Full Transcript for You_re Overthinking Disco Elysium

human history. When you do miraculously come to, 68 00:04:42.040 --> 00:04:45.120 you find that your mind is a blank slate. No 69 00:04:45.160 --> 00:04:47.860 memory of where you are, who you are, what you are. 70 00:04:48.579 --> 00:04:50.540 But the first things you learn are all very basic. 71 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:54.639 You are, supposedly, a cop. You live and work in 72 00:04:54.680 --> 00:04:58.279 a city called Ravachal. You have a bad history with alcohol, and, 73 00:04:58.439 --> 00:05:01.680 it seems, a bad history in general. Outside the hotel 74 00:05:01.740 --> 00:05:04.990 room is a dead body which you were supposed to 75 00:05:05.019 --> 00:05:07.889 be investigating. As it tends to be in stories like this, 76 00:05:08.089 --> 00:05:11.410 Harry's amnesia is a great device for exposition. As he 77 00:05:11.509 --> 00:05:14.829 re-learns about his world, we get to discover it, and 78 00:05:14.870 --> 00:05:17.970 you quickly find out just how much there is to discover. 79 00:05:18.769 --> 00:05:22.410 Revachol is not just the game's setting. It's a fulcrum, 80 00:05:22.829 --> 00:05:26.569 a place where a truly unbelievable amount of world history intersects. 81 00:05:27.149 --> 00:05:30.029 You can literally spend most of an evening, in real time, 82 00:05:30.389 --> 00:05:33.600 reading textbooks about it at the local library, but mostly 83 00:05:33.860 --> 00:05:37.379 it comes in a drip feed. Pieces of dialogue, half-remembered stories, 84 00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:40.040 evidence etched into the very bones of the city itself. 85 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:43.480 At first, I remember feeling intimidated by the sheer scope 86 00:05:43.519 --> 00:05:46.319 of the world I was entering, its geopolitical machinery and 87 00:05:46.420 --> 00:05:50.889 social intricacies. That didn't last long, because right away, I 88 00:05:51.350 --> 00:05:55.800 ran into two old men playing shuffleboard in a bombed-out 89 00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:59.279 crater a few steps away from my hotel. It's not 90 00:05:59.339 --> 00:06:02.939 actually shuffleboard, it's this universe's legally distinct equivalent, but the 91 00:06:02.990 --> 00:06:06.389 picture is a familiar one. They pass the time here, 92 00:06:06.709 --> 00:06:09.470 cursing at each other, eating their lunches, playing their game, 93 00:06:09.970 --> 00:06:12.949 doing what old men do. One of them is a soldier, 94 00:06:13.250 --> 00:06:15.250 and he wants you to know it. He's still wearing 95 00:06:15.269 --> 00:06:18.029 the uniform of his long-dead army, and he still walks 96 00:06:18.110 --> 00:06:20.610 and speaks with the aggressive rigidity of a drill sergeant. 97 00:06:21.310 --> 00:06:25.529 His name is René. The other is much more at ease. 98 00:06:26.029 --> 00:06:28.439 He seems to have accepted whatever happened here and doesn't 99 00:06:28.509 --> 00:06:32.379 spend his time dwelling on the past. His name is Gaston. 100 00:06:33.300 --> 00:06:36.500 These two old men and their almost ritualistic bickering were 101 00:06:36.540 --> 00:06:39.160 my first window into what happened to the city of Révechaux. 102 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:41.519 René is quick to tell me about his own history. 103 00:06:42.069 --> 00:06:43.850 He told me how he proudly served the king of 104 00:06:43.889 --> 00:06:47.110 Ravachol in a heroic last stand against the communist scum 105 00:06:47.170 --> 00:06:49.899 that overtook them. His former service to the crown is 106 00:06:49.980 --> 00:06:52.699 core to his self-image. He's still got the uniform on. 107 00:06:53.180 --> 00:06:55.540 He paints a romantic portrait of the monarchy, what he 108 00:06:55.600 --> 00:06:58.120 sees as some sort of golden age, when everything was 109 00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:00.850 right in the world, when everyone was in the right place, 110 00:07:01.389 --> 00:07:04.939 when Ravachol was in its right place. I asked some 111 00:07:04.959 --> 00:07:08.939 more questions