WMG / Disco Elysium

Confirmed

The street lamp in the pawn shop will be part of the DLC

• Heard this on Steam (thanks knightshade). He suggests that that the lamp, which costs 700 real and seems out of your reach without cheating in the base game, will end up being part of a task in the proposed expansion already hinted at by the presence of the Delta Logistics Company van blocking the gate in the lower southeast corner of the Jam. It would fit with the game's central theme of everything being connected and everything connecting back to the case if even the DLC somehow wrapped up even more of the base game's loose ends.
  • Confirmed in The Final Cut, in which the street lamp can be bought with Net Worth as part of the Ultraliberalism Vision Quest. It still doesn't do anything, though.

The Detective's amnesia, and life prior to it

The pale is the reason for Harry's amnesia, and he willingly exposed himself to it

• The three day drinking binge is not the reason why Harry forgot his past. As it is revealed through certain skill checks, he already had his theories (implied to be scarily accurate ones at that) about what the pale was and what effect it has on humans. Haunted by his inability to get over Dora, even years after they broke up, he decided to willingly wander into the pale for a brief period in an attempt to forget her, or at least transform the memory of her into something that was easier for his mind to digest. The drinking binge was all in all just an attempt to get the Liquid Courage to go through with it.

The Necktie

• The Horrific Necktie is tied to the fan because Harry's final action before blacking out and losing his memory was to try and hang himself. This is why Inland Empire is frightened by the tie and questions its placement. Harry sees himself in the Hanged Man's place in his dream for a reason.
• This also means that if you follow the tie's suggestion and use it as a molotov cocktail, it completes a redemption arc.

Harry's politics weren't Straw Character versions of the ideologies until his mental breakdown

• While it's clear from the reactions of the other officers in your Precinct that you always had a habit of delivering scorching hot political takes that annoy people around you, and Idiot Doom Spiral's description of Harry's previous politics will correspond to whatever it is you've been having Harry tell people, a closer reading suggests Harry's politics used to be quite different:
  • "Man With Sunglasses"'s reaction to most of your sloganeering is to groan 'not this shit again' or some other variation (including if you ask Horse-Faced Woman if she is working class, likely in preparation for a left-wing belief), but if you tell him you're a Communist revolutionary or the reincarnation of Kras Mazov he reacts with confusion before considering it for the first time, suggesting it's the first time you ever told him anything like that. It's likely that even if Harry was left-wing before his amnesia, he wasn't going around claiming to be a socialist revolutionary.
  • All of Idiot Doom Spiral's descriptions of your ideologies are a little 'off' in some way compared to your character's current expression of them:
    • Spiral will tell a Communist Harry that he was ranting about the 'coal mine owners' fucking him over, which, considering Harry isn't a coal miner, feels like more of a drunken metaphor to express the concept of the ruling class - something that isn't consistent with the obnoxious jargon-filled rhetoric that the current Communist Harry lectures everyone with.
    • Spiral tells an Ultraliberal Harry that he said it was OK he crashed his car because it was due to the 'spectral hand of the market'. The current Ultraliberal Harry is way too shallow to care about markets on an ideological level, instead only caring about hustling and being always on the grind.
    • Spiral tells a Moralist Harry that he was floridly apologising about being a poor representative of the Moralintern, when the Moralist Harry of the present is more about declaring that he isn't one of the weird other ideologies than representing the Moralintern itself.
    • Spiral tells a Fascist Harry that he was ranting about immigrants, when the current Fascist Harry is more concerned with the Suzerain, misogyny, and generally being racist than in political processes like immigration.
  • During Pryce's call, he'll say Harry is a man of the people if he has either the Communist, Moralist or Ultraliberal ideology, suggesting his core beliefs were once left-sympathetic... so long as he's not a Fascist. In which case, they'll plan to appeal to his protectiveness of Revachol.
• From all of this it can be reasoned that Harry's politics are an insane, distorted version of whatever they were before.
  • On top of this, he has all of the political thoughts in his head to begin with (confirmed by the Boring Cop thought, which clarifies he tries his best to purposefully make himself weird, and is thinking of all the politics at once, even the ones that contradict). In the real world, cops are trained to understand and talk about a wide range of political ideologies to help them understand activists; it's possible some of his caricature versions of his beliefs are distorted memories of what he learned about them from doing this.

