#disco Elysium analysis

[hildegardladyofbones]

One of the best things about Disco Elysium by far is that it does not fear ugly women. The world is full of ugly men, but ugly women are so hard to come by.

[estherax]

Generating plasm and stacking matchboxes: how to build a better future through collective consciousness.

Alternatively - Steban and Ulixes were building Tatlin's Tower so I have to talk about the symbolism or I will explode!!

While completing the communist vision quest you get an opportunity to build a model of "The Tower of History", depicted on the last page of "A Brief Look at Infra-Materialism": a leaning tower wrapped in a dramatic helix. The scale model you make is a mirror image of Tatlin's Tower - a design for a grand monumental building to the Third International: the government organization advocating for world communism.

The main idea of the monument was to produce a new type of structure, uniting a purely creative form with a utilitarian form. Meaning it would function as an office building while also serving as a symbol of cultural significance. And let me tell you, this bad boy can fit so much symbolism in it.

Tatlin was commissioned to develop a design in 1919, after the 1917 February Revolution - a parallel to Disco Elysium's Insulinde we're witnessing post-Antecentennial Revolution.

Tatlin's work was inspired by high revolutionary goals, which are evident in the visual direction of the tower as well, expressing the ideological strive for achieving something that has never been done before, overcoming the odds. The structure "oscillates like a steel snake, constrained and organized by the one general movement of all the parts, to raise itself above the earth. The form wants to overcome the material and the force of gravity..."

The tower has meaning packed even in the materials. For example, the glass structures (marked A, B, C on the architectural rendering) were meant to serve legislative, executive and informative initiatives while rotating around their axes at different speeds. The material signified the purity of initiatives, their liberation from material constraints and their ideal qualities.

But here's the best part. The spirals.

"The spiral is the movement of liberated humanity. The spiral is the ideal expression of liberation: with its base set in the earth, it flees from the ground and becomes a symbol of the suspension of all (...) earthy interests." They are "the most elastic and rapid lines which the world knows" that represent movement and aspiration, continuing the themes of progress and freedom, but they also refer to something else.

In the process of building the matchbox model Rhetoric points out: "It's almost exactly as Nilsen's sketch imagined, a physical manifestation of the dialectical spiral of history."

The shape of the tower is a representation of dialectical development of history, first visualized as a spiral by G. W. F. Hegel. He pictured transformational change as "both linear and circular in order to be short-term responsive, i.e. possibly negating itself, and long-term strategic, i.e. a process of development."

Hegel's dialectics would later be reinterpreted through the prism of materialism by Marx and Engels to create dialectical materialism - the basis for historical materialism.

"Still, this idea, as formulated by Marx and Engels on the basis of Hegels’ philosophy, is far more comprehensive and far richer in content than the current idea of evolution is. A development that repeats, as it were, stages that have already been passed, but repeats them in a different way, on a higher basis, (...) a development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight line; a development by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions; (...) the interdependence and the closest and indissoluble connection between all aspects of any phenomenon (history constantly revealing ever new aspects), a connection that provides a uniform, and universal process of motion, one that follows definite laws - these are some of the features of dialectics as a doctrine of development that is richer than the conventional one."

The tower embodies progress in materialist understanding of history while also indicating the connection to ideological plasm, a manifestation of "the proletariat's embrace of historical materialism", necessary to create a better future.

According to Nilsen, the proletariat of a revolutionary state can generate enough plasm to create extra-physical architecture that "disregards the laws of 'bourgeois physics' and instead relies on the revolutionary faith of the people for structural integrity."

This function of plasm implies that The Tower of History can be created only under revolutionary circumstances - without a sufficient amount of plasm even the matchbox model didn't stay up. The exact same sentiment is expressed about Tatlin's Tower: "We maintain that only the full power of the multimillion strong proletarian consciousness could bring into the world the idea of this monument and its forms. The monument must be realized by the muscles of this power, because we have an ideal, living and classical expression the pure and creative form of the international union of the workers of the whole world."

Nilsen called it "the highest expression of Communist principles, a society whose literal foundation is the faith of its people."

Tatlin's Tower was a symbol of faith in the revolutionary future, the global triumph of Marxist socialism. A monument "made of iron, glass and revolution."

It was never built in real life, and neither was The Tower of History in the world of Elysium.

But you can try to see if there's enough plasm between the three of you. And the matchbox tower stays up for a long moment, quivering with an improbable energy. You believe it can say up - and it does.

So you have to believe; whether it's for collective action or generating ideological plasm. Then, together, maybe you'll be able to build as much as 0.0002% of communism.

[scoutpologist]

i wanted to take a brief moment to look at jean and kim's portraits and how they show the difference in how harry views the two. here i'm going to be operating on the theory that the portraits are how harry in particular views the world and aren't objective descriptions.

[ID: A portrait of Jean Vicquemare from Disco Elysium. The portrait has a painterly style, with large brushstrokes. The colors are all black-and-white, spare for his skin, which is pale and cool-toned with hints of red. Half his face is obscured in black shadow. Behind him, a square, black halo frames his head. End ID.]

one of the most notable details here is that jean has a square halo. according to this article here, square halos are a rare piece of christian iconography to distinguish a living, regular person from a saint. in other words, this halo carries "no implication of sanctity".

