katherinakaina

[katherinakaina]

Yes, the creators decided to portray Victor's commune as unsettling and culty. They left it up to interpretation, in my opinion, to what extend it was Victor's influence and to what extend it's just calm and happy people would really look relatively similar. I don't see hard evidence that Victor changed them any more than a couple of years of therapy would. And people do consent to therapy. People would consent even more often if it was one day trouble, free and all work done for you. I would!

Arcane being unsustainable is another stupid plot point. Singed warned Victor about it, they could have started working together and found a better solution before Victor decided to do away with humanity. But in any case, I repeat, this is a show. All the events in it are a deliberate choice. The creators decided to make the world go to shit the second poor people started receiving healthcare. They decided to portray medicine as creepy 'covid vaccines put microchips in your blood so Bill Gates can control you' kind of thing. Plot justifications are irrelevant, even if they were strong. And they aren't even strong, in my opinion.

In real life you also don't know exactly how all the medicine works if you didn't produce it yourself. That doesn't mean you can never consent to anything. It also doesn't mean that it might as well be a hivemind. But art keeps warning us against hiveminds as if it's a real possibility that we should worry about instead of demanding more asses to healthcare.

People about real problems: We need to do terrorism on health insurance ceos until there’s free healthcare for everybody.

Contemporary art: this character who started healing poor people for free is wrong! because, um, his motivation was rooted in internalized ableism of not wanting to die young of a preventable illness. and also disease is just an imperfection and they make us human or something. you see, using technology to make weapons is of course not ideal but medicine is what’s really dangerous! we must make sure we don’t go too far on medicine.

When will people realize rich guys make all transhumanists bad in media because they are defending the status quo? I sure am glad it’s not working but it would really be nice to push in the opposite direction for once.

[katherinakaina]

We don't know if Victor removed anything people didn't consent for being removed (like addiction or depression). He states pretty clearly 'I won't let you erase his humanity'. He only reached his stupid conclusion after Jayce blew him up which is such an insulting plot point since we know Jayce could have just shown Victor his vision of the future. And Victor would be like, wow, thank you, I guess I won't do this thing I wasn't going to do. Because you know what is also an end to pursuit? Not pursuing at all.

And either way, this is a show. Anything there is a creative decision. If they chosen to show that medicine alters your personality it is not because it does it because they are making a statement. A very dangerous one.

Like with arcane. We are not in danger as a society to start using magic for anything any time soon. The only technology that resembles arcane in real world is AI - uses language, we don't fully understand it, potentially very powerful, also a very real existential risk.

(The metaphor is not perfect. Arcane is shown to widen the disparity between the Piltover and Zaun, specifically the way current access to medicine only for the rich does. AI is, sadly, for the masses)

And the only use of AI that everyone agrees is good is in medicine. Looking at scans and such. Catching cancer early and so on. But arcane, the show, tells us that this is the only thing we should not be doing.

How far we can go with transhumanism? Pretty far, I'd say. As long as people consent to treatment we have little to worry about. It is not a topical concern while we are still dying left and right. The contrast between brutal reality and abstract philosophical speculations is maddening.

People about real problems: We need to do terrorism on health insurance ceos until there’s free healthcare for everybody.

Contemporary art: this character who started healing poor people for free is wrong! because, um, his motivation was rooted in internalized ableism of not wanting to die young of a preventable illness. and also disease is just an imperfection and they make us human or something. you see, using technology to make weapons is of course not ideal but medicine is what’s really dangerous! we must make sure we don’t go too far on medicine.

When will people realize rich guys make all transhumanists bad in media because they are defending the status quo? I sure am glad it’s not working but it would really be nice to push in the opposite direction for once.