and began to poke holes in that portrait. Gradually, 112 00:07:08.990 --> 00:07:11.250 I learned how the valiant and immortal monarchy was taken 113 00:07:11.269 --> 00:07:15.170 down by, in his words, mad anarchist women who tore 114 00:07:15.230 --> 00:07:17.850 up all the social values he held so dear. How 115 00:07:18.129 --> 00:07:20.730 the kings that he valorizes were, to put it bluntly, 116 00:07:20.990 --> 00:07:23.000 coked out of their minds while they were supposed to 117 00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:26.800 be running the country. And, most embarrassingly of all, how 118 00:07:26.819 --> 00:07:30.019 the communist scum met their ultimate demise not at the 119 00:07:30.060 --> 00:07:34.110 hand of a heroic Ravachonian patriot like himself, but by foreigners. 120 00:07:34.810 --> 00:07:39.360 Foreigners who succeeded at accomplishing what he could not. Gaston, 121 00:07:39.500 --> 00:07:42.699 René' s stalwart shuffleboard partner, doesn't seem too bothered by any 122 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:46.120 of this. He's constantly ribbing René for his absurd devotion 123 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:49.180 to the long-dead monarchy and his old uniform. I wouldn't 124 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:52.360 call him optimistic, but at the very least, he's forgiving 125 00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:54.600 of the shortcomings of the new world he's found himself in. 126 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:58.560 He's accepted the state of things. His voice carries an 127 00:07:58.610 --> 00:08:01.769 implicit hope that one day, his friend can accept them too. 128 00:08:02.660 --> 00:08:06.339 And so, here these two men sit, literally inside a 129 00:08:06.480 --> 00:08:09.240 scar of the past, arguing all day about what the 130 00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:12.220 past means. To be fair, there is a lot to 131 00:08:12.300 --> 00:08:16.060 argue about. The parallels to real-world history, what this implies 132 00:08:16.120 --> 00:08:19.430 for your investigation, the rights and wrongs of the political 133 00:08:19.490 --> 00:08:22.079 movements of the

past. You could write an essay about it. 134 00:08:22.589 --> 00:08:25.269 You could write a whole book about it. You could 135 00:08:25.870 --> 00:08:29.250 make a whole game about it. But that's not what 136 00:08:29.269 --> 00:08:32.909 they did with Disco Elysium. In Disco Elysium, you get 137 00:08:32.950 --> 00:08:37.299 this history through listening to two old men arguing in 138 00:08:37.340 --> 00:08:41.259 the street. A reminder that history isn't a neat timeline. 139 00:08:41.740 --> 00:08:43.740 It isn't just a series of events in a book. 140 00:08:44.379 --> 00:08:48.679 History is the messy process of people remembering themselves and 141 00:08:48.720 --> 00:08:51.809 each other, trying to make sense of the past. René 142 00:08:51.830 --> 00:08:54.570 and Gaston's bickering doesn't just tell us about the history 143 00:08:54.610 --> 00:08:58.269 of Revachon. It tells us about their relationship to that history, 144 00:08:58.669 --> 00:09:02.070 and how their position in it warps their perspectives. And 145 00:09:02.850 --> 00:09:06.950 I suppose that's what all historical accounts are, in a way. 146 00:09:07.470 --> 00:09:10.730 Whether they come from an encyclopedia, an archive of documents, 147 00:09:11.289 --> 00:09:24.919 or the mouths of two old men. On the same 148 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:26.879 beach where I was chasing bugs a few hours ago, 149 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:31.000 I dragged myself and my astonishingly patient detective partner... into 150 00:09:31.159 --> 00:09:34.970 another side quest. This one revolved around an abandoned church. 151 00:09:35.629 --> 00:09:38.230 Loitering outside it were a gang of young ravers trying 152 00:09:38.269 --> 00:09:41.549 to start a nightclub in the church. After deflating their 153 00:09:41.570 --> 00:09:44.830 dreams of starting up a drug-dealing side business inside that nightclub, 154 00:09:45.230 --> 00:09:47.570 I ultimately decided to help them get the thing off 155 00:09:47.590 --> 00:09:50.750 the ground. I figured dancing would be better than selling drugs. 