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?"

  • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    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.

    • Nakoichi [they/them]M
      ·
      3 years ago

      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

      • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        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.