This Character Finally Broke Me - Therapist Plays Disco Elysium: Part 22
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#discoelysium #letsplay #therapist #narrative #therapy #psychology #analysis #eurobrady - บันเทิง
You all knew this interaction was coming, didn't you? 🤡The next part of this play session is already available through Patreon but will be on YT shortly as well. www.patreon.com/bradybyrne
YEP THIS WAS THE POINT - the politics, the moralintern, dont hold any real beliefs and it defines centrism; he may also be a social democrat in the sense he values social structures and democracy, but has nothing else of value to add to their world. Maybe this was your mirror 😂
I honestly think the politics in this game seem incredibly extreme (it’s honestly mostly the responses you can give) sometimes because harry is just not able to engage with something in a reasonable amount. If he adopts an ideology he’s gonna adopt the most extreme version of it. He’s all in.
Well you actually described it perfectly with your comparison. The Chamber of Commerce is a lobby group, not a government arm. The Chamber’s goal is to lobby in favor of neoliberal economic policy, for the most part. The Sunday Friend may be a part of the government but his role is to push forward a particular economic development path. As an historian and medical anthropologist myself who focuses on a region of the developing world, he actually reminds me a lot of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank officials from the 1950s-1990s, which I am sure is very intentional. The hints about Sunday Friend being neoliberal is in his discussion of monetary policy and stability and status quo. This is because the status quo in real life is now neoliberal economics, so he represents “The Man” in a lot of ways. The intellectual sellout behind the policy.
I think it would be helpful for you to understand that this game is very left wing, actually. It criticizes leftist institutions, but it overall is meant to be VERY left wing.
The game is making the argument, or subtly pushing the points that you are. The state of the society in the game is because of bad political actors and political institutions. This Sunday Friend is antithetical to your goals as a psychologist because any psychologist worth their salt will understand that economic policy directly affects social relationships and social conditions. I left a comment before that I would consider you leftist simply because you acknowledge these facts, and the fact this guy makes you mad is more proof of that.
"Worlds Most Laughable Centrist" is always such a sucker punch.
The timing on that was absolutely flawless.
time stamp
@@cheyannegiles9772 22:53
@@jamescook5783 thanks
"...He didnt change his opinion, I didnt change my opinion, the world didnt change because of that discussion..." a true moralist indeed!
behold! the fury of centrism!
Genuinely, I was not trolling you. This character is hysterically funny, at least to me. His ability to answer every question without explaining why he's in an apartment with a SW and racially insensitive costume is legendary.
My personal interpretation is that he is eroticizing and reenacting the relationship between the moralintern and its candidate territories. The few dialogue choices you skipped were about the candidate countries and EPIS.
huh. i never considered he's eroticizing the moralintern relationship with candidate countries, but i can see it now
I never figured he was a sëx worker. Makes some sense, but a little bit of a reach
@@birdup1_2Not really a stretch. One of his idle lines says ,,I dont have clients, only friends"
@@doriank1345 oh. Really?? Didn’t know
Thats fucking hilarious
BEHOLD THE FINAL BOSS OF POLITICS
I keep recovering, reading it again, and losing it again. It's been 3 minutes. Send help.
When I read this I imagined him showing up with the dark souls invasion sound to talk about the price stabilite.
your avatar really enhances this
Final boss of talking
Sunday Visitor Did Not Kill Himself
Sunday Friend, Measurehead, and Racist Lorry Driver are a nightmare blunt rotation
or, OR, the BEST blunt rotation
Measurehead is a great pal to have
Add the Deserter and Mega Rich Light Bending Guy to complete the political psychosis
You say that you cannot really learn about the politics of this world through this guy because he is not saying anything, but you actually are learning a lot. He is telling you a lot just by being who he is. This guy is the embodiment of the Moralintern. Lukewarm, vague, abstract.
So when people talk about the Moralists, this is what they are talking about. This guy, the type of guy that will never give you straight answers and the people who fight to "change the world" by keeping the world still. Those are the moralists in this game.
"For a moment, there was hope."
They present themselves as the 'rational', 'moral' majority, but, really, it's just keeping the systems in place that benefit them the most while burying everything else under hand-wringing and rhetoric. It's how they can act like international peacekeepers all while giving billions in support to the flagrantly obvious ethnic cleansing happening in Semenine.
On the other hand, your other big inroad to moralism is Dolores Dei. And of course Kim Kitsuragi. Extremely different vibes from all three
@@Ruspanic Don't spoil!
@@DayleDiamond I don't think my comment really gave anything away
"why would I want to meet your friend?"
"trust me, you do"
he, in fact, did not.
