Kim has a unique relationship to the pale, I tried dissecting it and making sense of it. Reposting with more thoughts after some good conversations with @binomech.
Warning- it's insanely long.
1. After life, death
One of the first thing you can learn about Kim is that he would hurl himself in death's way to save you. From the very first moment, Kim is related to sacrifice and death, it follows him wherever he goes-
The slaughterhouse.
He lost his parents at two years old. He worked a year in Processing (here's good post about that by @renmorris and @spilledkaleidoscope). He lost his partner, Eyes. People have taken a bullet that was meant for his more than once. His survivor's guilt is insane. He's killed six people. He's afraid of killing recklessly, and has a deeply unhealthy relationship with his gun (made another embarrassingly long post about that).
Kim also hears pale 'ghosts' on the police radio all the time, talks about it like it's normal, and says he doesn't believe in ghosts.
If harry is with Noid during the Moralist dream quest (more on it later), Harry can even wonder if Kim himself is a ghost, prompting this beautiful exchange-
And he's not entirely wrong. When Harry gets shot, after Kim fulfills Espirit's promise and stands in death's way for him, you can ask as you fall into darkness what will happen to you-
It's the living who are ghosts. You can leave them behind and rest. Go into the wild pale yonder, along with everyone else Kim has ever cared about. Or at least you can try to.
When death is at the door, you have two options-
2. After death, life again
Kim might associate himself with death, but Harry associates him with life again and again- Death is darkness, Kim has a light bulb halo. Death is a sunset, Kim is a sunrise. Death is where you are when the game start, it's ready to take you, and then- a clarion call, the sound of a motor carriage, a detective arriving on the scene, and you open your eyes.
Of course Kim is no actual saint, no guardian angel, but it's really telling that even in harry's deification the symbols of Kim's holiness are worldly, almost mundane, the matters of every day life- a celling's fan lightbulb, the engine of a car..
Or the way @binomech said it when discussing Kim's portrait: this is the only thing keeping you from the full brunt of the world in your mind #but truly you are already in the world #and he is just a man #and that's just a car and that's just a ceiling fan
The game is very clear about Harry being a ceaseless agent of the world, but he's not the only one. Harry stands at death's door twice, and Kim is his way back to the world both times.
3. After the world, the pale
So what is Kim's relationship with the pale?
As casual as he might try to appear, Kim is clearly uncomfortable with the pale, afraid of it even. When Harry brings up the pale, he intervenes, genuinely worried for the fragile stability of his mind, trying to protect him-
It's no more terrifying than water or death or that we're stuck behind our eyes for all eternity?? Sounds pretty terrifying Kim...
I think the key is in the moralist vision quest, When Harry attempts to reach the Committee of Responsibility, and he hears the pale crosstalk coming through the radio, when suddenly-
"Pale is a shroud of memories and it doesn't really distinguish to whom those memories belong to. You could hear anything." You could hear anything, but you hear Kim. Soona even says that the odds of us hearing him, out of all the voices in the pale, are astronomically low.
We know the past has not been harmless to Kim, we know it's full of ghosts and cold winters, but that's not the thing that's eating at him-
Kim is afraid of forgetting. He's constantly writing, he thinks through his notebook, always recording, so he wouldn't lose anything. That's why the pale is so terrifying to him.
4. After the pale. the world again
The world is what it is. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.
That leads me to the expeditions through the pale-
Volta do Mar is a skill unique to Kim, according to the stats of this pilot jackets, and it's a Physique skill.
It's driving me crazy to think how Kim wanted to be revolutionary pilot as a kid, and is walking around dressed like a pilot as an adult, to give himself the ability to navigate the pale. To return from the sea-
DISTANT ENEMY OF HIMSELF?? kim....
Seeing how Volta do Mar is strengthened by his jackets, and the items' descriptions point out that most of the people who used to wear this jacket are long gone (alongside what they represented) and considering that the only real advance in pale transit is the speed with which an aerostatic craft can pierce it, is seems fitting that returning from the 'sea' requires the kind of armor that ghosts wear- the ghost of who you wanted to be but never could, of a home that was never yours. Glory to them.
@binomech said it best in this conversation we had about Kim's skills: "your traitorous race. your traitorous job. your traitorous parents. your traitorous senses. distant enemy of yourself: seolite, communist, cripple, faggot. and you wear it as armor"
Kim is equipped for Volta do Mar, he armors himself for it every day, for the thing that makes it possible to return sane, and discover a new world-
This is one of the most touching Kim moments in the game to me- putting his hand in the rain, looking up to the sky, mouth open, welcoming the spring rain, even knowing it'll bring death and destruction with it. He is devoted to this world and the role he has to play in it, or at least the role he thinks he has to play-
But we know Kim has a bigger role to play, he's trying to do his part right there, getting Harry to stay-
His connection to Harry can keep him on this world once again- keeping the two of them together. Their real work is down here, him and Harry are Revachol's only hope. If they stick together they might be able to keep her on this earth.
UNITY AMONG THE RANKS IS PARAMOUNT.
I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT.
Last time we sat together like this... Mm. In Lumière. Mourning our parents. Seems like everytime we're together, it's to grieve. I wish we could have spent more time... in less hopeless contexts.
after i read the verso and julie journals i could not get that scene out of my head (along with that one concept art, i have been scrounging for all the information about the incident)
