Ok so I just finished disco elysium for the first time and I gotta say I'm kind of, surprised I guess for all the hype I saw for it from here? Feel free to call me dumb and that I missed that whole point but I felt like it was so hard on communism as an idea and communists as people that I was left with nothing at the end but "communism is a hopeless shot in the dark and trying to be a decent person in the hellscape world will end up with you dead, safer just to be a musclebound fascist who fucks bimbos all day or an elon musk who accumulates so much wealth they are above the laws of physics" Like I get those characters and ideas in the context of the situations and what they are saying there, but the over all vibe left me feeling nothing but demoralized about communism. Did I just not "get it?"
The developers did say they went a bit far in making Communism hopeless and riddles with corrupt union leaders and such to counter the fact they're openly communist/anarchist. They're also from the old eastern bloc, so they are putting their own feeling about the failure of Communism into it.
That said, of all the ideologies Communism is the only one portrayed even slightly humanly.
Moralism is utterly bankrupt and detached from any sort of meaningful action. People who believe in it are the worst people, because they believe in nothing at all, or in power and control for its own sake.
Fascism is obviously pathetic and even the guys who are on the surface kind of badass like Measurehead are just a giant mess of ridiculous self justifying contradiction
Ultraliberalism is orthoganal to any sort of actual human emotion, so you either turn into the light bending man, or you compartmentalise like Joyce and cheerfully admit you're a complete monster literally destroying the world, but hey, you like Disco and your boat is tasteful and you're a blast at dinner parties, so it's all good right?
Communism has failed, it's been stomped into the ground by all the others, and it is flawed and struggling and Harry isn't Lenin no matter how many memes he says. But it's the only ideology with any hope.
The vision quest shows that. Sure the tower collapses, but for just a moment it works, and even Kim believes. Then the mentions of the RCM actually being the remnants of the communist ICM, and if your Esprit de Corps is high they're plotting something. The talk of The Return. The idea that Communist thought might actually be able to combat the Fade.
And finally, the very end. "Do it, for the working class."
I found it immensely hopeful. Because it's all about working past failure and hoplessness, and finding a new path.
This sums it up really well. In that world we failed, but for that brief moment we succeeded and it was beautiful and hopeful and then it all collapsed. In a way as you said, it alludes to the fall of the USSR.
At the same time it is an acknowledgement of the impossible odds we are faced with and in spite of that saying "Try anyway".
Ultraliberalism is orthoganal to any sort of actual human emotion, so you either turn into the light bending man, or you compartmentalise like Joyce and cheerfully admit you’re a complete monster literally destroying the world, but hey, you like Disco and your boat is tasteful and you’re a blast at dinner parties, so it’s all good right?
lmfao this is great
She is literally Thatcher, down to appearance, mannerism, and cheerful self awareness of her absolute monstrosity.
Yeah , I think it really was about how a couple of particular lines came off, it felt like it was playing into the whole "communism when no food and failure"
They even left the boot prints (craters) in Martinaise as a reminder.
The failure of the people's pile did kind of dig things in a bit far.
But communism did fail in real life. But, as in Disco Elysium as in real life, it failed but it's not dead. There is some sweetness and optimism buried deep in the unflinching depiction of what remains among the pieces of a revolution that was just shattered.
And another dimension of this is that
explicit spoilers
Harry is not a reliable narrator. He is not a blank slate onto which you can write "FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY COMMUNISM". Disco Elysium is a role playing game in the truest sense. You may think you are shaping Harry into being a cool communist, but by the end of the vision quest especially it becomes clear that, no, the sudden bizarre, cartoonish political radicalization is just one of the many ways Harry can act out in an attempt to process the things which led to his breakdown. This is made most explicit if you fail the "Ask the most important question about communism" check at the end of the vision quest. When you fail that one, Harry blurts out "Are women bourgeouis?" and spirals into another embarassing spectacle where it's abundantly obvious that even the communism thing is, for him, another way he's trying to get over Dora. So I think that should color your reading of communism's portrayal whenever Harry's thoughts and dialogue choices are involved.
Because it’s all about working past failure and hoplessness, and finding a new path.
It's worth mentioning that this is also the game's overall theme and is expressed through the mechanics as well, and Communism is the only ideology where this theme also applies.