Don't worry, dude. The Sunday Friend is infuriating to *everyone,* regardless of politics. That's why people didn't want you to miss him - enduring his "conversation" is kind of like a hazing or rite of passage. I don't think I've ever met anyone in real life who could use so many words to say so little, or respond to so many questions by answering so few. He's the worst.
I've met and known many like this through my previous and current work and conversing with them is depicted accurately here. You can make awesome subtle jokes at Sunday friend's expense (which unfortunately was missed here, since barely any of the hidden skill dice rolls activated for Brady) which flies right over their head as they're so engrossed in repeating the practiced narrative of the powers they represent.
I call that phenomenom "lawyer talk" because all the people who talk like that that I met are lawyers. Which actually makes a lot of sense.
The one thing of value to take away from this is that there is a high-ranking, middle-aged bureaucrat making frequent visits to the room of a vulnerable youth whose residential permit he could cancel at any time...
And that guy's representative of the dominant political entity of the setting.
Bingo. It's interesting that Brady didn't seem to have picked up on the inappropriateness of their relationship. The Sunday Friend's smokescreen of impenetrable bureacracy works like gangbusters.
I definitely think Harry is somewhat attracted to the smoker, but he's very depressed and amnesiac to understand.
I think thats what Kim founds funny
That's not related to amnesia - it's just the result of growing up in a heavily conservative family.
Where I am from, I've seen A LOT of middle-aged men who had traditional families and such but where extremely unhappy and unsatisfied with life, just to find out that they were gay but this thought just never crossed their mind.
@kaschey6145 Oh yea, totally, I just meant the amnesia doesn't help ether, given that Harry barely knows what even is homosexuality.
But you're right, is definitely more about him being repressed
@@wil4648 I think Kim even mentions at the end of the game how much sense it makes that Harry doesn't know what it is when it turned out he was a gym teacher.
He’s definitely attractive but I think he’s so straight he doesn’t understand why he likes him.
@roryschussler Yes, I really love that aspect of the game. Harry is not a complete blank slate. He's a full character with a history. Whether he remembers it or not, you can guide who he is going forward somewhat, but he's ultimately going from what already inside of him.
The thing with Harry, is that he's a person of extremes himself, working on very limited information delivered by very biased parties, so no matter which political alignment you choose, it will always be an extreme caricature of it, including centrism, ironically
Don't stress too hard about it, Harry is not you at the end of the day
I find it interesting that harry's skills barely chime in during the conversation with the Sunday friend. it’s like they’re zoning out bc he’s so insufferably boring lol
There's a challenging Perception check that lets you see what the Sunday Friend sees when he looks out the window.
I think it's just the case of stat choices and unlucky rolls - I've had more of them in my playthrough.
Kim finds it funny that Harry might be attracted to the smoker, but doesnt seem to understand it himself.
I think he understands it perfectly. What he finds funny is Harry's unsureness about it.
Kim however, values his professionalism above all things. He's not about to let some middle-aged sexual awakening disturb his poker face.
@@RisqueBisquetI think OP means Harry doesn't himself understand what's going on.
Kim was losing it about your gay exchange lol
I was SO excited to see how you spoke to the smoker on the balcony and you did not disappoint, you talking to Kim like a long-suffering spouse made me smile. 'You're just JEALOUS because you're a terrible listener >:("
I love how Disco Elysium explores relationships, platonic/romantic or otherwise.
I love this Interaction so much 😭
It's VERY hard to get, but if you talk to the two old men playing Pétanque enough, you can discover that despite how much they loathe each other, despite the bigotry and years of resentment, there's romantic attachment on both sides, deeply buried. It's beautiful and sad in equal measure.
To understand they could've had a beautiful poly relationship all along if they just stopped arguing for a moment. Yeah, that's very sad.
I think all ideologies in this game are so extreme because they are perceived from the point of view of the main character, and he himself is far from stable, so he chooses the most extreme version of what the player chooses )
Politics is so out in the open because the developers wanted a game that could bring out in the open something we tend to keep more quiet about. But I think you're right in the case of Harry; one the things that often slips up when he discusses politics is that he's trying to ''win her back'' (make enough money to get her back as an ancap, turn back time to a better time when she was still here with fascism, etc...). It's the same as his extravagant disco posturing, it tries to compensate for the lack that came with his breakup.
I agree. The game’s perspective clearly centers through dialectical materialism, but the way Harry interacts with it always has a manic edge to it.
man, not to sound like the defenition of a parataxic distortion but whenever i see this playthrough on my feed it fills me with actual joy. Hanging out with Brady and everyone in the comments is such a precious 40 mins of respite from everything :)
And i get to learn psychology too !
One of my favorite characters, this is such a brilliant portrayal of centrism I love it.
