The Lies of Disco Elysium 

4:43 a small correction: it's Evrart that has the lazy eye, not Edgar. Joyce says about him, "Yes. Edgar looks *exactly* like his brother, except for that lazy eye." She specifically says Edgar has no amblyopia. Harry doesn't make the connection that Evrart is Edgar because that connection doesn't exist.

Evrart IS corrupt but its made very clear that the role/system CORRUPTED him, not the other way around. Its established in multiple dialogues throughout the game that him and his brother are and were both genuine believers and political actors. Especially in their youth. As you point out, he's also authentically good at his job.

You misunderstood Joyce's quote. It refers to criticism of capitalism that becomes massively popular specifically. Just look at the Boys, a story which is staunchly anti-capitalist being picked up by amazon's prime and now you can buy funko pops and other slop based on the characters from it while completely missing the point. The main reason people like that quote so much is because it applies to Disco Elysium itself, the whole IP got stolen from the devs by a rich fuck through a legal loophole and now they're planning sequels, tv shows and other garbage that will completely taint the original message in favor of money.

It feels weird to connect that line from Joyce Messier to "you critique society, and participate in it? Curious." I saw it as much more associated with the more poignant idea of "capitalist realism" from the work of Mark Fisher. Of course, that idea can be deconstructed and criticized as well, so maybe you'll come back to it. But given her experience travelling through the Pale and how it seems to have impacted her, her self-justification isn't so much "you trying to take down capitalism is hypocrisy" as "there is no alternative, capital either smashes or appropriates ideas of all critiques." Which is a funny way of putting it as "there is no alternative" was a Maggie Thatcher thing, and she looks a little like her. It does fit with your idea of contradiction and Evrart though: she's in a position of immense power, but has resigned herself to powerlessness, and fulfills her role in executing the power of Wild Pines. In the ruined Martinaise, her point about the lack of alternative may seem salient, but it's really defeatism dressed up to keep on the path she has already made for herself. Anyway, thanks for the video.

Spoiler regarding Joyce and la responsibilitè: If you pass a particular passive check in the conversation just before she leaves, you actually find out she owns Wild Pines and has falsely represented herself as a negotiator. And while her statements about her place in the hierarchy are a lie, they also have a certain amount of truth. After all, can you lead a multinational company by taking actions against your own business interests? In a certain sense, she is also a cog in the machine, the rich business women who is tasked by the system with ensuring that capital gets what it needs. If she didn't, another company would rise to the top and take her place. Her power is predicated on conforming to her companies interests, and she needs to fulfil her obligation regardless of personal sympathies for the Revacholians. In a way, her characters detachment from the crucial story making could be seen as a statement that there can't be ethical decision making by business owners under capitalism. Oh, and a minor point of correction: Wild pines didn't start out with a lot of money, they started with a royal monopoly. As in the legal privilege of being the only ones allowed ownership in a specific economic sector, granted by a king. This wasn't uncommon under mercantilism, though Joyce does argue Wild Pines got there meritocratically by not going bankrupt like other indotribes. A stronger starting economic starting advantage than just being rich, inherited from feudalism.

Genius commentary of politics aside, I’ll earnestly say that most of it was lost on me when I played disco elysium. I was more interested in the personal side of the story, the “what kind of cop are you?” Question. Beyond politics, Disco Elysium does a genius job of portraying states of mind as RPG stats, and especially thoughts like Inland Empire and Conceptualization captivated my imagination when I played. I’d love to see an analysis on how these stats are characterized and how disco Elysium uses them to tell the larger story of the amnesiac protagonist, his relationship with Kim, and potentially the ludonarrative between the player and the stats they prioritize and how it affects the larger story told, because if you ask me that’s the most interesting part of disco Elysium

On the topic of Joyce, ever listen to the Sea Power song "Praise For Whatever"? There's a reason it's the one that was respun into Joyce's theme, with the opening lyric's being: "It's such a convoluted hour To play amongst the flowers When we're counting all the missiles down from three to one to none And in a world of extremities We all are accessories So let the dancers inherit the party Now here comes the big prize And here comes my reward Yeah here comes the big prize And here comes my reward Today we will just lay here for a little while"

finished my second playthrough of disco elysium a couple of days ago, this video couldn't have come out at a better time! loved your analysis and would love to see more - about hardie boys, measurehead, hell maybe even tackle the innocents themselves. world of DE is so authentic and alive, its impossible not to think about long after the game is finished

Hearing your perspective on the Hardie Boys would be interesting. Enjoyed this.

