#prior ferenc

[moonliteve]

an analysis of the dance of death murals in act 3 of pentiment

So I finally finished the game last night and it absolutely wrecked me :') the Chapter House scene in act 3 left a huge impression on me and since I couldn't find much on the deeper meanings of the murals Andreas drew, I tried to analyze the symbolism and what they each represent :) I'm not an expert by any means so if anyone has more insight on something I haven't mentioned please feel more than free to add your own thoughts, I'd love to see them

[mazurga]

How dare you?!

[sappho-ilmarinen]

I want to talk about Prior Ferenc for a moment. When Andreas wakes up on the very first day, he has this stack of books which you can examine. It says Ferenc gave them to him. And I got very excited, because as a hungarian it's always cool to see hungarians in media. Then I got to know what Ferenc is actually like.

He runs the scriptorium and is a total ass about it. Probably does witchcraft. The baron asked him to treat his STDs with black magic. He's a murder suspect. He buries suspicious ritual shit in the monastery graveyard. If you let him live he will become an inquisitor and pardons heretics, possibly due to his background.

10/10 hungarian rep, the only guy ever. Nobody does it like him. I hate him. He's the only hungarian to ever exist.

[innocentiusxiv]

This isn't necessarily who you chose, but who you think was most likely to have actually killed him.

[vinndas]

doomed by the narrative kinda doodles

[dijon-mayonnaise]

Modern AU part 3: Ferenc’s style fluctuates from exuberant catholic priest to victorian goth

[quenthel]

It is my pleasure to inform you that Cyberpunk 2077: The Phantom Liberty has a side character named Jago Szabó, who is a Hungarian trans dude who inexplicably wears his hair in an 18th-century wig style

omg...

he looks kinda silly... good for him i guess lol. also he has a polish first name for some reason which is kind of funny ngl

[noodledragon]

I’m getting the feeling Act 1 is very open ended (i just finished the second court dream right before the archdeacon investigation) and *rattles cage* I want to do a second play through and see what else comes up

[misskamelie]

Feeling so so so horribly for accusing anyone out of this group arghhhh 😭😭😭

[luceirosdegolados]

"Your decisions don't really matter in Pentiment."

If you show prior Ferenc grace and mercy in act 1 he will in turn show the same grace to Ursula and Vacslav when they need him most.

You can encourage a lonely man to find love.

You can encourage a sad kid to pursue his passion and become the father his own father never was.

I hear that you can also have enough of an impact on Werner for him to actually help someone?

I don't know if I mattered but Andreas and Magdalene sure did matter. They mattered so much to so many.

I am an emotional wreck.

[mariacallous]

Recently the bestselling author Rebecca Makkai revealed the setting of her next novel to fans: It would take place in 1938 and address the rise of Nazi and fascist sympathizers at the time in the United States.

“Something I’ve had to accept, in researching and writing this book, is that many of the people who fell for fascism in the 1930s were neither inherently evil nor idiots,” Makkai wrote to her more than 17,000 Substack readers on Dec. 5 in a post titled “The View From 1938.” She continued, “They were deeply misinformed, and therefore manipulable.”

Makkai went on to explicitly link the themes of her book-in-progress to Donald Trump’s reelection in the present day. “Up until October, people used to be shocked when I told them there was a full Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939, replete with antisemitic and racist speeches. That was before Trump’s dog-whistle rally, eerily similar,” she wrote. Later, she listed points of comparison between Trump and Hitler.

Makkai is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her 2018 novel “The Great Believers,” and her most recent book, “I Have Some Questions For You,” spent six weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her assistant told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the book, still in progress, would come out in 2026.

But while Makkai portrayed her latest effort as timely, her choice of material has raised eyebrows. That’s in part because her announcement didn’t mention that her grandfather, Janos Makkai, was a prominent Hungarian ethnonationalist politician who helped write the 1939 laws that excluded most of the country’s Jews from public life. The journalist and essayist Emily Fox Kaplan also took Makkai to task for alleging that Israel is targeting journalists in Gaza, which she called a present-day version of age-old antisemitic ideas. 