[katherinakaina]

I think you can leave apple basket gang as it is but then also make Artemy and Vlad childhood friends. It makes sense that Big Vlad didn't let his son run around with the commoners. But he would have encouraged him making connections with the future Warden. This friendship could have the vibe of being forced onto you but also to be the most helpful since Vlad would be the one in the position to actually give you money and food and put in a word for you. It would also give Artemy one extra friend which he desperately needs (since he left the town as an adult and having only four acquaintances when you are the only heir of a local elder is pathetic). And would increase the sense that Artemy was groomed for his position since early age. So Artemy, Vlad and maybe Rubin can have more of a separate burdened heirs gang going on. Very angsty very homoerotic. And imagine the betrayal when the Termitary situation is unraveled. How could you lie to me this whole time? I thought you were my friend. The drama!

hot take: they should have used vlad jr. as the 4th kid in artemy's childhood friend group (the "apple basket gang") in pathologic 2, not bad grief.

so, artemy, rubin, lara, and vlad jr. here's my totally objective and non-haterish reasoning for why this would have worked better:

i think it's annoying that they aged bad grief down from a weird 56 year old queen to a relatable twenty-something

bad grief's whole dilemma in classic is about repenting after having lived a life of crime, which doesn't really work if they make him so young that his life is just getting started. in pathologic 2 he instead has a subplot about aglaya giving him an existential crisis, which they still could have kept.

hell, they could have kept basically everything except for the childhood friendship stuff and that campfire meeting. there was that tiny subplot that went absolutely nowhere about blowing up the train tracks to keep the inquisitor from showing up, artemy still could have schemed with grief on that.

it's lame that he went from being a guy who actually killed people and tried to PRETEND that he didn't (patho classic) to a guy who's all aww i never actually kill people it's just the people who work for me 🥺 i have no control over my gang 🥺

on the vlad jr side, incorporating him into the whole "reconnecting with your childhood friends" thing artemy has going on would have worked super smoothly, considering a major part of that seems to be artemy realizing that all his childhood friends are actually pretty racist to him! vlad jr obviously is that, but it could just go to show how the kinds of things you might not notice as a little kid become way more important once you're older

plus in general it would just give more space to flesh out the whole dynamic between the burakhs and the olgimskys, which i think is explored less in patho 2 than it is in classic

it ALSO would give some space for another dynamic that seems to have things going on in classic but is forgotten about in patho 2, which is vlad jr and lara. i'd have to go back and look but it's implied that the olgimskys helped fund her house of the living? and overall vlad jr and lara have interesting parallels in being invested in the idea of themselves as philanthropic good samaritans, which would have been interesting to explore.

hell, vlad jr ALSO has an interesting parallel with the other three in having "daddy issues" as a major part of his arc (see lara defining herself around her dead father and artemy and rubin around isidor). compared to bad grief who's kind of the odd one out in that regard.

[katherinakaina]

People about real problems: We need to do terrorism on health insurance ceos until there’s free healthcare for everybody.

Contemporary art: this character who started healing poor people for free is wrong! because, um, his motivation was rooted in internalized ableism of not wanting to die young of a preventable illness. and also disease is just an imperfection and they make us human or something. you see, using technology to make weapons is of course not ideal but medicine is what’s really dangerous! we must make sure we don’t go too far on medicine.

When will people realize rich guys make all transhumanists bad in media because they are defending the status quo? I sure am glad it’s not working but it would really be nice to push in the opposite direction for once.

[katherinakaina]

Yes. I speculated that he was less distraught than people would expect because he anticipated his father's death. But I totally agree that he also isn't that close to Isidor to begin with. (I also think that his lack of lamenting in both games is thematically relevant but I'll write about it some other day)

Why is this a hot take though? I think people are hesitant to explore such readings because death of a parent is such an emotionally charged topic in real life. So it's kind of a taboo to suggest that a character might not feel all that strongly about it.

To that I say, this is Pathologic. Nothing is normal here. Everything is fucked up. Especially relationships between children and parents. Those are kinda the main theme even.

my hot take on artemy (in p1):

you see, i've seen the interpretation that artemy is suppressing his grief for his father's death during the events of the game, as well as that from an emotional standpoint he seems to be the most collected out of the 3 protagonists because he was expecting his father's death, but i see this and i raise you, artemy is experiencing no grief over isidor's death whatsoever, and any negative emotions relating to isidor stem from the fact that he doesn't feel like he thinks he should.

because think about it, artemy probably has not seen his father for ten years. does he even remember what his father looks like? how he talks and acts? does he remember what it's like to be held by him, to be his son? combined with the fact that he may be suppressing some bitterness over the fact that he was never afforded any agency about his own life decisions, as well as the fact that in a sense he has been preparing about his father's death since childhood, it's only normal that he might not be that affected by it.

