#i just need it Out my brain or ill Esplode

[manager-dante]

i need to flesh this out once i’ve mulled it over more but i adore how limbus company expands on the incredible world-building of project moon, because it is so goddamn realistic.

from the outset the player is presented with this incredibly bleak world in which corporations have become the state. the poor and the desperate bow their heads and toil at the altar of the free market. worth is measured by talent in exploitation. it’s a social darwinist’s wet dream. i also think the choice to base the cast off of literary figures was amazing, because it highlights very important connections to the past. i haven’t read all the books referenced, but the ones i have (the metamorphosis, don quixote de la mancha, & the odyssey so far) draw an unmistakable through-line from the suffering and exploitation depicted in those books to that which occurs in the city. the most horrifying parts of this game in my opinion aren’t the monsters or the machines — it’s the sheer enormity of human suffering which exists in the economic and political system the city operates under. and that’s the worst part, because in so many ways, the suffering and exploitation portrayed in the city is not a hypothetical fantasy — this is just capitalism working as intended. it’s not confined to the historical context of those books, nor the gritty sci-fi horror of the game.

but not only do we have this incredible setting that’s somehow both brutally realistic and fantastical at the same time, we also get to see how our main cast attempts to survive in that world — and ultimately how none of their attempts to change it succeeded at all.

in my mind, canto i portrays how neither kindness nor cold-heartedness will help you survive — especially through the dynamic between aya and hopkins. gregor has been both. he was a war hero in a meaningless war. after it ended, he was discarded as any tool which had outlived its usefulness would be. he can’t even control his arm from becoming a killing machine. and yet, gregor is still exceptionally personable, even going out of his way to be kind at times. but no matter whether he’s a tool for violence in the hands of war profiteers or simply a man doing his best to protect others, he still couldn’t save yuri — just as he couldn’t save his comrades — and this clearly haunts him. neither the war nor its end changed anything.

canto ii shows between rodya and sonya how both direct action and an “inevitable” revolution fail to quell the suffering of the vulnerable. sonya’s revolution is all bluster and no action. he does nothing to help the people in his community in favor of this grandiose revolution that must happen at the “right moment” — even if it means leaving his neighbors to starve in the meantime. rodya’s inspired yet short-sighted action to remove what she saw as the source of her community’s suffering only led to its destruction: the tax collector was a branch, not the root, of the problem, and killing one person did nothing to stop the system which upheld them.

canto iii is even more clear-cut in the ties between sinclair and kromer: neither violent zealotry nor blissful ignorance will save you in the city. kromer’s cult does not “purify” anything, but sinclair’s courage to stand up to her isn’t enough to beat her either. canto iii still doesn’t end in a victory. dante and the sinners barely survive. it’s only through demian (and k-corp’s) divine intervention that the sinners and kromer don’t destroy each other in the corpse pit.

in the most recent addition, canto iv appears to do the same thing. on one hand, you have the devotion to a principle shown through shrenne, samjo, and donbaek. their causes are different, but their devotion is the same. on the other, there is the cynicism, indifference, and escapism of yi sang and dongrang, both willingly complicit in the machine in different ways. and yet — none of them make any positive difference. whether they resisted or submitted, the machine grinds on around them — the only choices are to become a cog in it or be ground to bits by its gears.

to be clear, i do not think the game is arguing that none of these individual actions matter. even if gregor couldn’t rescue yuri, even if rodya couldn’t protect her neighbors, even if sinclair couldn’t defeat kromer and all that she stood for, even if the league of nine members each failed to realize their ideals — limbus argues that it matters they tried. it matters that they’re still trying. it may never be possible to oust the corporate overlords and make the city a better place, but the love still matters.