The objections tap into two broader debates in the literary world: one about who gets to tell which stories, and another about the acceptable limits of Israel protests in cultural institutions where Jews say they have been made to feel unwelcome. Makkai’s recent participation in a fundraiser for a group fighting antisemitism in the arts space hasn’t insulated her from criticism.

“In your essay, this essay that devoted paragraph after paragraph to Hitler’s hatred of ‘the other’ without once specifying who, exactly, that other was, you write that your aim in delving deeply into this period of history is to examine the ways that history repeats itself,” wrote Kaplan, whose work has been published in Guernica, The Atlantic, The New York Times and other outlets, in an open letter titled “Hey Rebecca Makkai, I have some questions for you.”

“So it’s noteworthy, then, that you have made not a single statement about the fact that antisemitism is surging to levels not seen since the 1930s, when your grandfather wrote Hungary’s Second Jewish Law,” Kaplan added, saying that Makkai’s allegation that Israeli is targeting journalists is an example of “contemporary manifestations of the ancient blood libel, the idea that Jews ritually kill innocents in a quest for power and domination.”

Janos Makkai, Rebecca’s paternal grandfather, was a member of Hungarian parliament who authored and promoted the country’s Second Jewish Law of 1939. The Jewish laws were modeled after the Nuremberg Race Laws and were enacted years prior to Nazi Germany’s 1944 invasion of Hungary. 

He was “a rising star politician on the authoritarian and racist right that was in power in inter-war Hungary,” Ferenc Laczó, a professor of European political history at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and author of “Hungarian Jews in the Age of Genocide, An Intellectual History, 1929-1940,” told JTA. Laczó continued, “János Makkai in fact played a leading role when discriminatory laws against Hungarian Jews were introduced in the late 1930s.”

The laws defined who counted as Jewish in Hungarian society; defined Jews as a race, rather than as a religious group; and placed Jewish quotas of 6% in professional roles. Subsequent stricter antisemitic laws culminated in the deportation of nearly a half-million Hungarian Jews to Nazi death camps. An estimated 565,000 Hungarian Jews — nearly 70% of the country’s Jewish population — were murdered in the Holocaust. 

Janos survived the war, moved to the United States (“by talking his way through a checkpoint,” Rebecca has remarked), changed his name and lived out his last decades in Hawaii, where, Rebecca said in 2013, “until a few years ago, I had the impression that he was a bit of a hero.” His son Ádám Makkai, Rebecca’s father, remained in Hungary with his mother but also fled to the US after participating in the 1956 failed Hungarian Revolution, later becoming a globally renowned linguist. On social media, Rebecca Makkai today refers to herself as the “daughter of a refugee,” and recently wrote of her father, “He was a complicated and fascinating person.”

Makkai has written and spoken about her grandfather before, most notably in a 2013 essay titled “Other Types of Poison” and an accompanying interview in Harper’s magazine that touched on his background. The essay, and her comments about it, focused largely on her grandmother Rozsa Ignacz, a Hungarian leftist writer, actor and activist whom Makkai said hid Jews from the Nazis and would disguise herself as a Jew to visit actor friends in ghettos during the war. (The two were first cousins and only briefly married, Makkai said, adding, “Of course I’d rather own her legacy than his.”)

But Makkai did ruminate on her grandfather in the essay, without ever quite condemning him. “I am told that he did feel remorse. That he never imagined those laws to be a red carpet for Eichmann. That he regretted the turns things took. That, for whatever it’s worth, he never meant to hurt anyone,” she wrote. “I suppose it’s worth precisely nothing.” 

To Laczó, Makkai’s choice of subject given her grandfather’s background was curious.

“Rebecca Makkai has publicly recognized, though — as far as I know — has not extensively discussed [her] grandfather’s complicity in the persecution of Hungarian Jews,” he wrote in an email. “Her recent announcement on Substack makes me believe that she will suggest the direct comparability of Nazism in Germany and Trumpism in the US today, which I consider not a particularly judicious historical comparison — and a rather blunt political statement.�� 

The historian also took issue with “the emphasis on misinformation and gullibility” in Makkai’s book announcement — and suggested that it could be seen as a way to excuse her grandfather’s actions. 

