#literally revachol forever!!!!!!!!!

[heavensickness]

how i sleep knowing revachol will be destroyed in 22 years & there is no sequel to disco elysium so we will never know if harry & co can save the city in an alternate universe or not

[electricdisco]

I’m redoing the moralist ending, and it’s just crazy.

The writing of this game amazes me more and more every single time i reopen it, and the whole moralist path is just extremely painful for me to see.

My Harry is a good guy, a hopeful cop that actually believes in the idea that things are going to change if we do something every day, not all at once.

He’s reasonable, but when he talks with the coalition warship archer everything changes.

You can hear how much the coalition literally doesn’t give a shit about revachol, about the people that live there, about nothing.

All the work of Kim and Harry is for nothing, for a future that will never come, forever stuck in bureaucracy and pretty words of a man you will only see when he wants: on Sundays.

That’s what the coalition is.

The operator in the coalition warship archer talks about how many people took care of advesperascit, a place that apparently has been built only for when the sun is setting, but the truth is that a city should be built for the people to be able to see the moon and the stars, the darkness, as well as the sunny days.

The truth just punches you in the face: they will never help, and all falls on you. On Harry.

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

[missingrache]

Okay okay BULLET POINTS Disco Elysium as katabasis/journey to the underworld because I have no idea how to organize this HERE WE GO!

-My big touchstones here are Hades & Persephone, Orpheus & Eurydice, and My Problematic Fave Odysseus, I know there's stuff I'm gonna miss, putting this here in hopes that other friends at the potluck will supply my deficiencies, hi @binomech hi @selfchiller hi everyone.

-Harry is half dead at our start of the game, post suicide-attempt, we're in purgatory/limbo/"you have to stay here in hell forever" awoken by Kim's Infernal Machine (tm)

-Do we need to bring Dante's Inferno into this I think maybe we do oops -That's also a katabasis -we gotta save that for later I can't start talking about Doralores and Beatrice right now that's a whole different tangent and I haven't read any of it since high school -But also Dante's hell is cold and so is Revachol and so is entropy/the Pale, so is the fimbulwinter that has destroyed the world in the Wirral Untethered game setting

-Anyway we are very firmly established as in An Underworld.

-Harry's amnesia/Drost's amnesia caused by drinking, caused by the Pale, caused by age and trauma, caused by the presence of the phasmid--forgetfulness, generally, regardless of the in-game cause, is Very Much A Thing, and the dead drink of the River Lethe which causes them to forget their past lives

-WATER CROSSINGS! The dead cross the River Styx to enter the underworld, to get to Revachol you gotta cross the bridge it's why there's a giant lorry jam etc, they raised the bridge. Two river crossings, the Styx (river of hatred--ledger of hatred? The one harry dumps his car and his past into probably.) and the Lethe (river of forgetfulness, borders Elysium), cross the bridge into Revachol, cross the channel on Lilienne's boat to the island, the forgotten and forgetting place.

-There are actually 5 rivers and I wonder if we can find the rest of them. (What if the flaming graffiti is the river Phlegethon WHAT IF.)

-My problematic fave Odysseus visits the underworld to speak to the dead/receive prophecies. Our man Harry has EXTENDED CONVERSATIONS with Lely's corpse and does in fact get future knowledge from him.

-But also we're in the underworld already so literally anyone he speaks with could also be interpreted as a ghost, a mirror, a prophecy, some piece of knowledge to take with him when he returns. (ie @selfchiller 's meta about Harry and Klaasje, dead woman walking, and Lely)

-Different sorts of underworld/different mythologies, different...values? Things that happen when you get there? Dante's hell and purgatory--punishment for sins/burning off impurities: SORRY COP Greek underworld/Elysium specifically, not for those who are VIRTUOUS but for those who are especially skilled and famous/possessed of kleos: SUPERSTAR COP

(These are the two copotypes I have played with so far MAYBE THE OTHERS ALSO HAVE THEIR OWN SPECIAL HELLS?)

-Orpheus: a performer of laments, beautiful enough that all the underworld stops to listen. Tragic flaw: looking back. -HDB: Says he loves disco and rock and roll but the only music we hear him choose is Sad FM for his boat ride over the pale/over the Lethe and his sad karaoke number, sung for the infernal court of the Whirling in Rags. A man who also has some trouble with looking back/moving forward.