Harry's current fashion style is Newer Than They Think, and more of a temporary Freak Out than the permanent state of misery that he believes it is

• While Harry had always struggled on and off with alcohol addiction, and always loved disco style, Harry's latest downwards spiral was initiated by him overworking himself to get a promotion, and he got the promotion itself four months ago. We also know that Harry's appearance was normal until he bought the Horrific Necktie, after which he slowly began wearing more eccentric outfits. There's no clear time frame given to when he bought the tie, except that it was long enough ago that part of his Human Can-Opener image is based on the idea of him being a 'cop with a funny tie' - did he start wearing the tie around the same time he started aiming for the promotion? It would explain why he went from being an obscure local cop to a terror of the criminal underworld - the massive case load he had started working would have meant he would suddenly start showing up everywhere, which gangs would notice (and start inventing legends about, especially considering how effective a cop he was).
• Jean doesn't react to Harry shaving, which implies he's more used to a clean-shaved Harry and sees the bechopsed Harry as the aberration. While the Necktie and disco-dancing were about recapturing his youth, in the photo we see of him in his 30s, Harry sported a 'nice' short haircut and a clean shave, and Harry also comments that a clean shave makes him look and feel younger, so the chops aren't something he associates with his youth. Several other pieces of dialogue suggest Harry's hair is only that long because he hasn't let anyone touch it in a long time, suggesting he started growing out his hair and beard due to lacking the executive function to maintain a clean-cut appearance (due to the drinking and self-hatred), then tried to pass it off as an intentional style choice.

Harry taught gym and art class

• It's apparently canon that he has a fine arts degree, so maybe he did double duties as both the art teacher and the gym coach? There's nothing that specifically contradicts either of those elements of his background.

Harry is on the verge of breaking the fourth wall.

• The sizzler text for "Jamais Vu (Derealization)" teases that it might be the most important Thought Harry completes, the one he *must* complete. When he does, the first part of the explanation text defines the term with Deja Vu as the context - "Never Seen" rather than "Seen Before". Is this a hint that Harry is on the cusp of realising that reality itself is not real, never has been?

Harry's inner voices are ghosts.

• When he underwent prolonged exposure to the Pale, it didn't just create empty space in his mind, but a vaccuum. The various skill-sets - "Encyclopedia", "Esprit D'Corps", etc. - were once people who died as a result of Pale exposure, and whose minds (what was left of them) took residence in his empty head. This is why they prod and pull him in different directions and try to keep him from thinking about Dora - if the old Harry manifested, there would be no room for them.
  • And/Or it's a result of his "Human Can Opener" method. He gets into people's minds so well that he gets pieces of them stuck inside his own...

The Pale

Ideology and Containing the pale

• When discussing the Pale with Joyce, your character has the option of stating that the establishment of your chosen ideology will somehow destroy the Pale. Sounds like more insane rambling from our cloudcuckoolander Detective, right? But then you reach the church, which is implied to be a containment facility for a nascent spot of the pale. It's implied that the congregations' religious devotion had something to do with the containment process. What if he's right, and the presence of ideological fervor actually mitigates the Pale's ability to spread? If so, another revolution may actually be the best thing for this world.

By the same token as the above, infra-materialism is real... if not for the purported reasons

• The infra-materialists believe that revolutionary potential creates a 'plasm' capable of changing reality. It could well be that this plasm is not specifically to do with Communism, but simply the result of any passionate belief, and that it has the power to repel Pale. Talking to the infra-materialists about the Mega-Rich Light Bending Guy allows Harry to theorise that capital creates its own 'plasm', which would support this.

The Pale is L-Space

The Mega-Rich Light Bending Guy confirms that value can be counted as energy (money is power, after all) for the purposes of space-time warping. One interpretation of the Pale is that it is formed from humanity's knowledge (something supported by how Pale exposure causes one to experience other people's memories). Per Discworld, knowledge=power=energy=mass (multiplied by the speed of light squared), which warps space-time, creating L-Space. The Pale is the result of this happening on a planetary scale, instead of a bookstore or library.