He is standing there, preaching about slow and gradual change, no insane approaches, you’re getting there, you’re actually doing great! While in an apartment of his refugee boyfriend that still isn’t repaired 43 years after it got bombed by HIS ORGANIZATION and later the city was ran by HIS ORGANIZATION, he witnessed a murder and for a week corpse was hanging from the tree and kids on drugs were throwing rocks at it. The city he is in is controlled by an organized crime syndicate, old people spend days playing in a crater of a bombshell, a war is about to happen in this town.
All that again is under the rule of HIS ORGANIZATION, and he’s like “you know it’s actually doing great, just go slow, we don’t wanna be radical here!”
The way he distances himself from anything describing it in big picture terms, possibly to not feel any responsibility for people they are supposed to care about. Like his boyfriend is an immigrant living in war ruins and possibly doing sex work, but Sunday Friend can’t contact that, he needs to describe this as young free spirit in pursuit of arts!
What’s the most important thing? The price stability!
Yay, you finally met the Smoker on the Balcony! I'm glad you caught on to the fact that Harry is attracted to him. Some people completely miss it for some reason, god knows how. You could say that Harry has a thing for Smokers on Balconies ;)
I somehow missed it completely the first time even though I'm queer myself 😭
Not very PRICE STABILITÈ of you
The most important thing to remember is
1. Harry knows less about political nuance than a literal child due to his amnesia.
2. How much Harry actually cares about politics is up for debate, but what Harry definitely cares about is using political obsessions to try to fill the same damage in him that even consuming mind-annihilating amounts of alcohol failed to kill. This is why Harry is able to exist with multiple political alignments while feeling no irony within himself, and why his potential politics thoughts - even centrist ones - almost always focus on the angriest and most combative elements of whatever ideology comes up.
I've heard that there's a book written by the writer of this game. This setting is a prequel to that, and Harry does make an appearance in it under the name "Icebreaker". So there is a canonical answer as to what kind of animal Harry ends up being - and it is indeed a very political one (I haven't gotten round to reading it so I'm not entirely sure specifically which way he leans but i THINK i heard he becomes a hard nationalist?)
@@RisqueBisquet the icebreaker is the name of the racist achievement for the game
@@RisqueBisquetKnowing what Icebreaker means, that lore is kind of heartbreaking
To me, Harry was just an extreme version of normal people's ideologies. Haven't ever met a racist who blamed immigrants for the shit economy but still be buddies with his Mexican neighbor? Or people who are homophobic yet still vote for a liberal candidate. They are so many people with contradicting views yet unaware of it. That's just who people are without examining why they believe what they believe.
For as much as the game makes you choose between 4 distinct and insane political choices, I wonder if the game is ultimately focused on politics or not. The options tend to be Harry’s reductive perception of what those politics are. If he were in a psychiatrist’s office, I feel like eventually they would say to Harry “this isn’t REALLY about politics, is it?”
When you unlock the Communist thought cabinet conversation, Harry identifies as someone inevitably tied to failure, and in the Fascist one, he connects it to feelings of mysoginistic anger (!?).
What I find interesting about what the game DOES do about politics, is that it segments them along Harry’s four types of skills: those driven by Intellect, Psyche, Physiology (guts/gut instinct), and Motorics (which I associate with the nervous system). It’s worth paying attention to what skills get associated with which political alignments, like Communism with Intellect, or Moralintern with Psyche (even though it might have seemed IT would have been tied to Intellect).
To me this suggests that the game is trying to make a connection between political expression and personal, primal desires. Maybe considering politics in this game under that light might make this topic more discussion worthy in your videos?
Sorry if people are being pushy about political discussion in this playthrough. I personally enjoy your perspective on this game as it is.
Harry definitely uses any of the political leanings as a smokescreen for his own failures. All they offer for him is excuses and never an actual mode forward.
the game is definitely doing some retrospective but it is very much about politics (hence why the Sunday friend is so boring, hes a centrist, engaging with him wastes everyones time and nothing gets done). They are definitly trying to illuminate how those political feelings form. Fascism coming from the gut is supposed to be broader commentary about how people fall into it with Harry being a bit of a stand in for everyone
The game definitely has a marxist tint to it since the framing of the power dynamics is pretty much portrayed through dialectical materialism, but it definitely plays around with the archetypal assessments.
The Sunday Friend activating your real life Half Light stat (and your anecdote about beaurocrats with your visa) is proof that you understand everything you need to understand about Moralists in Disco Elysium!
