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Kim identifying as a Moralist is outright explained by him as, from his perspective, facing reality that the RCM works (more or less) under the Moralintern's framework and authorisation, effectively as an enforcement arm of the coalition government, if a bedgrudging and deliberately weak one. Also like a lot of people irl, his political leanings are kept quiet and uncontroversial in a don't-rock-the-boat way because he believes he has very little power to actually change anything, and thus it's not worth getting worked up about something unless it's serious and/or directly affects him. (See his stands on racism, understandably) On another note, iirc it's implied his disdain for youth culture and avoiding interacting with kids is more a result of how he was made to work undercover in the pinball scene for years, to the point where he got completely sick of it and wants to firmly put that part of his career behind him lest he get further typecast. Bobby Deluxe posted:See also Keith Richards etc - when the rich take drugs they're not taking it cut with rat poison and baby powder, they're taking a safer, purer version with much fewer damaging side effects. Klassje is noted to have opiate overdose medication in her pharmacopeia of a bathroom cupboard, she's absolutely going all out, but in a classier way than a tween tweaker. Probably main difference between her and Cuno is that she's older and has more money.
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Nov 23, 2023 13:57
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Hot Take: the “nice person representing a bad system” of Joyce vs the “lovely people repping a good system” Claires is a false dichotomy manufactured by the devs and is one of the weaker parts of DE
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Nov 23, 2023 15:29
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Disagree, I think it's a lot more compelling than the alternative
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Nov 23, 2023 15:46
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whydirt posted:Hot Take: the “nice person representing a bad system” of Joyce vs the “lovely people repping a good system” Claires is a false dichotomy manufactured by the devs and is one of the weaker parts of DE I would say it is a false dichotomy in that it looks like it is at beginning, then develops into something much more complex.
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Nov 23, 2023 15:49
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whydirt posted:Hot Take: the “nice person representing a bad system” of Joyce vs the “lovely people repping a good system” Claires is a false dichotomy manufactured by the devs and is one of the weaker parts of DE It's a narrative contrivance sure, but it's fiction and that's largely the point of fiction. Like, the point of it is to challenge the player who would usually associate 'most nice and most helpful' with 'most good', I don't think it was intended to say that you have to be a bastard to do socialism right
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Nov 23, 2023 15:53
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MariusLecter posted:Mr Everart is the Bernie Sanders of Revachol and is working within the material condition to help as many people as possible. Bernie Sanders is a liberal (aka moralist) though. ulvir posted:it’s like everyone is ignoring that Claire is directly responsible for importing hard drugs into Martinaise, the same hard drugs that Cuno, a literal child, is addicted to Nah. Drugs are going to be there no matter what. Guys like La Puta Madre will take care of that. Plus, afaik not explored in the game, but in real life who are the biggest drug dealers? Empires. The British Empire used opium to be able to trade with China and attempt to force the colonization of China. The US empire uses cocaine and heroin for a myriad of purposes. See Iran-contra, see Afghanistan mysteriously growing a shitton of poppy fields after the US invasion and the Taliban getting rid of it within a year after the US finally leaves. Purely coincidentally ofcourse the neighbouring Chinese province starts to have a Muslim extremism problem right as the US is squatting and setting up a huge drug den next door. Dig deep and you're going to find the Moralintern is directly responsible for the drugs, I'll bet you loving anything. The Claire's are taking that situation as a given (which it is) and trying to make the best of it, while also trying to revolutionarily change things so that the drugs are no longer a given.
