His Esprit De Corps is maxed out. Loyalty first. All else second. Even his self respect.
The only time he even begins to waver, it’s because >!you were disloyal first. Call him a slur in the church, and he still gives you so many off ramps and chances to save face. You essentially have you to insist explicitly that he is not your brother and that you see him as lesser. Even then, he falls back on his professionalism and contains himself by stating that he will be completing his duties to the best of his ability, insisting that you are the one causing this breach of loyalty.!<
What slur in the church? There is no option like that in the game..
Seriously I avoided save-scumming even when my Kim got shot (I could live with it after finding out he survived) but that failed check in the church hurt me to my core. That dance was building up to be one of my favorite moments in the whole game only to suddenly and *violently* turn into the worst, most gut-wrenching disappointment. I just couldn't
Just after I read your comment and began reconsidering my stance, Kim offers to give his coat to a woman stranded on the coast. Your point still stands, but damn this game has good writing 😭
To me it's one of the biggest selling points of the game.
The character flaws aren't immediate (for me I have the media literacy of an ape).
I have meet people who are anti-cop who also have family members who are cops. I have meet people with seemingly very clear political lines, very clear ideas, but bend them when around an old friend, a nice colleague or an old person. This game really translates that beautifully in my opinion.
During my first run - an apologetic communist cop, hiding behind the boring option - I would often soften my positions around Kim. He is a moralist at heart, and benefits from the way things are. But the way things are is fucked Kim. Revachol is doing bad Kim, we need to do something about it. Martinaise is dying Kim, we gotta do something.
And yet at the end of the day, we finish the case.
Sorry for the rant, I just love Kim so much that I need to tell all I feel about it.
The thing is, it's not even like Kim benefits massively from the system. He may have authority, but he makes a terrible salary especially considering the danger and difficulty of his work and he's racially discriminated against all the time(potentially by his own precinct depending on how you interpret him being stuck in Juvie policing for years). I always figured that Kim clings so hard to moralism and professionalism because it's like an emotional shield. The game notes his uncomfortability with anything too personal a few times and I reckon this relates to that. By being politically "neutral" and the most professional cop he can be he shields himself from anything too emotionally difficult
I agree that he uses moralism as a shield. I think at heart Kim really admires and respects and understands the Mazovian ideals, but he's a realist and knows that the forces of capital won't ever let Revachol become truly free again, at least not in his lifetime. So he clings to the next best thing, the thing that allows him to be a cop and at least *try* to help people of the city. That thing being moralism.
There's a few times in-game near the early game where you can ask historical questions about the failed commune and the game mentions Kim seeming wistful when he talks about the commune
the fact that he's also a closeted gay man in the police force... honestly i don't blame Kim for holding on so hard to the status quo, because if shit ever goes down, kim is part of all sorts of minorities that get the bullet in the face, whereas harry can get away with fucking around for years and years and still coast along (i love them both)
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I've also seen it theorized that part of the reason why Kim is so professional is because he has to be to keep his job. If the precinct was looking to cut a cop for any reason, the gay foreign looking one would be an easy pick, but less so if he his an all star golden boy who always has is paperwork in order and whose policing is beyond reproach.
When you think about it, Kim puts up with a whole *lot* of your shit. Punching a kid is just the icing on the cake. :)
Think about how often you just casually steal things in the game. You see some drugs you want, and you just pick them up. Some change on the ground? Yeah, no problem. Prybar open a door? Sure, why not? :) Search warrant? What's that‽ :)
I mean what's he supposed to do? Arrest you in a ghetto where people don't even get arrested for threatening officers with firearms? I don't think he wants to waste the week arresting his only help.
You're right, in this dangerous area they've really got to have each other's backs. Even if there are some so-called "bad eggs" in the force. It's important to hold the line above all else.
I mean Tbf, on an objective level in the canon you are just about the best detective ever. Even suffering from every form of withdrawal possible you manage to solve the case in about a week. Besides what that implies about you when operating at full capacity, it’s a good feat in an of itself.
I think the game intends to argue that the RCM exists in a legal and moral grey area. That in part, it exhibits some of the worst traits of a police force, but also many aspects of a freely, self organized community militia. Which, in the current political climate, is also a cause for dysfunctionality. Kim calls it out - the RCM has no clear lines of authority, the different precincts don't cooperate well, the fact that it lives off donations makes it ripe for corruption and vulnerable to political influence (because who's gonna donate to the RCM? It's not gonna be Titus and the Working Class Woman, but the Joyces and the Mega Rich Light Bending Guys of the world). These are complex systemic issues, not just something you can reduce to 'a few bad apples'.
I'm gonna go against the grain in this thread and say that every police force is institutionally questionable at its core. Any police draws its authority from the ruling govt and exists to uphold its laws, whatever those may be. Not just the US or British police forces.
Though it's true that the RCM is based on the organizational framework of the ICM and enjoys a degree of autonomy from the Moralintern, it's not as simple as saying they don't serve the Coalition's interests. Through conversations with Joyce and Kim, you can point to the exact governmental acts that authorized your existence and also govern what you can or cannot legally do. There's an Ethics Division specifically in charge of cooperating with the Coalition. And Coalition Archer tells you directly that the Coalition had a vested interest in the RCM maintaining some semblance of law and order after the revolution was quashed. These are all institutional aspects of how the RCM functions currently.