Also, there's something of note about your rant about the game's politics after exiting that apartment. Earlier, in the debrief at the end of Day 1 with Kim, he mentions that he used to be a Moralist, but now considers himself apolitical - believing only in facts. Despite this, nothing about his behavior or effect on the world has changed. He still enforces the status quo and refuses to engage with anyone on potential change for the future - he is still a Moralist in all but name, and he will keep being a Moralist for as long as the RCM acts according to Moralist direction. The developers of the game are taking a stance and arguing that not caring or not engaging is being pro status quo - being a Moralist. This is why every single "Option D" response is actually a Moralist option - it's a reactive clamp-down that opposes radical change.
There is also something very, VERY interesting (in terms of psychology) to be said about specifically why the politics of the game are presented so deliberately cartoonish, but that is a conversation that I think is best left for far later, so that it can be discussed wholesale.
THE WORLD’S MOST LAUGHABLE CENTRIST
I can't say I'm 100% sure, cos Sinday friend always talks in circles.
But I interpreted him being a sex tourist who took a liking to the smoker and is helping him pay for his studies in exchange of sleeping with him.
I do not like him, lol
100%
The nicest possible interpretation I can think of is that he's the smoker's sugar daddy. Sex tourist would be a worse version of that. It's a very lopsided relationship either way.
Bingo!
I honestly can't imagine any other way to interpret it.
This is exactly it. The Sunday Friend is hilarious and frustrating, but undearneath the absurdity he's quite sinister. It's all part of the political commentary, too.
The Embodiment of Political Fence SItting BEHOLD
A centrist like the Sunday Friend is not a fence sitter
@@bluish1318 or perhaps it's best to say he's sitting on the fence so hard that he's crushing it into the dirt
In its role as a loadbearing structure the fencepost has already replaced the spine.
He IS the fence
Welcome to moralism brother, I knew you would find us eventually. As you know, we will see incredible improvements of all kinds, some of them even in our lifetimes! I know it doesn’t seem like much today, but with a lot of hard work on various committees and some good old fashioned paperwork we will save this poor city.
22:00
Great insight saying it's STATUS QUO.
And it's an ideology of it's own, the moralintern (or neo-liberal) ideology. And now days it's taken as normal, it's the status quo. When he says "Don't you like democracy?" Already implying he is representing it and Revachol can't achieve it on it's own, that's him implying his position as the *standard*. The same happens when he said the inflation (of Revachol) is a international concern and requires international overview, when what he is really deffending is that the economy (which as he said impacts on everything else) of Revachol must be controlled by other countries, by the moralintern, by the international financial elite. He work at this world's International Monetary Fund.
I already saw many ppl play this game, most of them from the US, and as a Brazilian this hits completely different. Anyone from Africa, south America and east Europe lives in this Revachol state of things.
And when you choose option D, none of the above, you are holding on to the status quo as your point of view (ideology).
I'm not criticising you for it. It's just an observation about how these things work, you can't scape having an ideology because that's in the infrastructure of things.
I think it's incredible that this game explored this and demonstrated it like that. At 25:52 you said you feel manipulated. Yes, by the game narrative. AMAZING.
jsyk: the sunday friend *has* a psychology angle. the psychology of power, manipulation - the balance of holding power over others through various means, including information.
Two notes, one is psychological, and one is part psychological, part political.
Psychological: It's never said in game, but there's a common fan theory that Smoker on the Balcony is an escort, and Sunday Friend is a client. He probably doesn't want to talk to you at all. Smoker may have pushed him into it. Sunday Friend presumably has a family back home, and he doesn't want them to know he's spending his nights in the company of a much younger, vulnerable man. If you contact him to ask him more questions once he's gone back home, that could raise a bunch of questions. So, he deliberately made talking to him as infuriating as possible, to make talking to him again seem pointless.
Both: the political ideologies in this game aren't made up. They only changed some of the names. Ultraliberalism is Neoliberalism, and Moralism is Centrism. The other two have their actual names. But if you watch closely, you'll see that the most extreme version of each ideology comes from Harry himself. This is a deliberate choice from the writers. Without spoiling anything, there are a few times you can hear about the person you were before amnesia, and it seems that pre-blackout Harry was the type of person who dives headfirst into ideologies and wears them like armor.
Harry's political leanings are meant to do 2 things simultaneously:
1. Poke fun at each ideology by making Harry parrot the most extreme, uncompromising form of whichever one he believes in, and
2. Show you that Harry is using ideology to cover up a deep, DEEP wound.
I'm like 60% sure ultraliberalism is a form of libertarianism, or at least the ultraliberalism that harry can practice is libertarian.
@@loveroffunnyy The problem with calling it libertarianism is that Libertarian can mean wildly different things depending on where you are in the world. In the US, when someone describes themselves as a libertarian, it can mean anything from "I'm socially liberal and fiscally conservative" to "I'm a Republican but I don't want to admit it" to "I believe in absolutely free markets, which includes the ability to buy people".
