#pathologic spoilers

[cakedpie-pathologic]

the Changeling's route is wild

#pathologic #pathologic classic hd #pathologic spoilers #мор утопия #pathologic memes #the changeling #clara the changeling #clara pathologic #clara saburova #pathologic clara

[gayquack]

many thoughts about these classic hd dankovsky quotes (classic hd spoilers if u care)

i have a lot of thoughts on the intro scene in general, (especially regarding the recontextualization that happens each time you finish a route) but dankovsky not worrying about if a person is “real” because theyre sick and struggling and thats more important vs him having to confront his own existence as a doll (and the fact that everyone else is either a doll or just imaginary) despite having felt so intrinsically human and working so hard to save everyone he could makes me feel. a Lot. classic hd danko i love you so much please come back to us

#pathologic #pathologic classic hd #pathologic spoilers #daniil dankovsky #idk if i should tag clara and artemy but theyre here too so #also everything artemy says to him in the second conversation makes me want to rip my skin off they are so in love #mine

[glitteringpoet1685]

Getting new Bachelor route information:

Remembering what's going to happen in the Bachelor route:

#i was so excited i forgot about the horrors #pathologic #“it wasn't the plague that killed eva” :( #pathologic 2 #daniil dankovsky #bachelor route #pathologic spoilers

[erriga]

Pathologic and Edward Gordon Craig

In this episode, one very tired theatrology student will try to explain how Craig's ideas about actors and theatre in general might have factored into the way theatre is used in pathologic, especially when it comes to minor changes made between patho classic and 2. We'll talk about puppets vs actors, the role of directors and how it all relates to death. Yay!

SPOILERS FOR BOTH GAMES AHEAD

THEATRE IN PATHOLOGIC

So, anyone who's seen Codex Entry's video essays might be aware that Pathologic very visibly uses and plays with various theatrical ideas and concepts, especially when it comes to XXth century avantgarde movements. So far, Ruby has discussed the influences of Artaud (my boi), Brecht and Beckett, but today we're going to take a little step back and focus on one thinker who might have just been on of the most important theatre theorists ever and whose ideas definitely influenced all those that came after him. We're talking about our favorite theatre malcontent- Edward Gordon Craig

Soo, Craig was a theatre theoretician, actor, director, and founder of the magazine "The mask" back in the 1910s. In it, Craig would talk about his thoughts on theatre, which were largely counter-cultural, at least in comparison to the standard established back in the mid XIXth century. His works are often cited as fundamental to the Great Reform movement, which included among others, Stanislavsky, Reinhardt, and Appia. Their works paved the way towards avant garde theatre and a completely new understanding to it.

Now, why is Craig so important? Basically, he complained a lot and had very cool, albeit sometimes impossible ideas which were later inspired other in creative ways. His main ideas were:

Theatre is not a synthesis of other arts but rather something autonomical, unlike SOME OTHER PEOPLE THOUGHT (im loking at you wagner)

The director>>>>>>>> some dumb smelly actors

The actor shall one day be replaced by the Uber marrionette (tm)

Today we'll focus on those last two, since they are interconnected and most relevant in Pathologic.

The second point is pretty self-explanatory. Craig proposed that the director and their vision is the most important part of any given theatre show. The director should have a holistic vision, knowledge about all the arts participating in theatre and abilities to make their ideas reality. Before that, directors were more like the caretakers of shows, while the main focus was on the star actors. And this way of thinking leads us directly toooo:

THE UBER MARRIONETTE

(project by Oscar Schlemmer)

So, what is the uber marrionette? Basically it's a slightly esoteric idea that somewhere between puppets and living actors exists a form which would be perfectly responsive to the director's artistic vision. Human actors were ego-driven, restricted by their bodies and minds which generally not malleable enough to be a good material, even going so far as to suggest that acting is not an artform at all, since it is driven by chance and not specific intentions.

In contrast to that, Craig explained the nature of puppets- perfectly controlled, humble, objects of worship. And also symbols of death. Which he thought of as perfection. So, in some way, a perfect actor is a ...dead actor. Or, not literally dead, but posseing the perfect stasis of death, one usually assosciated with inanimate objects.

OK, WTF?

