The prevalence of abandoned, orphaned and neglected children of Pathologic 2 is an interesting theme within the cast of characters to me. It’s a reoccurring problem which brings up a lot of questions for the story to answer.
How have these children survived on their own so long? What safety nets exist for them? And why do these safety nets exist? How come the adults of the town don’t step in to support these kids? How will this influence how the kids grow up? And most importantly, what can Artemy himself do for them? Even from his position as a social outcast of sorts?
Today I’ll be focusing on how the game approaches the children characters, in particular the termites. Although I do plan on writing a separate post about the child lore and general culture which has developed among the kids of the Town on Gorkhon, because while the topics are connected, that is a whole other can of worms.
(Pathologic 2 spoilers under the cut)
So what I personally found interesting is that out of the children who will define and shape the future of the town 5/7 of them are fully orphaned, no biological parents in sight for reasons either explained, or left up in the air. A fact I kinda picked up on being vaguely implied to be part of the reason the termites are more responsible and independent then the other kids. But even those other 2/7 aren’t actually that far off in my opinion because like . . . Khan, Capella, sweethearts, where are your dads in all this?
Especially Khan, like honey, I’m not sure I’ve seen you and your father talk? His mother died when he was young and his sister stepped up to fill a maternal role, I know, but did his father ever truly step up to raise his second child? With only a sister for a parental figure who or what was there to pick up the slack? Did he just fall through the cracks broken beneath his feet by his family’s state of disarray? Yet, even on shaky footing in his own life he stepped up to be a leader among the dogheads, clearly the role of leader is incredibly important to him. I’m wondering if perhaps because of the emotional distance from his father and loss of his mother Khan began seeing his place as a member of the Kain family less like the deeply personal bond of family and more as a nebulous, difficult to reach, level of importance and power over others he’ll one day achieve. I think that maybe putting himself in a position where others answer to him is how he chooses to investigate the meaning of the power he was born into.
And sure, Capella’s father is in the picture, but as a young mistress she is being socially forced out of the role of a child too early, leaving her in a strange state of being too adult to be cared for like a child but too childlike to write off as an adult. She’s such a spirited girl who’s clearly put a lot of thought into the future as something she must build herself. She can ask for help, and seems to not have too much trouble with that, but it seems to her there are some things a non-mistress can never understand. To me she reads as narratively quite distinct and separated from her family at this point in her life. She’s pursuing her own destiny and taking the choice of who to marry into her own hands at a young age. She’s building connections now that may indeed make life easier as she grows up, she’s always moving forward, and perhaps that means setting herself apart from her family. It probably also does not help my more negative interpretation of her family dynamic that I hate her father with every fibre of my being but love Capella herself so dearly. So um, yeah, also that, keep that in mind.
At least Isidor and later Artemy clearly helped them out a bit. Which I find quite sweet. Like jeez, be an even slightly neglectful parent in the Town on Gorkhon and one of the Burakh’s will swoop in the second you turn your back to give your kid a semblance of a healthy authority figure to look up to and maybe reinforce their belief in some big destiny while they’re at it.
Now onto the other 5! Specifically, how not having parents in their lives effects each of their stories, and what each characters story says about the larger town.
I’ll admit, it’s nice that Grace gets her little “the townsfolk are worried about this abandoned, mentally and physically unwell child” plotline but to me it just highlights how little the other kids of the town are cared for. Do people know about Murky? She’s so little, and she’s living alone in an abandoned train car.
I get leaving Sticky or Notkin types to their own devices since the child cultures of the town are so robust they allow for some kind of safety net. That is, the mutual protection offered by being in large groups. We can see through the caches that the kids are able to gather some resources and openly share them with people in their in-group. Clearly many kids this age are able to survive on their own to an extent, that’s even evident on how far Artemy can get by just trading away literal trash. And so, expensive resources find their way down the trading system to the kids. But I wish more characters mentioned the other little girl who was forced to live all alone. At least, forced by circumstance. As a neurodivergent person I can’t help but wonder if Murky not being acknowledged by adults who have surely seen her around might hint at a level of ableism. What if the adults of this town willfully ignore this young autistic child because they believe it would be difficult to find a guardian willing to support her unique needs, that she’d “create problems” in the adoption process. Suffice to say it breaks my heart, and Murky in particular getting a stable home and a guardian willing to take the time to understand her is deeply important to me.