-DORA: Young, beautiful, IN HER SPRING COAT at the bus stop in Harry's happier memories: PERSEPHONE, KORE, the young woman abducted by a cthonic figure--we could call that figure, that Hades stand in, Harry's rewriting of her memory as something Horrid and Terrifying, or we could call it Dolores Dei if you like the parasitic thought form possession theory. Either way Doralores from the final dream is Dread Queen Proserpine, the other mythological aspect of Persephone, who iirc had her own cult? (Apricots, pomegranates, same thing right?)

-Something something Harry and Dionysus and theater/partying/wine/madness and Dionysus also doing a katabasis to go visit Semele in the underworld? Speaking of Greek gods with their own mystery cults.

-Final fun side note unless I remember more things: GILGAMESH. Entirely different epic tradition, but we descend to the underworld in search of a flower of immortality. Peaches of immortality anyone?

-That's it that's what I've got!

[assorted-things]

My thoughts on the ending

This is probably going to be a bit rambling and disconnected, so bear with me...

(This got far longer than I meant it to be...)

Does anyone else feel that the Deserter is a reflection of the person Harry could have been, if he hadn't lost his memory? The bitterness and anger and inability to let go of the past remind me of a lot of things that the Ancient Reptilian Brain and the Limbic System say in the dream sequences... I think that Harry's amnesia is a gift, in a way - it allows Harry to eventually let go of the past and decide what kind of person he wants to be now. One of the first dream sequences shows Harry a vision of himself as the hanged man, and I think in a way the old Harry did die when he lost his memories. One of the reasons the game was so affecting emotionally to me is that you as the player are the one getting Harry to turn his life around, if that's how you choose to play it, because it really makes you feel involved and part of Harry's story. It's one of the reasons why I don't think the game would work well as a TV adaptation - I think it would really lose a lot of its emotional impact without your input. It really moved me that I could get Harry to go from screaming that he "doesn't want to be that kind of animal any more", to telling the Phasmid: "I'm glad to be me - an incredibly sensitive instrument".

I really love how the tone of the game manages to be somehow hopeless and hopeful at the same time. Maybe the world is doomed by the Pale, and the Revolution failed, and maybe Revachol is a shithole, but... you can find that there are things worth loving and saving in this broken world. You're subconscious tries so hard to convince you that it's all terrible and evil and that you should just give up and let the darkness take you, but all of your actions through the game can prove that voice wrong. It tells you you're not helping anyone, but depending on how you play the game, you are: you found Billie's husband, and even though he's dead, at least now she knows and won't have to wait forever for him to come home when he won't; Cuno has someone who actually listens to him and takes what he has to say seriously; you got Plaisance to bring Annette in from the cold; you stopped the mercenaries from killing as many people as they might otherwise have done (it went pretty badly in my playthrough, but I tried), and you gave Kim a friend. I love the message it seems to be trying to put across that even if the world is ultimately doomed, you can and should still try to find the good in it, and make a small part of it a better place. And maybe in the end it won't change anything, but the fact that you had hope enough to try matters. And maybe if enough people thought that way, they could change reality for the better - maybe there was a grain of truth in that infra-materialist stuff all along. Maybe it sounds corny, but I found it very touching.

This is... sort of where the Phasmid comes in for me, because everyone thought the existence of the Insulindan Phasmid was impossible, but because you believed in it enough, you were able to prove it was real. And if the Phasmid is real, then maybe other things that people thought were impossible can happen, too... It makes me feel very satisfied that I chose "SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IS GOING TO HAPPEN" when I painted that wall. It seems fitting.

I also love the fact that the Deserter being stuck in the past is literally killing him. And... he talks a big game about being the last real Communist or whatever, but in the end, how is he actually helping the working class by clinging to his bitterness and refusing to let go of what could have been, instead of trying to do something to help the people around him? Even though Harry is flawed, and on his own can't change the world, he's made a difference to the people around him, which is better than being consumed by bitterness and doing nothing at all.