As I mentioned those ideas are very cool theories but are rather hard to actualize in the real world, especially since Craig was sometimes vague about what he ACTUALLY wanted to see. He would complain about people misinterpreting his works and declaring that he wants to replace actors with literal machines, while also never specifying what he actually meant. So different artists tried to bring his ideas to life, mostly by "mechanising" living actors, or using some blend of life and artificiality. In practice it was mostly shit like putting actors in giant metal pots and making them communicate in mono syllables to restrict their natural expressions od self as much as possible

OK, BUT HOW DOES THAT RELATE TO PATHOLOGIC?

So my theory is, that by portraying the player character(s) as puppets in classic, and as actors and tying all of this to the idea of death, the makers of PAthologic are playing (pun intended) with the concept of the uber marionnette and maybe even proposing a solution to this impossible problem.

Let's start with classic, because it's pretty straight forward. The characters are dolls/puppets (I'll be using those words interchangibly because fundamentally they serve the same purpose). The theatre itself is specifically said to host puppet shows (which is in itself a nod to the long standing tradition of folk puppetry in Russia and other eastern european countries)

Which in hindsight, are a direct reference to the fact that the very story you are playing is nothing more than a game/puppet performance hosted by in-world The Powers That Be and at the very top by the makers of Pathologic. In that way it is a very straight forward (but ultimately incorrect) use of the uber marionette- the player character is a humble vessel through which an idea is manifested. It's a puppet made out of polygons and lines of code instead of wood or felt. Your role as a player in this performance is two fold- you are both the puppeteer (the one who moves the dolls) and the spectator (because you are being told the story, not the other way around). What you are not is the Director- that role, personified by Mark Immortel and later by the Executor and Tragedian is out of reach for you. So, as you can see it's definitely using puppets, but not necessarily uber marrionetes.

AND THEN WE HAVE PATHO 2

So, the theatre inspirations in Patho 2 are a lot less...subtle than in classic, one of them being literally namedropping my boi Artaud's concept of the Theatre of Cruelty.

But what I want to focus on in this case is the seeming dissapearence of the puppet metaphor from the first game. You are no longer compared to a puppeteer moving a vessel, but to an actor inhabiting a role. A role which is in a way highly restrictive, since there are only four endings, and only two choices that actually impact what happens in the end (what you do with the documents, and whether you take the fellow travellers deal or not) You are faced with the idea that you are replacable, so your personal ego is not valuable to the director in universe and the game creators out of the universe. And finally, to make it even more interesting, you are in-universe faces with the neverending cycle of life and death, through the system of deaths having consequences/being part of the game's continuous timeline instead of just out of universe reloading. I think you might already see where i am going with this.

I THINK THAT THOSE TRAITS MAKE ARTEMY'S PORTRAYAL SIMILAR TO THE CONCEPT OF THE UBER MARRIONETTE

So not the concept itself, but something that heavily resembles the ideal version of what it could have been. Now, does it theory make perfect sense? No, but I thought it was a cool though experiment to do nontheless. The idea of an uber marionnette is onfusing theatrologists to this day, and many people have claimed to having founf a way to realize it, but since Craig himself was unclear about it, we will never know how relevan those tries were. But I still think that the topic of video games and theatre concepts is a fascinating one (that will probably be the topic of my bachelor's thesis lol), and pathologic is a perfect examples of those two ideas working together. If you have any other ideas about it, please let me know, and if you're interested i can make more posts about the theatrological angle of patho!!

#pathologic #pathologic classic hd #pathologic 2 #pathologic meta #pathologic spoilers

[glupikrol]

Pathologic fest day 5: Big one and small one

#pathologic #pathologic_fest #pathologic fest #my art #pathologic fanart #pathologic spoilers #мор утопия #tumblr ruined the quality do badly😭😭😭

[ladyarrowhead]

The poetics of the Vlad the Younger vs Vlad the Older in so far the Haruspex and Bachelor Route are just keeping me up, and Vlad the Younger being a possible adherent, supposedly only removed for the sake of not accidentally auto-game-over as the Bachelor just adds to how interesting this choice is to me. Lots of musings below this, I do not know where I am going with this

Additionally, "Panacea Blackmarket" ALSO takes place on this day in which Vlad the Younger is linked to it, something that Daniil first detests ("The man won't let a single penny past his purse! It occurs to me that he is no better than Bad Grief), with a hint of Dankovsky-typical "wait maybe the worms framed Vlad for this, let me check"). The Bachelor is only to change his opinion once he finds out that Vlad is now trying to "make amends" by distributing the panacea to the people he had doomed (Yes, people do change a lot. Before, I was convinced that this man was beyond salvation. I thought that nothing less than death could make the leopard change its spots. But I see a new man before me now. His former self has died; but not before he gave the entirety of his panacea stock to Mark Immortell.)

