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thinking about how dolores dei's legacy is moralism, a system of beliefs whose core is slow, incremental change. and how the guard who killed her screamed 'we were supposed to come up with this ourselves' out of fury at her interference. and how internalizing moralism requires harry to embrace that 'centrism isn't change -- not even incremental change. it is *control*.'

#the innocentic system is so sad and so insane. i'm inconsolable #this game is very good at disentangling centrist rhetoric. and lamenting its domination #disco elysium #panoptalkon

a lovely thing about disco elysium is that it doesn't just resort to the quasi-absurdist "failure is inevitable, but we will keep trying", it proudly asserts "failure is inevitable and also extremely sexy"

#disco elysium #and an even neater thing is how easy it would be to frame it in a very boring and irresponsible way #like i have a lot of issues with the fact that the protagonist is a cop #i don't agree that the critical value of this choice outweighs its harm #but with the specific theme of failure cops are actually a potent narrative device #as they very clearly show the issue with blanket statements like 'failure is revolutionary'#it can be. when a cop fails to do their job and it actually saves the community for the harm the cop'd otherwise inflict #and disco says that explicitly #but it also presents you with situations in which harry's failures cause irreparable horrible damage #so no. failure in itself is not revolutionary. because there's no blueprint for revolution and no immediate answer #no matter how harry's communist-posturing might communicate otherwise #this ambiguity and affinity for failure as something unexpected is what earned disco so much criticism i think #the deviation from hard marxism is perceived as centrism. when it is in fact quite anarchist imo #but yeah choosing to reward failure is very comrade of the devs. love it #panoptalkon

i love izzy hands. the narrative frames him as a boring killjoy who's not down with silly pirate story antics but where would this show be without the horny autocannibalism moment. where would it be without blackbeard's divorce aesthetic. he makes ed worse, but he also makes ed campier.

#he's like if jean vicquemare was entertaining #as much as i love stede and ed. we can't only have tender moments in a pirate show. foot-eating is essential!#cannibalism tw #panoptalkon

if i think any more about how communist theory in disco elysium is so much more earnest, impassioned, and hopeful than real-life communist theory, tears will start forming

#it's just soo #like. du cristal a la fumee as a revolutionary promise as opposed to the warning that is 'all that is solid melts into air'#the whole deal with inframaterialism #the fuckign. return #it's all so bare and naive that it becomes even more pompous and alienating when countered with the reality of failure #and doesn't provoke change but causes inaction and detachment (see the reading group)#it's not capitalist realism that reinforces the status quo -- it's the opposite.#can't stop thinking about it #disco elysium #panoptalkon

disco elysium is a masterclass in crafting morally grey characters. on the one hand, trant heidelstam likes revolutionary graffiti and offers a fascinating infodump on tape computers. on the other hand, he's a slitherer-outer and literally blond

#i love listening to him but he's such a coward <3 #panoptalkon

the return is such a fascinating concept to me. it draws its power from its potentiality and with this power it imposes stagnation on the city -- revachol, in its blatant indeterminacy, is the perfect history battleground, because this moment in history relies on being indeterminate. no notion of agency, no meaningful political change can appear before the return, because the return has to be *total*, resolving history all at once. the vague hope for the glorious end of history will remain, as long as the city refuses to change.

#like ofc thats just system justification innit #but its fascinating to me how its incompleteness that's being preserved --#not order or stability #like. totality is not necessary -- its the potential for totality that is truly powerful #also why i dont really vibe with any of the new innocence theories #there's a reason no innocence is in office -- the power is being enacted through disorder #and can't be personified or even spelled out #disco elysium #panoptalkon

the thing about being eastern european is that you simply cannot be objective about disco elysium

#and maybe that's a good thing!#yes you love it because it destroys you and fills you with nostalgia #and it might not be very brechtian but what is communism if not kinship at least partly unexamined #i know that many have been saying that it is too ironic cynical to be truly revolutionary #but i think it treads the line between bitter and hopeful very finely #while not being unnecessarily ambiguous re: politics #and it's such an eastern-european manner of doing art and critique i believe #that i can't help but be very partial to it despite its many flaws #disco elysium #panoptalkon

the innocentic system is so funny like... yes we have no way of knowing what's historically significant, yes we're 100% sure this person should be anointed a world-historical figure

#communists criticise dolores dei but rarely the institution itself #which is surprising. they're pretentious they must have read disco hegel #fellas you need to see it for the liberal propaganda of progress that it is #the only person who's seen doing that is sola my friend sola #negative dialectics icon!!!#disco elysium #panoptalkon

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