Joice, despite being prepared to see the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher, managed to crack my defenses and made me work for her volunteerly. Politicians are scary

WHY DID YOU SHAVE HARRY DU BOIS'S ICONIC BEARD

Another clever deconstruction beyond the physical appearance is that the way Evrart looks out for the workers for selfish reasons _parallels_ what free-market ideologues say about the businessman in a competitive market serving the consumer out of greed. Evrart has elements of the virtuous capitalist despite being in a decidedly unvirtuous industry. It also parallels how some drug cartels (but not others) will often provide for the citizens of towns they're taken up residence in. Not out of the goodness of their hearts, but rather to purchase their loyalty.

I added this video to my watch later based on the topic and didnt realize you were the one who made the rebuttal to those SU "critiques" and it was whiplash for a moment, but welcome whiplash. You don't miss with your takes, and your channel is definitely going to be a must-watch for me regardless of the topic

The thing about Evrart, is that he IS the worker first guy - the empathy skill check is supposed to clue you in on this, he is definitely, most certainly cares about the city and the people who inhabit it first and foremost. He just doesnt give two shits about his personal image, and in fact uses his sleazy image to a considerable advantage. It wasnt drugs that killed the city and kept it a slum, it was deliberate bombardment of the entire Martinaise and deliberate effort to keep it as a reminder. People being on drugs isnt the reason why Martinaise is the way it is. People turn to drugs BECAUSE city is a shithole, and they cant do anything about it. The drug trade will be there either way, the choice Claires face is a)let the drug trade run rampant; b)spend Unions resources to keep it in check while being strangled by Wild Pines; or c)take control of the drug trade, and invest the money into the strike to get more resources for the people. What Evrart does, is he keeps the port hostage, and uses drug money to keep the strike going. People would have starved otherwise, striking for months is not free you know. Plan is to ask ever greater concessions from corpos untill it is no longer viable for Wild Pines to maintain operation in the city, and Martinaise can get free from the capitalist boot (or rather replace it with socdem capitalist boot) - the port location would still be valuable, the city will not die without corpos. In fact, it is dying because of moralintern. The absolute "pornographic poverty" of the fishing village and wartorn ruin was there before Claires and their shady ways of going about fundraising. The joke here is that Evrart is a puffer fish, he is outwardly greedy and corrupt, but its all a facade. He deeply cares, but the means of capitalism he lives under force him to engage with the corruption and filth of the whole system, and he doesnt wash his hands away of the filth he has his arms elbows deep in. Compare and contrast with Joyce, a wolf in sheeps clothing, who shows concern at every opportunity, but business first and only. And when push comes to shove? It wasnt her call, it was just the company. Massacre by the mercs is not on her hands, when the reason why they are here is blatantly obvious to all who isnt wilfully ignorant. When her job is over, she doesnt give two shits about hundreds of workers that will die to automatic gunfire of supposedly invincible mercs. Reserve army of labor will pick up the slack, it is obvious that there are plenty of people in the ruins who are starving for a job. Or at least thats my reading of it. P.S. Evrart is the guy with lazy eye. Claires dont run the drug trade in person (too fat to do so). P.P.S. People dont find Joyces line to be profound, just ringing way too true way too often. P.P.P.S. Calling mercs militia is confusing, since militia is the cops. Yeah, Revachol doesnt have a proper policing system (by moralinterns decree IIRC) and uses militia for this.

Joyce's line is profound because its not an assertion of hypocrisy, its a threat.

its not "you have money therefore bad socialist" its that being rich necessarily means you gained that wealth by exploiting the labor of others, that you're a capitalist. i dont know enough about hasan's case but i suspect he is actually a socialist in his mind but just isn't practicing it.

You can buy nice things for yourself but there is a measure of gross excess and I think Hasan has crossed that just like billionaires do in a far worse way.