[ID: A portrait of Kim Kitsuragi from Disco Elysium. Compared to the previous, the painting is noticeably more detailed, though still carries a traditional texture. The colors are warm, orange and red in tone, besides the skin, which has a slight cool tone. A pure white halo is positioned behind his head. End ID.]

meanwhile we get the classic circle halo in kim's portrait. not only that, but the details in kim's portrait are much sharper - we can see most of his face, and there are clear lines as opposed to jean's more broad strokes. round halos "indicate holy or sacred figures", according to the wikipedia page on the subject.

side note: dolores dei (both as dora and not) does not have a halo of any sort. she does have a crown, but only in the sprite - harry does not see it on either the glass window or in his dream.

that's not even getting into the differences in color scheme. jean's portrait is dark and moody, with a very "noir detective" type of color scheme. the colors are almost entirely devoid of pigment. kim's portrait, however, is bursting with color and warmth. there's a nearly egregious use of red that, from a distance, looks like blood or bruising. the background is a black tinged with red. his jacket is bright orange.

it's just. so. interesting. because every little detail (down to HOW MANY DETAILS THERE ARE), is an indication of how harry feels about the character.

[medusaesque]

Lt. Kim Kitsuragi and the pale-

Warning- it's insanely long.

1. After life, death

One of the first thing you can learn about Kim is that he would hurl himself in death's way to save you. From the very first moment, Kim is related to sacrifice and death, it follows him wherever he goes-

The slaughterhouse.

He lost his parents at two years old. He worked a year in Processing (here's good post about that by @renmorris and @spilledkaleidoscope). He lost his partner, Eyes. People have taken a bullet that was meant for his more than once. His survivor's guilt is insane. He's killed six people. He's afraid of killing recklessly, and has a deeply unhealthy relationship with his gun (made another embarrassingly long post about that).

Kim also hears pale 'ghosts' on the police radio all the time, and talks about it like it's normal, and says he doesn't believe in ghosts.

If harry is with Noid during the Moralist dream quest (more on it later), Harry can even wonder if Kim is a ghost, prompting this beautiful exchange-

And he's not entirely wrong. When Harry gets shot, after Kim fulfills Espirit's promise he'll stand in death's way for him, you can ask as you fall into darkness what will happen to you-

It's the living who are ghosts. You can leave them behind and rest. Go into the wild pale yonder, along with everyone else Kim has ever cared about. Or at least you can try to.

When death is at the door, you have two options-

2. After death, life again

Kim might associate himself with death, but Harry associates him with life again and again- Death is darkness, Kim has a light bulb halo. Death is a sunset, Kim is a sunrise. Death is where you are when the game start, it's ready to take you, and then- a clarion call, the sound of a motor carriage, a detective arriving on the scene, and you open your eyes.

The game is very clear about Harry being a ceaseless agent of the world (here's a good compilation by @junawer) but he's not the only one. Harry stands at death's door twice, and Kim is his way back to the world both times.

3. After the world, the pale

So what is Kim's relationship with the pale?

As casual as he might try to appear, Kim is clearly uncomfortable with the pale, attempting to protect Harry from it. When Harry brings up the pale, he intervenes, genuinely worried for the fragile stability of his mind.

It's no more terrifying than water or death or that we're stuck behind our eyes for all eternity?? Sounds pretty terrifying Kim...

The key is in the moralist vision quest, When Harry attempts to each the Committee of Responsibility, and he hears the pale crosstalk coming through the radio, when suddenly-

"Pale is a shroud of memories and it doesn't really distinguish to whom those memories belong to. You could hear anything." You could hear anything, but you hear Kim. If he isn't with you, Soona even says that the odds of us hearing him, out of all the voices in the pale, are astronomically low.

We know the past has not been harmless to Kim, we know it's full of ghosts and cold winters, but that's not the thing that's eating at him-

Kim is afraid of forgetting. He's constantly writing, he thinks through his notebook, always recording, so he wouldn't lose anything. That's why the pale is so terrifying.

4. After the pale. the world again

The world is what it is. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.

Volta do mar is a skill unique to Kim, according to the stats of this pilot jackets-

It makes sense, seeing how the only real advance in pale transit is the speed with which an aerostatic craft can pierce it.

His Black jacket is a bit more complicated-

DISTANT ENEMY OF HIMSELF?? kim.... The connections to Seol is intriguing here, considering how Kim tries to distant himself from it. I'm also not sure what 'sitting down for volta' would mean in this context, would love to hear some of you guys' thoughts.

It's driving me crazy to think how Kim wanted to be pilot as a kid, and is walking around dressed like a pilot as an adult, to give himself the ability to navigate the pale. To return from the sea and fulfill the role he has to play in the world, the thing Harry thought about a million times-

But we know Kim has a bigger role to play, he's trying to do his part right now, convincing Harry to stay-

His connection to Harry can keep him on this world once again. Keeping the two of them together. Your real work is down here, both of you-

Kim was right, each of them has a role to play in the world, but it's not a minor one. Him and Harry are Revachol's only hope. If they stick together they could keep her on this earth, stop the end of the world.