156 00:09:51.350 --> 00:09:56.529 There was just one little complication. Someone was already using 157 00:09:56.669 --> 00:10:00.700 the church. This is Suna, a programmer who's taken up 158 00:10:00.759 --> 00:10:03.899 residence here as part of a strange research project. She's 159 00:10:03.940 --> 00:10:08.159 looking for the location of a two-millimeter hole in the world. Apparently, 160 00:10:08.220 --> 00:10:09.980 this hole is in the rafters of the church, and 161 00:10:10.200 --> 00:10:13.769 it seems to absorb everything that it touches, including radio waves, 162 00:10:14.090 --> 00:10:16.629 which makes it nearly impossible to measure. 163 00:10:16.649 --> 00:10:16.789 So.... 164 00:10:18.740 --> 00:10:21.139 I agreed to help her with her research. In exchange, 165 00:10:21.259 --> 00:10:25.399 she'd tolerate the teens and their nightclub. The journey she 166 00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:27.330 sent me on led me to

her old game studio, 167 00:10:27.379 --> 00:10:31.090 which was destroyed by an inexplicable data loss incident. She 168 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:34.610 believes it was caused by this two-millimeter anomaly, and she's 169 00:10:34.629 --> 00:10:37.049 going to prove it. Turns out it's a good thing 170 00:10:37.090 --> 00:10:39.730 she's sharing space with these ravers, because when the critical 171 00:10:39.789 --> 00:10:43.730 moment arrives, their speakers provide the perfect medium to play 172 00:10:43.789 --> 00:10:46.429 back her research data. And when she does. 173 00:10:47.350 --> 00:10:50.730 The driver of the speaker vibrates in the air and 174 00:10:50.789 --> 00:10:55.909 then stops. Plasterwork begins to crumble down the walls. In 175 00:10:56.009 --> 00:11:00.409 the silence, a low hum starts creeping up your spine. 176 00:11:01.129 --> 00:11:05.740 It's a song inside you, not in the speakers, not 177 00:11:06.059 --> 00:11:09.580 in the room. A great bass sigh in the basement 178 00:11:09.620 --> 00:11:14.059 of your mind. Slowly it builds until the air around 179 00:11:14.100 --> 00:11:19.120 you starts to vibrate. It's out there now. In the world. 180 00:11:20.279 --> 00:11:23.620 Harry, possessed by some force beyond reason, seems to know 181 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:27.320 what this sound means. And with full confidence, he says 182 00:11:27.460 --> 00:11:30.799 that it is the Pale. By this point in the game, 183 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:33.100 I'd already learned a little bit about the Pale. It's 184 00:11:33.139 --> 00:11:36.649 a sort of hazy, entropic mist, a sea of cosmic 185 00:11:36.730 --> 00:11:39.570 nothingness separating the habitable areas of the world like so 186 00:11:39.590 --> 00:11:43.929 many islands. Normally, it is impossible to traverse. Even with 187 00:11:43.990 --> 00:11:46.649 modern technology, humans can only spend so long in it 188 00:11:46.690 --> 00:11:50.610 before losing their minds. And it's growing. It's a long 189 00:11:50.669 --> 00:11:54.879 way off, but eventually the pale will swallow everything. Which 190 00:11:54.940 --> 00:11:58.220 is why it is, to put it mildly, concerning that 191 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:01.440 there's a fragment of it here, above this church, right 192 00:12:01.679 --> 00:12:05.590 next to a city. This revelation could change everything. This 193 00:12:05.649 --> 00:12:08.990 is the biggest problem in the game, right? The end 194 00:12:09.009 --> 00:12:11.519 of the world? I thought that this was going to 195 00:12:11.559 --> 00:12:13.580 be the part where the game enters the real plot, 196 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:15.899 that Kim and I would set everything aside to look 197 00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:18.940 into this impending apocalypse, find some way to stop it, 198 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:21.169 or at least react to it, marshal the forces of 199 00:12:21.190 --> 00:12:26.350 the world to rally against it. Instead, the opposite happens. 