I went into this video expecting it to focus on the gameplay experience of being lied to in Disco Elysium. Where you have to examine the information presented to you, determine what someone stands to gain from lying to you, or how you can lie to attempt to gain a leg up in the conversation. On top of that, despite their initial perception as the final word on a given subject, you eventually learn that your different stats each have character flaws and beliefs of their own. A successful roll does not guarantee that Drama will correctly assess someone's honesty. Although Drama's "he's lying, sire" seems at first to end the mental game one must play to come to that conclusion themselves, it simply introduces a separate parallel problem of whether or not your own judgement is to be trusted. You focused a lot more on the political side than I expected, and your analysis of how character flaws inform political beliefs and vice versa was very insightful. Amazing video!

If you're looking for a recommendation, I'm not sure if you've played it but the talos principle and its sequel (which just released) are really worth looking into. I think the way they talk about philosophy really resonated with me. It's not as Political as disco elysium but I do think Politics is inherently Philosophical, so alot of the characters can fit into archetypes of our political system and what the game has to say about these things really made me think. Its also a puzzle game with neat lasers on the side if you enjoy that kind of thing.

I viewed Joyce's quote, "Capitalism has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself" differently from, "Oh but you make a living under the system!" I don't know where I read it, but the example I was given was Hollywood. Where movies will gesture at concepts like "diversity" or anticapitalism, but in a very cynical and pandering way to make money, subtly defanging the power of those critiques. It's very much, "Hey we have women drone pilots now, see how progressive our liberalism is now?" Capital will tear up jeans and sell them to you at a mark-up, commodifying the aesthetic of the "working class" or fashionably poor. Joyce also later comments on Cindy's "infraculture," or the game's version of counterculture. If you talk to Cindy, you can tell she's just just a bratty teenager who larps as a rebel. She's pretty easy to deflate. You're a cop after all, and she hates cops. But as Harry, you can just encourage her to continue vandalizing the apartment and it takes the fun out of it for her. She can't actually offend Harry. Harry is just some underpaid and overworked alcoholic detective. She's not really speaking any truth to power despite Harry nominally being an enforcer of capital. I don't even think Cindy is a communard, a social democrat, a unionist or a socialist. She's just a rebel without a cause. Cindy only senses she should hate Joyce for being in the ruling class. Joyce basically states that her rebellion against the norm or "supraculture" is pretty much meaningless. Cindy is wearing the clothing of old women as fashion statement and Joyce is unoffended and unconcerned by some teenager who has no power to affect her. The "supraculture" is everywhere. It's the music on the radio and the restaurants you eat at. Capital subsumes critique and is unoffended by you screaming at it in rebellion. Joyce is on a yacht, Cindy is not. They might as well live in different galaxies. That's the trouble. Joyce is genuinely likable. She's self-aware, educated and witty. She's an ultraliberal. She _does_ feel guilty about it. Genuinely, she does. We should improve society somewhat. And yes, she too participates in society. But so long as she does, it's good that's she's already on top. At no point does she actually disagree with your critique. She just knows it doesn't matter. Also the Starbucks boycott example is bad. Because boycotts don't work. You paying them for pre-made coffee means they still got your money. Strikes actually hurt them. Your gesture does nothing but make you feel good in the moment. Again, sort of Joyce's point. The critique itself is meaningless. You look impotent doing it because it doesn't work and the symbolism is completely lost because it never mattered. It swallowed the critique and ignored it. All anybody in the media has to do is just say they respect your free speech, even if they think you look silly doing it. How progressive of us and of you. Heck, you could wheel out a clone of Joyce as a spokesperson for Starbucks who'll speak kindly and respectfully about your boycott.

I had a friend who basically dismissed all conservatives as sub-human monsters lacking any empathy. As a fairly left leaning person myself who generally despises most right-wing movements and ideology even I found this to be a step too far. I think this speaks to your point towards the end, the left's moral grandstanding and unwillingness to consider other positions as anything other than morally reprehensible is part of the problem. Not to mention, the left loves to argue, but not actually *do* anything, we get hung up on semantics and proving we are in fact the most morally correct, instead of expending that same energy doing something constructive. Great video btw, Disco Elysium is a masterpiece so it's great to see any sort of breakdown of it.

The Joyce quote about critiquing capitalism was a 4th wall break about the game itself. That`s Why everyone loved it.