In the end, I think for me one of the core themes of the game is faith/belief (not necessarily in a religious sense)... I think that something that really helps is Kim's belief in Harry. He's so kind to Harry, when he could just as easily write him off as a shambling alcoholic. I think Kim's faith in you makes you want to live up to what he thinks of you, so... I'm not sure how coherent I'm being here, but it's a bit like how Harry believing in the Phasmid lets him make it a definite reality - Kim's belief in Harry as a great detective, or someone who could be a great detective, makes Harry a better person, I think. (At least, that's my take on it - I got so attached to Kim as a character that I really wanted to make him proud of my version of Harry!) And in the end, his faith wasn't misplaced. Again, he can't change the world, and he's human and not a saint (much as Harry may think he is), but Kim choosing to be kind did make a difference, even if it was only to one man.

tl;dr This is going to sound unbearably pretentious, but if someone asked me if video games can be art, this is the game I'd point to and say "yes".

[revacholianpizzaagenda]

Lungs and heart

Metaphorical use of lungs and heart to signify love, devotion, joy, spirit etc in Disco Elysium: a copypasted list

tl;dr heart beats lungs 5 to 1 and that's rounding up and with some very generous skipping of heart-related lines that were pretty similar. Lungs only come up when literally talking about or to Dolores Dei/Dora, one moralist-flavoured mention by Empathy, one likely symbolic use by Lilienne, one use by Shivers which may or may not be related. In common parlance, everyone from the skills to the crab man to Dora herself would appear to use "heart" same as we do.

Heart:

You - (Bow down.) Yes. My heart forever beats for Revachol, I am all she has left. The constant kingsman.

Endurance - Your heart can belong to Revachol or it can belong to darkness. As long as it's torn between them it's broken and useless.

Inland Empire - Alcohol and heartbreak.

The Hanged Man - The blue heart? Oh, that's good shit, you'll love it. Just press down and *fuck* it open like you always do.

Washerwoman - "I've seen it all before. You think they've got *our* interests at heart? Rich men are always selling poor men promises they never plan to keep..." She pulls a dark red rag out of the bucket and puts it back.

Authority - The virtue you exhibit in even the most difficult of moral dilemmas, speaks of the purest of heart and soul. Soon it will be time for another Arch.

Inland Empire - Heartfelt gratitude -- but does it feel like closure? What *really* happened?

Suggestion - You're dealing with a subject near and dear to their hearts. It might behove you to tread *lightly*.

Jean Vicquemare - "Good bye, Harry. And -- I know it won't happen, but..." He looks at you, heart steeled and eyes cold.

Inland Empire - Heartbreak Welkin.

You - "I blacked out -- from sheer heartbreak -- and lost all memory of the world."

You - "At ease, patrol officer Pigs, your heart is in the right place." (Bow.)

Egg Head - "Here we go, hyper-soul, inside -- into the MEGA-heart!"

You - "... each of you tearing at the other's innards, leaving a gaping emptiness, a vacuum heart that still hurts ceaselessly!"

Shivers - THERE IS A HOLE IN MY HEART.

Church Doors - ... in the heart of the city.

Egg Head - "But how could it *become* harder-core? I know the answer in my heart, but cannot think it in my head. If this is not hyper, how could anything be..."

Volition - His pleaful smile is disarming, but you can withstand it's glorious assault, if you just put your heart into it.

Rhetoric - This must be it. Beyond this door lies the beating heart of radical communism in Martinaise.

Coalition Warship Archer - "The heart of the city, the old town, is a district composed of weathered marble, comprising thousands of columns and arcades arranged around a series of grand plazas. During the day it's a beautiful sight, equal to any of the great cities of Perikarnassis."

Empathy - Her wishes are sincere. You can take heart from that, at least.

Coalition Warship Archer - "That's why the old town is sometimes called 'The Ceremonial Heart of Humanity'..."

Savoir Faire - You will. I'm here to make your life better. They call me the Man-About-Town. Gilded Heart-Throb. Master of Money.

Call Me Mañana - "Yet it calls back to an older era, where this was commonplace. You have a true boiadeiro heart."

Noid - "Many non-Occidental cultures share a beat at their heart.

Noid - "No need to fake it, we know you're still a cop at heart..."

René Arnoux - "I was 22 when I returned from King Guillaume's Ikeira Operation in the south and found my sweetheart in the arms of this wretch..."

Gaston Martin - "But it wasn't the revolutionaries that *sullied* the idea for you, was it?" He looks at the old soldier almost gently. "She gave them to me too and your jealous little heart just couldn't accept it."

