Four main characters in Season One of Fallout have their own separate Story Enneagrams. In this case, Norm’s Enneagram is also the story of Vault 33.
ONE
Establishing the vault world is Norm’s One. He’s introduced as Lucy’s brother with no indication he’ll have any importance. Hank seems more critical, especially when he greets “Overseer” Moldaver. (Why doesn’t he recognize her from pre-apocalypse times? After watching the entire season we know that she was alive then, even if we don’t know how she managed it. She clearly says that she knows Hank.)
TWO
Norm wanders through the opened door into Vault 32. Moldaver and her raiders have already seemed suspicious. Now we know that the vault is derelict. Norm finds mutilated corpses and comes running home. The mystery of the Vault 31-32-33 triangle is the overall Trouble, but Norm is on his own detective’s journey that starts here.
THREE
Norm with Chet opens the exterior door to Vault 33 so that Lucy can leave. As I mentioned before, it’s fun that Lucy and Norm share the same Three beat that evolves into different paths at their Sixes. However, Lucy’s Mirrors are more about her standing outside the doors, separated from the safe vault world inside. Norm’s Mirrors are the very distinct camera hold on the mechanism of the opening door. They’re huge cogs that roll along teeth in order to open and close. It’s a very deliberate process, and one that’s true to the game. I appreciate the detail, and I really appreciate that they serve a story purpose for Norm.
FOUR
Norm and Vault 33 are not in Episode Two. When he appears halfway through Episode Three, I was surprised. I figured we were done with him since Lucy was gone. However, I’m very happy with the choice to continue his investigative story. Everyone who’s played the games knows that each vault is some kind of inhuman experiment. Showing us the discovery process is a good idea. Through Episodes Three, Four, and Five, Norm and Chet form a team that tracks down the mystery. They learn that Norm’s mother’s (Rose’s) Pip Boy was used by the raiders to open the external door to Vault 32. How strangers found it, though, is unknown.
SWITCH
Betty is elected Overseer. She, Norm learns, is originally from Vault 31, as was every other overseer, including his father. Although Woody and Reg actively campaign, it’s Betty who wins overwhelmingly. The vault has a saying that when times are tough, vote 31. This Switch doesn’t only install an overseer; it cements Norm’s distrust of the vault system.
FIVE
Continuing in Episode Five, Norm’s separation from Chet as a team member begins. Somehow Chet is roped into becoming Steph’s partner and father to her newborn. She also is from Vault 31, giving her and her eyepatch and her complete dominance over Chet a sinister tone. Detective Norm is now on his own. Betty’s first action is to separate Vault 33 into two groups, one of which will colonize Vault 32. When everyone visits the new vault, all of the horror Norm saw has been cleaned and erased. Betty answers Norm’s question about Rose’s Pip Boy by saying she buried it personally, something Norm knows is a lie. In Episode Seven (Norm isn’t in Episode Six), Chet and Steph are assigned to the new location, with Steph being named overseer. It’s a clanging bell for Norm.
SIX
Norm messages Vault 31 on Betty’s computer, setting up a visit. He stands in the hallway between 33 and 31 while the door slowly rolls open, revealing a dark corridor. He enters, and the vault door closes behind him.
SEVEN
Norm’s section of Episode Eight shows him walking tentatively forward while hearing a strange mechanical noise. He finds Brain-on-a-Roomba helplessly stuck behind a fallen broom handle. It’s an innocuous choice on its face, but Norm decides to lift the obstacle. (He’s obviously never met a robobrain before, lol, or he’d know to keep it trapped.)
EIGHT
What Norm finds in Vault 31 is a companion to all that Lucy learns from Moldaver and Hank. Her understanding of the Triangle Vaults is secondhand; Norm is right in the belly of it, looking at cryopods. Vault 31 doesn’t have cornfields or residences; it’s a long hallway of human storage units. While he tries to comprehend what he’s seeing, the freed robobrain docks into its power source and closes Norm into the command center. He won’t be leaving. The robobrain suggests that Norm go to sleep in his father’s empty cryopod. His last shot has him walking down the storage hallway as if he will comply.
NINE
Hank, who opened Norm’s storyline, closes it by standing on a mesa overlooking New Vegas. The Triangle Vault mission is ongoing. The middle managers are still running things.
ENNEAGRAM
Well, here’s someone who just screams Head Type, lol. The actor is built like a Six rather than a Five or Seven. Did the casting agent have an inspired insight?
A Six will be worried about and reluctant to engage in danger. At the beginning, Norm chastises himself for hiding during the raider attack. Check.
He becomes braver later, but most of his investigations are on a computer, using intellect rather than physical intervention. Check.
What’s happening in Vault 33 is wrong. Why should all the overseers come from the other vault? A Six would be motivated by injustice, even overcoming fear. Check.
We don’t see a direct connection between Norm’s actions and worry that his best friend is locked in with a Vault 31 overseer, but I do believe that concern for Chet motivates Norm. It’s possible the showrunners could’ve pushed that angle harder, but I think we can see a suggestion of it. A Six would be loyal.
Norm’s last moment is complacency and rule-following. The robobrain tells him to go to bed and Norm complies instead of stomping on its glass bubble and tossing its roomba into a wall. (Maybe that’s being saved for Season Two.) This is a little too much Six for me, but it fits within the parameters of the Enneagram.
As for Hank, whose actions are incorporated by me into Norm’s plot, do we know enough to give him an Enneagram? We have him at the opening before he’s kidnapped and we have him at the ending when he’s in a cage with Lucy. He does a lot of pleading there, asking Lucy to understand that the world is violent and the vault is peaceful. He had to do everything in his power, including nuking a functioning town, in order to protect that imperative. On the one hand, he’s a corporate tool who doesn’t reason. On the other hand, two hundred years of being cryogenically rejuvenated and recycled back into the vault system could’ve done unimaginable things to his psyche. I think we should hold these thoughts for Season Two when, hopefully, we’ll get a more complete picture of who he is when he’s outside of the vault system.
Isn’t it fascinating and wonderful that Fallout was so well structured? Four functioning plotlines with every beat accounted for! The show’s attention to story and character details shines in the final product. Hopefully Season Two will continue on this solid trajectory. Let Moten and Goggins work their magic. Give Lucy and Norm, now that they’re freed from delivering the vault story, a chance to follow their personalities.
And give Dogmeat more to do. YAY!