Many people actually didn't like the Deserter reveal, but I think it fit very well with the game's theme of failure, regret and inability to let go of the past... I've been having some naughty bourgeoise thoughts lately, a lot of doubts about what we're trying to accomplish here and viability of those ideas, the game poses those same questions, but it also provides reminders of why it's worth to let go of the past and try to do better in the present...

Definitely do more Disco Elysium

Please make that part 2. I want to hear your opininions on the Hardie boys, the underground communist youths, the Moralintern and the RCM's polirical role and about the centrist dialogue options too. They are really funny.

Hell yeah love Disco Elysium!

Amazing video, it’s interesting how Joyce and Evrart are not typical physical depictions of union and company representatives, like the archetypes were swapped. Love the commentary on leftist infighting with the Deserter, keep it up!

The hipocrisy of those advocating for change but embracing capital is that they benefit from all the riches coming from capital, but they preach about how capital is evil, but this "evil" is making these people very wealthy. It's counter intuitive, because the other option they are presenting would not get them that wealthy, the whole system that gets them extremely rich is what they say they fight against. This makes them extremely hypocritical. Hassan doesn't sell merch to fight the system, he uses that money to keep his mansion, expensive car and trips to the brothel. He's not creating a political party, he's just accumulating capital, something thwt should be an issue for him.

Great video! Also, nice Vaush portrait

I love this game but according to my achievements I was an ultraliberal communist centrist who also was a artsy, good and sorry cop. True centrist grindset lmao?

You’re becoming my favorite video essayist out there,, and disco elysium is one of my favorite games!!! It feels like a Christmas gift honestly 😭💖

Important detail about Evrart brother... He is possibly dead. If you have high skills and talk with him, joyce and the deserter you can deduct that the union have use the desert in the past as a way to deal with Business people in the past and Evrart brothey could also being one of the victims of him (if Evrart was involve we don't know), that ks why also Evrart moves in a container, he knows that there is a crazy sniper somewhere with a desire of revenge

Surprisingly, this video makes much more sense now that I have played the game. Who would have thought!

Incredible how bad you misunderstood the game and how compelled you felt to specify what the intent of the authors of the game was, obscuring the finesse of the original work and substituting it for clumsiness.

To me Disco Elysium is an anti political game. People living in Revanchole are clinging to ideologies while everything falls apart as a cope. Actively getting into political debates with strangers on the streets results in you wasting in game time. Instead of fixing their war torn houses people are playing backstab politics and hold onto non existing grudges. All systems in the game are inherently corrupt with their power. Even doing communist quest, the students youre with agree that communism to them represents nothing more than a religious hope. It treats politics as a game of backstabbing, and political theory as a means of escapism from the world around you, instead of engaging with it

I don't want to come off as aggressive with this comment because I feel a lot of people are going to take issue with how you characterize Hasan and his current position as "the largest political streamer". So here goes: While I agree with the overall point you made that criticizing Hassan simply he's wealthy is a very simplistic way of viewing him, I think what people actually take issue with is the way he comports himself, as well as the general position he's put himself in that undermines any sort of political agenda he's trying to convey. He obviously has no trouble criticizing people and institutions that have way more power than him, but when it reaches people within his wealth bracket then all of a sudden he changes his tone. The Pokimane drama is a good example since it was about the affordability of the cookies she was selling. Because he and Pokimane run in very similar social circles and are similarly wealthy, he ended up towing the line and defending her practice of this. Now he could have simply not said anything on the matter and that would be that, but the fact that he went to bat for it kind of undermines any other positions he'd hold on similar matters. I'd be curious if he would have done what he did had he been of lower economic class. I think as Hassan attempts to grow his audience and his brand, his social and economic position also changes and he'll eventually find himself in a position where his political commentary becomes less and less effective as he continues to surround with the people and systems he would criticize. Maybe you disagree with this assessment and see it in the same vane of "socialism is when no house" criticism, but I do think the position is currently in does and has undermined any sort of commentary he could make. This comment was going to be a lot longer but the other stuff I was going to bring up was outside the scope of the argument you were making so I kept it to this. I think there's a lot more wrong with him then what I outlined but it would simply come off as irrelevant. EDIT: Just wanted to add that other than that Hasan bit I think your analysis was really on point, especially the Evrart part since there was a ton of stuff I hadn't picked up on across both my playthroughs. Didn't want you to think that that was my only takeaway from your video.