@@loveroffunnyy Libertarianism is just hip neoliberalism though.
@@Frostbite08 nobody who self-describes as socially liberal and fiscally conservative is actually socially liberal and fiscally conservative.
Huh, I didn't realise it was just a theory that the Smoker is a sex worker, I found it borderline explicit.
Sunday Friend is infuriating and Pain Threshold, if high enough, chiming in mid-conversation to say how much it hates the guy is just *chef's kiss*
What's interesting about him is that, like other Moralists in the game, he is deliberately vague and evasive, but only up until the point when he feels threatened, then he's immediately ready to jump into drastic action.
It sounds like you feel targeted by this guy, but honestly, Sunday Friend is a perfect troll character to people who are into politics as well. Sure, he turns every topic into something vaguely political... but "vaguely" is the operative word there. Even Kim, who actively resists talking about his political views, still has a more defined political ideology than Sunday Friend (incidentally, they're both Moralists).
So if people were looking forward to you meeting him, I don't think it's because you avoid politics. I think it's just because he's the most frustrating character in the game.
Yea lol, everyone hates him
Yup, he's just as, if not more, frustrating to people who are into politics. Nobody likes talking to this guy but if you get what he represents, it's hilarious.
i ADORE the way you play this game and how you communicate with characters and with the world, you vision is unique… best “let’s play” ever. i hope you will complete DE to the end and will express your opinion about my favourite character. Also, SMOKER. i am so glad you finally meet. (and I want to add, that your video helped me with my therapy, so I am very thankful 💜)
I have NEVER watched a long-play or playthrough of any gamy by anyone. But this series is the prefect confluence of my favorite game with a fascinating point of view. Thank you so much for this series so far!
Ohhhhh I can’t wait to watch you tear your hair out in this one. No matter your politics or lack there of, EVERYONE hates this guy lmaoo
Don't worry about it Brady, this man breaks *EVERYONE*
It's really easy to dismiss The Sunday Friend out of hand. The guy is on some real bureaucratic rhetorical jiujutsu and intentionally impenetrable.
He is a lot more important that people tend to give him credit, though!!
The Sunday Friend presents a representative of the Moralintern that doesn't need you like Joyce does.
As for what they believe--that's exactly it! They're just about keeping things the way they are, with the people in power continuing to hold that power.
The setting itself is so much of a character, though, that having characters like The Sunday Friend to establish the status quo political expectation does a lot to explain why the characters are the way they are. Disillusionment, frustration, and roiling contentions of those who don't benefit are starting to froth up and the case itself is handling the consequences of when those frustrations are whipped into frenzy.
He also does provide some interesting evidence for the case, though I feel most players usually have figured out a lot of what's nudged at here by the time they finally have this interaction.
Either that or they're too frustrated with this guy to really scrutinize how his testimony doesn't align with the stories you've been fed up to this point.
A lot of people come to that conclusion--"What a waste of time!"--despite his description of the lynching is the only eye-witness account that we can take as sincere and fully factual.
It's a clever bit of writing, I think, to present useful information with such an annoying nothing-man of a character, seeding info that can come up later and have players go 'aaaaaah'.
I think there is an interest psychological aspect to the Sunday friend. As I interpret it, it's not just that he's a bureaucrat. He appears in an intensely personal and possibly compromising situation. Either he feels obliged to talk to the police, or he doesn't have another option. So he's intellectualising and being avoidant -- he's retreating into his professional persona, and doing his best to deflect every question that gets uncomfortably personal.
The whole conversation was hilarious lol
The way Harry thinks about politics is actually quite important to understanding Harry's mind and psychology I'd say. Harry's idea of each of the political ideologies are extreme and twisted parodies of what is actually happening in the world around him, and there IS a psychological reason for why he thinks of them in these ways, but I'd get into spoilers if I were to just tell you.
TL;DR: Harry is a political extremist no matter what you do and his past is the reason why. The reality of the politics is for you to read between the lines.
I love your videos. They're so entertaining and insightful at the same time.
Also, this character is SO frustrating, lol. I got so mand talking to him that I chose an aggressive dialogue option and, for the first time ever, the guy reacted and told me: "Get out of this room!". I couldn't speak to him again. Not that I wanted to XD
Oh, by the way, only the clothes give you bonuses to your skills. I clarify this so you don't explore your whole inventory looking for bonuses. The one exception is the ledger, that you can hold in your hand for some bonuses and a penalty.