“There were many, way too many fascist believers in Europe in the late 1930s and the persecution of Jews across Europe was driven forward by convinced antisemites, like her grandfather and numerous others,” he wrote. “Without meaning to impute bad intentions to the writer, it strikes me that her emphasis on how ‘good and smart’ people fell for fascism can be a way to avoid speaking more directly and critically about the responsibility that actors like her grandfather had for legal discrimination and persecution that soon culminated in mass crimes against Jews and others.”

In conversation with Jewish writer Davis Schneiderman in 2013, Makkai said she had initially been told that Janos had been “coerced” into writing the antisemitic laws, comparing him to “Rolph from ‘The Sound of Music’” (a teenaged Austrian romantic interest from the musical and movie set in the Nazi era who quickly joins the Nazis after they invade the country, but ultimately allows the Von Trapp family to continue their escape).

After doing her own research, she said, she’d been obligated to revise that opinion of Janos: “He’d been upset about the influx of Jewish refugees, which is what led to his political initiatives.” 

Two years later Makkai published a short story collection, “Music for Wartime,” which includes stories that deal with World War II, the Holocaust and its effect on Central Europe. The book received mixed reviews, with The New York Times calling it “self-conscious high-mindedness” in a pan. Her follow-up was “The Great Believers,” a deeply researched account of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Chicago, which won rave reviews, skyrocketed her career and led to her becoming a literary authority on how to sensitively write about a community that is not one’s own.

In her limited public communications so far about her upcoming novel, Makkai has not mentioned her grandfather, nor suggested whether such a history would be incorporated into her book. Her Substack post also did not mention Jews or antisemitism beyond the reference to the 1939 rally. That led Kaplan to announce she was writing an essay of her own in response featuring accounts of Hungarian Jews persecuted by the law drafted by Makkai’s grandfather, as well as the reactions of their descendants to what Kaplan calls Makkai’s “pattern of behavior.” Kaplan put out calls for such stories in Jewish writers’ groups and elsehwere.

Publishing history is awash with books on the Holocaust written by the descendants of Nazis and their collaborators, including many tomes from German and Polish authors. In recent years, the author’s wrestling with such family relations is often the hook of these books. 

Journalist and Harvard University fellow Linda Kinstler, in her prizewinning 2022 book “Come To This Court & Cry,” reports that her grandfather was a participant in a Latvian killing unit during the Holocaust, while also serving as a secret agent for the KGB (her mother’s side of the family are Soviet Jews). German-Nigerian author Jennifer Teege had an international bestseller in 2015 with “My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me,” her memoir (co-written with Nikola Sellmair) about being the Black granddaughter of the Nazi commandant depicted in the film “Schindler’s List.” The book followed a similar memoir by her own mother.

And the journalist Nina Munk has directly tackled her own family’s Hungarian Holocaust history, having translated and edited the memoir “How It Happened: Documenting the Tragedy of Hungarian Jewry” by her relative Ernő Munkacsi, who was the secretary for the Hungarian Judenrat — a council of Jews who worked with the Nazis. 

It remains to be seen whether Makkai will choose such a path. But Kaplan suspects she won’t. 

“Those of us who have studied the ways antisemitism functions across time and space find it chilling, but not surprising, that the granddaughter of the man who wrote Hungary’s Second Jewish Law of 1939 has chosen to use her enormous platform to spread an ancient blood libel against the Jews — while identifying as a social justice-minded student of the ways that history repeats itself,” Kaplan wrote in a statement to JTA.

Kaplan was also one of several voices publicly criticizing Guernica magazine earlier this year when — in response to left-wing backlash — it pulled an Israeli writer’s essay about coexistence.

In her open letter to Makkai, Kaplan explained that by “blood libel” she was referring to Instagram posts by Makkai in which the author, directing her comments at the literary free speech group PEN America, accused Israel of targeting specific journalists with bombs in Gaza. Israel has denied it is intentionally targeting journalists in its military campaign, which the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, following the Hamas attacks that killed 1,200 Israelis, took hundreds of hostages and launched the war. 