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Nov 23, 2023 16:22
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Orange Devil posted:See Iran-contra, see Afghanistan mysteriously growing a shitton of poppy fields after the US invasion and the Taliban getting rid of it within a year after the US finally leaves. Purely coincidentally ofcourse the neighbouring Chinese province starts to have a Muslim extremism problem right as the US is squatting and setting up a huge drug den next door. uyghur separatism just spontaneously appeared in the 2000s because of the US pushing heroin sure is a take the tajik government definitely has no hand in the regional drug trade, nope, long arm of the CIA
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Nov 23, 2023 16:34
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Orange Devil posted:Bernie Sanders is a liberal (aka moralist) though. Sanders and the Claires are both social democrats. The game makes this explicit. It would be absurd to expect that corrupt social democrats could actually take part in a revolution. It would be absurd to think that the police could take part in a revolution. It would be absurd to think Harry could get better. It would be absurd to think the Insulindan Phasmid exists. Edit: Which is why there really isn’t a dichotomy of “good person, bad system/ bad person, good system”. The game isn’t suggesting that social democracy is the answer (lol), and our perspective on the union changes throughout the game. And Joyce doesn’t represent Moralism. She’s not the Sunday Friend. Constantly LARPing fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Nov 23, 2023 |
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Nov 23, 2023 16:35
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Disagree, I think it's a lot more compelling than the alternative A: pet the puppy and the good man will help you later, B: kill the puppy in exchange for money from the bad man, C: rough the puppy up a bit and then congratulate yourself on a fair and balanced decision." The only other game I can think of off the top of my head that has this nuanced a set of faction choices was Pillars 2. There's no good faction, they are all little shits in their own way but they also all have their arguable merits. I ended up fully upgrading the ship and going it alone, which I found out is the coward's choice because the inter-faction fighting (and therefore the civilian toll) gets exponentially worse.
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Nov 23, 2023 16:49
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I have a feeling that Joyce was a lot more like Evrart in her younger ultraliberal days, before comfort, age and Pale exposure sanded her edges down.
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Nov 23, 2023 17:12
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:uyghur separatism just spontaneously appeared in the 2000s because of the US pushing heroin sure is a take Spontaneously? Pretty sure Orange Devil's clear implication was that the US sponsored extremism in Xinjiang.
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Nov 23, 2023 17:24
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I always read Kim's reaction towards Cuno as primarily a bit of metacommentary and signaling to the player. There's a lot of ways the Cuno interaction can go wrong, both from the perspective of the investigation and in terms of your effect on Cuno's life, and iirc he doesn't exactly have a ton of absolutely critical information or anything. Kim's instinct that the cop he just met who doesn't know where his gun or badge are or what his name is (and who kim may know by this point has been on a three day bender crashing his car and threatening to kill himself) probably shouldn't interact with the tween speed addict who is trying to bait them into conflict is, in most versions of the situation, the correct one. e: like, what's the absolute best outcome you can engineer for Cuno? Turn him into a cop answering to the occupation government, inevitably setting him up for conflict with and likely estrangement from his father and adopted sister? Most other outcomes leave him exactly where he is or make his life worse, and also make the investigation harder. It's not exactly a game or a city where a local cop can teach a kid to self-actualize over a series of heartwarming avuncular chats, and Kim knows that from deep, sustained experience on the subject. Valentin fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Nov 23, 2023 |
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Nov 23, 2023 18:03
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I don't think you get to still be a social democrat if you use your position as union leader to give a huge powerful company a black eye by taking a whole rear end port away from them. Like the entire point of social democrats is that the most you can do is complain or do non-violent protests and, of course, vote. They're just loitering munitions in the war against communism, diving in and blowing up when the left opposition gets big enough to show up on radar. Claire is significantly to the left of Bernie in pretty much every single way, like WAY to the left, but I think the most significant difference is that Evrart won his election.
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Nov 23, 2023 18:03
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whydirt posted:Hot Take: the “nice person representing a bad system” of Joyce vs the “lovely people repping a good system” Claires is a false dichotomy manufactured by the devs and is one of the weaker parts of DE The authors are Marxists-Leninists, making Joyce sympathetic rather than almost literal evil monopoly man is very on point. Like, people understand that there are lots of well-off people who are quite personally amiable regardless of ideology, but to show that there are rich people like that it's important because it puts in evidence a lot of things. Eliminating the caricature and mythmaking is necessary and the game does really well on that front imho Personally, I don't think it's "false" in way I am at least understanding what you seem to imply, because - to give an example - around here there are organized crime factions whose lieutenants are definitely going to look like "evil" to liberal-moralist sentimentality but who are also responsible for operating a lot of social functions that the Brazilian state is simply incapable and/or willing to do so. Meanwhile, many charming, enterprising and sharply dressed individuals with big smiles and healthy tans cannot keep but coming back and again to completely poo poo solutions to such problems. The former type, while definitely not charming, in almost all cases wants to do something different to get out of that shoddy haphazard situation. (source: political organization/socialist education work) Which is why good/evil are pretty loving poor signifiers for individuals in such contexts. Being on the weaker corners of class warfare tends to make people rougher and coarser in many ways, as survivalism is far more of an imperative.