So much attention is paid to Grace getting the stability offered by an adoptive family, in isolation you’d almost assume the town does this all the time. But the Town on Grokhon as it is when we first arrive is a creature which eats its young. It’s only when a child is in such desperate need of help that they might drop dead at any second that they receive support. Even Grace who ends up with a pretty happy ending still suffered with the trauma of fending for herself for years.
I’m not sure how on the side of the local drunk haunted by a literal murder he committed in the past adopting the little psychic girl who can talk to ghosts I am. . . Cuz like, yeah I get the sense multiple of those points have the ability to create significant conflict going forward. . . But I do appreciate the game encouraging this sense of personal autonomy in how Grace wants to go about her new, more stable life. You hear out her side of the story, even if it’s probably best to give her legal guardianship to someone else for now. As she grows I’m sure she’ll have plenty of opportunities to bond with the towns local weirdos, she’ll fit in perfectly!
Finally there’s little Taya. She, as opposed to the other orphaned characters, has only recently been orphaned. We know who her father was, which gives me something concrete to go off of in terms of how her childhood has gone so far and where it may lead. Like Khan and Capella her family gives her power through a hereditary inheritance. She’s not all too different from the other kids in her experience of childhood, even if the attention she’s given by adults currently sets her apart. She’s well cared for, but as a leader, like a figurehead in the world of adults, not a child. She’s safer than the other children but in exchange she’s being isolated without much to do. She’s mostly just playing pretend right now, but there’s this creeping suspicion that she too will be dragged out of the innocent carefree life of childhood long before she should. Taya is the perfect example of the attention of adults going all the way back around to being harmful. Eventually she will have to learn why she’s important and what her responsibilities are. But for now she is also a child given the reigns of her own destiny, although that responsibility hasn’t fully set in, I love the foreboding idea present in the narrative that what we’re currently seeing the older kids go through is a similar future to the one she will soon have to face.
The Theme of Family in Pathologic - a quick bit of analysis.
To me one of the most compelling themes in Pathologic is family, and how a persons connections to people represent their connections to a place.
Through my direct experience playing patho 2 and indirect experience learning about patho 1 and the demos (I’ll get to them eventually I promise) I found each of our 3 healers relationships (or lack thereof) to family communicates a lot about how each of them sees the town.
(Spoilers for the franchise below)
Daniil brings up his family in passing what? A handful of times? He has a family back in the capital somewhere, but he’s clearly an independent, high achieving young adult without the strongest ties to them. His personality makes it feel as though he’s been determined to handle his business on his own for a long time, judging by how quickly he steps up to take control of the town and how proud he is of his own personal achievements disconnected from anyone else.
On top of that he expresses a desire to not get married (he’s married to his work and all that). He’s just not that much of a family oriented person. Even if I do enjoy what I’ve heard of his interactions with the towns kids, to me his character stands in contrast to the close knit families and noble dynasties of the town. The other people in power in the town are that way because of their influential families, each bears their family name like a badge of honour. Then we have Mr. Daniil D. Dankovsky here whose name seems to almost symbolize him standing on his own, no ties to any name but his own. (Thank you little children playing your game with these characters, fantastic naming scheme 10/10) His disconnect from a recognizable family name also reinforces his place as a mostly unwanted outsider in the town.
And of course, gotta make a quick mention of popular fanon real quick. The very popular “fix Daniil’s life au” where he and Artemy raise Sticky and Murky together is just extra heart warming considering how separated from family Daniil is within the games. I’d say he seems pretty good with kids, but he’s focusing so much of his energy into a career we know he’s unfortunately destined to lose all progress on in the end that it leaves you wondering “What will be important to him after the loss of Thanatica?” And honestly I think “Maybe he’ll finally realize how fulfilling building family bonds can be.” Is a beautiful answer to that.