UNITY AMONG THE RANKS IS PARAMOUNT.

I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT.

I LOVE YOU.

[nonbinaryeye]

I do not understand how some people can genuinely think that Jean hates or does not care about Harry. Because Jean cares about Harry more than any past or present of version of him deserves.

He tells Jules to treat Harry's call regarding missing badge and gun as prank so he has enough time to "pull his shit together".

He comes back to Martinaise with a stupid joke which is supposed to be kind of peace offering even though by all means Harry is the one who really should apologise as he was the one who drive Jean, Judit and Trant away in the first place.

And he's ten years younger than Harry, Harry is his superior, he is the one who should have his shit together. But he has not. Jean should not have technical rank of the lieutenant yet, he should not be dealing with all the responsibilities, he should not be in charge of the task force his partner is incapable of leading.

All the damage control Kim is trying to do after half of Harry's statements he can say during the game? That is usually Jean doing it.

I mean, yes, he must hate him a bit after all they've been through after all Harry has put him through. But also he still cares so much for him. And just because he has seen him fail to get better way too many times does not mean he would not want him to get better he just does not dare to hope anymore.

And even though in the end he is the one making the judgement over taking Harry back you have to fail on so many levels for him to actually just finally give up on him and leave him there.

[gazorninplat]

As much as I love Disco Elysium, I think I was not prepared for Sacred and Terrible Air. Of course, I was expecting to know more about the world of Elysium as a whole, and Robert Kurvitz is a very good writer, but the thesis of the novel (and how it makes its points) flash-banged me.

Disco Elysium this is not, and it wasn’t supposed to be, but I think I can understand better now what the team at ZA/UM was getting at with this specific setting, and these specific narrative angles. Kinda messy, because it’s been a week since I finished it, but here are some things I’d like to highlight: 

1. The pedophilia. I surely wasn’t expecting this to be such a central theme of the novel, but a lot of its main points revolve around it. The most interesting use of this, as a narrative device, is how the girlfriend of Jesper basically accuses him of being a pedophile because he cannot relate to the adults around him. He’s still obsessed with a girl he met when he was 13 years old, and fetishizes a scrunchie he stole from her bag two decades ago. Yeah, I guess Jesper, well into his thirties, is still in love with a 13 year old girl. His girlfriend is almost half his age, and they started dating when she was 15 years old and a lingerie model (!). Zigi mentions how pedophilia was a bougie disease, and well… That idea went right into my thought cabinet (I call it “Bougie Babies for Sale).

Still processing it.

Now, let’s go back to the rest of the main characters. With all this in mind, a pedophilic overtone covers their interest in these four missing girls, but Jasper is the only one who acts on it, sort of. Khan remains in a sort of arrested development (he still uses a shirt he had when he was 13), foregoing normal adult relationships, and Tereesz joins the police as an investigator with the idea of still finding them some day (essentially letting these eternally prepubescent girls define his entire existence), leading him to a very dark path. I wonder if the brutality they afford to the “actual” pedophiles in the story (Vidkun Hird and the Linoleum Salesman) comes from the realization that they are not that different?

2. Obviously, though, this fetishization of the Lund sisters is also a fetishization of the past. The novel states it in the first few pages; they disappeared twenty years ago, in a time that most conservative people remember as the “good old days”. Basically their version of the American Fifties. Now, being obsessed with the past is a running theme in both SaTA and DE, but the angle here is different.

I already said it: the past is not remembered, is fetishized with an almost sexual yearning by a lot of the male characters of the book. They want to be consumed by it (and lucky them! It will) and do nothing more than serve it. It reminds me of a poem by Yamil Nardil Sadek, which, translated to the best of my ability, goes like: 

She awaits me

sitting on the bed,

wearing leather,

and armed to the teeth,

the Memory.

Yeah, that sums up Sacred and Terrible Air pretty well. Everyone is being consumed by the past, bite by bite, and enjoying it. Vidkun Hird, by the mythologized version of his tribe’s history; Sarjan Ambartsumjan, by a miniature ship model that requires constant, devoted thought or else it will disappear, the three main characters by the memory of that summer with the Lund girls. Even the Linoleum Salesman is being haunted and consumed, of sorts, by his sickness and dementia that only sometimes let him take a peek of the past. Beyond that, there are very few characters that do not spend time being followed by relentless ghosts. Literally, in the case of Zigi. Which brings me to…

3. The Pale. It was a really cool concept in Disco Elysium, and it’s an existential nightmare in Sacred and Terrible Air. It always was, really. But here it lets you take a look into it in a way that’s applicable in real life. The Pale is a metaphor for many things, but actually for a single one: A world where our current Capitalist reality facilitates both apathy and yearning for better days, often idealized in our collective pasts.