Trant Heidelstam

Trant Heidelstam is a spy.

• As explained in the YMMV section, Trant has Hidden Depths in that he initially comes across moralist but further analysis suggests he’s actually a leftist. Some fans have speculated this could be a sign that Trant is spying on the RCM for a revolutionary group, owing to the RCM's affiliation with the Moralintern. The RCM's own planned uprising doesn't mean that other revolutionary groups are aware of it, or that they approve of the de facto police leading a revolution.
• An alternate interpretation of the spy theory is that Trant is spying on the RCM for the moralintern, relaying information on the RCM’s plans for uprising. However this contradicts one of the main reasons for the Trant is a spy theory: Trant initially seems like a mild-mannered moralist, but he actually seems to sympathise with revolutionaries.
• Physical Instrument notes Trant is surprisingly buff, and questioning Trant about his workout routine reveals he practices Lo Manthang stick-fighting for 4 hours a day. This is an unusually rigorous training regime that one would only expect from someone whose job involves exercise. Being a spy could explain this regime, as espionage would require him to be a skilled fighter.
• Trant has a history of pyrholidon addiction. As a spy, Trant may have to associate with underground groups, where he would frequently be exposed to drug use. This regular exposure to drugs on spy missions could be how Trant became addicted to pyrholidon.
  • Pyrholidon is a psychedelic. In our world, spies during the 1950s to the 1970s (Disco Elysium is set in a Retro Universe inspired by The '70s) were heavily involved with psychedelic drug culture. In addition to the notorious Project MK Ultra, which attempted to use LSD for mind control, members of the CIA were liberally consuming LSD (and other hallucinogens, like mescaline) in their own time as research and a purported creativity booster, leading to several high-profile mental breakdowns and at least one suicide. Could it be that Trant's spy agency had a similar culture of abusing psychedelic drugs?
• It’s implied Trant had a negative experience involving the head of the Dominion Police of Königstein. It would be unusual for a civilian consultant to have a notable interaction with a foreign head of police, but it makes perfect sense for a secret agent spying on policing operations.
• Trant is separated from Mikael’s mother. Espionage requires you to deceive your partner, which can put significant strain on relationships; this deception could be what caused the breakup.
• Trant is described as being "charming" and rhetoric says "people must love him”. This would be advantageous to a spy, as it would help him win people's trust. Trant’s also characterised as mild-mannered and prone to backpedalling, which would lower people’s guards around him.
• Trant is knowledgeable on a broad range of seemingly unrelated fields. Having a breadth of knowledge is essential to spy operations.
• Trant avoid answering questions about who he is. On the topic of his background, he won’t reveal what his actual field of study is. When describing his past, Trant says “Ten years ago I did a little... freelancing, I guess you could say.” When asked what he is, Trant notably fails to answer the question. This sort of vagueness about his history makes sense if he is a spy.
• Adding more to it, in the ending, Captain Ptolemy Pryce makes it a point to exclude Trant from his and Dr. Gottlieb's mysterious list of trusted people at Precinct 41, and only Trant. While he could just be afraid that Trant will fall into his old habits and blabber as he is prone to do, thereby accidentally reveal the conspiracy to the wrong people, or it could be because he outright suspect Trant of some more serious.
• Trant's freelancing seems to have specifically brought him into contact with the most derangedly pretentious branches of the international art world. The art world is highly associated with espionage in our world, for reasons both practical (cultural tourism is a great cover story for spies) and conspiratorial (it is a commonly remarked upon talking point within the left that the CIA funded modern art during the Cold War, though it depends on your point of view on if this was a form of cultural incubation to improve the West's soft power, or whether it was to promote and eventually normalise an apolitical aesthetic in order to keep the proletariat from being exposed to meaningful, socially relevant art that makes them start asking too many questions).

