#experiencing a game described since its earliest stages as a simulator of extreme situations where you must behave with humanity (comma)

[rathologic]

glad I had a little more time to parse this one in text, but the idea I was getting at with being uncomfortable at The Background Racism being completely unchanging in patho2 is that I think it presents an idea that that racism is an unavoidable fact and there's no way for the townsfolk to do better. which is in line with the story P2 wants to tell about the Town and Kin being incompatible, but is such a deeply worrying idea in the world of real social issues... like much like here it's a belief systemically and socially embedded in the Town and one vital to the exploitation of the Kin, but the game doesn't acknowledge potential decolonial or anti-racist actions outside of the character writing of Artemy possibly dealing with his alienation from his heritage, especially b/c its final choice is also fully on the haruspex. nobody else in the game has to or is even asked to put in work (for the millionth time, in the game where side characters don't do anything concrete); the entire social slate gets wiped clean by the Special Guy and suddenly the historical tension of the settlement isn't a problem anymore. while, and because, it's presented as its immodifiable fact in the course of the game. the way that artemy always has the internal option to choose how he feels about the Kin, but not the options to tell someone else that their feelings about the Kin are wrong, is something I think a more cognizant game could have used as a statement (in connection to how racism affects real-world people of color; by all means this shouldn't be artemy's responsibility! the microaggressions do reflect, as others have discussed, life in a racist society. talking about their use as a device of constant emphasis for the "incompatible parts" idea here) but in patho2 unaddressed it becomes the same "side characters don't do anything" that afflicts every area of its writing... and while there are plenty of other things for characters to be worried about during pathologic, it's still an ideological stance to assert that decolonization is unimportant during a crisis situation (where, again, it's a major plot point that the plague hits the Kin hardest due to the Olgimskys' organization of the Termitary and social/economic control over its workers), one that is absolutely used IRL to hinder any movement towards change. basically any character development would have helped avoid this. 😐