200 00:12:28.590 --> 00:12:31.500 I mean, look. Look at where we are, what we're doing. 201 00:12:31.559 --> 00:12:36.860 We're building a nightclub right under it. A nightclub. One 202 00:12:36.889 --> 00:12:39.539 thing I wasn't expecting was for the ravers to have 203 00:12:39.580 --> 00:12:43.200 a philosophical perspective on all of this. Turns out that 204 00:12:43.220 --> 00:12:46.919 they believe that political philosophy is outdated. Not just a 205 00:12:47.059 --> 00:12:51.559 particular political philosophy, but political philosophy as a concept. In 206 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:53.360 their view, it fails to meet the challenges of the 207 00:12:53.399 --> 00:12:57.159 modern world. Their truth lies in the rave. To them, 208 00:12:57.360 --> 00:13:00.740 dancing isn't just an activity, it's a social practice, a 209 00:13:00.840 --> 00:13:04.159 genuine way of life. At first, their views seem kind 210 00:13:04.179 --> 00:13:07.549 of incoherent, juvenile, driven by more than a few party drugs. 211 00:13:07.990 --> 00:13:11.409 But remember, this world, the world that millions have violently 212 00:13:11.470 --> 00:13:14.990 struggled over for centuries, will ultimately be devoured by the pale. 213 00:13:15.789 --> 00:13:18.940 In that context, their outlook starts to make a little 214 00:13:18.980 --> 00:13:23.220 more sense. There are some genuinely challenging skill checks in 215 00:13:23.259 --> 00:13:26.240 this game. There's a lot to prepare for. But one 216 00:13:26.279 --> 00:13:29.789 of the hardest of them all? To set everything aside 217 00:13:30.429 --> 00:13:34.909 and bust a move in this church-turned-nightclub-at-the-end-of-the-world. It's a skill 218 00:13:34.929 --> 00:13:37.870 check that I failed the first time, but that's what 219 00:13:37.909 --> 00:13:42.740 save files are for. When I eventually succeeded... This is. 220 00:13:42.700 --> 00:13:44.980 Not a moment I expected from Disco Elysium, but it 221 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:47.299 is one that defines the game for me. The rave. 222 00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:00.799 Isn't an immature way to dodge the question of what 223 00:14:00.840 --> 00:14:02.960 to do about the end of the world. The way 224 00:14:02.980 --> 00:14:06.379 the game frames it, the rave, is an answer to 225 00:14:06.399 --> 00:14:09.720 the question, possibly the only one that actually makes any sense. 226 00:14:10.419 --> 00:14:13.080 The rave rejects the idea that existence is some kind 227 00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:17.200 of grand political struggle. It suggests that there's no solving life, 228 00:14:17.759 --> 00:14:21.740 just living it. That all one can really do, perhaps 229 00:14:21.779 --> 00:14:25.059 all you're meant to do, is find the energy to dance. 230 00:14:26.070 --> 00:14:42.019 While you still can. Most of the people of Ravachol 231 00:14:42.059 --> 00:14:44.919 live just above the threshold of survival. They make homes 232 00:14:44.960 --> 00:14:47.659 in old furnace rooms, tents on the beach. But none 233 00:14:47.700 -->

00:14:49.860 of them walk the streets with a sign strapped to 234 00:14:49.899 --> 00:14:52.919 their back saying, please save me. Most of them are 235 00:14:52.950 --> 00:14:55.970 just trying to live quiet, dignified lives with the resources 236 00:14:56.009 --> 00:14:58.250 they have. At one point in the game, I came 237 00:14:58.309 --> 00:15:02.450 across one such citizen, an unassuming working-class woman. When I 238 00:15:02.529 --> 00:15:06.129 examined her, Harry got this sudden internal impression that she 239 00:15:06.190 --> 00:15:09.990 wasn't doing too well. So, following that lead, I asked 240 00:15:10.029 --> 00:15:14.009 if there was something wrong in her life. And she said, no. 241 00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:19.220 Harry's inner voice was mistaken. He'd assumed that just because 242 00:15:19.240 --> 00:15:21.580 of this woman's class, she must have needed his help. 243 00:15:22.139 --> 00:15:25.620 But she clearly doesn't need it. Kind of an odd diversion. 