#cus his prized whiteness would actually not protect him at all from the mercs's denigrating perception of him and their subsequent violence

[frodho-slaggins]

I am also thinking about how de writes racism and colonial mindsets in relation to the mercenaries cus i think theres a lot of rlly interesting stuff there. The tribunal is pretty far into the game, so you've spent hours and hours absorbing revochalian culture and getting a sense of how ppl conceptualize themselves and others. Revochal is majority white but its also got a fair amount of nonwhite ppl whos revochalian roots stretch back a while as well as white and nonwhite immigrant communities. Revochal is also pretty racist and xenophobic and you get that both from living in the world and absorbing the ambient racism (for example, the fictional anti-black slur "kipt" is tossed around with great frequency and casualness to the point that some ppl don't even seem to register that they're using an insult) and also because while you play a white character, ur attached at the hip to an asian man and so you observe the constant deluge of racism thrown kim's way particularly.

But anyways, you have a pretty solid sense of race politics in revochal and then you meet those mercenaries and its more of that same hostility towards minority populations, tho even more virulently anti-black than is typical. But a thing that's sort of interesting is that the mercenaries seem to consider all Revochalians to be racialized subjects because of their position as being residents of a country the Moralintern is occupying and that Krenel is deployed in. The mercenaries use really racialized terms to refer to all Revochalians regardless of race. They're "loinclothes", natives of a country that they are visiting violence upon. Their language and actions equate the residents of Martinaise with the Semanese ppl they were comissioned to violate and kill.

That's not to say race is totally irrelevant to the mercs's perspective. I think it's no accident that they target Liz and Theo in particular when they're shooting at people. Liz is especially telling, she is a totally non-violent figure who is actively attempting to deescalate and i think they try to shoot her in part because she is black and because they are inclined to and highly conditioned to kill black victims. They were never gonna listen to her because they were raring for a fight and because she's the resident of a place they consider a backwater slum sure, but also because she is black.

Idk i dont have a point exactly. Just....something about how Krenel's mercenaries are conditioned to consider all populations they interact with as fundamentally and ethnically inferior, regardless of phenotype or whether theyre occidental or whatever. They're white supremacists but with a definition of whiteness that fundamentally excludes white ppl who are "3rd world" even if it still differentiates between white and non-white "loinclothes." Also also something about how this reflects a real world tendency amongst non-eastern europeans to present eastern-europeans in a racializing manner, as historically western european nations have used eastern europe's relative proximity to asia as a means to frame eastern europeans as not white and subsequently frame them as inferior. Or a modern tendency amongst wealthy nations to consider some nations as ethnically inferior regardless of actual racial makeup because of idk poverty or "cultural difference" or something. But also despite that, race is still a major factor in how these countries are percieved (i was thinking about this a lot cus i played de while the american news media was covering ukraine and saying shit like "this isnt palestine, normal people live here how can there be a war" etc etc)

Also something about the motivating racism evident in on-the-ground troops for colonial operations like blackwater (or if you wanna be honest, the legitimate american military as well) is also sort of nihilistic because while it furthers white supremacy it has no allegiance to whiteness, just hostility to non-whiteness and its true allegiance is always capital.

[frodo-a-gogo]

#disco elysium#also something about how a fascist white supremacist like gary would go insane if he met the mercs#cus his prized whiteness would actually not protect him at all from the mercs's denigrating perception of him and their subsequent violence#hes a loincloth too! cus loincloth is not merely utilized as a racially charged term here#its a racializing term#also this is long and rlly rambly srry#long post

I am also thinking about how de writes racism and colonial mindsets in relation to the mercenaries cus i think theres a lot of rlly interesting stuff there. The tribunal is pretty far into the game, so you've spent hours and hours absorbing revochalian culture and getting a sense of how ppl conceptualize themselves and others. Revochal is majority white but its also got a fair amount of nonwhite ppl whos revochalian roots stretch back a while as well as white and nonwhite immigrant communities. Revochal is also pretty racist and xenophobic and you get that both from living in the world and absorbing the ambient racism (for example, the fictional anti-black slur "kipt" is tossed around with great frequency and casualness to the point that some ppl don't even seem to register that they're using an insult) and also because while you play a white character, ur attached at the hip to an asian man and so you observe the constant deluge of racism thrown kim's way particularly.

But anyways, you have a pretty solid sense of race politics in revochal and then you meet those mercenaries and its more of that same hostility towards minority populations, tho even more virulently anti-black than is typical. But a thing that's sort of interesting is that the mercenaries seem to consider all Revochalians to be racialized subjects because of their position as being residents of a country the Moralintern is occupying and that Krenel is deployed in. The mercenaries use really racialized terms to refer to all Revochalians regardless of race. They're "loinclothes", natives of a country that they are visiting violence upon. Their language and actions equate the residents of Martinaise with the Semanese ppl they were comissioned to violate and kill.

That's not to say race is totally irrelevant to the mercs's perspective. I think it's no accident that they target Liz and Theo in particular when they're shooting at people. Liz is especially telling, she is a totally non-violent figure who is actively attempting to deescalate and i think they try to shoot her in part because she is black and because they are inclined to and highly conditioned to kill black victims. They were never gonna listen to her because they were raring for a fight and because she's the resident of a place they consider a backwater slum sure, but also because she is black.

Idk i dont have a point exactly. Just....something about how Krenel's mercenaries are conditioned to consider all populations they interact with as fundamentally and ethnically inferior, regardless of phenotype or whether theyre occidental or whatever. They're white supremacists but with a definition of whiteness that fundamentally excludes white ppl who are "3rd world" even if it still differentiates between white and non-white "loinclothes." Also also something about how this reflects a real world tendency amongst non-eastern europeans to present eastern-europeans in a racializing manner, as historically western european nations have used eastern europe's relative proximity to asia as a means to frame eastern europeans as not white and subsequently frame them as inferior. Or a modern tendency amongst wealthy nations to consider some nations as ethnically inferior regardless of actual racial makeup because of idk poverty or "cultural difference" or something. But also despite that, race is still a major factor in how these countries are percieved (i was thinking about this a lot cus i played de while the american news media was covering ukraine and saying shit like "this isnt palestine, normal people live here how can there be a war" etc etc)

Also something about the motivating racism evident in on-the-ground troops for colonial operations like blackwater (or if you wanna be honest, the legitimate american military as well) is also sort of nihilistic because while it furthers white supremacy it has no allegiance to whiteness, just hostility to non-whiteness and its true allegiance is always capital.