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Nov 23, 2023 18:11
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imo Joyce is important because she puts the lie to a moment that would otherwise probably be read as the game's singular political takeaway because it's so arrestingly executed (i.e. the mask of capital, the bourgeois aren't human). the bourgeois and capitalist class in the game, most notably portrayed by sunday friend and joyce, are extremely human, and in that simple fact lies the explanation of both a thousand injustices in the moralist status quo and the possibility of something different (since it's in part Joyce's very human failings that create the conditions for the union to seize the terminal)
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Nov 23, 2023 18:31
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Epic High Five posted:I don't think you get to still be a social democrat if you use your position as union leader to give a huge powerful company a black eye by taking a whole rear end port away from them. Like the entire point of social democrats is that the most you can do is complain or do non-violent protests and, of course, vote. They're just loitering munitions in the war against communism, diving in and blowing up when the left opposition gets big enough to show up on radar. Walter Reuther, not a social democrat, got it. But to focus on the game, if you want to argue that the Hardies don’t understand or are misled as to the ideology that they are willing to die for, you’re free to do so, but then you’d have to buy the anti communist line that the only way anyone could support the left is if they’re duped.
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Nov 23, 2023 18:40
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Epic High Five posted:Claire is significantly to the left of Bernie in pretty much every single way, like WAY to the left, but I think the most significant difference is that Evrart won his election. I don't want to let this go unappreciated.
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Nov 23, 2023 18:54
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Kim’s a moralist because moralism has a theonomy, it is at the top and structures society to produce itself as a conclusion. If he joins the 41rst he’ll reach the conclusion of that organization instead.
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Nov 23, 2023 19:30
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Kim's position is very clear and honestly hard to argue with on the face of it. The Moralists are in charge. They will continue to be in charge unless there is a great deal of violence, where innocent people die and orphans are made. The world may not be perfect, but it's the best we can do because the alternative of revolutionary violence is going to be a lot worse. And he's not wrong. In terms of strict material conditions, Martinaise is a lot better off in poverty than in an inferno. It takes some strong idealism to either view the incremental progress of the Moralintern as actually intolerable and worse than the inferno, or a lot of unfounded faith that the bloodshed will actually make a better world. I didn't last time. What other ideology could Kim support? Anything but Moralism is impractical, and if it's not impractical, it's incredibly harmful. Constantly LARPing posted:Edit: Which is why there really isn’t a dichotomy of “good person, bad system/ bad person, good system”. The game isn’t suggesting that social democracy is the answer (lol), and our perspective on the union changes throughout the game. And Joyce doesn’t represent Moralism. She’s not the Sunday Friend. In A Sacred and Terrible Air, the Nordic analog country is hopelessly aligned to the Russia analog country, and therefore on the losing end of a war against other countries, and against the Pale itself. There is a quite frankly beautiful scene near the end where it's explained that, despite the literal end of the world, they never let go of their welfare state. They continue to pay artists who don't work, and one of the last accomplishments of the main city is an environmental effort to end light pollution for the sake of migrating insects, as the Pale envelops everything around them. So they may not think it's an answer, I do get the impression they think it's something beautiful and ideal in its own way, just hopelessly naive and ineffective at fixing the world. (I originally misread your post to say "social democracy (lol)" as if you were laughing at the concept itself. But now that I see that isn't the case, I still want to make this post because I think the authors' thoughts on social democracy are interesting.)
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Nov 23, 2023 20:36
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i agree, people (subjugated by the rules-based international order) need to be grateful for every death squad sent (by the international rules-based order) to butcher them as a blessing in disguise, because it directly prevents them being nuked (by the international rules-based order)
stumblebum fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Nov 23, 2023 |
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Nov 23, 2023 20:41
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Orange Devil posted:Bernie Sanders is a liberal (aka moralist) though. This is only explored in the game when playing Suzerainty, where you can get Kim's workers addicted to cocaine. But given that that's where a lot of our information about the broader world of Disco Elysium comes from I think it's safe to assume that Suzerainty is drawing from a variety of in universe historical events where empires did exactly what you described. Valentin posted:imo Joyce is important because she puts the lie to a moment that would otherwise probably be read as the game's singular political takeaway because it's so arrestingly executed (i.e. the mask of capital, the bourgeois aren't human). the bourgeois and capitalist class in the game, most notably portrayed by sunday friend and joyce, are extremely human, and in that simple fact lies the explanation of both a thousand injustices in the moralist status quo and the possibility of something different (since it's in part Joyce's very human failings that create the conditions for the union to seize the terminal) I agree, but also talking to the sunday friend is the most real "the bourgeois are not human" felt in game.
