We Can't Expect God to Do All the Work

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About

"We Can't Expect God to Do All the Work" is a quote said by Fallout: New Vegas DLC Honest Hearts character Joshua Graham during his first dialogue with the player. Online, the catchphrase has gained popularity as a reaction, often used as a part of an image macro of Graham racking a .45 caliber pistol.

Origin

On May 17th, 2011, the second Fallout: New Vegas DLC Honest Hearts was made available for download on Xbox Live and Steam.^[1] In the DLC, the main protagonist The Courier encountered a major plot character Joshua Graham, also known as "The Burned Man." During the initial dialogue, Joshua Graham says that he prays for the safety of all people who come into the region, but he can't expect God to ensure it on his own.

I pray for the safety of all good people who come to Zion, even Gentiles, but we can't expect God to do all the work.

On June 3rd, 2013, Kotaku^[2] posted an article titled "I'm A Mormon. Pop Culture Often Mocks My Faith, But Fallout Treated It Right" which featured a still image of Graham racking a .45 Auto Pistol (shown below).

In November 2017, Facebook user Jack Crimson posted We Can't Expect God to Do All the Work reaction image to now-defunct Fallout Radposting Facebook group (original post no longer available; image shown below). The image used a Glowing Eyes edit of the image posted in the Kotaku article and followed the Tony Kornheiser's 'Why' format. On January 30th, 2018, an anonymous /pol/ board user reposted the image to 4chan,^[3] which is the earliest publicly available repost of the reaction image.

Spread

In the following weeks, the image received spread on /pol/ and other boards, including early February 2018 posts on /co/,^[4] /r9k/^[5] and /trash/.^[6]

On February 3rd, 2018, Redditor^[7] deadassmynibba made the first known posts containing the image outside of 4chan, with the post receiving 89 upvotes in /r/thot_patrol subreddit. A February 12th, 2018, post by Redditor^[8] IchabodTmflvyrkdqy in /r/dndmemes received over 687 upvotes (shown below, left). On March 5th, 2018, Redditor^[9] TheSemperPie posted the earliest known edit of the image, with Sayori from Doki Doki Literature Club replacing Joshua Graham (shown below, right).

On December 24th, 2018, YouTuber^[10] ymfah included a gag based on the reaction image in his "How to Beat New Vegas without Killing" video (shown below, left), with the gag later gaining popularity both as a reaction video (shown below, right) and a reaction image.