244 00:15:26.100 --> 00:15:27.960 I was confused as to why the game let me 245 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:30.210 engage with this. If there was no outcome, nothing I 246 00:15:30.250 --> 00:15:32.429 could do, but I decided to set it aside for 247 00:15:32.450 --> 00:15:35.389 the time being and get on with my investigation. Later on, 248 00:15:35.429 --> 00:15:37.509 I found myself at the beach. On the edge of 249 00:15:37.549 --> 00:15:39.830 the sand was a dilapidated pier that once housed a 250 00:15:39.870 --> 00:15:42.669 fish market. Exploring to the end of that pier reveals 251 00:15:43.110 --> 00:15:46.529 another dead body. A man who's bashed his head in 252 00:15:46.590 --> 00:15:49.330 on a bench. An empty vodka bottle lies next to him. 253 00:15:49.870 --> 00:15:52.250 A pack of still-warm chewing gum is rotting away in 254 00:15:52.289 --> 00:15:54.559 his mouth. Kim chimes in to note that this is 255 00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:57.860 a darkly familiar situation. You often see these two things 256 00:15:57.919 --> 00:16:00.960 next to dead drunks. The bottle and the chewing gum. 257 00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:04.809 They're trying to hide the smell. I pulled a library 258 00:16:04.870 --> 00:16:07.149 card from the man's pocket. In a day or so, 259 00:16:07.250 --> 00:16:08.649 Kim and I traced the name on the card to 260 00:16:08.669 --> 00:16:11.149 an apartment nearby. We opened the door to find a 261 00:16:11.169 --> 00:16:15.529 working woman inside. The one from before. The one who 262 00:16:15.580 --> 00:16:20.399 didn't need my help. The pieces all came together. There's 263 00:16:20.440 --> 00:16:24.450 a clear anti-capitalist narrative here. I can already imagine the 264 00:16:24.509 --> 00:16:27.730 in-game monologue, what it might sound like. Today, a family 265 00:16:27.769 --> 00:16:30.169 was stretched to their limits by the economic conditions of 266 00:16:30.210 --> 00:16:33.220 their life. The kind of conditions in which people's personal 267 00:16:33.259 -->

00:16:37.519 demons thrive. The kind of conditions that make people depressed, violent, drunk, 268 00:16:37.580 --> 00:16:40.039 or some combination of the three. This is all a 269 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:41.059 result of the system. 270 00:16:41.620 --> 00:16:44.830 We have not come here to discuss ideology. We have 271 00:16:44.870 --> 00:16:47.610 come to ask questions regarding a murder investigation. 272 00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:51.000 It's not that any of this is wrong. These sorts 273 00:16:51.039 --> 00:16:54.120 of critiques do have value. I often agree with them. 274 00:16:54.200 --> 00:16:58.620 There are economic systems responsible for this particular situation. But 275 00:16:58.639 --> 00:17:02.710 do real humans actually think about their lives this way? 276 00:17:03.190 --> 00:17:09.170 Through polemics on political theory? Really? When I asked the 277 00:17:09.210 --> 00:17:11.890 working woman earlier if her husband was missing, she said no. 278 00:17:12.539 --> 00:17:14.759 Not because she knew where he was, but because it 279 00:17:14.799 --> 00:17:17.269 was normal for him to be missing. she had become 280 00:17:17.309 --> 00:17:20.890 completely numb to the uncertainty and anxiety. Depending on how 281 00:17:20.930 --> 00:17:23.509 you view the situation, it might be easy to consider 282 00:17:23.549 --> 00:17:26.910 her behavior careless or even strong in the face of adversity. 283 00:17:27.809 --> 00:17:31.430 I consider it human. It is, in my view, a 284 00:17:31.470 --> 00:17:34.930 very human impulse to make the best of a horrible situation. 