Pathologic: The Marble Nest is so Nietzschean it makes me sick. I believe Dankovsky’s time loop perfectly encapsulates what Nietzsche was referring to whenever he discussed the eternal return. How so, you might ask? Let me explain.
Concepts similar to the eternal return predate Nietzsche, most notably with the concept of samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth, influenced by the karmic cycle) in Hinduism and Buddhism, but the eternal return holds significant weight in Nietzsche's philosophy given that not only is he oft called a nihilist (although that label is not apt), but also given that Nietzsche was a staunch determinist. The first time Nietzsche mentions the eternal return is in The Gay Science, where he presents it to the reader as a thought experiment:
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science, p. 273-274, tr. Walter Kaufmann).
Essentially, the eternal return is the belief that time itself is an infinite loop. Everything will repeat, and every event will play out in the same way for all of eternity. While Pathologic as a whole does tend to take more from absurdism and the Theatre of the Absurd (for time loops specifically? See: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), I think the eternal return holds special weight for Dankovsky in The Marble Nest; he willingly chooses (depending on which ending you chose) to repeat the same day over and over again, not only because he is stubborn and refuses to die, but because he wants to still find a way to keep everyone safe and keep the plague out of the Stone Yard. Despite this, however, the events of the DLC are set to repeat in the exact same way, no matter how many times you try, in vain, to change the outcome. The plague will still come, and you will still choose whether or not you will finally die or not.
And I find it fascinating that the Executor sees Dankovsky's death as being, essentially, mercy. It is implied that when we are playing the DLC, this is not the first time Dankovsky has continued to repeat the time loop. How long has he been doing it for? That, we don't know, but the Executor believes that not only is Dankovsky agitating for continuing to deny death, but that it is also causing him suffering. By choosing to go with the Executor, Dankovsky will finally escape the samsara of his deathbed-induced, delirious time loop. By the end of the DLC, he has come to grapple with death and really, what the hell he's doing. By choosing to go with the Executor now, I believe Dankovsky is, well... not necessarily more at peace with death, but has ultimately come to accept his own mortality in the wake of the plague spreading to the Stone Yard. What would the point of his death be if he just didn't learn anything? That is why the game chastizes you when you choose to die during the first conversation, after all.
On the other hand, there's the choice to repeat the day once again. Would Daniil Dankovsky, bachelor of medicine and famed thanaticist, truly choose to just accept his death? No. Dankovsky would not. Not the man who claimed he would destroy Death itself. That's why he came to this town in the first place, was it not? He will choose to repeat the day, to try in vain to save this town no matter what, and no matter how many times he must relive this day once again.