I was left with nothing at the end but “communism is a hopeless shot in the dark and trying to be a decent person in the hellscape world will end up with you dead, safer just to be a musclebound fascist who fucks bimbos all day or an elon musk who accumulates so much wealth they are above the laws of physics”
The game takes place in a world where the revolution happened, and utterly failed, and now the aftermath is basically nothing but neoliberal hell. You're not living in a world where communism is possible. You're living in a world where just surviving can be difficult. In addition, you aren't a communist. You're a lost, dumbass cop who doesn't know shit about the world. Forming any strong opinion about politics is silly because you don't know shit about fuck. When the game makes fun of you for saying commie shit, it isn't making fun of you because communism is bad, it's making fun of you because you can't possibly have an informed opinion on communism when you're still trying to piece together what kind of world you're even living in. You haven't read theory, you have a vague idea about this guy named Kras Mazov who said something about communism or whatever.
You haven’t read theory, you have a vague idea about this guy named Kras Mazov who said something about communism or whatever.
Simulacra and Simulation
we have no clue what Harry was like before the game
Yes, and neither does he. That's the point, he woke up one day with no idea who the fuck he's supposed to be and then just decided "I'm a hardcore communist" not because he knows enough to make that informed opinion but because he's latching on to something and making a new identity out of it.
The final message that the true communist in the game leaves us with is literally the words ONE DAY I WILL RETURN TO YOUR SIDE, written in mercenary blood and stolen cop car fuel and being seared into the very stone of the city large enough to be read from space.
The communards lost. Long live the communards. May the void consume us all after one last disco dance.
The game takes place in a post communist world thats (literally) slowly fading away.
spoiler
Being consumed by what seems to be a physical manifestation of human history itself. Joyce theorizes that the Pale is "memories" or something like that, then if you get to talk to the bug, it tells you that that the Pale appeared right when humans did.
I think if you went in expecting a straight up piece of political theory or socialist propaganda then yeah, I could see stepping away disappointed - it's a multifaceted story that's in part but not entirely about politics. While I obviously enjoy its political aspects, I think the thing that sticks with me most about the game is what I'd describe as an aggressively human style of writing and characterization. Even characters that I'm sure the writers wouldn't have much nice to say about in real life are taken seriously as people, with complex motivations, contradictions, stories they tell themselves about who they are and how they operate in the world. Very few characters are outright demonized (with a handful of exceptions).
But on the politics front I will say that, while the game is hard on communism on a surface level, it's much, much harder on the other ideologies presented: Ultraliberalism/libertarianism is basically a joke, fascists are uniformly depicted as using their belief system as a facade to process some kind of personal failing or sexual pathology, and the Moralintern/Moralism is very clearly the big bad boot on the world's neck, shown through the airships they have poised to bomb Revachol 24/7 should the proles get out of line again. Throughout the game, there's also an underlying sense of tragedy and melancholy around the fact that the Commune of Revachol was sabotaged by the Coalition (even Joyce, one of the most hyper-capitalist characters, expresses a certain amount of wistfulness about what could have been).
I think it might also help to examine the social context in which the game was made. The devs are from a former Soviet republic (they're Estonian), so there's definitely IMO a strong current of the writing team processing the fall of socialism where they live, their mixed (mostly negative) feelings about that, and of trying to piece together an answer to the question of "where do we go from here?" It's not going to be a purely positive or optimistic depiction because the dev team grew up in the direct wreckage of Communism's collapse, and the end of history morass that followed.
Did you do the political vision quest for communism? Because I thought that was truly beautiful. IMO, being a communist often DOES feel like a hopeless, scary thing. But like in the political vision quest, if you can stack the matchboxes just right, something amazing can happen
The game itself is really just amazingly written, and the finale with the
spoiler
:: insulindian phasmid absolutely blew me away.
100 percent agree, I love that vision quest and honestly think that's the point where the writers showed their hand most explicitly in terms of their personal politics. While it pokes fun at sectarianism and theory, when you compare it to the other quests which range from outright jokes (ultraliberalism) to pathetic (fascism) to downright sinister (Moralism), it's pretty clear where they stand. It's the only vision quest that really has an overall hopeful tone (we do be living in dark times, but the stars don't seem like they're gonna go out anytime soon).
communism is a hopeless shot in the dark and trying to be a decent person in the hellscape world will end up with you dead
I mean, it kind of is and it kind of will. At least in the context of a desperate, declining U.S. / Eurocentric world order. No one alive today will live to see The Revolution, much less enjoy the benefits of a communist society. I think that's the moral challenge of the game. Knowing it's hopeless, at least in your lifetime, will you fight anyway? Will you plant trees under whose shade you'll never sit?