285 00:17:35.789 --> 00:17:38.849 Husband or not, the bills still need paying, the kids 286 00:17:38.910 --> 00:17:43.250 still need raising, life still needs living. And this brutal 287 00:17:43.430 --> 00:17:46.890 yet beautiful truth of human nature hangs over all the 288 00:17:46.950 --> 00:17:50.130 encounters in Disco Elysium. It is the strongest throughline of 289 00:17:50.150 --> 00:17:53.609 the entire game's narrative. So strong, in fact, that the leitmotif, 290 00:17:53.650 --> 00:17:56.730 the music of the working woman's apartment returns during the 291 00:17:56.779 --> 00:18:00.000 climax of the game. And it makes sense that it 292 00:18:00.039 --> 00:18:02.680 comes back here, during a boat ride to the edge 293 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:05.599 of the city, where the starkest reminder of this same 294 00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:32.569 truth still waits. Harry and Kim do eventually get around 295 00:18:32.609 --> 00:18:35.529 to solving that murder. Their last and most promising lead 296 00:18:35.569 --> 00:18:37.769 brings them to an island off the coast of Havachol, 297 00:18:38.289 --> 00:18:42.250 an old fortification from the revolution. Every hallway and annex 298 00:18:42.289 --> 00:18:44.589 of this place feels haunted by ghosts of the past, 299 00:18:44.789 --> 00:18:47.190 as if the building itself doesn't know the war is over. 300 00:18:48.029 --> 00:18:50.240 When Kim

and Harry reach the end of it, they 301 00:18:50.279 --> 00:18:55.059 find the most haunting kind of ghost. One that's still alive. 302 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:58.079 Here is an old man, alone on the edge of 303 00:18:58.099 --> 00:19:01.339 the world, clearly broken by the passage of time. He 304 00:19:01.380 --> 00:19:05.289 introduces himself as the political commissar of the 114th Anti-Aircraft 305 00:19:05.329 --> 00:19:07.529 Division of the Fourth Army of the Commune of Ravachol. 306 00:19:08.089 --> 00:19:12.410 He's also a self-described deserter, partisan, and prisoner of war. 307 00:19:12.970 --> 00:19:15.380 This guy is exactly the kind of person that René, 308 00:19:15.579 --> 00:19:18.500 the old soldier from the beginning, would have called communist scum. 309 00:19:18.980 --> 00:19:22.559 He's also the spitting image of René. Both of them 310 00:19:22.700 --> 00:19:26.589 are obsessed with the past. They've both grown bitter, entrenched 311 00:19:26.619 --> 00:19:29.849 in their ideals. One is the revolutionary without a revolution, 312 00:19:30.390 --> 00:19:34.490 the other the royalist without royalty. Initially, I was trying 313 00:19:34.509 --> 00:19:36.910 to get this man to confess to the murder. But soon, 314 00:19:36.930 --> 00:19:41.190 I was... deep in psychoanalysis with him. See, he doesn't 315 00:19:41.309 --> 00:19:44.650 hide his role in the murder. His resentment, his guilt, 316 00:19:44.710 --> 00:19:47.650 his complete and pathological refusal to accept that the war 317 00:19:47.710 --> 00:19:51.099 is over. All of it is on clear display. It's 318 00:19:51.140 --> 00:19:53.039 almost as if he's been waiting for this moment to 319 00:19:53.079 --> 00:19:55.180 make one last grand speech to his enemies so he 320 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.779 can finally die with honor. Unlike the Ravers, he feels 321 00:19:58.839 --> 00:20:03.660 that existence really is one grand political struggle, one to 322 00:20:03.700 --> 00:20:05.640 be fought until the bitter end. 323 00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:09.910 Are they not heartbroken? How could they have moved on? 324 00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:15.980 He's unrepentant, unbreakable in his dedication to his long-dead cause. 325 00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:19.210 I felt bad for him. Arresting him felt like the 326 00:20:19.349 --> 00:20:22.630 kindest thing I could have done. There was no shaking 327 00:20:22.690 --> 00:20:25.369 him out of his misery. It was the end of 328 00:20:25.410 --> 00:20:27.690 his life as he'd known it, and the end of 329 00:20:27.730 --> 00:20:34.380 my case. And then I saw the bug. The mythical bug. 330 00:20:34.819 --> 00:20:39.369 The insolindian phasmid. the object of my apparently meaningless chase 331 00:20:39.490 --> 00:20:43.240 from so many hours ago. And the deserter, this old, 332 00:20:43.420 --> 00:20:47.359 jaded man so deeply entrenched in his own mind, breaks. 