It’s the same backstory, but the butterfly effect of answering situations in slightly different ways can snowball down into a very different, but equally radical take on the world. Or potentially becoming the ultraliberal. When taken down a different path, the same background, but with a different response to it can result in your guy having the communist outlook on the world. The political ideology is his answer for how he would like to correct the balance for the unhappiness he feels at a world that he has deep grievances with. It’s that the gaping wounds of the past and the impotent rage of the state of the world now has combined, and caused him to flee into this angry outlook as a defense mechanism. It’s not that your dude woke up and just decided that all Asians needed to be thrown into trash compactors. However, the game also goes to great pains to also contextualise it. This game doesn’t both sides things, and fascists are still the nastiest, most virulent and borderline psychotic racists and reactionaries. If you choose to play your character as a fascist, then he’s going to be a grotesque person. Disco Elysium, meanwhile, does things differently.
Because they’re such an extreme that they’re caricatures of evil in real life, any video game that does feature fascists all-but gives them Hitler moustaches and exclusively treats them as headshot fodder. Game developers have had difficulty depicting fascists and dealing with fascism as a subject. Rational people would not disagree with the statement that they are irredeemable and not worth talking to at all. You may not necessarily agree with them, but they’re not inherently terrible people and their positions are usually justifiable debating positions. You can have Christmas dinner with your traditional conservative relatives. You can deal with the libertarians in the office. It’s the most intriguing because rational people agree with the notion that fascism is a horrible ideology and fascists sit on the irredeemable end of the right-wing spectrum. More importantly, that “blank slate” approach allows you to write the character your way while, at the same time, explaining his backstory as things start to be made clear. That is an RPG trope and could have come across as the most egregious of contrivances, but the developer gets away with it thanks to narrative verve. He’s a cop that managed to drink himself so silly that he’s woken up with nearly complete amnesia. At the start of the game, the protagonist that you take control of is presented as both broken, and very much a blank slate. What I love about the game is that it resists sliding into stupid caricatures, and as a consequence, it acts as a serious conversation about different ideological positions and perspectives.
Otherwise, we’re going to lose games entirely to the interests of the suits and shareholders. It’s sad that “this game takes an ideological position” is somehow brave and noteworthy in what is meant to be an art form, but that’s how video games are, and we need to celebrate efforts like Disco Elysium that challenge the medium and its players like this. This is a deeply political game that refuses to let you sit on the fence and, while you can end up adopting one of four political ideologies (communism, fascism, moralism and ultraliberalism) based on the dialogue and action decisions that you make, it’s pretty clear where the developer’s own thoughts on the various positions lie. What I appreciate about Disco Elysium is that it actually backs itself.
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