#I really got fascinated by how similar Inspector and Porfiriy Petrovich are

[the-astronome]

There are two voice lines Pathologic 3 Quarantine which really caught my attention, a funny one and another one that I find rather interesting

Please note that these voice lines are from Russian dub, and I’m providing my own approximate translations here (since I didn’t play the demo in English and honestly not planning to).

1. Starting with a funny one, one of the possible things Seraphima can say is “You should reread your own early academic works, chief. That is if you were the one who wrote them.” I don’t know what kind of beef these two have going on, but roast him Seraphima, keep the prickly prick in line

2. Switching to a more serious voice line, a phrase the Inspector can say upon starting a conversation with him: “Вы убили-с”.

It’s a bit difficult to translate it into English without loosing the original subtext, but overall it can be translated as “You killed [someone], good sir”. Note that at the and of убили there is an additional letter -с, which is a словоерс (no idea what linguists call it in English). Словоерс is an archaic (is now and was so already by the beginning of 1900s) form of showing respect to the person you’re speaking to (as if singular Вы wasn’t enough already). And even though it was used occasionally in P1, I don’t remember it being used in P2 or P3 (talking about the demo obviously). That’s why when the Inspector used it in his replica it immediately grabbed my attention.

There was something familiar about the phrase as well, like if I’ve heard it somewhere already…. Well, I tell you, apparently it’s a quote from Crime and Punishment (by Dostoevsky, obviously) said by Porfiriy Petrovich: “Вы и убили-с”.

(Small note: here an и in between is used, which gives the phrase slightly different vibe, id est I would translate the phrase as “It was you, who killed [that person], wasn’t you, good sir?” It’s even more mocking and ironic than the first one. The detective knows perfectly you’re the killer, it’s just he enjoys mocking you as well. Tbh Inspector from P3 might have used that и in his replica, but I missed it - usual stuff for me.)

If you haven’t read the book, Porfiriy Petrovich is a police detective investigating Raskolnikov (who is a murderer but a rather lousy one. Not gonna explain the plot here, read the book), and he says that phrase when talking to Raskolnikov, trying to make him admit he’s indeed the killer. Inspector does indeed have many similarities with Porfiriy Petrovich in investigation style, for instance, they both say to the suspects that they’re not accusing them of anything (while actively doing so), they both ironise and taunt the person they’re interrogating. It’s basically about making the suspect to admit their guilt themselves. Technically the suspect was never accused of anything, but the interrogator pushed on their conscience just enough for the accused to come back with a sincere confession of their crimes.

Moreover, coming back to словоерс, in 1860s, when the novel was written, that -с already lost it’s original meaning (showing respect) and turned into ironic and mocking addition to otherwise neutral phrases. So the Inspector is practically scoffing and, well, bullying Daniil (and the Bachelor actually calls him out for that) throughout all the dialogue.

Finally, the phrase in question is a pretty well known quote among Russian-speaking people who’ve read Dostoevsky’s works, so this reference should be quite easy to recognise for native speakers.

Well, that’s it for now, I’ll come back if I find anything else catchy and curious.