but of course, his father just died and the whole town is acting like this is the greatest tragedy of their lives, because to them, it is. he was a beloved local figure, a respected doctor and a grandpa to the townschildren. so for him to return and find out that out of everyone, he was the one the least connected to his own father yet the one everyone expects to be affected the most puts him in a weird mental space where he feels like he needs to justify his lack of emotions, primarily to himself, which is why he has the option to snap every time someone mentions him.

i might support my claims with in-game text later, for the time being duty (that Damn Paper) calls to me

[katherinakaina]

Hear me out. Pathologic 2 is my favorite game. Pathologic Classic HD is my favorite book.

[katherinakaina]

🧡🖤💀

for pathologic ofc

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

I have a hard time assessing what is popular. As far as I can tell, anything you’d call a theory is rather unpopular around here. Most people just go with the text and take all the characters at their word. Which honestly baffles me, because the game warns you every chance it gets that everybody’s lying to you all the time.

For example, most people seem to think Aglaya is sincerely in love with Artemy or the player. And, strictly speaking, it doesn’t really change anything whether her feelings are genuine or she’s just manipulating either him or you directly. BUT I feel strongly that her being a master manipulator and all around heartless bitch makes for a better character. Maybe I just find love and affection less interesting than cunning and ambition – especially in women. But when a character is introduced like ‘oh, she’s devilishly smart, she’ll achieve her goals no matter what, she’ll make you do her bidding and you won’t even know it, every thought you have in your head was planted there by her on purpose’ I am going to assume she had you all fooled, sorry.

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

Lara Ravel. She has a very particular brand of darkness that nobody seems to be talking about. Her deal is that she wants to be a good person. That’s why she always tries to sign up for all these humanitarian efforts like House of the Living, Isolation Ward, testing medicine, working at the Hospital or having water delivered to her house in p2. She romanticizes the idea of being a hero, a beacon of light, of giving away everything she can. “Lara reads too much classic literature” as Daniil puts it. The problem is, she tries. Doesn’t actually go through with any of it. Because she’s a coward.

Bachelor: Are you that afraid of death?

Lara Ravel: Utterly…

She says this on day 10. After you’ve seen her trying to involve herself in events and put herself in danger so many times. After she talks big talk about how she’d totally go and kill Alexander Block. And yet she always lets the circumstances stop her. And now you know why.

Is this too understandable to be a moral failing? People seem to think worse about Daniil for even considering fleeing the town. Or maybe you are mad at us americans for not going against armed police more often to stop a genocide. Or at russians for not overthrowing our warmongering regime yet. Whatever it is, sometimes people should risk their lives. Extraordinary things won’t be achieved without extraordinary effort.

Anyway, I think Lara is my favourite bound. I honestly want to write a separate post about her, especially her p2 story, because it has interesting things added there. Her story is probably the most well written in general, thematically consistent and human. And just plain relatable. We all wish we were Danill Dankovsky. But we all are Lara Ravel. Too afraid of death to make anything of our lives.

💀: If you had to choose one major character to die, who would you choose?

If you think about it, it’s a bit of a plot hole that Aglaya doesn’t try to get rid of all the humbles to make the Changeling's ending impossible. She can’t just execute them without being too obvious about it, but she can plot and scheme to make that happen. Like, what if it was her who gave that gun to Anna on day 9? Would be fun if one of them actually died as the result of this whole thing or even all three of them. Something like that.

[katherinakaina]

Ask game: unpopular opinion edition <3

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

💙: Which character is not as hot as everyone else seems to think?

💜: Which character is way hotter than everyone else seems to think?

🤍: Which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

💖: What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

💔: If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

💕: What is an unpopular ship that you like?

📖: If you had to remove one book from the series, which would you choose?

🏳️‍🌈: Which character who is commonly headcanoned as queer doesn't seem queer to you?

💀: If you had to choose one major character to die, who would you choose?

[katherinakaina]

Making Daniil tall was very clearly a mistake. It's one of his most iconic features. Blasphemy if you ask me.

this mf is shorter than lara ravel

[katherinakaina]

The thing is you feel very differently when you look at the Brides in the game and when you look at most fan art with them. When they are portrayed as real women, with different bodies, different ages, they look like actual priestesses and not just sexy exotic dolls strolling around.