Heeyyy! You found your twin, I'm so happy for you ^^
But on the serious note, I was the most laughable centrist in my first walkthrough too. It's completely sensible and reasonable to just not choose the extreme answers you don't align to
I'll take the bullet - I think both takes ("everything is political" and "everything is psychology") are correct.
And about the Sunday Friend - gawd I forgot about this character completely. I wonder why he didn't stick in my memories - he talked about so much interesting stuff. xD
Don't listen to the bashing. Yes, DE is political, because it shows what it thinks of the parts of it strongly and in your face. But it doesn't mean that's the only angle of approach. Or even the main one. The whole game is built on a plethora of various important and fulfilling segments. You don't have to put one above the rest just because of the superfans that had to stew for an extremely long time.
Overall, don't be shaken by the politics people. If it's something you don't want to go too deeply - don't. You're your own man, and it's you playing the game. The people don't have to control you.
The funniest episode yet lmao
it is sometimes said of villain characters that they're someone you "love to hate". sure, they do bad stuff, but it's fiction and they're so charismatic that it's a joy to see them on the screen. the Sunday Friend goes one step beyond, he's someone you love to hate to hate. every second spent with him is pure agony, but he (very indirectly) says something about the world of the game and adds to its vast canvas.
also seeing others suffer through this encounter is wonderful :P
15:50 no thats what his sunday friend is for
I actually think the "how did you meet" thing is the only thing he gives a straight answer to. he caused whatever cataclysm made the sunday friend a refugee (just my imo)
You were absolutely right when you said the game is aware this character is frustrating, i felt the exact same way on my first playthrough. The dude wont give you a straight answer if his life depended on it.
He is a centrist, he would only give you a straight answer if his life depended on it!
Wake up Sunday friends, Brady posted
This is my favourite series on youtube, it recalls the glory days of SBFP but woth added psychology facts
YEEEESSS, thank you Brady for lighting up our days
This is a really interesting series of videos!
I somehow only just noticed that the Sunday Friend simultaneously claims to have not seen or heard things because of the sea and the dark yet tells Harry exactly how many people were at the site, their skin colour, and even their nationalities from the accents. He sees all but is blind to everything. Just the worst person.
Missed opportunities to see how Kim reacts to being asked about his politics ;)
Brandy got really hard countered in this episode
It is so frustrating that you're saying you feel you don't have enough information about the politics while also rejecting to even pick up the thought cabinet options that would explain them.
He is
SO HORRIBLE
Almost every other character
has something to like about them or at the very least, feel compassion towards. measurehead still makes me sad, even tho he is an awful person
But sunday friend - I quick clique through him at this point, he makes me so mad 😭😭😭
But also thats why he is there, to infuriate you as a player and i guess he delivers 😠
It is funny and i hate him and i love how engaging DE is, that this is a story not afraid to push you as a player to different emotional states, even to FRUSTRATE YOU IN THE MOST ANNOYING WAY POSSIBLE
---
Every time i read through kim giggling to himself about harrys confusion over the smoker i take my time to laugh for him 😂 Harry is delightfully innocent sometimes
The awareness is just not there and he is THE MOST PERCEPTIVE PERSON ON THE BLOCK MOST LIKELY😂😂
P. S:your playthrough is my favorite at this point!! Thank you sm for keeping up with playing disco!! Every episode is awesome 💖💖💖💖
Thanks for the vids, Brady!
Enjoyed the watch, thank you!
Really enjoying this series, such a unique way to do a playthrough, incredibly insightful.
I'm still 10 parts behind, but I absolutely love your playthrough! Thank you :3
The drummer angle relates to the worn out sole that was deduced from one of the sets of footprints at the scene. Kim wondered if it belonged to a drummer. At this point in the game, that's been overtaken by the theory that it belongs to the lady driver.
This was a hell of an episode!
Love the vids Brady!
I felt EXACTLY the same about the sunday friend
18:45 THE LEAFLETS ARE YOUR RAISON D'ÊTRE, SUNDAY FRIEND! OOOH THE LEAFLETS.
IF ONLY YOU HAD THE LEAFLETS I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO SEND MY CHILD TO THE MINES TO AFFORD BUTTER! BUTTER! WE COULD ALL HAVE HAD BUTTER, SUNDAY FRIEND! IMAGINE IT!
BUT NOOOOOO, YOU FORGOT THE LEAFLETS!
The most important thing about politics in this game is, that you don't get to see what the politics really are. Instead you see what Raphaël views each political side as, which says way more about the man himself than about the world (also, what kind of worldview embraces the person who aligns with each ideology). So, just as much as "everything is political", you can also find a bit of everything in politics, like psychology.
Euro Brady, This video is fantastic! I liked it a lot!
