The most unrealistic part about the DX Illuminati is the fact that none of the Council members have kids, except for DuClaire, and even with her, it's implied that her daughter is actually her clone. That's bs for ridiculously rich people, even Page would have five kids at least.
Unless...
In IW, Chad says that he and Nicolette can't have children. That's... quite a coincidence.
I wonder if Paul and JC can actually tell themselves apart.
Like, if you show them a photo where Denton is 22 or something, isn't smiling and the background is pretty vague, could either of them say with confidence "That's me" or would he just stare at the picture blankly and then say something along the lines of "Okay, so the guy in this photo looks lame as hell, so it could only be my brother," while actually being bothered by the fact he can't either recollect the moment the picture was taken or be sure that it's not him.
Also I wonder how did Maggie (and, by extension, May Sung) know that it was JC who entered the building. Sure, on one hand, he's visibly younger than Paul, but on the other hand, that effect could be explained by "Ah, he finally shaved his fucking beard, I might even smile at him again now." Like yeah, Maggie knew that at least one of the Dentons arrived to Hong Kong, but realistically, before JC actually talked to her, neither her, nor Simons, nor Page could be sure which brother accepted the invitation. (I guess that invitation confirms that Team Evil didn't know that Paul planned to assassinate Maggie, because otherwise this move would be even dumber than it already is.)
Now that I think about it, the main thing Adam has in common with the Dentons isn't some special DNA, no, it's the fact that he also has to deal with the loss of identity - or at least the sense of it.
Like, I poke fun at Paul for not even helping with advice during the final mission, but the revelation about JC being his clone, it seems, messed with his head to the point he wasn't sure about anything, he was questioning every single decision he or JC made. So when he doesn't trust JC, he mostly doesn't trust himself, and so when he saw that he was wrong, maybe he just realised he didn't know who he was anymore. And so he truly can't make a choice in the end, he assumes that JC is the better version of him, he's the real Paul now, new and improved, and the old one is... he just is.
And then JC just... gave up his personality to become someone completely different, neither Paul nor JC, neither human nor machine. Maybe that's what brought Paul his sense of confidence back. Once again he was the only Paul that existed.
Alex was raised not to have a sense of agency, to be used for creating a hivemind. Not to mention that the entire Tarsus quartet had to either completely surrender their will to the collective or say "screw you guys, I'm going home", there was no way for them to remain themselves while joining any fraction. (Klara is a great character, I wish we saw more of her.)
And then you have Adam who is so obsessed with his augmentations, that's the only thing he notices, that's all he hears people talking about, his entire world revolves around them. No wonder he punched the mirror: he reduced his entire identity to the technology he despised so much.
I remember someone claiming with confidence that Simons is older than Page, but I'm pretty sure Page wouldn't make Walton's clone assigned birthdate a year after his own if that were the case. If anything, I suspect it indicates that Simons is probably even younger, i.e. the difference is more than one year and that's why Page had to acknowledge it at all.
I don't want to offend anyone, but I find the Christian imagery in DX pretty confusing. If JC is Jesus Christ, doesn't that make Page the actual God? Who never intended to create a half-god and did it by accident basically? And if JC rebelled against the God that created him, doesn't that mean that he's actually Lucifer?
Also why is Paul named after the guy that never actually met Jesus Christ but okay that's the least of my questions.
Okay, so I'm really bad with the visuals, but this post won't leave my head, so I'll make it a text.
Deus Ex series characters as Moscow architectural styles and buildings, let's go.
JC is Constructivism. He's building a new world, and in order to do so, rethinking the whole system is required. Also really likes glass(es).
Paul is Art Nouveau. He's elusive, he doesn't fit the mold and there might be something really wrong with him but in the end, he knows what he's doing and also he's really pretty.
Alex D is Worker and Kolkhoz Woman pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair. She could be seen as both a power for good, justice, equality and as someone who WILL cut you and beat you to death if you stand in her way. Whatever she decides, she'll do, there's no doubt about it. Also her actual author seems to be forgotten.
Everett is Stalinist style. He absorbed the great ideas of the past, he gave his own spin on them and you may be in awe of the results he achieved, but also with him, the question always remains: what is the human cost of this greatness?
Simons is Khrushchevkas. He may be one ugly son of a bitch but hey, he gets the job done for a reasonable price.