"Subterrarean Rot", to me becomes interesting because Daniil very much likes to align himself with the truth and slowly and surely has been shown and expected to lie tooth and nail to protect himself. Finding our who is behind the Termitary's state, Daniil is originally to decide who to deliver to Taya, but his journal entry is SO interesting about this:

The whole thing proved to be a trivial affair, but no less terrifying for it. When Isidor informed the Olgimskys of the impending outbreak, it was the younger who did what the elder did not dare to. But as the consequences became known, it was the father who shielded his son from the ramifications. A double deceit. This being known, I am in a strong position to speak with the Olgimskys.

I remember my jaw dropping at this when I found out Vlad the Younger, who had seemed so reasonable, had been the one to lock up the Termitary, but Daniil describes him as doing "what the elder did not dare to." Calling Vlad the Younger out, he is more than ready to carry the consequences, while Vlad the Older decides he will take the blame for his heir. When Taya asks Daniil to bring him "who is responsible for it", he (and the game's writing in so far), identify Young Vlad for it.

So how would Daniil decide then when this is how it comes about? When the man is showing so much change? Well, he can take a third option and just not decide - he brings Taya her toybull instead.

And oh goodness? The potential conflict of "the truth is my shepherd" seeing a person who makes an effort to change (if genuine or not that, like so many things, another question) to deliver someone? The choice to take a third option because, in the end, what does this matter if there is a town to save?

It just says so much about what could be Daniil's priorities. It's fun! And then we have Artemy...

"A Son Will Not Be Punished For His Father's Sins" is already named in a very interesting matter - and it immediately calls back to the Haruspex's own position as a "son". This takes place on the day Artemy claims his inheritance in front of Foreman Oyun - it is the day where, unlike the Bachelor, Artemy himself CANNOT avoid making this decision - one of the Olgimsky men needs to die.

There are two fun layers to this - on the one hand it is learning that Taya does not directly care who of the guys she is getting (something I think she also mentions to the Bachelor but I cannot check right now) and learning more about the polcies of the families in the Steppe. Artemy learns it is common among the merchant families that one sacrifices himself to protect the heir at all costs - and that what matters is that someone is punished for a crime that is committed.

Artemy's journal entries for the quest are very interesting leading into this:

So, Vlad the Heavy surrendered himself to Tycheek's daughter? It's clear enough that he isn't the real culprit… I only have to decide if I should tell her the truth. I wonder how that story ends…

Once again, Day 8 offers another quest from Vlad the Younger, because we are all about parallels. This time it is "Below the Ground" where Artemy is asked to retrieve the book detailing the kin's history from the tunnels which may or may not have been a setup given that the tunnels are closed directly once Artemy has entered them . While the book itself is not succesful, it makes Artemy wonder about the parallels between him and Vlad as Vlad himself is also apparently trying to unearth something - though he speaks of him with much more distance (So, Vlad the Younger has managed to reach beneath the ground as well. Is he trying to emulate what I am doing? He has found life down below, just like I have. [...]The ancient wisdom of the Kin was concealed there, locked away until the moment I unearthed it. I'm almost amused by the coincidence.)

Surrendering Vlad the Younger to his death to Taya in also, wonderfully, framed as Artemy taking his place among the kin:

Yes. Let Vlad the Younger die. Whoever makes a decision will be held responsible for it. With every passing day, I feel that the life of the Kin is my own life. I must protect it and avenge its suffering. Whatever fate had in store for these few thousand people, Vlad the Younger is directly responsible for their death.

No. Let Big Vlad die. I should inform Georgiy of my decision. I wouldn't describe Vlad the Heavy as a sentimental man. If he chose to die, he must have had good reason to. Or could it be that he thinks he deserves the punishment?

Surrendering Vlad to Taya matches with Artemy taking his own place - and Vlad the Younger is thus not punished for his fahter's sins but his own, meanwhile Artemy is about to take his father's place and heritage, trying to finish what Isidor created.

An honourable mention goes to the entry as to letting Taya kill Vlad the Older instead:

I am excited to find out more about this, if there is more - knowing this is Pathologic there is certainly more but it will not bring more clarity. But what is it for Artemy then, to be the one choosing it is time for the father to die and thus for Young Vlad to take on his heritage? It certainly is missing the poetry of the entry when choosing Vlad the Younger - but it makes it just as interesting.