Then we got Clara. Clara shows up in the town notably missing a family. She’s a little girl all alone, stealing to survive because she has no one. Well, I suppose that mental image would be a whole lot more uniquely sad if we weren’t in the Town on Gorkhon where every second kids parents died of the plague a few years back. But unlike Daniil, I believe Clara having no biological parents actually connects her more to the town instead of just not having a strong connection to the parents one does have. Clara is a outcasted character in the beginning, she isn’t expected to have any strong family bonds, so she kind of fits into the crowd of orphaned children. She’s also more directly a child of the earth than others, which I guess ties her more to other miracles of the steppe then the town, but hey at least people like her are known of within the town.
But there is a position empty in the town, a vital role which must be filled, the third young mistress, someone to inherit Katerina’s position. Clara was implied to be created for a purpose, but overrode that purpose in many ways, by being a force of healing in the town yes, but also perhaps by seeking out a family she was not born into and taking on a responsibility for the town from there.
To me Clara’s adoption and how quickly she grows to care for her adoptive parents is very beautiful. As her mysteries are pealed back so is her perceived lack of humanity. She needs a family just like anyone else. It makes me wonder about the other kinds of people said to be formed of clay, if any of them ended up seeking out family dynamics of their own? Sorry if my understanding of her lore is a bit wonky, at this point I’m kinda theorizing off of lore crumbs lol.
Now time for the big finale of this analysis, the man who embodies this theme more than any other character, Artemy. As I mentioned in a previous post, Artemy’s relationship to the theme of family is one of the most compelling parts of patho 2 to me. Although I’ll be focusing less on his kids today as opposed to that post.
Completely unlike the other two healers, Artemy is connected to the town primarily by family ties. He’s Isidor’s boy, even if some npcs seem to not remember which son he is. To Artemy his last name is that badge of honour, that ticket to relevance as an authority figure that we see in the ruling families as well. To others he tends to simply introduce himself as Burakh, Burakh the local healer, sounds about right to them so he gets through situations quicker. Even after all three of his close family members are dead and buried his family connections still help him throughout the game. Trust, authority, familiarity. His name grants him all of these.
He is a menkhu, a title he inherited through blood connection, although proving himself is still an important aspect of being granted that title. His place as a spiritual leader among The Kin connects him to presumably countless generations of his ancestors. I’d be remiss not to mention the implications of the actual exonym The Kin (to be perfectly honest I’m not sure if Khatanghe literally means the same thing as “The Kin” in their language but I’m gonna assume it does because of its similarity to other family-related words in the language). A side effect of the cultural perception of the entire community as a family in The Kin is Artemy’s family circle being expanded greatly. Even before the passing of his father he had The Kin, his kin, in a literal sense too. Whereas the town seems to emanate this somewhat hostile, individualistic single family household kind of culture. Families feud with each other, what’s good for one family is prioritized over the good of the whole. But Artemy grew up partly within a cultural context where those barriers don’t separate people quite as much.
Of course, Artemy is not descended just from the people of The Kin, and that is a very deliberate choice. Artemy never knew his mother yes, but he grew up in the town likely because of her influence on the family. He is his mother’s son, he is a member of a friend group of townspeople, he is just as tied to the community of the town as he is to The Kin. In my interpretation since he grew up alongside Grief, Lara and Rubin he might as well be their pseudo-sibling.
All these family connections further complicate the difficult decision at the end of patho 2. In a way the game is asking you to choose one family over the other. When viewing the stories conclusion through this lense Sticky and Murky being your actual adoptive children becomes the least relevant of any family connection funnily enough. They’ll be there at your side regardless, but they also aren’t your only family.
Although like many members of the fandom I agree the diurnal ending, saving the children you were meant to protect, preserving the town’s future, keeping the livelihoods of all the people you’re closest to intact, is the more fulfilling ending, I can see the appeal of the nocturnal ending as well. Artemy balances far too many responsibilities, family ties, and deep bonds for it to be an easy choice. But surprise surprise, the devs said it best: his is a story about love. I think the games exploration of the impossible choices love sometimes leaves us to make is phenomenally compelling. And in a way, I believe Artemy is the only person who truly knows the town and The Kin well enough to be left in charge of that choice, he is a child of both worlds. That’s why I believe family bonds and connection to place is so intimately linked in Pathologic. Artemy is undoubtedly at the heart of this theme, not because his individual connections are stronger then anyone else’s, but because each bond of family pulls him in a different direction, and it’s your decision which ones must be discarded and which ones must be saved.