In p1 there's only one model for a Bride so it probably was just technical limitation. But in p2 they created so many different hair styles and types of dresses for Herb Brides but still, they all have one sexy perky body between them.

So conceptually, their bodies are meant to serve Mother Boddho. But in this reality they're serving something else. At least until they're reimagined in fan works.

i have some thoughts about the character design of herbal brides and to prove or confute my point of view i need to see what other people think about this topic, so

it would be also very useful to hear some opinions about their design so of you have something to say i'd be happy to hear it!!

and i'd be super grateful for reblogs cause i need like, you know, variety of opinions

[katherinakaina]

Sorry, no. There are apparently new buildings on the other side, be that in reality or just in planning, but Polyhedron is also very clearly there, on all the promotional materials.

The last screenshot is the only one where Polyhedron looks hazy. But it's clearly because of the poor lighting in the scene and the fact that other structures on the map are black while the tower is just an outline.

But it's there. We have no grounds to proclaim that it's a sequel or anything like that.

Idk if anyone noticed, but there are some interesting details in pathologic 3 announcement trailer, which really caught my attention.

There is this first screenshot:

It’s a map in (I presume) the Town Hall, which is, well, just the usual map. Straight from Pathologic 2, nothing much.

HOWEVER, there is this screenshot:

Sorry for low quality, but it’s a map in what I suppose is Bachelor’s room, and there is something about it. Do you see it? It’s the town, it grew to the other side of Gorkhon river, and there is no Polyhedron (it looks like it was scrubbed off from the map).

Knowing that there will be time travel in pathologic 3, I assume this is from some theoretical future of Town-on-Gorkhon where apparently the Haruspex ending of Pathologic 1 took place (Polyhedron demolished, town expanded slightly).

This has various implications, which I leave to you dear patho people, we’ll see how it turns out in the end.

[katherinakaina]

I don't think they can really deny it when it physically effects their gameplay. I believe it will have the opposite effect of people getting what it's actually like (a tiny little bit). Because just saying 'this character is under a lot of stress' did close to nothing to make people more understanding.

i still cant really believe im living in a time where one of my favorite video game characters ever basically canonically has bipolar disorder and managing it is a gameplay feature.

[katherinakaina]

Honestly, after this interview I am dangerously close to having really high hopes. Dybowski was casually dropping words like 'cognitive biases', 'heuristic', 'pre-mortem' like nobody's business. He described a scientist like 'not somebody who knows everything, but somebody who doubts everything. Not somebody who has all the answers, but somebody with the skill to ask the right questions, acknowledge his mistakes and correct his map of the world. Every time the world turns out to be more complex than he expected and every time he's able to update. You need to have extraordinary flexibility of mind to see a valuable piece of evidence in something unimportant. That's how scientific discoveries are made'.

It seems like Daniil will initially be an old school traditional rationalist, thinking in Newtonian terms and trusting his own mind too much. But in the Town, created for him by people literally from the next century, he'll be able to change his outlook and become something more.

[katherinakaina]

Okay, so I’ve watched the recent interview because I became very curious what this whole “becoming Simon” thing was about. By pure coincidence I was thinking about Simon and what he represents the day before (I have books worth of Pathologic analysis in me) but I wasn’t going to write anything about it.

But this was concerning news. Because, well, we already have a protagonist who’s meant to be or become Simon during their 12 days, right? It’s Clara. And it’s very significant that Clara is Simon. Very very significant.

What is Simon? He is the creator and the keeper of the Town. The Town existed before him. But he is the one who molded it into its current form. And in doing so he molded himself in the image of the Town as well. Simon is a Bos Turokh transfigure. A semblance of the Town.

Simply put, Simon is the author of the game. Simon is Ice-Pick Lodge. He made it and now he steps aside. He has to die (death of the author, yes) for you to be able to enter it and interact with it. Their hands and their soul are everywhere you look. Every house, every street, the earth itself. But it is still in disarray without its creators and is dying to be understood again. Now you have to decide what’s best for it with your limited knowledge.

