ā | Oh, oh very good! Every one of you! Got my name! And after all you've been through! Good, good-good-good. I mean how does that feel? Right? How does it feel? Do you enjoy feeling terrorized? Humiliated? I mean, panicked? All those emotions that my sisters got to feel once one year ago! Only guess what? They didn't get to laugh it off! No! Nope! No no no! They're gone! | ā |
~ Josh's motive rant. |
ā | I did something. I made you believe in the world I created, and I showed you parts of yourself you were too afraid to visit. | ā |
~ Josh's response to Chris calling him a coward. |
Joshua "Josh" Washington, also called "The Psycho", is the secondary antagonist of the 2015 video game Until Dawn.
He is the older brother of the missing twins, Beth and Hannah; unbeknownst to the other main playable characters, he blames his closest friends for their disappearanceāas a result of the prank that prompted Hannah and Beth to leave the lodge in the first placeāand has arranged a prank of his own to get revenge.
He was voiced by Rami Malek.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
- He killed pigs for fake guts so he could fake his own death.
- He forces Chris to choose between saving either himself or Ashley from getting sawed in half. Although to be fair, Josh rigged it so that nobody actually died.
- He films Sam taking a bath without her consent, and then chases her around the lodge wearing nothing but a towel. If she doesn't escape the ensuing chase, he'll use anesthesia to knock her out.
- If Ashley stabs Josh, he'll punch her out cold in retaliation, giving her a black eye.
- He gives Chris a pistol and forces him to choose between shooting himself, Ashley, or letting both die from the descending sawblades on the ceiling. Again though, Josh made sure the saws didn't go all the way down and put blanks in the gun instead of actual bullets, so nobody died as a direct result.
- Later on, Josh will mock Chris if he chose to shoot Ashley.
- He planned to upload a video of everything he did as the Psycho on the internet.
Why Doesn't He Stand Out?[]
- While what he does to his friends is bad enough to pass the general baseline, he does not meet the games high heinous standards, as killing pigs for fake guts is something a lot of horror movie directors do and thus hardly worth frowning upon by the norms of modern society; Josh never meant to go beyond scares otherwise, albeit extreme ones. He had no idea the Wendigos were on Blackwood Mountain and didn't want anyone to die or get hurt beyond repair.
- It's also worth mentioning that other protagonists in the game, despite their heroic moments, have the option to commit crimes honestly much worse than Josh ever did. For example: Mike shooting Emily in the face with the implication that he enjoyed it (not to mention straight-up leaving Josh to die if Hannah didn't already kill him in the caves), Ashley killing Chris by locking him outside with the Wendigo out of petty spite, Sam killing up to three people by blowing up the lodge early, Matt abandoning a wounded Jessica in the mines to save his own skin.
- He's incredibly tragic for several reasons:
- Since the age of 11, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression, given multiple therapists and medications, and it simply never worked out for him.
- He states that his father's too busy to hang out with him anymore, implying parental neglect.
- One night during a vacation where Josh was passed out drunk, his friends decided to prey on his younger sister Hannah's insecure crush on Mike, pulling a prank where he faked reciprocating those feelings. When Hannah discovered that it was all a sick joke, she got embarrassed and ran outside into a blizzard, her twin sister Beth following her in hopes that she'd come back. When both sisters died and never returned, Josh attempted suicide and then sought revenge on the people who hurt his family.
- It's implied that his prank was secretly intended to be a cry for help rather than anything malicious, which would make him insecure. Sam even accuses him of such if she finds all the clues in his workshop.
- His breakdown in the caves is played for sympathy, crying hysterical tears as he hallucinates his blood-covered sisters blaming him for their deaths. It shows that he feels self-deprecation as well.
- Regardless of player choice, he's the only main protagonist who doesn't get a happy ending while at the same time never having the chance to fully redeem himself, making him a scapegoat. He either gets killed by Hannah (his own sister) who turned into a Wendigo, or becomes a Wendigo himself, the latter of which is by all means a fate worse than death because it's a nigh-invincible cannibal demon depriving him of free will while in possession of his body.
- Again, he deeply loves his sisters since his primary motive is to avenge them.
- He has moral agency issues due to his obvious insanity. He suffers visual and auditory hallucinations, and at the time he genuinely believed that his scheme as the Psycho was all just doing some fun prank/game that'd be socially acceptable to his friends. In the shed, he asks Chris and Mike to order pizza like a child having a sleepover. Even Chris and Mike see that he's "out of his f*cking tree" due to being off his meds.
- He shows remorse for what his actions led to, mourning the mutilated corpses of the Stranger and his friends in the caves. He also sincerely apologizes to Mike after hearing of Jessica's possible death.
- He appears to be somewhat in love with Sam, and the feeling is mutual. If Sam survives until dawn, she recounts once believing that she had a heartfelt connection with Josh as he would often come talk to her after his sisters disappeared, calling her "the only one who understood him". During the game's main events, they do a fair amount of flirting at the end of Chapter 2. Despite stalking and chasing her wearing only a towel at the end of Chapter 5, Josh sincerely apologizes for knocking out Sam and doesn't abuse her afterwards, instead putting her in another room so she wouldn't get herself hurt while also leaving a fresh set of clothes for when she woke up (it's also implied that he actually wanted her to escape the chase so she'd find the clues in his workshop and thus understand he was crying for help deep down). Overall Sam seems more just upset than angry at Josh for his actions since she shows no ill will towards him despite everything that happened, even scolding Chris for (possibly) hitting Josh in the shed.
- It's implied that he targeted Chris and Ashley mainly so they'd finally get together, knowing their mutual crush on each other. In chapter 2, Josh exclaims his belief that they need "alone time", "something to bond over", and a "traumatic event to send them into each other's arms". He even calls himself a healer who brings people together while Chris and Mike are taking him to the shed. This makes Josh somewhat of an extremist, trying to help his childhood best friend get a girlfriend.
- In the 2024 remake, if Josh tells Dr. Hill that his friends hurt him and then shows remorse for his actions, heāll survive without turning into a Wendigo and then be found by the police, resisting the Wendigo spirit's influence out of a desire to atone and presumably going on to seek redemption for his actions afterwards.
External Links[]
- Josh Washington on the Villains Wiki
- Josh Washington on the Until Dawn Wiki