Page is "Luzhkov style", or Postmodernism. Like Everett, he also absorbs the ideas of the past but he applies them without really understanding them or bothering to think about the context he uses them in. The results vary from awesome to ugly to downright terrifying, but they're never boring.
Adam is Soviet Architectural Modernism. He may seem cold, boring, mechanical and even frightening at times, but what actually drives him is hope for a better future and he has his own charm and warmth to him. Also if you aren't careful he will overwhelm you.
Megan is modern architecture. She's in a constant race, she aims as highly as possible, she seems to be transparent regarding what she's all about but she's not. Also the whole thing doesn't seem to be as sustainable as she thinks but she's too focused on success to notice.
David is the Palace of Soviets. A bunch of great promises that could never be fullfilled to begin with. And what little was actually built was destroyed to never return.
I'm still convinced Simons didn't have a single day of military training and felt called out by JC. Also that's why the only enemy he actually overpowered was an unarmed prisoner captured by someone else.
It's just hilarious to imagine Page specifically told Simons time and time again not to get into fights directly because he sucks and even Page himself can beat him up, and the only reason Simons gets that supergun and fights JC was that he walked up to Page completely distracted by final touches to Icarus merging, got the uninterested "sure, fine" out of him and then lost the first real fight he ever had. JC must've been so confused by the whole thing.
Paul: Let's get Adam back! And remember: we don't kill until we do.
Alex: Yeah, no, explain first. Who do I not kill?
Paul: The civilians, obviously. And also... I don't know, try not to kill too many combatants, too. They have families and such.
Alex: Since when do you care about families?
JC: Since they aren't his own.
Paul: Come on, now is not the time.
JC: It never is.
Paul: Okay. Let's get Adam tortured and killed because one of us really needs to whine about his priveleged childhood.
JC: I was referencing the last week.
Alex: Generous of you not to include the ambush he sent us into yesterday.
Paul: That's called "believing in you."
JC: You pronounce "using" wrong.
Paul: At least I have the right priorities. The one person we absolutely need to take alive is Simons. Who might be torturing Adam at this very moment!
Meanwhile in a prison cell.
Simons (while filling another glass with whiskey): ...so no, the regeneration doesn't include teeth because he hasn't figured out how to make them look normal.
Adam: This is bullshit. You're working for the largest pharmacy company in the world and they can't treat your tooth ache?
Simons: Oh, they can. But my augmentations drained my medical insurance because Bob included them in it.
Adam: Don't they always.
Simons: You at least could sue Sarif if you wanted to.
Adam: And you could ask Page to give you a vacation.
Simons: I did once. He pretended he didn't know what the word means, promised to look it up and changed the topic. I took the hint.
Adam: He sounds insufferable.
Simons: He has his moments. (Hearing the battle noises outside.) Tell me. Is the primary unit more or less annnoying as an ally than as an enemy?
Adam: I tried both, don't recommend either option. At least if he's your enemy, you're allowed to kill him.
Simons: You'd think so, but no.
Adam: Why?
Simons: Bob has different plans.
Adam: Guys like him don't have a plan, they have a vision.
Simons: You'd be surprised how much he's actually involved.
Adam: After dating Megan and working for Sarif nothing surprises me anymore.
Simons: Come work for us, you'll get your sense of wonder back.
Adam: I've made my choice already.
Simons (raising his glass): To choices, then.
Adam (raising his glass as well): And to the worst types of people bossing us around until we die.
DX1 blew my mind with how free I felt, how alive the world was and how responsive it was. But. If I were trying out the evil route, I would've been disappointed. Because the story simply doesn't work if JC is a bad guy, his actions and words don't make sense. And DXIW confirmed that yes, JC wanted what's better for everyone. Like, if he were evil he could still care about Paul and save his life, I guess, and Paul's attitude towards him would make more sense but everything else... Nah, he wouldn't betray UNATCO and wouldn't care about the cure.
To give DXHR some credit, their story could still play out the same way and Adam would still say the stuff he says if he were canonically a jerk. As long as he cares about Megan, it works.
DXIW got more creative with the protagonist's motivation though. They simply establish that Alex doesn't really care what to do about her life, so it makes sense she's constantly following the orders from whoever, getting into shady business and not caring about people's feelings whatsoever.