But knowledge does not remain limited. You start as a newcomer, continue as a local and finish as Simon’s reincarnation. You play the game three times and discover its remaining secrets and end up in the position where you know it as well as the people who made it. You have changed in the Town’s image and it has changed in yours. You are a Bos Turokh transfigure now. You have become Simon. You can see the whole picture now and understand that the whole Town is worth saving.

In the remake we play first as Artemy and he is pretty far from understanding the world he’s in. He doesn’t even really care for Simon. Daniil definitely cares a whole lot more. This time you return to the Town actively looking for Simon. You crave the next piece of the puzzle. And that’s why Daniil can go further than Artemy in his understanding of the world.

But only Clara can truly become Simon, right? What will she be doing then if Daniil already figured everything out?

So I went and listened. Basically, no, Daniil does not become Simon or time traveling Simon or anything like that (we’ll see what happens in the game but it definitely not what’s being said in the interview). But my vision seems to be correct in the way that Simon is deliberately setting up a puzzle for Daniil. A lesson for him to learn. And it is up to every individual player how fast they’ll learn it if at all. In this sense Simon is your teacher and you yourself is the student. And while learning you become more and more of a teacher yourself. So, become more Simon-like gradually.

I still hope you won’t become Simon completely. Like, you can’t, right? One whole third of Simon is yet to be discovered.

How I imagine it will go:

Daniil: “I’ve figured it out. I know all his tricks. The student becomes the master”

Clara: “MASTER OF SHIT!” - tears the layers of reality to pieces and shows the programming code underneath.

[katherinakaina]

Daniil is said to be a possible follower of a Russian scientist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov.

[katherinakaina]

if you're active in the pathologic fandom reblog with or comment your current profession/level of education you're currently in you get the drift what are you doing in ur life rn. i'm trying to empirically establish an observation of mine

[katherinakaina]

It is peculiar that the man whose final philosophy is "I do whatever the fuck I want" is so reliant on others. On his father, Daniil, Aglaya, the children and, like, society in general, choosing to preserve the Town above all else. I think Artemy teaches us that we really should investigate our inner processes and hidden motivations.

Okay finished the Haruspex route of Pathologic Classic! I need to play Clara's route to see the whole picture but I'm already fascinated by the differences between P1 and P2 in terms of characterization. I think I like Pathologic 2 even more now considering how they improved on Artemy's route, I am sorry to say I didn't like it at all in classic... This is all just my personal impression after first playthrough ofc. Ramblings about both Artemy and Daniil ↓ I think what bothered me about Haruspex was mostly just his attitude and his messiah plot. Once the first day is out of the way it's all smooth sailing for him, a bit too much so?? The only personal conflict he has is figuring out his father's exact wishes for him and choosing a sacrifice. Killing anyone is treated as fair or something that needed to happen and the Haruspex is always shrugging it off... And either option, Aglaya & the Town or Polyhedron... It just doesn't seem like he is that attached to either? So it doesn't feel like he is sacrificing much personally? Like sure he wants to save the Town because of his messianic qualities, but that's again more about fulfilling his 'role' rather than genuinely wanting to save lives, or at least it read that way to me. I'm sure it's meant to be both and P2 makes this far more apparent, but in P1 it elicited a rather squinty reaction from me. Plus well yeah, getting rid of Polyhedron is pretty much just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, like yep he sure didn't care about that thing lmao so getting rid of it isn't such a difficult choice at all. The suggestion that the Polyhedron could be his Udurgh is kind of useless because the Town and Earth are far better candidates and fit with Kin beliefs better, which in this game Artemy pretty much doesn't doubt at all.  Maybe this is why the Bachelor is so present in his route? Daniil did say he'd commit suicide if he lost, maybe we'd want to think twice about pushing him towards it... But again! Does it seem like this guy cares ahhh haha... The dialogue option that is actually engaging with what Daniil said is pretty much there to make it clear to the player what the Utopian ending is and what it would be like.

