the Treeminders.
*In Fallout: The Board Game, Harold can be acquired at the shop by any player character that has Endurance. When shopping with him as the active companion, the player character can exhaust him in order to gain an additional two bottle caps for every item they sell. When the player character performs the camp action, he will become unexhausted. However, if the player character does not have Charisma at this time, he must be discarded.
==Licensing==
This article contains content derived from the "Harold" article on Nukapedia, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
==Navigation==
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