Regarding my feelings on DXMD writing: I have to add that I do love Jenna Thorne from the novelization, wish she was actually in the game. My dream plotline for her is competing with Simons for Page's attention and obviosuly losing and not taking it well. Like, I would love for these three to have their own relationship with no connection to Adam whatsoever, he's nothing special to them, he just stumbles into this mess and has to understand what's going on and use it to his advantage in order to survive. Could've fleshed Simons out too, like he could actually become Adam's temporary ally in their fight against what Thorne is planning and they would have to learn things about each other, and Adam could even recognize a mirror!AU version of himself in Simons. But eh, looking at the stuff they did with the characters they did use, it's probably for the better Simons and Thorne never appeared in the game.
I've spent hours analyzing the stuff DXHR did wrong (in my opinion) and what they should've done, but the truth is... I can bash it as much as I want but
1) if I were DXHR's writer, my writing would've been so much worse and even more childish. Like, I'm working from the stuff Mary and others already wrote, and they were starting from scratch which is immensely harder. And whenever I'm critizing the writing, I always notice just how many details there are and how many moving parts they use and why. Like, I can accuse the DXHR writing of lots of things but laziness isn't one of them (even despite them copypasting DX1 plot points which always came off as weird, like why is Maggie 2.0 (the Boring Update version) here doing the same things, are all Hongkong tech companies lead by female models working for foreign dudes or what). I can forgive mistakes, plot holes, the stuff that wasn't thought through but what I can't forgive is the feeling that the plot is here just because it need to be here and nobody really cared. These people actually cared;
2) if Adam is such a non-character, why do I spend so much time analyzing him and writing (mostly humorous) fics about him;
3) Megan (again, in my opinion) is the best female character in the series. Even more so, to me he's actually up there with Paul as not just the best characters in the series but my favourite characters period. (I guess I love well-meaning assholes so devoted to the cause of making the world a better place they hurt the people they love and don't even notice until it's too late that they're pawns in horrible people schemes.) And Megan didn't even have that many scenes! It takes so much skill to create a character worth exploring with saying so little about them;
4) this story gets ridiculous, and despite me complaining because of some the stuff that comes from it, I like that. If anything, for me DXHR isn't ridiculous enough, unlike the first two installments. (I treasure the memory of the first time I heard Tong casually saying that the Illuminati are involved and JC not being impressed at all, I was HOWLING, that was the moment I became DEVOTED. Unfortunately, DXHR doesn't have moments like this one but I hope that someone new to the franchise got this feeling when Sarif blamed the Illuminati for his troubles);
5) I spent a hundred hours in the game, give or take, trying out different play styles and each time I noticed new stuff I missed before, writing-wise included. Clearly they did right more than they did wrong.
So yeah, whenever I criticize DXHR, I do this out of love (and I don't mean it in a "This is what the correct writing choice was" way, just what I personally would enjoy more). Because hey, I really don't like DXMD, and you know what I also don't like? Analyzing why it feels so boring to me. In order to analyze DXMD's writing, I have to actually revisit it, and I really, really don't want to. Listening to any character other than Page or Fletcher feels like a chore. Gameplay-wise it's fine (I mostly like the stuff they added), the look of the game I really don't like but it would've been tolerable if not for writing. So there's that.
I know it doesn't make any sense timeline-wise, but the only new DX game I want is the game where JC, Paul, Alex D and Adam are having ridiculous adventures that are depressive and optimistic at the same time. And all of the franchise characters, items, locations - all coexist in this world.
Just imagining how miserable Adam feels between JC calmly trolling him, Paul cheerfully using him as a human shield and Alex D having zero fucks makes me laugh. (Even better if Paul hits on Megan just because he has nothing better to do, and he's both annoyed she doesn't even notice and amused because of Adam's reaction.) Also at some point Page calls them via hologram and tries to bribe them into dropping their investigation, and Alex is seriously considering it, and just tells the guys about it, and Adam is like "That's it. I'm done" and leaves mid-conversation, powers through the MJ12 soldiers surrounding the room. While the battle noises and screams are happening in the distance, Paul is asking Page if he's sure Alex and Paul share the same DNA, and Page is like "Idk, I wasn't really listening." JC leaves as well to remind Adam that he should stick with the prod.
So bacically what I'm saying is, I'm fine with DX not having any new installments.
Okay, so I watched The Outer Worlds episode of Secret Level, and now I understand how people who hate Megan see her and Adam. I don't agree at all, but at least now I get it.
Also holy shit why so bleak, in the actual game you CAN get a happy ending for the majority of situations if not all of them. Maybe it's because the protagonist is an outsider untainted by the system, though, and that's the point.
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