My favorite scene, one that was incredibly puzzling but so obvious in retrospect, is a beautiful speech by the ghost (?) of Ignus Nilsen to Zigi. I will just paste it here:

“I said terrible things, yes! I stood on a white horse, in a blizzard, and gave speeches. In the mountains, on the construction site… I swung my sword, with silver sunbeams on the hilt. And all around me fluttered white flags, crests of crowned horns made with silver thread, a pentagon between the prongs of the horns, the branches raised to heaven. Everyone who came here with me became happy, Zigi! Communism is powerful! Believe in Communism, it’s a burst of enthusiasm! I promise! It’s beautiful when you believe in a person, but without it…!”

“Without it, there is nothing.”

“Nothing. It was a blizzard, but it was bright, it was morning. Communism is white, it sparkles! Communism is the morning, it is a jubilation!” 

The Pale begins to recede dangerously around the entroponaut.

The fucking Pale recedes with talk of Communism! At first it might appear a little heavy handed (yeah, Communism, by itself, could save the world). But then I got into how Communism could be a solution to the antipathy and chronic nostalgia that sustain Capitalism, and then it hit me. Nilsen, a literal ghost from the past, is talking about a future that could have been. That he wanted to accomplish. That people, probably, can still achieve. The Pale is not eternal, it can be pushed back. Because the Pale seems to subsist on the past, it abhors any talk of the future. A better future. That’s how we solve things, and for a central thesis, is not bad at all.

With that being said, and because I’m just rambling here while pretending I’m working, there are also some things that I just didn’t understand, but maybe it was because of the translation. The original novel is written in a very poetic style, and some of that is still here, but I still need to untangle…

1. The Man. It is said that the day the Lund girls disappeared, they were joined by a mysterious Man that nobody seemed to remember correctly. A character even suspects that she was remembering wrong. Now, the Pale erases people and memories retroactively, so maybe it had something to do with it, but… Who was that? Is there any theory about that Man, or I just missed something? Some scenes and narrations were tough to parse for me (my primary language is not English).

2. Was Malin Lund pregnant? That flash with the fetus was sudden and weird.

3. What was the significance of the three meat piroshkis? They mention that it was unusual that the girls bought them (and if you do the math, you can realize early on that they were not planning to get back home. That purchase didn’t leave them enough money for the bus fare back), but that’s it. Were they for the Man? Also, the narration mentions that Lund girls’ picnic basket contained “the kind of things girls like to eat”, so maybe they were planning to see the boys and bring them the kind of things boys eat? I’m overthinking that? The chapter actually titled “Three Meat Piroshkis” just left me even more confused.

4. I don’t understand how Khan’s pen works at all. The one he brought to the school reunion. That was the part I re-read the most. Anyway, even with that, I loved Sacred and Terrible Air. Definitely one of the most enthralling reads I had, with or without the background of Disco Elysium. I’d still like an official translation that could potentially solve the issues I had, but for now, a Top 10 Book for me.

Go for it now.

[keymintt]

i’m sure this has been at least mentioned before but one of the things that’s so fucking funny to me abt kim is that, for all the shit he gives you (harry) when you try to get him to dance or wear the piss jacket, he actually wants to do those things to some extent

over the course of the game you can’t get him (or other characters for that matter) to do things he doesn’t want to do. disco elysium isn’t a power fantasy game like that. don’t get me wrong some things he needs to be convinced/challenged for, but he can and does outright Refuse things at times like when you suggest getting on the kineema and cutting the body down from there, not going into the tent with the ravers, or not climbing up the shitty feld building ladder, etc. and there are also definitely moments when he reluctantly puts up with harry/the player’s antics bc harry’s persistent and it’ll just put a quicker end to things to be like, “yeah sure fine i’ll eat the sandwich“ or, “i'll spare you another *20 hour mind-project*— yes, i am”

when you really badger him into dancing in the church and pass the authority check, he of course puts up some resistance but then goes, “now check *this* shit out!“ and starts busting it down! if he was reluctant to dance, he’d totally just do some stupid lil shimmy to appease harry with the same enthusiasm of, “oh god more cryptids” but no! he starts “heel kick[ing] the church floor with such intensity, it’s reasonable to fear he’ll kick a hole right through it“ he had those moves Locked And Loaded, but it’s not like he was gonna bust them out oh god no, then harry pulls his rank on him and he thinks “well everyone else here can see that the guy making a bigger fool of himself is ordering me to do it so i guess it’s okay for me to“

(thinking abt that, there’s prolly something to also say there abt music being a sort of outlet for kim. in my brain the anodic dance music and the shit speedfreaks fm plays have more in common than not, but kim also strikes me as somewhat of a music snob about that sort of stuff so. i dunno)

and then the pissfaggot jacket! when you’re trying to convince him to put it on he essentially says “you’re gonna keep bothering me about this no matter what“ but at the end of the interaction he still puts the jacket on and keeps it on! “the first chance i get, this thing’s coming off“ yeah right, the first chance he had was immediately after putting it on, harry clearly doesn’t give a shit if kim leaves him hanging fashion-wise, he’s the one who puts on the fuck the world jacket first! and once harry takes off the fuck jacket, the piss jacket is gone too, so it basically boils down to “as long as i’m following around this guy who’s making a bigger fool of himself, i can do this thing that i wanted to do got coerced into going along with“ 

kim’s also like “it really *does* look cool to have both of these jackets on right now“ once he puts it on like who are you kidding bro. your lame ass wanted this. sure he wanted to be a jackass and take the jackets but he also confiscated those hubcaps because they were cool and he was gonna eventually install them, was he not gonna steal the jacket to wear it?