Makkai directed her audience to donate to a group called International Media Support, which aids journalists in Gaza and says more than 120 journalists have been killed there in “relentless attacks” by Israel.

Through her assistant, Makkai declined to comment further, saying she would discuss her novel in more detail upon its release. Yet even as the author has been coy about how Jews and antisemitism will factor into her book, she has shown support for an effort opposing antisemitism in the cultural space. 

She participated in an auction this year held by Artists Against Antisemitism, a new advocacy group formed in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that focuses on Jewish support in the literary space. The group has raised awareness of Jewish authors who have been shunned from organizations or events over their real or purported “Zionism.”

In the fundraiser, Makkai auctioned off naming rights to a “minor character” in her new book, which the auction description noted “explores antisemitism in the U.S. in the 1930s.” The name, the instructions said, “would have to be a name that could exist in either Germany or the US in 1938.” Makkai’s item, which found an undisclosed bidder and sum, was available for bidding alongside other perks centered around figures such as Chelsea Clinton or Jimmy Fallon, as well as outspoken pro-Israel celebrities such as Mayim Bialik and Julianna Margulies. 

“We’re glad that Rebecca Makkai made the choice to stand with us against hate,” the executive board of Artists Against Antisemitism told JTA in a statement, adding that the auction description was jointly written by the author and the organization. “Having not read the manuscript of her new book, we can’t comment on its content, nor can we speak to Rebecca’s reason for writing it.” 

In her open letter, Kaplan said it would be a failure of Makkai’s to write a novel about the Holocaust without mentioning or speaking to Jews. “I wonder if you would have published an essay about the Civil War that doesn’t mention slavery. And whether if you had, and Black people had reacted with horror, you would have ignored them,” she wrote. (Kaplan told JTA she had reached out to Makkai about her concerns but that the author blocked her on social media.)

Regardless of whether Makkai writes about her grandfather in her new novel, in 2013 she expressed a desire to write more about him one day.

“One of these times, if I get the words in the correct order, if I retrace more precisely the lines of history, I am convinced I will learn something I need to know,” she wrote. Then, later, referring to her grandparents: “I want to write more about both of them. There’s obviously a lot I haven’t figured out yet. And I think that’s always a good reason to write about something.”

[astrals-and-pirates]

pentiment monks but drag race

(with @boredom-reigns )

THE JUDGES PANEL:

Brother Piero - the main judge, encouraging and well crafted critiques

Mother Ceclila - the most motherly and encouraging of the judges, can be stern when needed

Brother Aedoc - the shadiest judge, questionable critiques but makes for great tv

THE QUEENS:

Brother Volkbert - the porkchop, fairly new queen, tries her best but too girlfail to succeed

Brother Lukas - second elim, baby queen, survives her first lipsync vs Volkbert but not against anyone else

Father Gernot - the mean queen who thinks she's being cunty but everyone (including the fandom) hates bcs shes elitist and selfish, everyone cheers when shes eliminated and she becomes notorious for being a mess on social media

Sister Amalie - early out queen bc of her lack of experience, beloved by the fans due to her tragic backstory, has a major glowup and becomes the dark horse frontrunner in an all stars season

Prior Ferenc - a seasoned queen whos reputation goes down during the show bcs he commits sabotage

Brother Sebhat - victim of the non-white snatch game curse :(((, fan favorite leading up to the elimination

Brother Wojslav - mostly safe, wins miss congeniality

Sister Margarette - the underdog of the season, does fine but has some really funny moments, sweet but also takes no shit and gives it to you straight, gains a sizeable fandom after her elimination

Brother Matheiu - forms an alliance with brother rüdeger, is mostly safe with some flop moments, is forced to lipsync against rüdeger which is deeply tragic but they kiss during the lipsync and its iconic

Brother Rüdeger - talent/variety show winner with a sapphira cristal level opera performance, timid queen but really shows off her stuff, spirals after Mathieu is eliminated and is eliminated next

Andreas Maler - narrator of the season and knows the tea abt everyone, production favorite, comes back for all stars but is an early out bcs of her act ii depression (music theater twink in his original season, depressed trade for all stars)

