When Ideas Die: An Ex-Cop Talks Disco Elysium

(No story/case spoilers) - When people die, they live on in our memories. What happens when an idea dies, and why is the game called Disco Elysium anyway? Let's discuss!

#DiscoElysium #Death #Mourning #Grief

Music:
Whirling in Rags 12pm
Red Rock Riviera, both by British Sea Power (but streeeetched by me)

Background Music:
Mazov's Waltz by me

Most game footage recorded by me,
borrowed a couple short clips from Silcanit, Kripposoft, and Squid Child Productions.

I *believe* all the stills/wallpapers I used are official game art but if I used your image without attribution, let me know.

[mattahlschwede]

Great video, just one minor correction. The main character in Disco Elysium is named Raphael Ambrosius Cousteau.

[TalkingVidya]

"All the real communist are dead, they died fighting *for* communism"
As a pretty outspoken lefty, that line always hits me like a ton of bricks to the face

[formerclarity]

The last two leftists sitting in the rubble, arguing bs points of theory at each other for eternity doesn't even read as satire, unfortunately.

[MrElbowsmash]

Excuse me, his name is Tequila Sunset.

[BlindErephon]

Aw fuck yeah, Disco Elysium. Honestly one of the only games out there with ACTUAL writing and not a massive lore bible or "Good for a video game" writing.

[beansfebreeze]

The game struck a serious chord with me when it came out. Struggles with alcohol, difficulty with personal connections, terrified and upset at the complexities of what often feels like a stagnant society, and totally up my own ass. Experiencing the game, Harry's journey, in such a literal way felt . . . overwhelming. Not proud in saying I was in a similar position to him at the start. I wanted to be anyone but me. I wanted the idea of me to die. But I'm also not ashamed to say we can all make it out like he can. I picked the game back up after making major life changes and it really did feel like we both didn't *die* but that we had the opportunity to embrace our own history, re-contextualize it, and build off it.

Tl;rd game good make brain good

[ZwiekszoneRyzyko]

The Disco Elysium world is like a Civilization game session. All things are there, civilizations have developed, all is painted with the same brushes but different strokes were used.

[silentisland]

Well this is an ENTIRELY different game than I ended up with. My playthrough was more about coming to terms with who Harry will become after making such a mess of his life. Who he wanted to be and how he wanted to better himself and the world around him. I never even got a name for the "ex-something"

[steveharrison]

This will sound overdramatic but it’s true: this game helped save my life.

(Also, the title is a slight pun: “Disco” also means “learning” in Latin. It’s a clever title. Harry can learn of the existence of something greater than his own life.)

[Starkweather]

The line "I don't want to be this monster anymore" killed me

[CarthageLives]

Absolutely banger of a video. I openly ugly cried when my first playthrough ended. Kim’s friendship/respect/compassion felt like undeserved absolution, felt like Harry was reborn and could finally make different choices for his life (was very hard to not write that sentence in the first person lol)

[Sheepyhead]

The fact that Elysium is also an actual concrete thing in the game's world (albeit one that's hard to find info about) is also wild. That whole infodump is so nuts and most people won't find it

[econenby]

THIS is what you were editing while I messaged you? Now I have to watch this, Disco Elysium + That Dang Dad's an instant success.

[ShadaOfAllThings]

I'm just assuming that most of this can parallel to cop shit easily. After all, a lot of people are having their idea of the police die, and they don't want to give up the ghost.

[VioletSadi]

It isn't quite the same as the politics, more the Dolores/ Dora of Disco Elysium, but grief in a family can leave you all trapped in mirrored, but different, deaths of ideas. There's a gap in the canopy we reach towards, and that's changed the path of growth for each family member. The absence changes the other trees, for better and worse and different, and you'll never know what would have happened in other circumstances.

[dr.zoidberg]

This video, like very few others, gave me the feeling that humanity... or at least human civilization may have well & truly already missed our chance.

Ik your conclusion is very different than that, but in context of the world at large, it's difficult not to feel that mistakes made before most of us were born have set us on a carnival ride that cannot be exited & cannot be redirected until it is over.

[engliships]

A cop doing a jacob geller impression. Nice.

[catika]

I've not seen a better breakdown of the themes of this game. Couldn't have articulated it half as well myself.

I finished this game recently. I pursued the communist vision quest. I also recently attempted to join a leftist discord server, but was turned down on my application because I my answers to the entry questions were apparently not theoretical enough, and I couldn't help but find that hilariously poignant.

[dark-hoodiedexilesorcerer]

The ending of this video hit me a lot harder than I was expecting. I haven't been into video games in over a decade, so I never played Disco Elysium. But while I wouldn't say I have any trauma in the clinical sense, I am still grieving a communal project I participated in and poured my heart into back in the late 00s, one which was ultimately destroyed by the very people who claimed to be saving the institution that project was associated with.

So the question of whether you'll get stuck in the past and trying to relive the good old days, or take what you've learned and use it to move forward deeply resonated with me. (It also got to me because I've been making sustained efforts to move forward in life for many years, and unfortunately, all my attempts have so far come to naught, and I'm not seeing any reason to expect better results from anything I could feasibly do for the foreseeable future.)

[SamuraiMujuru]

That final clip. One of my favorite moments in Disco Elysium so far.