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Nov 23, 2023 20:49
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stumblebum posted:i agree, people (subjugated by the rules-based international order) need to be grateful for every death squad sent (by the international rules-based order) to butcher them as a blessing in disguise, because it directly prevents them being nuked (by the international rules-based order) You can get mad about it, but that's pointless. You have no say in the structure of the international order. I am speaking, and in my last post was speaking, from Kim's perspective, not my own. But I do think it's good that the game confronts you with this perspective from such a sympathetic source, because it's easy to sarcastically rail against, but it requires a much more thoughtful response to actually address. Edit: You can also think the literal death squad is wrong and shouldn't have happened while still being a Moralist. Explaining the death squad as a necessary consequence of Moralism requires a lot of ideological framework to support. I don't think you're necessarily wrong, but the connection isn't exactly self evident. Eiba fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Nov 23, 2023 |
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Nov 23, 2023 20:50
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Constantly LARPing posted:Walter Reuther, not a social democrat, got it. If Walther Reuther seized corporate property and had the workers manage it in common as an independent entity, that's news to me
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Nov 23, 2023 20:59
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:uyghur separatism just spontaneously appeared in the 2000s because of the US pushing heroin sure is a take There’s a quaint American Exceptionalism where nothing bad happens without the US having a hand in it. Someone else doing a bad thing? The us is responsible obviously!
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Nov 23, 2023 21:02
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Sorry for the twitter link, but it was the easiest way to link the scene - Boots Riley distilled a lovely depiction of a certain mentality being discussed. https://twitter.com/Douggernaut_2/status/1716576616589983997 (as an aside, Boots Riley is probably the closest you can get in Holywood to the stuff the ZA/UM crew pulls off, and I was not surprised when he reached out to them)
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Nov 23, 2023 21:04
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Orange Devil posted:So Kim's attraction to moralism is the part about control. Kim might be the most repressed character in the whole game, constantly expending a lot of effort to keep control of his emotions, not allowing himself to really feel or experience them. He's addicted to cigarettes, but through this control he keeps the addiction to a single cigarette per day. He might actually be more addicted to the control than the cigarettes. His bad habit is lecturing others, trying to control them. Wat this all stems from I don't know, but it suggests Kim has some major unresolved emotional issues, and that ultimately more than anything is why he identifies as a moralist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Kim explicitly states at one point that he formerly identified as a moralist. As in, no longer does. And when prompted to speak about moralism in the presence of Sunday Friend, gives a deliberate non-answer which one of your skills can mentally pick up as the kind of answer you give to a superior when you don't think it's wise to give your actual opinions. Combined with his choice of attire and high five technique being deliberately reminiscent of the revolutionary air brigade, and his seemingly impassioned love of Revachol apparent when racist lorry driver tries to shame him, it seems fair to say that Kim really isn't much of a moralist anymore, and likely has fairly strong communist sympathies. It's just that he doesn't go around talking about them, because he lives under a moralist regime and works for an ostensibly moralist organization, so he understandably believes that being open about what he thinks would be a mistake. He publicly presents himself as a moralist because he believes he is expected to, not because he actually is.
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Nov 23, 2023 21:10
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whydirt posted:Hot Take: the “nice person representing a bad system” of Joyce vs the “lovely people repping a good system” Claires is a false dichotomy manufactured by the devs and is one of the weaker parts of DE there's also plenty of good people on the union side and unrepentant monsters on the company side, it's not presented as a dichotomy at all
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Nov 23, 2023 21:13
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Eiba posted:You have no say in the structure of the international order. Says who?
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Nov 23, 2023 21:14
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stumblebum posted:i agree, people (subjugated by the rules-based international order) need to be grateful for every death squad sent (by the international rules-based order) to butcher them as a blessing in disguise, because it directly prevents them being nuked (by the international rules-based order) there's a line in a (surprisingly brilliant) webcomic i read: 'power equals power' that has stuck with me for years. it's like one of those illusion pictures with the faces, it swaps back and forth between nonsensical to profound as you think on it.
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Nov 23, 2023 21:26
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my dad posted:Sorry for the twitter link, but it was the easiest way to link the scene - Boots Riley distilled a lovely depiction of a certain mentality being discussed. that's amazing
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Nov 23, 2023 21:28
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Kim rules ok?