Ngl at first I thought he was meant to be the 'sacrifice' until they said it's a woman. Every time Artemy learned something about the Bachelor's motivations he'd write down in his diary like '...if it matters' since the player can always choose what ending to go with I guess. I also find it curious that he can say that they are friends but still always writing only 'the Bachelor' in his diaries while Daniil switched to 'Artemy' and 'Burakh' during the final stretch. The one-sided yaoi................ 🤔 At least Artemy doesn't get mad at him for ordering to set the mythic bull on fire, I guess their friendship did mean something to him after all at that point. Also when Capella tells him that he should ask the Bachelor for help with getting into the Polyhedron since the Bachelor 'fawns upon you a lot anyway' the Haruspex just goes 'oh yeah! ok' fjdghdjg... Now that I think about it I DID like the Haruspex route for what it did with the Bachelor hahah, his dialogues and letters are just so good sometimes. Like wow, I felt this.

Very cool, if i was Artemy I'd totally abandon my weird murderous calling for this. Tangentially related... P2 had one moment that I remember from my last replay when Rubin, if kept alive, falls into a deep deserved sleep in his home, and Artemy just starts emotionally monologuing at him.

Like, P1 Artemy would never, but also it goes to show that he's still very much a repressed man here too, buying into toxic masculinity ideals who can't just talk to his friends about his feelings directly... The same character, but more complex. I want to make it clear that I DO like him and his motivations in P2 actually, and his personal conflict being more about the future of the Kin makes that game much more powerful to me than what his classic route was. I heard that initially he was planned to be far more violent and dark, so maybe he could have been sort of a villain protagonist and this was changed later and this is why it feels a bit bland? Hmm... Idk this is fun to me because meanwhile the Bachelor didn't feel that different to me in both games lmao. A highly stressed educated guy who is just trying to prevent the spread of epidemic the 'right' way and then clinging to the only chance he has left to preserve both his ideals and his life. He is a bit less polite in P2 at first (while still very much helping by warding off Rubin) but then rather quickly becomes more cordial to Artemy and vice versa (and wow it sure is nice when Artemy can actually be polite and friendly..). And the moment when he explains some of his personal deal to Artemy feels rather similar in both iterations mood-wise.

I liked his route in P1 a lot, surprisingly so, and I now understand why so many people liked him before P2 came out and afterwards too... There's just something very real about how he is the intelligent Capital doctor but with an extraordinary dream to combat death itself, possibly given to him by the Powers That Be due to these children trying to cope with people dying around them. And instead of favoring him for it they hate him! They leave him with nothing but this final chance to fix things, even if that means destroying everything and rebuilding anew. Daniil's desperation feels very real and thus more compelling, plus like... I mean it's pretty much confirmed that it's not just the Polyhedron and that the soil itself is 'rotten' (literally in the meta real world and through blood beneath the earth in the Town itself) and the decease could return again, sooo his ending doesn't look that bad comparatively. I also appreciated how Maria (or uhh was it Nina talking through her here as well?) explained how their Utopia doesn't actually mean a 'perfect' place, more so just an impossible dream.

The Bachelor doesn't mind this at all, a detail I loved.

...Hmm that said maybe P1 makes it a little too easy for him to kinda ignore the Kin issue, he is only mad about their circumstances when it comes to Vlad choosing to doom thousands of the Kin workers inside the Termitary (which is just his doctor ethics). I mean it is realistic for him to ignore the implications of representing the imperialist side, he does mention his father was a military man too at some point I think... Still, he is very quick to accept the Kin's unique beliefs as something that has obvious merit, trusting the Haruspex with that side of things in both of their routes, and he doesn't make much of a distinction between them and regular Town people when it comes to patient treatment. If anything it's probably a sign of how the writers weren't thinking that hard about this worldbuilding aspect at the time... even if I appreciated them showing the downsides of the Kin's society, I think those were done better than in P2 purely because it was a bit more realistic (I am talking about sexism mostly, such as selling their own daughters and not respecting their autonomy, plus the mention of Kin politics and different ruling clans rather than the hive mind situation implied in P2). Like, it is more obvious in P1 that wholeheartedly embracing the Kin's return to tradition isn't such a good solution for them either, but one that will likely happen anyway with Artemy and Taya as their new leaders. And it could get trickier in Pathologic 3 I think, especially since most of us really appreciated the portrayal of colonization in P2 and would expect it getting addressed again in future games of other character routes, but we'll see I guess! Either way I look forward to that game a lot now.