#pathologic meta #pathologic #pathologic spoilers #vlad the younger #haruspex route #bachelor route #daniil dankovsky #artemy burakh #pathologic classic hd

[permian-tropos]

this whole quest is about daniil giving a worm a gun to kill artemy with over the living heart situation but then he just ADMITS ITS A DUD AND HE WANTED ARTEMY TO SURVIVE THE ENCOUNTER

#pathologic #pathologic spoilers #HES SO BLORBO #he really pulled the same trick on the worm that he did on lara #he’s literally being a metagaming manipulator hero #he’s not failing his quests here he’s making seemingly immoral choices that turn out super utilitarian #he keeps getting vilified for doing shady stuff that benefits him but then helping clara #like he takes bribes to get people out of jail and then keeps the money and then GIVES IT TO CLARA #and then clearly he got something out of helping this worm but then sabotages the weapon so artemy lives

[herbgroom]

the achievements lists..... they look like poems...

owwwwwww.......

#pathologic spoilers #pathologic #pathologic 2 #artemy burakh #daniil dankovsky #clara the changeling #мор утопия

[pasdetrois]

I still find it so touching that when pressed for their honest opinion, the Powers That Be reveal that Daniil is their favorite protagonist. Two young children attempting to distract themselves from grief and the frightening reality of death, and their favorite is the man whose life ambition is to defeat it. 🥲

#they also play arguably the cruelest version of the game when he is the lead #perhaps he suffers the most because they’ve placed part of themselves in him. people are often cruelest to themselves #but I also view it through the lens of the struggle one faces when growing up #and how we attempt to make sense of the world through the stories we tell #with all of life’s cruelties and contradictions #see that theatre line ‘the law of gravity is tragically incompatible with dreamcatching. illusions have to be let go of in good time’ #vs. the children speaking of you as newly alive and affirming that anything can happen #it’s often tragic but not hopeless. after all you the player afford him a choice that he never gets on his own #sorry he’s rotating in my mind again so expect More Posts about him 🐎 #pathologic #daniil dankovsky #pathologic spoilers #🍓.txt

[cakedpie-pathologic]

I am playing the changeling route right now... Wild stuff is happening!

#pathologic #pathologic classic hd #мор утопия #pathologic memes #pathologic spoilers #maybe #pathologic clara #clara the changeling #clara pathologic #clara saburova #the changeling

[gayquack]

just realized that both the barbie movie and pathologic share the concept of dolls coming to life and having their own motivations and feelings while also being controlled and played with. bye

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #barbie #barbie movie #did not ever think id put those tags together #rip artemy you wouldve loved the barbie movie #pathologic spoilers #????? #mine

[noxaurumque]

there's room for god inside the tiniest fragment...

#pathologic #pathologic classic hd #pathologic spoilers #aleah don't look #FEELING SOME KIND OF WAY #temy voice: that's enough for today eh? #IM LOGGING OFF IM GOING OUTSIDE

[muffinrag]

NOBODY THOUGHT TO MENTION THAT DANILL "DUMBASS" DANKOVSKY WAS A FUCKING NECROMANCER?

#HELLO? #this SETTING you guys i am foaming at the fucking MOUTH #pathologic #uh and just in case? #pathologic spoilers #spoilers #... i know the game is 20 years old but if i have my way it's going to be the next undertale #soliloquy

[sirfrancisvarney]

I feel like the only person who doesn't view the scene of the townsfolk walking into the steppe in P2's Nocturnal ending as if it's meant to be taken literally.

My interpretation was always that because you chose wonder and magic, all the townsfolk who were too rational or weren't tied to the earth ended up dying. The scene isn't showing them physically walking out of the town, but passing on into the afterlife. The conversations you have with them make more sense in that context; they aren't aware of their surroundings or recognize Artemy because they're already halfway into the world beyond. It was a bit of a surprise to leave the game with that impression, only to go online and see everyone else describe it as the townsfolk fleeing or being mind-controlled to leave.

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #nocturnal ending #pathologic spoilers

[owlbean]

For people who have played the Changeling route, I'm always very curious who other people chose to spare and why! I agonized over my choice ngl I eventually settled on Lara and Rubin. I can't remember why specifically but I did have a logic to it for sure

#pathologic #pathologic classic hd #pathologic spoilers

[slimiestboi]

A realization I had

#pathologic #pathologic spoilers #slay the spire #slay the spire spoilers #darkest dungeon #darkest dungeon spoilers #venn diagram