he has his pristine little Image to uphold so he’ll only do things he wants to do if it looks like he’s being forced to and/or he won’t be the biggest fool in the room because god forbid he expresses himself. there’s plenty of deeper analysis here in conjunction with how he relishes in having control over his desires and how harry’s someone who can get him to break his rigid self-control and let loose a bit, but for me it just boils down to:

he’s so fucking lame and it’s so fucking funny

[godspeedmajortom]

I’m fascinated by how variations of Sea Power's “Want to Be Free (Remix)” provide a musical theme for death and endings that follows Harry and his foils throughout Disco Elysium.

The first place you hear it is as “The Field Autopsy” while inspecting the Hanged Man’s body. It's barely recognizable as the original song, though. It's sluggish and muddy and bilious. The piano melody has been lowered and sustained to an ominous funereal organ and combined with deep strings. A lilting viola line in the lush layers of the original "Want to Be Free" is isolated here and contrasts with the low organ, rising like the stench off a corpse. If you do the autopsy first thing as Kim suggests, Harry – freshly, grotesquely awakened from his apocalyptic bender – is not in a much better state than a corpse himself.

The music underscores a visceral scene of death and decay, our introduction to the Hanged Man, the first of Harry's foils. Both Harry and Lely are agents of state-sponsored violence as a cop and mercenary, respectively. They bear similar physical scars from the neglect of the systems they grew up in. They both desperately want to escape the horrorshow of their lives, using drugs and dark fantasies to cope with the terrible things they see and do but finding little more than self-destruction in the nihilism. The Bloated Corpse of a Drunk taking the Hanged Man's place in Harry's first night dream makes their connection explicit: you should be dead, Harry. This may as well have been you.

The next place you hear a variant of "Want to Be Free" is in the washerwoman's shack in the fishing village. “Live With Me” is wistful and melancholic. The gentle piano and cooing vocals evoke the wind and waves on the bay, an escape calling outside the salt-rimed shack. But this is a place of death, or at least its potential, as the return of the high viola from "The Field Autopsy" reminds us. This is where Ruby hid when Harry's arrival made her fear for her life, where she contemplated killing herself if things got even worse. This is where Harry can end up if no one vouches for him at the RCM tribunal finale, where his wounds will grow infected without medical care, where there is little left to do but return to drinking and wait to die.

But true to the song title, the shack also offers Harry the possibility of learning to with himself as he emerges from his bender. Here is a mirror free from the damage and trauma of attempting to destroy himself where he can reflect on who he was and who he wants to become. He can choose to keep or let go of his past coping/defense mechanisms like his facial hair and The Expression. He can choose to embrace or reject the self-defeating fantasy of fascism. The shack marks a midpoint of the game, when the hangover has worn off but before the case is closed. So "Live With Me" scores the balance between potential endings: abandonment or acceptance, relapse or recovery, death or life. Harry breathes in the sea air, breathes it back out, and takes another step.

I didn’t realize this until a recent replay, but “Live With Me” also plays when you visit the Working Class Woman to notify her of her husband’s death. Since this is an optional sidequest, I understand why they didn't create original music for it. But they didn't reuse "Rue de Saint-Gislaine", the song for the rest of the Capeside Apartments (including the Smoker on the Balcony's apartment when you talk to the Sunday Friend). The Working Class Husband is another mirror for Harry who has met his end, and "Live With Me" plays to mourn him.

Victor Méjean died from an accident while inebriated, a fate that also could have befallen Harry on a previous drinking binge. The striking thing about Victor's death is how easily he could have been overlooked and forgotten. He died at the end of a pier in a fenced off, abandoned part of town. His wife wasn't concerned about his days-long absence. It's only by virtue of Can Opening and Jamrock Shuffling that Harry will know about or find him. Victor literally and figuratively died slipping through the cracks – of the rotted boardwalk, yes, but also of any sort of social safety net. This is what happens to alcoholics in Revachol. This is what will happen to Harry if he continues drinking and hasn't built his own personal safety net with Kim or Cuno to prevent the RCM from abandoning him. As Harry informs Billie of her husband's death, it's only natural for him to think of his own possible endings, and the soundtrack reflects that.

The final version of the song you hear is “Burn, Baby, Burn” blasting from Sad FM on the boat ride to the Sea Fortress to find the Hanged Man's killer and Harry's last dark reflection: Dros, The Deserter. Dros shares Harry's penchant for clinging to political ideology to give meaning to his life and obsessing over women he can't be with. He lives in bitter isolation, refusing to move beyond the failures of the past, his personal shortcomings and the evils of the world alike. He's emblematic of yet another possible outcome for Harry: not literal death, but despair-induced stagnation that leaves one living like a ghost in the mortal realm.