TOP FOUR:

Brother Florian - hidden talents queen, is super humble but turns out the most suprising looks and performances, isnt afraid to learn from critique, constantly references her deeplore but doesnt expound on it, driving redditors insane; trade of the season (im deeply biased shut up)

Brother Guy - the meanest hater in the most entertaining way possible, throws the most shade but cant take it back, gets into a fight with judge aedoc and the clip goes viral, production keeps her around bcs she makes good tv

Sister Zdena - THE SEXIEST, THE CUNTIEST, THE BADDEST; runway queen of the season and snatch game winner, throws the most legendary lines and is also the narrator alongside andreas, runner up on this season but wins all stars, fan favorite

MOTHER(!!!) Illuminata - cecilia's drag daughter, zdena's drag mother, shade sniper and reading (haha) challenge winner, only has to give you a stern look to make you piss ur pants, turns out interesting and insightful looks, wise and eloquent activist, long deserved winner, sasha colby vibes

BONUS:

Father Thomas - casted and filmed the season before being prompted edited out for his problematic behavior

[jesawyer]

(Pentiment Act III spoilers)

I'm replaying Pentiment after finding out about Thomas's use of the aqueducts for transportation, and I noticed something confusing. After the dinner where the baron makes everyone mad at him, Andreas leaves at compline to head home and notices a "ghost" jumping across the aqueduct gap (much like Andreas and Casimir will later do). This is likely Thomas, given his use of the ruins. Andreas then walks from the meadow to the church, where he meets Amelie and is shortly reassured by Thomas. As far as I can tell, this all takes place during compline without any hours passing between the "ghost" sighting and the Amelie meeting. Was Thomas able to get from the aqueducts near the mill to the church via the mithraeum as quickly as Thomas walked from his ghost sighting in the meadow to the church, or did Andreas see an actual ghost? Or did I miss an hour passing during compline

Pentiment spoilers below.

It's Sister Amalie, who was returning from delivering a letter to Prior Ferenc's house, and would later return to climb up into the nuns' kitchen to deliver a letter to Sister Matilda in the dormitory (where she was smelled by Sister Magarete).

While Andreas is talking to Til Kreutzer, she runs the rest of the distance of the aqueduct, squeezes through the rubble, runs down past the baths, through the hypocaust to the mithraeum, and climbs up into her cell, where she dramatically has a vision just as Andreas walks by.

[kyndaris]

Small Town Murders

After traversing the ins and outs of Valisthea for quite a few weeks, I thought it would be best to play something short and sweet. Especially something more experimental than traditional video games. And though I bought this last year on Steam (frankly, I have far too many games on Steam and not all of them are as recent as 2022), Pentiment has seen a recent release on PlayStation 5. A decision Microsoft made before it shut down several studios and then tried to Jedi mind-trick the audience by providing one of their most impressive game showcases at their presentation following Summer Game Fest.

There are two things I want to say following the smorgasbord of games on offer: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 looks absolutely fascinating and I can't wait to get my hands on it. And two: thank goodness Obsidian Entertainment has not yet been shut down. Their work with Pillars of Eternity and The Outer Worlds have been some of my favourites and I keep hoping they'll upend Besthesda with their superior writing and lovable characters.

But, this post isn't about Obsidian Entertainment. Rather, it's about their game styled as a point-and-click 2D adventure called Pentiment. With its unique art style and historical setting of 16th century Upper Bavaria, the game immediately stood out to me as something special. Especially as it contained mystery components!

Placed in the shoes of one Andreas Maler, a journeyman artist, Pentiment follows the story of him and the town of Tassing over the course of 25 years. During each act, the player must help solve the murder that occurs. The first is Baron Lorenz Rothvogel, a longtime benefactor of Kiersau but who harbours divisive views that go against Christian beliefs of the abbey. The second is that of Otto, the leader of a brewing rebellion due to heavy taxation.