i've had that convo about my not eating meat before, cause i would eat leftovers that were not my own that contained meat. i've always weighed preventing food waste to be a higher priority than my diet restrictions in the matter of what i buy and prepare for myself. a stance that sometimes confuses

The critique of Hasan being rich a socialist isnt shallow at all. Rather its highlighting the paradox within socialist and over all most of leftist thought in general of how despite advocating for helping the lower classes it is inherently a system of thought created by and usually advocated for by the wealthy. Specifically by those who are born into wealth and as such are disconnected from the life of the working class or even the middle class. As such their views of how the world works is slanted and their advocacy rings hollow because they usually dont understand the very people they claim to be advocating for. And as soon as the working class does ask for something that the socialist doesnt agree with they will belittle them and say they dont understand what it is they want or need. Voting against their interest is a term I heard alot; as if the socialist knows better what is in a persons interest. This is a probelm going back to Marx and Engles both of whom were essentially trust fund kids. Hell it goes back to the French Revolution; which contrary to what pop history says was largly pushed for by the new upper middle class. In that sense socialism is the most bougisie thing possible. It is the upperclass looking down and helping the working class not on its terms, but on the upperclasses. It is no different that the old aristocrats looking down at the peasents and saying "Well they are too stupid to know any better so we need to tell them what to do and control most of the land because they would all just mess it up." Hasan is the perfect example to highlight this contradiction. Because as soon as he sees an actual working class person disagreeing with him and socialist ideas he breaks down into insults and incoherence. The working class can only be helped through leftist socialist ideals. IE Bougiouse ideals. IE his ideals. IE aristocratic ones in which he sees himself at the top.

love your analyses, and just finished a disco elysium run.... can't wait to watch this

You might be wrong with the incandescent lighbulb planned obsolescence thing, was the lifespan of the bulb not just a function of its brightness? There were longer lasting bulbs, but they were dimmer, so nobody really wanted them

personally I always understood Joyce's statement about capital as being about recuperation

I disagree on what Joyce meant by that quote, I don't think it's supposed to be an accusation of hypocricy on the behalf of those who critique capitalism, I think it's more cynical than that. Joyce is talking about the ways in which capitalism finds ways to profit from those things regardless. Squid Game, for example, holds a firmly anti-capitalist message at its core; but it has been made, advertised, distributed, and consumed in a society that views everything through a capitalist lens. As a result it has propped up and reinforced the existing power structures; large parts of it have been carved off, stripped of meaining and context, and turned into things like the Squid Game Reality Show. The people who made Squid Game aren't hypocrites, they are paying the price that comes with making a product for mass consumption, if they didn't then nobody would have seen Squid Game and the message they wanted to convey. I don't think Joyce is passing judgement, I think she sees it as an inevitability. The vibe I got from her throughout is that she believes that this is just the way things are, that fighting it is wasted effort, and that people should just face reality. She's not the Sunday Friend, she's not a cultist of capital, she just doesn't believe in any alternative. It may well be motivated reasoning, she obviously benefits from the system, but that's just the impression that I got. Or not, it's art after all, and we all take different things away from it.

Great video, but I think you're a little off base with Joyce. Comparing her point about critique of capital reinforcing capital to Society Comic Guy is a pretty surface-level interpretation of what she's actually saying. She's not pointing the finger at champagne socialists, or at people who use iPhones - she isn't really gesturing to any kind of imagined hypocrisy at all. No, I'm pretty sure with this line she is talking about Capitalism's ability to respond to critique and dissent with more sophisticated techniques than "repress them until they go away". For example, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle with the explicit intention of turning America socialist. Instead, we got the FDA. Unions and strikes are not alien to Capitalism, they are merely mechanisms by which disputes between labor and capital are resolved. Leftist culture and aesthetics are constantly appropriated and commercialized - see Leninade. This gives Capitalism a level of adaptability that previous dominant ideologies lacked, and I think that plays a large role in why it's still around and why so many, including Joyce, see it as an inevitable fact of life. In turn, this also undermines leftist causes. Whether this tendency should be exploited or outright rejected, the appeal of accelerationism as something that could counteract this, reform vs. revolution, all of these questions spring up in response to concessions made, prompting more infighting and the lack of a cohesive alternate vision. And I think this is what Joyce is referring to because, as the Wild Pines' negotiator, she's seen this process firsthand. She participates in it. And she, perhaps more than anyone, believes this is why the Ultraliberals ultimately won and the Communards lost.