By the time Harry gets in the boat to the island, his fate at the end of the game is set. The RCM (specifically Jean) has all they need to decide whether to accept or abandon their prodigal lieutenant-yefreitor. Should his former partners leave him, Harry can return to the shack and the circle of drunks who have also given up on life. Or he can return to the island, where he would take Dros' place as the creepy old man haunting the fortress, scaring children, and staring at the mainland with longing and resentment. But even if Harry returns with his unit to Jamrock, simply resuming his old life will not keep him from returning to the depths of despair. The RCM broke him; the RCM will not save him. Neither outcome helps Harry become a person he truly wants to live with.

"Want to be free/It will last forever/Eternally," croons the boombox on the boat. The lyrics echo the self destruction that Harry sought before the game's events: freedom forever from pain, the ultimate release of death. At least that's what the Ancient Reptilian Brain would see in those words. But there's tension in the lyrics as the desire for freedom and exhortations to "burn, baby, burn" repeat. The bridge offers an alternative vision of verdure not consumed by the disco inferno: "And the trees are green and overhanging/Feather-light, free, and everlasting." Perhaps a less moribund future exists for Harry, even if only in the next world, as a new person.

[effen-draws]

OKAY it's going to take a while to get to the point with this one but-- de meta time. You see I realised just now that the skua which is referenced throughout the game is a y'know a skua. Like Great Skua skua, like Stercorarius Skua.

And ALRIGHT that might be my bilingual brain that's slow on the uptake (all my bird knowledge is in Danish so forgive me) because perception literally points it out:

BUT HEY. HEY. I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY OF YOU KNOW WHAT THE GREAT SKUA'S WHOLE DEAL IS BUT IT IS NOT NICE. SO LET ME TELL YOU A LITTLE ABOUT THEM BEFORE I GET INTO THE MEAT OF THIS META:

Skuas are a type of predatory bird that primarily lives off of stealing other marine bird's food. Basically they're very good at outmanouvering and bullying other birds until the unsuspecting gull or tern (for an example) drops the fish it had caught. But The Great Skua takes that a step further as the largest of its kind. Becuase it will straight up kill to rob another bird, while also consequently getting the other bird as a meal in the process. Like, killing gulls and puffins are just a regular part of its diet along with the theft.

AND IN CASE THIS ISN'T ALREADY OBVIOUS: THE GREAT SKUA IS AN INSANE BIRD TO HAVE AS A HERALDIC/SYMBOLIC BIRD.

But then I thought; well yes of course the first bird that the nations of Mundi would find as a proof of reality would be the Great Skua. Of course the colonisers would have their first proof of discovering "the New New World" be this bird. Of course the people who after seeing this skua, this living proof that there was more out there to exploit, would then go to other isolas to steal and kill to sustain themselves. Of course the people that established the Suzerain of Revachol, which was (to quote Joyce) "the greatest concentration of wealth mankind has ever seen", would be justified by a Great Skua.

Of course the future foundations of the capitalist world in Elysium would see a skua, the bird that lives of off kelptoparasitism, as their proof of a New New World and new new oppertunities.

And then it only makes sense that The Great Skua became the symbol of the discovery of Insulinde; Mundi's most "promising" steal.

[nerdy-autistic-things]

I’m thinking about the failed check to get Kim to dance, and. Even though Harry is a disaster bisexual, in many ways (at least on a good playthrough), Harry is a breath of fresh air. Like we talk a lot about Kim putting up with Harry, but Harry also, as his best self, helps Kim a lot by just letting him be himself instead of the impenetrable wall he has to be around.. everyone really, to be given respect. He whisks him away on his eccentric little journeys with his silly little mannerisms and just.. radically accepts Kim. Until he calls him a slur. And even if you apologize to him, it breaks that illusion. You can’t go back to being that for him.

He doesn’t even call Harry officer. He is more disappointed than angry, and self blaming even. He calls himself an idiot for not seeing it. He’s frankly heartbroken because he really likes you (whether you ship them or not because they can still grow very close either way). He let himself be vulnerable with you and you slammed the door in his face.

It hurts to only see how much Kim really cares about you when he’s walking away and it’s such good writing, and it’s so realistic as well. To feel like you’re in a safe place with your friends until it all goes south so quickly it makes your head spin

[hildegardladyofbones]

Something I've yet to rant about is the inherent sadness and misery of post-tribunal disco elysium. Of course it will *feel* different each time depending on the outcome, but I think I had one of the worst one of all. Everyone fucking died, I didn't have a gun, and I failed all but two skills checks. One of them had a 97% success possibility, so it was almost impossible to fail *that one*. Safe to say it was a shit show. When Harry wakes up, Kim is tired. He is running on his last drop of fuel and he is *so* close to done, but he is Kim Kitsuragi, the entire RCM's finest, he doesn't give up. Still, the air in the post massacre streets of Martinaise feels thick with defeat. Everyone has fucked off, closed off. People are only left with a burning memory and the task to accept what happened, because there's nothing to be done now. The choices you've made snicker at you trying to accept the consequences now. You will never know if you made the right decision.