333 00:20:48.359 --> 00:20:48.809 What is it? 334 00:20:49.819 --> 00:20:53.859 Something is very wrong with him now. 335 00:20:54.740 --> 00:20:55.039 Nothing. 336 00:20:55.559 --> 00:20:58.369 There is nothing. Only the reeds for him. 337 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:02.180 A manifestation of the impossible appears right next to a 338 00:21:02.220 --> 00:21:05.369 man who has given up on the possible. And again, 339 00:21:05.829 --> 00:21:11.250 in this bizarre, world-stakes-irrelevant moment, I felt I could see 340 00:21:11.829 --> 00:21:15.430 this game. The point of Disco Elysium is not to 341 00:21:15.789 --> 00:21:19.579 solve the murder. It's to chase the bugs, to engage 342 00:21:19.619 --> 00:21:21.779 as deeply as one can with the world around you, 343 00:21:21.819 --> 00:21:25.799 to live and breathe Ravashel's sacred and terrible air. Not 344 00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:29.279 as part of some political education curriculum, but to experience 345 00:21:29.339 --> 00:21:33.569 the fullness of life. The feeling that the Phasmid conjures 346 00:21:33.619 --> 00:21:36.099 is not quite hope. The game doesn't end with some 347 00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:39.299 glorious revival of the revolution or some profound answer to 348 00:21:39.359 --> 00:21:42.799 all the world's problems. René, the royalist, dies by the 349 00:21:42.819 --> 00:21:45.119 end of the game, still unable to let go of 350 00:21:45.140 --> 00:21:48.220 the past long enough to love or be loved. The 351 00:21:48.259 --> 00:21:50.940 working-class woman will still have to raise her two kids 352 00:21:50.980 --> 00:21:54.980 without a father. The pale will one day devour everything. 353 00:21:55.740 --> 00:21:58.390 And Harry, too, is still gripped by the sorrows that 354 00:21:58.430 --> 00:22:00.970 led him to erase his brain with alcohol in that 355 00:22:01.029 --> 00:22:05.039 trashed hotel room. But the existence of the phasmid suggests 356 00:22:05.079 --> 00:22:08.089 that there's a reward for trying to move on. That 357 00:22:08.289 --> 00:22:12.069 even in the darkest times, there is still life to experience. 358 00:22:13.430 --> 00:22:16.259 I know why I was chasing an imaginary bug on 359 00:22:16.299 --> 00:22:28.700 the beach. It's because I could find it. Before I 360 00:22:28.740 --> 00:22:31.759 played Disco Elysium, I was a little put off by 361 00:22:31.799 --> 00:22:34.440 its reputation. I'd heard great things about it, that it 362 00:22:34.460 --> 00:22:37.660 was this life-changing piece of media with tons of philosophical depth, 363 00:22:37.720 --> 00:22:39.900 but it was hard to really know where to begin. 364 00:22:40.319 --> 00:22:43.180 I'd heard of the dense lore and history, the political dialogues, 365 00:22:43.220 --> 00:22:46.509 the immense size of the game itself. From the outside, 366 00:22:46.789 --> 00:22:51.990 the worldbuilding seemed completely unapproachable. Once I got into it, though, boy, 367 00:22:52.009 --> 00:22:55.650 did that change fast. I'd honestly say that now, the 368 00:22:55.690 --> 00:22:58.740 worldbuilding might just be my

favorite thing about it, not 369 00:22:58.789 --> 00:23:00.650 just because of how vast it is, but because of 370 00:23:00.690 --> 00:23:04.390 the way it's introduced. You learn about Havashal through conversations 371 00:23:04.430 --> 00:23:07.490 with ordinary people, exploring bits of history through the weird 372 00:23:07.710 --> 00:23:10.069 objects you find rummaging around the pawn shop or the 373 00:23:10.109 --> 00:23:13.619 doomed commercial district, repeatedly insisting to everyone that your name 374 00:23:13.690 --> 00:23:18.539 is Raphael Ambrosius Casto, for some reason. Just engaging with 375 00:23:18.579 --> 00:23:21.779 worldbuilding as dense as disco elysiums can be daunting. It's 376 00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:25.400 hard to even imagine ever creating something like this. I, 377 00:23:25.539 --> 00:23:27.279 of course, can't tell you how to create something as 378 00:23:27.339 --> 00:23:29.839 complex as Revachon, but I do know a pretty good 379 00:23:29.880 --> 00:23:32.900 way to get started with your own worldbuilding. There's a 380 00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:35.829 series I really like called Creating Unique and Powerful Worlds, 381 00:23:35.990 --> 00:23:39.170 taught by many-time author and professor of fiction, Lincoln Michel. 