The critique of Hasan isn’t that he can’t be wealthy at all, it’s the absolute scale of that wealth, contrasted to his fairly meager amount of actual help. A 3 million dollar house isn’t just “some nice things for yourself.” right?

I should really give this game another play. I've gone through it once and it was fantastic but hearing what other people go through, it lets me know that there's still so much to experience.

6:48 kurwa wrocław Cool video, I don't think I would ever deduce which "Evrart" is which. Such a great game.

This completely ignores what happens when you gossip between Evrart and Joyce, causing Evrart to reveal his ideological beliefs and Joyce to give up the harbor

One theory behind the shipping container is that evrart and the union know that the mercenary was killed by the sniper, who is no longer killing for ideological reasons. So the shipping container is a way for evrart to hide from this sniper or any the wild pines group might hire

I too, love to sarcastically type "socialism equals no house ", during a housing crisis.

Look at the drawings!!! Such a cool video!!!

>+20 minutes video of pure affected champgne socialist bravato disguised as personal comentary lol

So that;s why I can't mention Vaush in any other leftist circle without being immediately crucified.

Yo, a David Rovics and Joe Glazer reference? I wasn't expecting that, but I do appreciate it! They're rad, you're rad, good video

I may be wrong, but Joyse quote about the critique of capital is not about you being part of the sistem and talking bad about it but the way any capitalist society can transform any kind of critique or attack into a being of consume. The art, discourses and movements loss their soul to be transformed into products, comercial events or something that feed capitalism. Also, sorry for my way to write, english isn´t my first language.

shoulda covered measurehead

Really good analysis so far, but the point you make at 25:30 or so about planned obsolescence in lightbulbs is a patently false conspiracy theory, there’s a technology connections video about if you wanna know all the specifics but basically lightbulbs have to be rated for hours used under certain luminosities. The better comparison would probably be the whole John deer tractor situation with the company locking down the firmware so farmers can’t repair things themselves.

One of the most common fallacies in the modern age is the Tu quoque fallacy. For some reason, people just can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea that being a hypocrite doesn't make you wrong. More broadly, you could say that no moral failure of a person's character could make their argument wrong. Yet so often, especially in political spheres, arguments that should focus on the issues at hand devolve into moral grandstands and purity tests. I feel like this twisted form of logic is responsible for the lack of political progress in many parts of the world.

I really like Noah Gervais’ read of Evrart where he is a true believer that every single worker deserves a seat on the board, and naturally he’ll be chairman. Natural as breathing.

29:40 excellent background music choice, blue flow from haibane renmei : D

Interesting perspective on things, I don't really agree with the vast majority of your analyzes, but it really stands out compared to most other Disco Elysium videos.

12:45 that never happened like that. Technology Connections made a video about lightbulbs, very recommended

was dope

I loved the talk about Disco Elysium and do want to see more. If you're also looking for other games, I'd love to hear any of your thoughts or a topic on a part of Yakuza:Like a Dragon

So happy your back

i loved the video, it was super interesting hearing you talk about all the political stuff and dynamics, as someone who hasn't played the game it was still very entertaining and not confusing. I would be leaned to checking the game out too cause it looks interesting and different from the stuff i play

Good video, although you got a bit off track with the long rant regarding Joyce. Also, it's a bit funny how you call for dialogue and understanding towards the end... Except towards the nebulous entity "fascists", which nowadays has no real meaning other than as a slur to discredit opposition.

On the hassan comments, none of your examples match reality, if he got gifted a mansion then your examples would be correct, but he didnt, he himself bought that and all the other fancy stuff he owns Even that tho isnt the biggest problem tho, you said in the video you need to get power in the system to change the system, and if we would agree that he has power (either capital or large amount of ppl following him) he should use that power to change the system, but he isnt doing that and thats where most ppls problems lie with him

Why has this game suddenly become a trending thing? I love it, it's just years old. Can anyone explain?