Plaisance - "My precious! Her dedication brings joy to my heart."

You - (A hand on your heart.) "On my honour."

Empathy - Tugging at his heart strings like that... doesn't it feel a bit manipulative?

Conceptualization - This is how a sea monster sees the world. You've become a sea monster -- giant, hidden and... strangely tender at heart. All is blue.

Empathy - Push Tommy and it will break his heart -- and his spirit. Don't expect you to be pals.

Drama - It's true. We would have caught a lie. But... a *kind* heart is tricky.

Composure - Yeah. You know, beneath it is just heartbreak, a pulmonary tract infection, atherosclerotic disease.

You - Who broke my heart?

Beautiful Necktie - Your heart is broken, *bratushka*. And it cannot be mended. Believe me, I've tried.

Hand/Eye Coordination - Your hand shakes so hard you can't even muster up the courage to *try*. Maybe you're just too *wild* at heart?

Authority - You acted with great compassion and dignity, not taking advantage of this man. Praise thine honourable heart!

Tiago - "If you could submit to the mother -- sing her praises with your burning heart -- you could be free from selfish desire."

Tiago - "Look, man. I'm at liberty to talk about the sacred blaze of the Mother's glorious heart. But not about the coffee."

Soona, the Programmer - "Hold on." She's behind the keyboard now, typing in some numbers that only she understands. The terminal beeps, and the light inside starts pulsing like a glowing heart.

Evrart Claire - "Harry..." He sighs. "You wound me, Harry. In the heart.

Hand/Eye Coordination - It's me. I'm keeping his hand from moving. We're not doing that anymore. We're not reading those words. People have died. He needs to work, not ache his heart for something that will never return.

Inland Empire - Have you stirred the ghost of the Doomed Commercial Area from its rest? Could this be its dismembered heart, beginning to flutter?

Joyce Messier - "I'm over-exposed, baby. My travels take me through the pale dozens of times a year. I've got the longing -- and I've got it *bad*." She points to her heart.

Inland Empire - There was a sting in your heart at the mention... before.

Shivers - THERE IS PEACE IN THE HEART.

Empathy - No, not an idiot. You're just more of a *sensitive* type. Thinks with his *heart*. This woman's *pain* draws you in.

Cuno - "That's cold, Pig. Sub-zero. Cuno ain't like that. Cuno's got heart."

(had to split the heart list in two because it was too long for tumblr)

You - "I just said what was in my heart. I can't apologize for passion."

You - "I know what's going on here. I've been *wronged* too. I got this fucking dark shadow over my heart."

Inland Empire - And a hole in his heart. That first.

Logic - You have cold hard facts to protect you from heartbreak -- and that is enough.

Measurehead - "YOUR AGREEMENT MEANS NOTHING TO ME. YOU'RE A MAN *DEFEATED* BY LOVE. IT IS PLAIN TO SEE. IT IS IN YOUR FACE, IN YOUR VOICE, IN YOUR HEART. LOVE TAKES COURAGE -- YOU DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH."

Cindy the SKULL - "They'll never be SKULLS. But..." She softens. "But their hearts are in the right place."

Ruby, the Instigator - "So, heart-of-gold Tommy fucked me over too..."

Pissf****t - "Cold-hearted cop..."

Empathy - At least she still has her heart intact, unlike some people here.

Inland Empire - Your heart knows. But it does not want to say, not yet. Let these things be unknown for now.

Shivers - MY HEART IS THE WIND CORRIDOR. THE BOTTOM OF MY AIR IS RED. I HAVE A HUNDRED THOUSAND LUMINOUS ARMS.

Idiot Doom Spiral - "Beside your gun and your badge? You said something about your hope, or heart, or something. To be honest the details are a little hazy..."

Inland Empire - All of this, accompanied by a musical composition telling of the heroism of old, when men were bigger in both body and heart. You feel strange kinship to this old soldier. You and him are the same now.

The Deserter - "Everyone is a blobber in this world. Everyone betrays everyone. They're all already locked up -- for betrayal. The best ones, the ones with heart, were slaughtered, trampled..." He looks to the city.

Limbic System - Coz only love can break your heart...