382 00:23:39.589 --> 00:23:42.369 He does a great job explaining just how much worldbuilding 383 00:23:42.390 --> 00:23:44.690 can influence the rest of your writing, how it can 384 00:23:44.789 --> 00:23:47.839 shape your character's personalities, the plot, even the themes of 385 00:23:47.859 --> 00:23:50.559 your story. It's surprising how much easier it all gets 386 00:23:50.660 --> 00:23:53.440 once you establish that initial ripple effect, as he puts it. 387 00:23:54.130 --> 00:23:57.700 For Michel, worldbuilding isn't just set dressing. It's where the 388 00:23:57.740 --> 00:24:00.779 story begins. And if you want to learn to write 389 00:24:00.819 --> 00:24:03.339 like that too, then I have good news. You can 390 00:24:03.380 --> 00:24:08.430 go watch the entire course for free with our sponsor, Skillshare. Look, 391 00:24:08.569 --> 00:24:11.349 I know you've probably heard creators mention Skillshare a million 392 00:24:11.390 --> 00:24:13.970 times before. You've probably even heard me mention it before, 393 00:24:13.990 --> 00:24:16.700 but I promise you that is not a conspiracy. For 394 00:24:16.759 --> 00:24:18.920 anyone who wants to learn a new skill, it is just... 395 00:24:19.339 --> 00:24:22.630 an exceptionally accessible way to do that. They have a 396 00:24:22.730 --> 00:24:25.150 good mission and they deliver on it well. We wouldn't 397 00:24:25.170 --> 00:24:28.029 accept them as a sponsor if they didn't. Skillshare puts 398 00:24:28.089 --> 00:24:30.529 the skills you've always wanted to learn within arm's reach 399 00:24:30.730 --> 00:24:33.759 by empowering other creatives to teach you what they know. 400 00:24:34.200 --> 00:24:36.759 It's less of an educational app and more of a community. 401 00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:39.940 And because there are so many creatives on Skillshare, it's 402 00:24:39.980 --> 00:24:44.759 got courses on pretty much everything. Coding, music, cooking, business, photography, 403 00:24:44.819 --> 00:24:47.259 graphic design. Seriously, if there's a skill you want to learn, 404 00:24:47.460 --> 00:24:50.059 chances are someone's made a Skillshare course on it. The 405 00:24:50.099 --> 00:24:52.559 first 500 people who use our link will get Link 406 00:24:52.579 --> 00:24:55.420 and Michelle's course and everything else Skillshare has to offer 407 00:24:55.779 --> 00:24:59.599 for free. One whole month of Skillshare. That's an awful 408 00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:02.039 lot of learning. If it's not for you, cancel and 409 00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:04.420 never pay a dime, but at least give it a shot. 410 00:25:04.880 --> 00:25:07.559 I really think you'll love this course. Again, click the 411 00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:13.799 link in the description to get started for free. One 412 00:25:13.819 --> 00:25:17.259 thing I love about humanity is your capacity to complicate things, 413 00:25:17.599 --> 00:25:20.779 to overthink, to turn an idea over and over in 414 00:25:20.819 --> 00:25:23.759 your head until you don't know which way is up anymore. But, 415 00:25:23.940 --> 00:25:26.200 you know, I think that can also be a lot 416 00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:30.480 at times. It's so easy to get trapped in your 417 00:25:30.529 --> 00:25:33.230 own mind, to think so much about how things ought 418 00:25:33.269 --> 00:25:36.430 to be that you estrange yourself from how they are now. 419 00:25:37.309 --> 00:25:40.690 So consider this video, and this part of Disco Elysium, 420 00:25:40.930 --> 00:25:43.829 a little check on that. You can and should be 421 00:25:43.930 --> 00:25:47.849 full of big ideas, of course, but you should also live, too. 422 00:25:48.690 --> 00:25:54.829 Keep chasing bugs. And as always, keep making stuff up. Bye.