I largely agree with everything you've said, but there's one small factual thing I'd like to correct. Depending on how long someone's gone without eating meat, they would actually be harmed in a mild way by eating it, just based on how their gut would react to something they're not used to digesting. More of a fun fact than a criticsm of the point

This was great. More please.

Where is your commentary on the fascist faction in the game

"Buy my product to critique capitalism" is what Joyce roasted.

I just wanted to say that when I heard the OST when you started to talk about Evrart my eyes lit up

29:50. I was very surprised to realise that the background music... seems to be haibane renmei ost. Great video btw! I liked inclusion of personal bits especially.

33:49 Looks like a person who likes horses.

To not talk about the framing of the man in the chair misses why he's so unsettling. It's more than confined, it's a confused world around him. I don't want to type more about what isn't your video, but the framing... that's immediately everything.

Your logic is flawed when it comes to explaining the vegan eating meat. If the vegan decides to eat meat because it would get lost if he did otherwise in principle it’s hypocritical of him and defeats the purpose of its veganism as a message. The whole point of not eating meat is to convince others to do the same and make a meaningful impact. How can wasting a mere pounds of meat more immoral than the sistematic killing of animals? The argument of “Hassan is rich therefore He is invalidated” is valid because in the same logic than the vegan friend, He is an hypocrite because he indulges in the same excesses he fight against.

There's nothing, only warm, primordial blackness...

21:05 idk why i feel the need to thank you for saying this, but i do. coincidentally enough, i would liken this principle going over most surprised heads like turkeys. I know I was dumbfounded when I saw tens of them take off for the first time.

loved this video, and your channel, keep up the amazing work!

I’d love to watch more Disco Elysium content from yiy

Excusing left wing hypocrisy as "participating in capital" just seems pretty insincere in my opinion. If you can't even follow your own political principles why should I let you lecture me about why you know better? "But bro, I need to have the new iphone (produced by slave labour in China) to tweet about how bad capitalism is from my muli-million dollar mansion" is just piss-poor and defeats your own argument.

I love to see that my favorite game is still getting attention in these days! Also i didnt know about your channel, one of the bests disco elysiums i have ever seen!

to clear up any confusion, ultra liberalism in the world of disco is more like libertarianism

My only critique is that you're playing with a beardless Harry.

absolutely LOVED this analysis

Hi Hiding in private

Ah, infighting. The Left's original sin Rovics' "I'm A Better Anarchist Than You" also gives me a chuckle, especially since I can partially see myself in it Great video!

defending hasan lmao awww nawww baby what is you doin!? the point is you don't need money to have a voice and you most certainly don't need AS MUCH MONEY AS HASAN HAS. literally anyone can start a protest or a movement against the status quo as long as their beliefs aren't completely regarded and enough people are captivated by your personal ability to convey your thoughts articulately. this idea that you need a paid-for marketing campaign and/or an excess of systemic power to create meaningful systemic change is patently false. if the system itself is the only way to claw your way up and create change, then why did the system create social media, essentially giving everyone with internet access "a voice", when there are MUCH easier ways of making money if that is the goal? the fact that I'm able to even write this comment completely dismantles your stance. not every answer lies within the philosophy section of your local community college library, sometimes all you need is a little common sense.

What a great little video I’ve stumbled upon.

I don't think that was necessarily the point Joyce was trying to make, I understood it as a reference to capital profiting off the critique of capital by e.g. selling Che Guevara merch, "fuck capitalism sent from my iPhone" style. By broadcasting critique of itself, capitalism banalises and disempowers said critique.

"I don't think I spoiled you, or anything?" [15 minutes before] "So you finally found the real killer." :D Great video essay though.

What an excellent essay. Thank you for your thoughts

Wasn't Joyce revealed to be one of the members of wild pines? It's after we completed her and evrart quest and told Harry this before leaving. At the very least Joyce is much higher up in the chain than she originally let on.