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Nov 23, 2023 21:51
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Mr. Lobe posted:If Walther Reuther seized corporate property Man, wait until you find out what capitalists said about the sit down strikes Mr. Lobe posted:and had the workers manage it in common as an independent entity, that's news to me
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Nov 23, 2023 22:32
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my dad posted:(as an aside, Boots Riley is probably the closest you can get in Holywood to the stuff the ZA/UM crew pulls off, and I was not surprised when he reached out to them) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ
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Nov 24, 2023 00:39
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Constantly LARPing posted:But to focus on the game, if you want to argue that the Hardies don’t understand or are misled as to the ideology that they are willing to die for, you’re free to do so, but then you’d have to buy the anti communist line that the only way anyone could support the left is if they’re duped. "The Hardies don't have a good understanding of Evrart Claire Thought" doesn't mean "the Hardies are being duped" and it certainly doesn't mean "all leftists are being duped." We meet all these guys during the game. Some are clever, some are stupid, together they put together a horrible coverup ever and crack after 20 minutes of collective interrogation at their own club before they've been put under arrest, with their lawyer there. You can goad one of them into saying the Hardie boys are anti-foreigner, then the rest will tell him that's bullshit. These are not men united by a common understanding of social democratic thought, they're united by a common interest in wanting to be a Hardie Boy. I think the Hardie Boys do probably have a common understanding that workers are being exploited, that this is linked to why Martinaise is so poor, and that Evrart is fixing it. Most are willing to die for it, Shanky explicitly isn't. Beyond that, on every question of politics or operations, it's probably a "2 Hardies 3 opinions" scenario where conflicts are handled by deferring to Titus. They're not a party with a political line and educational program, they're a "big tent" club/militia for men who want to feel more powerful, productive, and socially integrated. Liz definitely knows what's up, ideologically and operationally. Evrart sent her to babysit the Hardies because they don't always know what's up. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Nov 24, 2023 |
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Nov 24, 2023 15:27
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the hardie boys are social democrats, did none of you smell them?
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Nov 24, 2023 15:50
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Mr Evrart is helping me build my welfare state
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Nov 24, 2023 15:51
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The thing that tips me on Evrart is that he's not just aware that his plan leads to deliberately provoking a massacre from the mercenaries, he's positively gleeful about it. The only way I can reconcile that what the hard empathy check tells you is that he is someone who is genuinely offended by the principle of inequality rather than the individual suffering that inequality represents (and there's a degree there to which he is perhaps mirroring the Sunday Friend - what he cares about is the metric he's chosen for 'good' and he'll ignore or discount anything that doesn't fit within that metric as being unimportant).
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Nov 24, 2023 15:56
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Alchenar posted:The thing that tips me on Evrart is that he's not just aware that his plan leads to deliberately provoking a massacre from the mercenaries, he's positively gleeful about it. He's an "ends justify the means" guy. I don't think that means he's apathetic to suffering, he's just willing to tolerate/encourage a lot of it in order to achieve a future where he sincerely believes there will be a lot less of it. He's wildly arrogant to play these games with people's lives, and to be so deceptive about it, but that's not the same thing as tolerance for suffering. A lot of politics is "making other people suffer a lot more right now to advance changes that, over the long term, will reduce everyone's suffering." That's what it is when you occupy a street or building, that's what it is when you start a revolution.
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Nov 24, 2023 16:03
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Civilized Fishbot posted:A lot of politics is "making other people suffer a lot more right now to advance changes that, over the long term, will reduce everyone's suffering." That's what it is when you occupy a street or building, that's what it is when you start a revolution. Her tragic end is a reminder that "suffering now in exchange for better life later" approach only works if there is, in fact, a better life later; otherwise, history will only remember the suffering. Rogue AI Goddess fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Nov 24, 2023 |
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Nov 24, 2023 16:17
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Alchenar posted:The thing that tips me on Evrart is that he's not just aware that his plan leads to deliberately provoking a massacre from the mercenaries, he's positively gleeful about it. does anyone not want the mercenaries there, politically speaking? fascists and communists are spoiling for a fight against the representatives of global capital and a chance to reclaim revachol for the people, while the mercenaries are there under moralist and ultraliberal auspices and are enacting their ends. the only people who might have objected are the anarchists, and they got shot so well one forgets they ever existed.
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Nov 24, 2023 16:22
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