Evrart Claire - "Harry, Harry, Harry!" He flicks his fingers. "Do not fixate on this little matter. Maybe it was a rabbit stew... or a hair dryer, or an iron. The point is, her heart wasn't in it. Mine *was*."

Dolores Dei - "Oh, yes. This is real darkness. It's not death, or war, or child molestation. Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart, Harry."

Lungs:

You - "Bourgeois love from a bourgeois god-queen towards a world getting rapidly more bourgeois, that's lungs for you."

Conceptualization - Why wouldn't they be? Are the lungs not the place where you hold the breath of your soul?

Egg Head - "LOVE!" he suddenly yells and the world seems to stop. "In a woman's lungs! Lonely as I am, I'm not afraid! This strange, damaged feeling grows on and on, 'cause I've never loved someone like you before!"

Egg Head - "Lungs are for love!"

Egg Head - "When Dolores Dei was anointed innocence, her lungs started glowing through her body, for the world loved her and she loved it back! YEAGH!"

Empathy - Come on. You know in your lungs that true authority flows from institutions, not individuals. That's the single principle that separates civilisation from barbarism.

Lilienne, the Net Picker - "Aye. Brains, generally, aren't very good, are they? I prefer backs, arms, shoulders -- lungs, too." She smiles. "You know..."

Damaged Ledger - You jam the compartment shut, it's hard to breathe. The air in your lungs feels sour somehow. The drawer is locked, blue ink drips from the white pages in your hand.

Inland Empire - Then it's you. *You* will make her lungs glow. Your pain is NOT meaningless.

Dolores Dei - Her chest rising like a pillow, warm exhalations against the side of your mouth -- her tender soul moving through her lungs. (+ related lines in the same scene about Harry wanting to make her lungs glow again)

Conceptualization - That is why the lungs are the symbol of love for the cultures of the Reál Belt.

Shivers - I ALSO RESIDE IN YOUR LUNGS AND VESTIGIAL ORGANS. EVERYWHERE THERE IS SPACE.

[palms-upturned]

empathy, suggestion, and shivers!!

OOOH thank you these are good ones, I’ve answered empathy here!!

disco elysium ask game

suggestion: if you could change one thing about disco elysium, what would it be?

I would give the IP back to Robert Kurvitz 🥲

But also I would have MORE CUNOESSE!!! I’m so curious about what exactly happened to her, how she came to be here alone in Martinaise…

shivers: what is…le retour?

Fuckkkkk op is a genius for making this an ask prompt. To me le retour is a lot of things. Klaasje calls it an urban myth more than anything, and mentions that it’s a concept that seems to appeal to everyone regardless of political alignment. It’s implied (if not just outright stated) that a real political event is on the horizon, so when it does then we’ll have a more literal answer to “what is Le Retour of ‘51 in Revachol,” but as a concept it seems to have a very universal appeal. Steban even mentions a “La Vuelta” that happened in Mesque at one point! I think ultimately, le retour is a kind of longing to return to a time when you believed in a promised future. Maybe you’re hoping for a return of the commune, or of the Suzerain, or of a 12 year long relationship. Whatever you’re waiting for, it’s gone, and the only way to experience it again would be to give into the pale and let the past consume you entirely. In a way, it might be a beautiful experience. But it will cost you the future.

UN JOUR JE SERAIS PRÈS DE TOI. “One day, I will return to your side.” There’s a lot of separations in the game. Cindy disappears with those words, Klaasje and Ruby run away separately rather than together, Cuno and Cunoesse mysteriously split if you get partnered with Cuno, Tommy is separated from his family, Gaston and Billie lose their other halves, who die alone. And then there’s Harry and Dora, of course. I think it’s very interesting how some of these separations differ depending on whether or not the hope of a return/reunion is also hope for the future. Tommy’s family really is waiting for him to return, and thinking of them gives him strength to get through the loneliness of being stuck in this jam. On the other hand, René and Jenny are dead, and when Gaston thinks about them, he hopes that he’ll die and join them soon. In Harry’s dreams, his nightmare version of Dora tells him “there are no stars. There is no future.” And in his waking life, the home that’s waiting for him is no longer on Voyager Road, it’s on Perdition. He’s driven to this massive breakdown because he feels like his life is just going to be this forever. Returning to the intersection, failing to stop Dora from leaving him, waking up and still finding himself in hell.