Id like to both applaud and critique your refusal to summarise the plot. I’m a huge fan of the game and listen to any video essay I can find of it, most of them spend around 70% of their script just repeating key events in the story. Focusing on this or that aspect of it without necessarily explicating how this is what all the games events are “about” can make as an interesting consideration as the whole of the game if not more, as it allows more focus on this or that particular side of it. To let the viewer digest it for what it portrays and not try to swallow the 15 layer sandwich of story in one bite. I agree with your final words that this video spoils everything and nothing. Like Inland empire telling you all the answers with zero explanation of the extremely nuanced circumstances of them, a spoiler brutal enough removes little surprise in the first experience of a story. Communism killed the hanged man Coppo. Though there are some points in this video I feel are a bit detached from the portrayal within the game. Joyce isn’t particularly passionate about lasse fare capitalism being the dominant economical system through martinase and the world of Elysium in general. She doesn’t deem it just, through ethical or strength values which make it stronger than other ideas in the struggle to manifest in the world. She’s mostly a capital realist. Meaning she considers anything outside the behaviour of the free market can’t resist the invisible unguided hand of it. Not as a principle to follow and adhere too, she just assumes that’s how everything runs. Everyone wants money, everyone will do what they can to make money. What the heck, let’s hire some death squads to break the union strike. Her saying capital has a tendency to sublimate critiques of it to make them support itself isn’t a triumphant call in favour of it. She sees it as a sociological observation. Which is the ultraliberal bread and butter. People say there’s an issue with capitalism? Awesome let’s sell a solution. People can’t afford living off the wages capitalists are willing to share with them from all the surplus value their labor adds to raw materials&services? Companies can offer workers company towns to alleviate that issue AND make use of the workers living under their care to surveil and make sure the worker is more work focused. The issue is that the solutions capital can think of can’t resist the sneakiest ways to squeeze as much as they can from anyone desperate enough or unaware enough to recognise any squeezing possible of more money. We can’t buy our way out of the system of everyone squeezing everything possible to make higher profits, but you, like Joyce here, insist that that’s the only way to be at the moment. And it’s possible that both of you are right, while it is possible that Joyce could’ve also not hired a deathsquad to break a strike, and not give up on said deathsquad as not worth holding back after the death of their leader. And she might be correct on both these issues. Edgar eventually claims to have hoped to leverage the death of Lely to push through and spark a new revolution with outrage at the reactive violence. And Krenel won’t back down from their vengeance under any dialog option at least available to the player, it’s not unreasonable to assume the people used to unrestrained brutality without any regard to anyone wouldn’t be reacted to Joyce’s commands to stop. It’s not unthinkable that they’d shot her too. It’s a big game of poker. Joyce and Edgar are trying to play chicken and peek to see if the other is going to fold at continually increasing stakes. Joyce isn’t a passionate believer in capital. She is a resigned believer in it. Which effectively is no less if not even more dangerous than insisting it’s the best way to live, as trying to justify it can allow clearer understanding of problems with insisting on its inevitability than simply giving up on anything else. Leftists do have something to lose from bad alliances. Bernie giving support to Biden gave the US many of Trump’s policies with a more polite face. Though you are 100% correct in recognising the petty fights between leftists tend to fracture in places beyond actual practical possibilities. Focusing on what can and should be done with as many parts of society as possible is the best course of action. There is a potential in accepting the resisted meal already made in reinforcing the understanding in the unaware maker that this habit does not require more consideration, beyond for the maker themselves, that it does not require more consideration of the values of the offered opposer to the meal. My parents need reminders often that i will not eat non free range meat, but eventually the message sorta sticks and at certain meals I do not have to reject a meal as opposing my values, preemptively preventing minimal support of the institution I oppose. Most meals can also be refrigerated and heated later, but that assumes both a refrigerator and an oven which are not necessarily accessible to the maker of the meal. Thank you for the ethical thought experiment it’s been fun to ponder

Fantastic analysis! If you make another video, I'd recommend a breakdown on freedom in disco elysium. Who in this game is free? The actions of everyone from the weak to the seemingly powerful are coerced by external forces. Is there a single character who can act upon their own autonomy?

Great video

I'd love any more about Disco Elysium, including the Moralist politician and his rentboy.

Its amazing how high you can climb when youre born near the top

When you repeat that it is hard to do a RU-vid channel, remember that you actually like it, probably enough to do it for free. Difficulty of a job becoming irrelevant when hate it. Would you drop your channel to press buttons that appear on screen if that would be stable job with salary that puts you into middle class? So don't say it's hard, because it not the part that matters for most people