Not only that, but this game doesn't let you forget for a second, that Harry is severely wounded. When he sleeps in the flak tower it is mentioned multiple times that his wound is bleeding, the game makes a point to comment on how his pelvis hurts, how it's hard to run... and in the final cut scene, the Finale, Jean outright says that Harry is actively bleeding everywhere. This game doesn't let you forget what the character has been through, wounds don't heal when the health bar is full.

Harry has been a broken man from the beginning, not even the beginning of the game, but the post-tribunal gameplay doesn't play along to his madness anymore, it has given up on the fanfare. The tie stops talking and something within me compelled me to turn down on the out-of-pocket replies. It didn't feel appropriate anymore and honestly, it didn't feel like the same game anymore. All that is left is the death and misery present all around him, not contained to inside him anymore. Martinaise is a district that has had to go through the worst, but *it* has learned to cope. Now it just needs time to get back on its feet again. But Harry... Harry is down low, but he's still going. He's not going to take the time to get back on his feet until he's forced to, I think. This pitiful relentlessness only highlights how truly fucked everything in the moment is.

Disco elysium is truly a wonderful game for portraying this misery so bone-chillingly. It forces you to feel the last bit of hope they chased. The ending, the confrontation with his past, can only be described in a word I don't know the English translation for. I don't think it exists.

Õõvastav. The ending is exactly that. Harrowing is the closest word I could think of.

[mrtequilasunset]

One thing I don’t see people talk about a lot is that “Sunrise, Parabellum” wasn’t original to Kim, it’s actually engraved on Harry’s gun and I like to think about the idea of Kim waking up after being knocked out by De Paule and still having the gun in his hand and the engraving being the first thing he really focuses in on and it just sort of sticks with him, so much so that he decides it should be the first thing Harry hears when he wakes up too, and I just think that’s kinda neat.

[cusn0]

ik I'm late to the trend, but--

[medusaesque]

Kim's itchy trigger finger

So, Kim reaches for his gun often. Very often. sometimes for the most ridiculous reasons- opening the bear fridge, the experiment in the church, a note from Klaasje.

This one is just from being anxious going into the communist reading group. Kim doesn't want to be the kind of cop who draws his gun constantly, who shoots instinctively, but he is, or at the very least it's very difficult for him to stop himself from becoming one.

Perhaps the most horrifying example is with The Pigs-

Even if he KNOWS the gun isn't loaded, even if he knows it's safe, the instinctual muscle twitch could have ended in an unnecessary death. Kim is very well aware of that fact, and it's horrifying to him. @shufflerock-jam has this really good post about it, where they wonder how many of Kim's kills were unnecessary. "Something about a pair of traumatized cops, one fighting against shooting himself and one fighting against shooting everyone else".

At the end of The Pigs exchange, if Harry says she tried to kill him, Kim begins to interject, but stops himself and agree this situation could've been very bad. Then Empathy chimes in- 'He's trying not to think about how bad it could have been had the gun been loaded.' Which is the heart of the issue, right? that leads us to Eyes-

This is such a fascinating background to give Kim as a character- not just losing his partner, which gives him the trauma and survivor's guilt that lead to this unhealthy relationship with his gun and frankly with death in general, but losing his Eyes, and having that not interfere with his shooting. Kim doesn't need to see well to hit, he doesn't need to think. It's all in his hands, a reflex. A reflex that nearly took an innocent life. That might have taken one before.

His awareness of looming danger, to him and to his partner, is fueling his version of Hand/Eye Coordination to have him constantly on edge, his whole body is like a loaded spring, always prepared to make sure it doesn't happen again. Then it does-

In his nightmare scenario, leaning over his partner's bleeding body, Kim only needs one word to shoot without a second's hesitation. He's never not ready to take that shot. He doesn't need his Eyes.

Harry is distraught to discover he's killed before- his body remembers it. He wants a drink to soften the feeling. Kim however is impressed with how little he's killed- especially coming from the bloody murder unit. He wants to be 'one of the good ones' (Kim's adamant belief in the possibility of a Good Cop is a whole other can of worms) the kind of cop he would think highly of. Kim is disgusted by cops who kill like it's a game. Espirit gives us a vision of a cop exactly like that, who kills so often it doesn't feel like anything anymore. In a way that is completely mechanical- no thought, no feelings, just a thing your body does. Not unlike the way Kim shoots- like a spring unloaded. Kim has 6 confirmed kills before the tribunal, double the amount Harry has. He doesn't react the same way though-

It's doesn't bother Kim that he has killed, even if he declines to elaborate on it, and he seems to frown upon (or worry about) Harry's destructive coping mechanism. If they're unable to save Ruby, he says "Control your emotions. We did our job. This won't be the worst thing that happens on this case… believe me. You can't let this break you." When you wake up after the tribunal, he doesn't dwell on the lost lives on either side. Harry's skills call him a killer, a bloodstained killer, but when he tells Kim he also killed he simply nods. He's smoking though. I'm not saying that Kim is heartless or careless, he's rattled by nearly blowing The Pigs' head off, very sorry for the lives lost during the case, and clearly hunted by death, having been surrounded by it for his entire life. But I do think death is a part of the job for him- not just possible civilian causalities, but his own potential death. He speaks plainly about how he might die in the lie of duty, and he narrowly avoided it more than once, with others dying in his place..