Other Characters

Evrart and Edgar

• Is Evrart actually Edgar? We've been told that the only physical difference between the two is a lazy eye, which "Evrart" seems to have. We're also told that Edgar is the smarter sibling, something that would certainly come in handy over the course of the strike and takeover.
  • Gaston mentions having taught the brothers, and Easy Leo says he knew them from school. Leo doesn't seem like the type who can keep this sort of thing secret.

The Pigs is the way she is because she absorbed the memories Harry lost

• We know from Paledriver and Joyce that exposure to the Pale gives you flashes of other people's memories. Presumably, the memories Harry lost had to end up somewhere. Once could intuit that a person who ended up with Harry's memories would think that they were a police officer, and feel compelled to use Harry's specific personal firearm, hoard equipment from Harry's specific precinct, and abuse Harry's specific favourite abusible substances, while those around them would have no explanation for why they would be acting like that. The Pigs fits this profile exactly, and she even seems to be smirking in her portrait, which might be a less-fossilised version of *The Expression*.

Cunoesse is the/a Gnome of Geroma

• Even recognizing how wacky it sounds, there's a lot of odd little connections that might or might not amount to anything: she's small, ugly, and murderous; the Gnome is supposed to be native to the heavily forested Katla isola, which is where Suruese is spoken and where Encyclopedia suggests Cunoesse is from; most people take no notice of her, like a certain other cryptid, and she seems uncomfortable when you pay attention to her rather than Cuno (who would be young enough not to be affected by the other cryptid's pheromones); Noid and others brush past the idea of "human impersonators" (possibly including Dolores Dei herself), as well as a vague idea that the pale can not only make people forget but also possibly embody the degrading memories contained within itself — the Gnome of Geroma that Lena tells you about was a small forest creature that disappeared after being killed.
• Maybe that's why Cunoesse wants you to "set her free"? She cannot self-terminate, so to speak, but her desire to return to nothingness is more than just childhood trauma.
• For that matter, why does she look so much like Cuno, and why did she suddenly appear to him in Capeside Apartments? The game plays it up as a bizarre coincidence, but many such "coincidences" in the game do in fact turn out to be exactly as paranatural as they appear.

Egg Head is the Far-Out Son of Lung

The Far-Out Son of Lung is a cop legend of an undercover officer who was Lost in Character, which Jean mentions but doubts exist. But could it be we have already met him, as a character with a mysterious personality and background who hangs round with criminals... like Egg Head?

• None of the anodic dance music crew know where Egg Head came from - he just followed them home after shouting himself hoarse during a rave and they didn't care enough to make him leave. Even after getting his voice back, he remained pretty unintelligible. This would fit with a cop who was trying to infiltrate a group, but didn't really know what to say to convincingly connect to younger and cooler people... at least, until it stuck.
• Egg Head is also significantly Older Than He Looks, with the Detective noting that he looks to be in his mid-40s, about the same age as him - a big age gap between him and the other anodic kids. We know from Kim's story that having older officers infiltrate young groups while pretending to be teenagers is a common practice.
• Egg Head wears a prominent lung-shaped belt buckle which has religious significance to him, with lungs being the symbol of love to the Dolorians and associated with their holy mother figure. His portrait makes him look like he's channelling a holy force, and during the scene where he unleashes the Swallow, he begins screaming for his "Mother of Mega" to come down to him (which presumably would make him the Son?)
• If Egg Head was a cop who forgot his previous life, this makes him a parallel to Harry. It also goes some way to explaining Egg Head's Death Seeker behaviour, which might be the same suicidality and drive to lose himself in dance music that Harry experiences.
• The existence of the anodic dance music provides a pretty sensible explanation for why it is that Egg Head would have abandoned his previous life for the scene. He's not just blending in with criminals - the music is just that hard core. (The same way that Andre is able to use the beat of the music to manipulate Harry into helping them.)
• Egg Head is themed around 90s electronic music, which fits with the name Far-Out Son of Lung being a reference to the 90s electronic group Future Sound Of London.

Jean Vicquemare is the one who set Harry off on his bender

• Jean said something to Harry to piss him off right before the case, probably something relating to Dora, which is why Harry was saying he's solo now to the drunks, and Jean is trying to help him out of guilt for setting him off.

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