And while Claus is not immediately killed when he is attacked in the privacy of his home, there is a certain tension there where Magdalene (the protagonist for the third act following a huge fire at the end of Act 2) must contend with caring for her father, finishing off the mural for the council meeting hall and trying her best to keep the printing press in her home running. What I appreciated the most, though, was Magdalene's chat with Brigita during the first half of Act III.

As someone who has had to care for a loved one following something a terrifying health scare, I appreciate it when people not only ask if my family member is all right but also enquire as to my wellbeing. There were moments during that week where I felt very overwhelmed. Knowing people cared - not just about my grandmother but for me too - truly helped me get through a difficult time.

What stood out to me as I navigated the town of Tassing and interacted with its characters, were the themes the game wasn't afraid to explore. Be they religion and the authority bestowed on the church from local lords to the plight of the peasants struggling to put food on the table. The game was also quick to put me on the back foot by showing two sides of each story when it came to the possible suspects (though it never confirms which, if any, of the suspects was truly guilty).

More often than not, I was led mostly by my gut (and who I felt acted most like an arsehole). And while the internet deemed Lucky the most guilty when it came to the death of the Baron, I still find it hard to fathom the means by which Lucky would have been able to sneak in the abbey to do the deed and then sneak back out. True, he has the strength and the motivation but there was a storm!

And while the archdeacon condemned Prior Ferenc after I'd presented most of the evidence, it does still puzzle me that Ferenc scribbled a note in his book prior to the Baron's death - implying he would have buried his ritualistic tools beforehand (the supposed murder weapon following an inspection).

Of course, there is a possibility the actual murderer was none of the actual suspects. The inability to properly investigate and gather evidence meant players are forced to make decisions that they feel would most benefit the town and its people.

As for Otto, I discounted most of the suspects as the motives for Martin and Hannah were fairly dubious at best. Brother Guy appeared the most guilty, especially as he tried to insert himself into the investigation and point out how it was impossible for one of the monks to have murdered Otto.

But the reveal of the Thread-Puller right at the end was a surprise for me. Especially as there were other ways Father Thomas could have gone about hiding the town's history if he felt it was too scandalous. There was no need to leave such a trail of destruction, including inciting a revolt among the peasants, simply to keep the secret that the Saints worshipped by the town were actually depictions of Roman Gods.

Given my love for mythology, I've seen how the Gods of many different pantheons have been changed and adapted to reflect the culture or times they are needed. The Greek and Roman deities, after all, have almost a one-to-one equivalent. Stories, too, about the heroes of the past have been used by other religions and cultures to explain elements of their own mythology.

And while hindsight, along with agnostic and atheist beliefs, have allowed us to take a step back to study religion from a distance, I think it's important to realise this was not always the case. This was 16th century Bavaria, after all. Christianity was everything to most people in Europe.

Although, I must say, while Father Thomas was worried people would learn that the statue of Saint Moritz was actually Mars Pater and Saint Satia was actually Diana, I was more intrigued by the painting of Mithras. It was never fully touched upon but I just knew I had seen the God slaughtering a bull somewhere before.

Lo and behold: Mithraism.

Suppose it explains why the old Roman temple was named the Mithraeum. Too bad the cult of Mithraism wasn't fully explored in the game. It would have been more interesting if there was some additional exploration of these other more occult practices beyond what Prior Ferenc was up to, and the strange ritual Guy tried to enact.

Overall, I have to say Pentiment held my interest for a goodly while and made me ponder the choices I'd made. It also humanised many of the characters, giving me a glimpse into what life might have been like back in the 16th century - and given me a greater appreciation of how far humanity has come from those feudal times (although, let's be honest, we're still trapped in very tribal mindsets that's been fanned by the internet). Life might have been hard as a peasant, or for the normal tradesperson during this period, but somehow Tassing was able to make do.

Time to see how Ghost Trick plays out!

On a completely unrelated note: I AM SO EXCITED FOR ACE ATTORNEY INVESTIGATIONS COLLECTION! Finally, I can play the second game of Miles' spin-off games.

The Ace Attorney franchise is finally getting the revitalisation it deserves and I hope there will be more to come. Especially with Mr Backstory himself, Apollo Justice. Or, heck, with another starry-eyed defence attorney in the land of Japanifornia.