Lol everyone hates the Sunday friend. For such a generally unliked character he has so much dialog. Also he is written very well. Centrism personified.
This was such a fun episode! I loved your insight into harry and the "POLITIC BOSS" if you will haha.
I think this encounter worked as intended.
Brady, I hope this doesn't come off too combative, because I do understand your point. I just think your reasoning is flawed. You've stated a few times now that you think saying "everything is political" is just like saying "everything is psychological." This sounds like a reasonable idea that should be trivially correct. It isn't. Consider this...
Let's say the CEO of Exxon is having a moral crisis over the environment. There's a psychological dimension: he cares for his kids, and their kids. He stays awake at night worrying about the environment. He cherishes the sanctity of life, down to every little starling. He writes a generous check to the Sierra Club every month. Means every word he says for the cameras. Decarbonization is the first thing on his mind. Let's say he's truly mastered himself. He loves all and all love him. He has a healthy work-life balance. A paragon of discipline and virtue - practically Mahatma Gandhi.
Then, on the other hand, in some other reality, the same CEO is a malevolent sadist, who wants to make the planet uninhabitable to organized human life, laughing maniacally like some disney villain. A rotten, broken human being, taking it out on everyone around him.
Well, here's the problem. They are both functionally the exact same person. If the former acts on his biases, he abandons his fiduciary duty, the board fires him, and he's immediately out in the parking lot packing his knickknacks into his trunk. He can invent whatever justifications he wants, but his institutional obligations are clear, and he will carry them out. Or someone else will.
Now you can talk about a house, without discussing the climate or the vista. There's nothing wrong with that. They just aren't interchangeable. Psychology is subordinate to politics in ways that politics is not subordinate to psychology. You can depersonalize and de-psychologize the political and almost nothing will be lost. You can't extricate human affairs, the products of the superstructure, from power systems at the base that birthed them, any more than you can crawl out of your own skin. Ideology is not just a field to specialize in, as valid as any other. It's the sea that you swim.
brady's so introspective and discerning. if therapists are really like this i might actually consider therapy
This was hilarious, Sunday Friend is the best trolling the game does
Brady, a thing to remember about this game is that the politics of this game are based in the Estonian lived experience, and that slots harm reduction into the 'centrist' bin even if you personally aren't because of how it fits with the developers' conception that such an approach is an attempt to makes things better within the world but never making the world better. I would disagree that it's centrism too.
I'm proud of you brady! You did it! It's also funny cause your frustration is so incredibly justified here, it's the point. But i don't think i've ever seen a playthrough that's built up the political frustration to this degree and it makes it so incredibly hilarious
The Irony in everything you said while pacing around on the balcony is what was 100% expected but no less delicious. :D
I feel like at least part of us was excited to see your chat with Sunday Friend, because in a way, your interaction with him is how we felt when you refused to engage with one of the main parts of the game😂
Don't worry too much about picking whichever answers when it comes to political questions - this game isn't about being an actualized human being with nuanced opinions, it's about being Harry! (The hole in his life he's trying to patch up with politics is another topic worthy of analysis, but I understand if it's not something you'd choose to explore.) Really enjoying this playthrough!
Remember to use skill points to open up thought slots for the thought cabinet, or invest in relevant skills that you feel Harry is learning through his experiences! I think that would enhance his development, and let you experience more dialogue options throughout the game. Do what you think is right tho!
I find hilarious how literally every single person that plays this game would rather talk to the literal CEO of Racism than the Sunday Friend.
sunday friend is the most evil character in this game
I’ve commented this before, but
The reason why all the politics answers in this game are so insane and radical, is because Harry cannot do anything by halves. He’s addictive with everything, politics included. Like you said, he’s not a blank slate, and he desperately looks to things to engage with everywhere, throws himself into every mystery and if you, as the player, engage with any politics, he’ll choose the most extreme aspect of that policy. It makes for great moments in the game (I can really recommend the communist and ultra liberal path). Of course centrism will seem normal and reasonable in comparison, but even here, If you choose centrism, harry will be the most extreme centrist. But because being a centrist is "boring" you’ll have the boring answers.
I really do feel like, despite how frustrating trying to talk with the Sunday Friend is, there's a good opportunity to think about what that character is trying to accomplish there. He *is* capable of giving fairly straightforward answers, but when it comes to anything about him or politics, he chooses not to, and I think that is informative about that character and possibly about that character's psychology. Is he afraid of something? Trying to manipulate Harry?
I feel that economically, there is no left in the US. This not true for other topics like social justice, but purely economically, democrats are centrist at best, possibly even a bit to the right, at least from perspective of central Europe.
