Game Theory: Po3 is dysphoric about being a robot
Case 1: They are absolutely miserable for the entirety of the game. The only moments we see them being happy are when they're getting closer to The Great Trancendance, and i would wager a guess that the form seen in the other versions of Inscryption they intended to upload would be that of something completely different.
When the player frees everybody from Leshy, Po3 doesn't really acknowledge it, not even a semi-sarcastic "Thanks". They see it as merely getting to be in the rat race for the old data again, which although not thrilling is still better than Leshy's game. Even if their situation is better, they're still very unhappy.
The only times Po3 has any pride about their situation is when they're stepping over somebody, we don't actually know if they think like this while unobserved however. Mocking Leshy for his failures, insulting the other Scrybes, bullying the underlings at their factory, they try to make themselves feel better by insulting everyone else.
That brings me to Case 2: Uncaringess to their factory, their underlings and most importantly themselves. We see it better in the 3d model but even in 2d form it's very prominent that Po3's body is filthy and unkempt, their screen has visible stains in both. They don't care about their own hardware enough to maintain it, either due to their dysphoria, or because they see it as temporary (More on that in a moment). This clearly had consequences too, their monitor glitches out a ton during the 3d segment, which indicates the hardware might really be struggling to pull things through.
When the camera breaks in the dredging room, and the player doesn't fix it, they get mad over the player not giving them a favor as thanks for the card game, but don't seem to care about the state of the factory itself, and here's my diagnosis: They see the factory, the Scrybes, and likely EVERYTHING about their current form to be temporary, to be replaced with what they truly want in the form of themselves that has full control in the uploaded version.
Yes, i'm aware the uploaded version is implied to be the exact game we play in act 3, but i feel like that's just a coverup, that they'd throw it all away and that the game is just a distraction for anybody who picks it up so that the copy's version of Po3 has time. In the original version Po3 knows they'll never be happy, but maybe the Po3s inside the copies will, maybe they'll find their ideal form and build a kinder self while the player is busy playing the half-baked game.
Case 3: Projection. Whenever the chance arises, Po3 takes a jab at organic life, but when we see them as a stoat (a living being) in act 1, they seem much less insulted by it than you'd think. Despite clearly not being happy, they complain about specifically the Stoat part of the experience only once, which is followed up by their main complaint of simply being in a card. It truly does seem they would be relatively ok if it weren't for the fact that Leshy is torturing them while they're trapped in a very limited form.
I feel like Po3 wants to be some form of life, or at least something other than a computer, but they've put up a facade of being a "perfect machine" so nobody thinks they're weak. They don't want people to see their emotional side, so they simply push everybody away with a facade of egotism and intentional rudeness, but they've been doing it so long that their only hope of self-improvement is in a world where they are truly, fully in control. Alone, and with unlimited space and time to become what they want to become.
Thank you for reading, don't forget to hit that reblog button