So in my mind, yeah, le retour represents a very universal longing. To some, it’s hope for a future. (“It’s our way of saying we refuse to accept that the world has to remain like this.” “Broken. Unfinished.”) To others, it’s a kind of suicidal ideation. (“I am on the side of the adversary.”) I think de is very much about how both sides of that longing are at the heart of politics and philosophy.

[transkholins]

experiencing thoughts about predestination and total depravity and salvation and Harrier Fucking Du Bois. how calvinist thought around predestination is the double-sided coin of “you are fundamentally evil and cannot save yourself, you need god to change your heart” and “you are Chosen and Special because god decided to save you” and how harry does both.

i think there’s a large part of him that believes that he is fundamentally flawed, fundamentally unable to save himself and change the course of his life and atone for his own actions, he’s bad once so he’s bad forever, self-fulfilling prophecy, et cetera. and so he turns the people he loves into these savior figures where he expects them to pull him out of these awful circumstances that he has created for himself. he expects them to fix him. to the extent that jean leaving him to his own devices in martinaise is framed as jean finally pulling the plug and not taking responsibility for harry’s actions anymore. it’s both implied and stated outright that jean has spent the last few years picking up harry’s mess for him - he’s fulfilling harry’s responsibilities within the rcm, he’s trying to save face for harry within c-wing. and the second he and the rest of the mcu are gone, harry literally parties so hard he gives himself retrograde amnesia (with the implication that he was trying to commit suicide). 

and i know everyone says this, but the religious imagery gets so fucking literal with kim, where harry pretty much explicitly idolizes him and wants him to save him. so many people (myself included) joke about reloading saves because you picked an option that disappointed him - the game sort of leads a lot of people to rely on his approval to “make the right choices,” whether or not the choices that kim approves of are the morally correct ones. 

(another interesting addition here is that kim repeatedly refuses to take on a savior role for harry - he is not going to be the one to pull him out of his mess. he’ll intervene if your “personal matters” are interfering with the case, but beyond that, he’s very clear that he Is Not Going To Make An Effort To Fix You. you can ruin your life however you please, and by and large, he will just stand there and side-eye you, nothing more or less.)

and on the other side of things, harry has this weird relationship with moralism where (because he’s projecting his ex onto a religious figure) he seems to think that he’s got this profound connection with dolores dei and moralism and the innocentic system? in the sense that he has a personal relationship with a thematically and literally impersonal god. dolores dei is dead - she is not speaking to him. the moralintern and the coalition are overseas governments that have imposed their rule onto revachol - they do not care about harry as a person. even the portrait for the radio personnel on the coalition warship archer is distant - there is only the suggestion of a face, of its features, surrounded by shapes. and yet harry creates this personal connection with the idea of dolores dei, where she has Chosen him, he’s special, he’s part of an imagined group of the “spiritual elect,” he cannot lose that election and he is special and chosen Forever. 

but, by the same token, it’s now his responsibility to save martinaise, to save revachol, to save the world. the bloated corpse of a drunk gets a line where he says that harry personally failed all 4.6 billion people on elysium. shivers/la revacholière tells him that he can save them and the city, he can keep them alive, they need him. i doubt that it’s a coincidence that that the scene happens in a church.

it’s just wild to me because this whole line of thinking is so deeply protestant, so deeply calvinist, despite all of the catholic-and/or-orthodox-type set dressing in the church in martinaise. there’s the contradictory push-and-pull between the idea that “all humans are totally depraved, you do not have control over your sinful nature, you cannot become good by yourself” and the idea that “you are personally held responsible for your failures if you don’t choose to accept christ as your savior, and so you are doomed to an eternity of torment.” it’s total depravity and unconditional election. which is admittedly not what i was expecting when i went into disco elysium. but basically i think we can take the christian imagery and symbolism about fifteen steps further.

[utopians]

literally Revachol Forever

[afeathertothestorm]

i’ve been playing disco elysium for the entire week, my brain is hallucinating the whirling in rags music on repeat with brief intermissions for anodic music, literally even in my dreams. i don’t know what i’ll do when i finish it, i just want to soak and dissolve into revachol forever…. so good i’ve gone into this with 0 preexisting knowledge. it’s like the only thing to have made me genuinely excited and consumed in ages.