This character isn't an embodiment of politics. He's an embodiment of post-politics - overly complicated and meaningless bureaucratic jargon, constant truisms about wanting everything to be in order, but without any actual ideology behind it other than supporting the status quo. He's supposed to be annoying, because he represents the part of the political that is the most frustrating to common folk; the out of touch administrative elites and systems that are deliberately made difficult for most of us to understand. I think he represents exactly the side of "politics" that you don't want to engage with.
"Only one of them is extreme in the real world" - brother, I can name like... Seven. Off the top of my head.
The first time I played DE I was so lost when it came to the politics of the world. During the second playthrough I started to be a bit more invested in it. The third playthorugh I was more confident in what my version of Harry would align himself with, but the game is intentionally very divisive, and that's what is so brilliant about it. The political quests are very interesting too, particularly the Moralintern one, from a narrative point of view.
Love your playthrough, and your thoughts regarding the world and the characters are very insightful. Can't wait to see more from you!
lmfao the best part is you didn't see the worst of him
that EPIS dialogue tree can go on for like 20 messages of him saying absolutely nothing and Harry getting increasingly more frustrated regardless of however you shaped him thus far
Also, yes, Sunday Friend is a representative of the moralists, which are meant to be representative of the centrist liberals and neo-conservatives of real life. Not bigoted or fascist necessarily like measurehead, not out of morality, but only because that necessarily suggests some sort of change in the world. Believing the only reason for a political system to exist is simply to continue existing and not necessarily *do* anything in that goal. Since they have no real goals for the world, the spokesperson for their ideology is 100% rhetoric and 0% beliefs or goals. "We make the numbers we made up go up, here are pamphlets about how the numbers are going up and that's good because we said so."
Currently, your refusal to make Harry a fascist, communist, or "ultra-liberal" (liberal capitalist) because those dialogue options are usually spicy and over the top due to the hyper-reality of disco elysium has given you the most laughable centrist achievement and made Harry into a moralist. Congrats! Being non-political *is* a political ideology and message both in Disco Elysium and real life
Also, most of us are just poking fun at you being non-political as I hope you know. Although this game does constantly want you to recognize that these seemingly bureaucratic ideas that are often presented as separate from regular life as being "just politics" has a very, very clear effect on everyone and cannot be separated, including from psychology.
This game is extremely interested in the macrosystem of the people of Revachol, to put in psychological terms you've expressed. Everything in everyone's life is worsened by the history, the economy, the oversight of moralintern and "ultra liberals", and the results of those things. Rampant drug abuse, completely fallen infrastructure, no healthy sense of community possible outside of grassroot clubs and gangs, little education, little healthcare (physical or mental), and dozens of other intersecting problems of the past and present resulting in kids like Cuno, in adults like measurehead, and in power structures like what Evrart Claire offers being somehow the best there is to offer despite how openly awful he is.
And here the moralintern promises that everything not only will be okay, but *is* okay, that Revachol is just difficult. Numbers are going up!! the EPIS is working! Don't ask what any of it actually means though.
(also he's gay with someone he doesn't care about who's interests he doesn't know about and seems to hide that fact which is just an extra layer of interest to a person trying to be as uninteresting as possible)
I really enjoy this playthrough!! I especially love seeing people get to him and snapping. Excited for more!
Brady social ecologist anarchist arc let's gooooo
'Can I use the crowbar?' pfffffthahahaha
This is one of those moments where an interest in politics allows you to appreciate the writing a little more. The Sunday Friend is a satire of centrist neoliberal politicans (the status quo these days). His evasiveness and obliqueness paired with wishy washy talk of transparency and cooperation are frustrating on purpose, but also hilarious if you understand what kind of politics he represents.
And then there's the clear implication that he's the Smoker's sugar daddy and doesn't actually care about him as a person at all. The Sunday Friend comes from one of the rich states that ruined Revachol and are indifferent towards countries like Kedra (where the Smoker immigrated from), but has no qualms about exploiting their inhabitants' economical situation for his own sexual gratification. This is all part of the political commentary and adds a perverse, sinister undertone to the farce.
The true antagonist!
This guy just kills my brain i feel short circuited
Calling calling calling still calling (I hope)
The thing you have to understand about people like the Sunday Friend is that these guys are gatekeepers. It's part of their job to keep you turned off from politics.
I found it a little hard to engage with the political prompts from Harry early on as well, but I think the shift of power from monarchy to revolution to moralism is important to the history of Revachol, which in turn shapes the psychology of its citizens. I have a few characters in mind...
10:27 Vibe check:
Ironic how Kim said about Joyce that she will be super open without saying anything, but this Guy is the true endboss of being open without saying anything.
It took me a long time to realize what a "Sunday friend" is.