He walked into the line of fire with harry expecting for of them to die, and his quick fingers on the trigger made it so they lived another day. Even if more ghost joined the list that hunts him in his sleep, he is alive. He goes on. He can't afford to fix this habit, as much as he wants to.

So it's so horrible and so touching that when Dros asks "What have you done?" Kim says-

It's a tragedy, really. A wartime orphan who wanted to be a revolutionary pilot and played with Franconigerian knights, who grew up to be a cop, a job that slowly shapes his body into a killing machine. And when you ask what he does, what you both do, he says keep people alive.

[nonbinaryeye]

One thing I really love about Disco Elysium is how it subverts your expectations based on stereotypes and clichés you've learnt to expect from media.

There are the Hardie boys. Obvious first suspects and vigilanties given questionable authority by the Union and what more do they appear at the first glance than some mean boys gang. Except they *are* trying to make Martinaise better and safer place and they are willing to help their neighbours and people who seek refugee there - that's what the arranged lynching was about in the end. And yes their remarks are still sexist, they do not hesitate to use brutal force (I was testing what if I chose the worst option and they killed me and Kim on like three separate occasions). But also they could quite easily be abusing the power they have.

There is Evrat Claire fitting into evil fat ceo stereotype and you expect to learn that he does not really care about his workers and that the whole Union strike and getting benefits for the workers is some evil scheme but no! Turns out he really wants the Union to work out and he fights for his workers. He is using his influence to prevent organized crime and build up infrastructure and he cares about people of Martinaise - enough to create superficial job for René, enough to fund education for Elizabeth. And he is still not a best person. He is trying to bribe Harry. He does not hesitate to get rid of threats to his goals. His plans for Fishing village are not good either. And his refusal to acknowledge the danger mercenaries poses is questionable at best.

There is Cuno, delinquent kid screaming slurs at you and you expect him to be more of one gimmick character that is there just to make place feel more alive but you can actually bond with him and learn not only about his life and domestic abuse but also about his hobbies and you would not expect him to be your companion but there he can be if you fail to save Kim and you can recruit him to RCM.

There is Insulindian Phasmid. Mythical creature that is obviously fake and how ridiculous would it be to really believe in its existence? You expect all the mission surrounding it to be just a treasure hunt in vain that is really not about the Phasmid and more about relantionship of Lena and Morrell but no. The Phasmid is very much real and you can encounter it and it is much bigger and smarter than you would expect even if you did believe in its existence.

And then there is of course Kim Kitsuragi, your partner from precinct 57 and where can one even begin to describe all the contradictions Kim is? He just fits into that boring and very serious cop who is there to serve as your foil and hold you back and guide you and who will always be polite and kind. But no, he is genuinely funny and mean. He will not coddle you he just wants to do his job. He will not hesitate to call you on your bullshit but also he can play along with whatever scheme you are attempting. And he is actually very competitive and he can be silly and he is willing to agree even to some of your straight out crazy ideas. But he does care about you and he is quite amused by some of your stereo investigations. And when you learn about his past you understand why he always tris to keep up his perfect composure. And I will rather stop here because there is just so much to say about Kim.

I could go on and on I do not even know where to begin with our player character Harry and the journey of discovering who he is, who he was and who he could be. I could just keep listing characters and what are you supposed to notice about them at first and who you are supposed to assume they are in contrast what you can actually learn about them as you progress. And, yes, sometimes things are as they appear and the Racist Lorry Driver is just a racist and a lorry driver.

The point is you should never judge others based on the first impression even if they are just video game characters who appear to be cardboard cutout of overused cliché.

[halluciniwaynia]

when disco elysium was discussing the deeply contradictory heart of communism and its associated political practitionists it was not speaking to the idea that communism is doomed or that humanity itself is doomed to perpetuate capitalism until societal collapse. it was speaking to a larger more fundamental truth of humanity that the systems we put in place are social, based around sociality and interaction and who we see as the other and we see as not. it was discussing the ways that individuality and collectivism are two halves of a paradox which cannot be solved in a utopian sense and that any ideology which seeks to better humanity and free itself from subjugation will inevitably be prone to cannibalism before it can even start. not by some force of nature or economic system that is in place, but because the human soul itself is imperfect and any attempt we can ever make at bettering ourselves comes both at the cost of the self and the collective, a paradox of schismed consciousnesses which make up who we are but asks all of us to face truths which naturally we wish to run away from. in the end, it is a capitalistic society’s fault we lack the ability to change ourselves without access to the resources to do so, but even if we had those resources there is something base and beastial about the way humans cannot act to completely solve their own cognitive dissonances