Yeah, we can't draw any conclusions about the political landscape from Harry. He's a wreck no matter what, and his personal breakdown has nothing to do with any of the ideologies on display.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The game judges Harry for being an absolute mess of a human being. The individual NP Cs, it's up to you to judge.
Yep, Revachol adds in the additional issue of colonialism.
Not just in Revachol but all the places that the mercenaries were deployed. The status quo is very nice...for people who benefit from it.
As stated, the argument of the Moralists isn't that it is the best. It is the argument that it is actually able to maintain and hold power.
The question is whether they could be doing more. Which they absolutely can even if they aren't full communists.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.The mercenaries bring in more political elements, such as the dehumanizing effects of turning people into murder tools for the elite.
And then we have Evrart, who symbolizes how unions (notionally a positive force) can become corrupted by people who manipulate them to gain power.
Finally, we have Joyce, who freely admits to being an ultraliberal but is Harry's most valuable source of information throughout the game.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 1st 2025 at 4:21:03 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Not sure if I’d necessarily call her GOOD, as I do recall her being awfully cold-hearted in certain dialogue options. Granted, from what I remember these were more geared towards people and ideas in the abstract, as opposed to something going on right in front of her—when her actions WOULD make a tangible difference, she does try to do what she thinks is the right thing. The issue is that more often, what she views as the right thing seems to be out of step with what she actually does.
However, that does seperate her for the Moralintern, which as an organization seems committed to not taking any sort of decisive action at all, unless it believes it’s threatened in some way.
Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jan 1st 2025 at 9:29:18 AM
Oh God! Natural light!It's one of the most realistic worlds in fiction because the Moralintern is occupying Revachol but has a plan to return power back to its people. Except it won't because the capitalists make too much money occupying it and using its citizens for cheap labor. However, the anti-colonialists have a huge chunk of people that only want to drive out the Moralintern to get rid of foreigners. The Communists are actually making progress in the Union but the only reason they are is because they're engaged in murder for hire and blackmail.
No one's politics is really 100% why they do anything.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 1st 2025 at 5:52:54 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.If I were a slightly more cynical person, I'd say that it's almost impressive how accurately the game's story depicts everyone systematically fucking each other over.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Even better since they're systemically fucking each other over while their world is literally falling apart.
More poignant since the only real way to resist the Pale is for people to come together. People standing together keeps the Pale in check. But they're too busy fucking each other over to attempt this on a large enough scale to salvage their world.
Edited by M84 on Jan 1st 2025 at 10:39:37 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedWe'll never get a sequel but it's fascinating to wonder if Harry's vision of stopping a nuclear missile during the Second Revolution is either a genuine gift from Revachol or just something he created as a delusion to feel special.
But yes, another point to Disco Elysium's favor is that it inherently finds the nationalist pride of Revachol in the face of the occupation is as negative as the occupiers themselves.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 1st 2025 at 7:19:21 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Especially considering that the "nationalist pride" seems to be for a monarchy that was so colossally inept that the Communists overthrew it mainly by asking nicely. (Not that it stopped them from murdering millions of people anyway.) Amusingly, the only political viewpoint that Harry cannot enthusiastically adopt is Royalist, because if there's one thing that all the ideologies can agree on, it's that monarchism is a pile of doodoo.
No, it's only Tier 3 governments for our burnout cop. (Subtle Civilization reference there.)
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 1st 2025 at 10:43:32 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yeah, I don't get this either. "Libertarianism" is never mentioned by name. The Ultraliberals are certainly inspired by it, but they're mainly about maximal capitalism: the wealthier you are, the more you've won the game. Democracy is for the plebs; they simply buy whoever is in charge and that's that.
The Moralists are the ones who most strongly believe in representative democracy since they operate on the principle of maximal consensus. The fact that they depend on the Ultraliberals' capitalist economy to fund their government is just the way the world works.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 2nd 2025 at 5:23:02 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!""I still don't quite understand why anyone would imagine that the game portrays Communism sympathetically."
I think because the way narrative goes, while it frank about the sins of comunism(and they have many) it does have a sort of pity for it and apriaciation from the honesty you can see in how they try to do things better. the game seen to have that even if they dont blind to quirk comunism then to have, from their bitterness to tendency to play logical argument and calling praxis.
Hell I will go further than critism this game have to centrist/moralism are VERY much left in nature, facist dosent argue against centrism more than it acuse people of being control by "them" and need someone to said them(facist of couse), capitalist like centrist but want to be more eficient(more wealth of course and less restriction to said wealth), but calling them fence sitter who prefer method is just sit down and do nothing because you JUST like the way it is and calling morality as they dont have any ideology.
Granted as someone living in venezuela, some of the critic about moralism kinda make me chuckle, "entrism isn't change — not even incremental change. It is *control*. Over yourself and the world. " Like.....no shit, they like control and want more of it, just like royalist, facist, comunism and every single goddamn ideologic in existen and three already mention do have serious issues with control, murderous issues. So for me this very much capitan obvious.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"I think it's notable that communist democracy is a concept but was screwed up every bit as much as everything else when they went authoritarian. The moral intern is democratic but only in the same sense as the democracy of Helldivers 2.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Communism can't be democratic by definition. It's based on the idea that nobody can be allowed to rise above their station, so if the people want to vote for, say, free markets, that has to be quashed. The Party knows what's best for you, so stop complaining.
There are alternative forms, like anarcho-syndicalism (shout out to my Monty Python homies) that use direct democracy to make collective decisions, but those only work at small scales. They are impractical at the nation-state level.
Edit: Okay, I concede that Communism in its purest form has a utopian end state in which everyone is completely happy to be equal all the time and the state no longer needs to run everything. Put me in cryosleep and wake me up when that happens.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 3rd 2025 at 8:49:46 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

That might be all well and good for the Moral Intern, but asking the people of Revachol to look before they leap is a tall order when their house is on fire on the people in charge are making money on the fire.
Sure, they might end up leaping into freezing water that is infested with sharks. But you get why they jumped.
The game doesn't focus entirely on material, socio-economic motivations, though. Harrier's political insanity is driven by years of substance abuse and longing for his ex. Personal and emotional motivations are just as real and potentially just as dangerous as material motivations.