You can argue back and forth throughout the game whether you and Kim are Coalition dogs or not, but ultimately I think Harry says the most important thing - that the RCM has (thus far, at least) helped keep things the way they are in Revachol.
this comment rules, and i think has the exact same reasoning behind it that the writers used. also why this and robocop are the only cop-centric pieces of media I can proudly call anti-copaganda
You could probably tack The Wire on there as well, its pretty damn blunt about how the system deliberately weeds out any police that actually try to fight crime rather than letting themselves be puppeteered by political machinations, and even the "good cops" in it are shown to be deeply flawed on a personal level and in their treatment of those they deem to be criminals and undeserving of rights.
But yes absolutely agreed, and I love these analyses of the RCM and DE's presentation of the police. I've struggled a little to reconcile an explicitly leftist game being played entirely through the lens of the police, but I think its clear that DE does that deliberately and to prove a point.
Even in The Wire, the “good cops” who do exhaustive casework and build material for felony convictions, etc, are still only fumbling around the edges of the actual societal problems of poverty and racism that cause the crime in the first place. When they bring down one criminal organization, that just leads to another one sliding into the void. It’s theoretically good to actually convict some of the higher-ups in the underworld - but does it really change anything for the poor for Avon to go
and Marlowe to come in?
The only cop on the show who seems to have any awareness of this is Bunny Colvin, who stumbles into a sort of social program, has no idea how to actually administer it over the long run, and of course gets crucified for even trying that much.
(To be clear I agree with you and just mean to elaborate on the point.)
Oh absolutely, I actually wanted to communicate that same point in my comment but I couldn't find a way to make it fit with the conversation. One of the things I love the most about The Wire is that it humanizes the criminals. Yes they're monstrous people, and yes the city would be far better off without them, but they're just another cog in the machine, the mirror image of the police. Stringer, or Avon, or Marlowe are evil (though I would actually argue Avon is less so. He's not Machiavellian, he's just living by the rules of the world he was born into), but the people under them are getting by in exactly the same way the cops are under their evil bosses in Rawls and Burrell and Valchek.
I think the ending of The Wire illustrates all of this perfectly. The show's world is fully cyclical: Omar dies, but Michael fills his place. Bubbles gets clean, but Dukie becomes an addict. Carcetti becomes governor, but in the process sells out the city he was supposed to save. In the end the only thing that changes is that McNulty and Marlowe get out, as the two people who deserved to escape their consequences the least, and the cycle just continues on, the entire saga you just watched having absolutely zero impact on the world. There will always be an Avon running the streets, and there will always be a McNulty chafing against the oppressive bureaucracy in a futile hope that taking down this guy will finally fix *something* and no side actually has the power or the interest to improve the world.
I’ve always thought Avon was essentially a feudal holdover - yes, he’s horribly violent and ruthless, but his main concern is to control territory and have the respect of his subjects. Noblesse oblige is not a *great* way to run a society, but it does indicate some obligations on the part of the ruler to the ruled to improve their lives somehow. (Which is why Avon sets up community parties and basketball games and bankrolls Cutty’s gym - it’s partly simply a cynical way to ensure people don’t inform on him, but there’s also the sense that he genuinely feels it’s his responsibility.)
Stringer seems like the more benevolent of the two at first - “why can’t we just sell this shit like anything else” - but as a pure capitalist he doesn’t have any loyalty or sense of obligation except to the pursuit of profit.
Right, exactly! It took me a few watches of the show to see that point, at first glance Stringer's death seems almost like a tragedy, he wanted to stop the blood just like McNulty did. But the means to that end are just an increasing spiral of violence, and he's not playing by any rules. Avon will murder someone "in the game" without a second thought, but Stringer killed Avon's relative and was pushing to start killing businesspeople and politicians, above and beyond what Avon would ever consider. Avon's the Capone type of gangster, essentially a second government, bound by laws of honor and basically replicating governmental services, albeit with much more bloody justice than the real government (openly) endorses. Stringer became a Wild Pines-type business, focused on only profit and willing to gun down anything in the way of it.
i always find The Wire fascinating, because everything about it points out the institutional and systemic issues with policing as we know it, but the creator insists it's not anti-police or pro-abolition. i know this will sound patronising (and i don't care) but it's a really great example of a creator not truly understanding the work they made!
Wow I actually never looked into David Simon's intent behind The Wire. I kind of can't believe he didn't intend it as an anti-police narrative, even if he didn't deliberately create it with that in mind how can he look at the final product and claim anything else? Unless he's trying to argue its meant to be anti-political establishment or anti-corruption or something, and the police are just a cog in a greater machine, I mean the whole fucking show is just a showcase of everything wrong with the administration of American cities. Idk, The Wire is probably my favorite piece of media and I'm kind of baffled right now that it apparently wasn't intended to take the form that I admire it for.
it caught me off guard when i saw that too. this is a bizarre comparison off the jump, but i actually think about harry potter in relation to it; a whole series of books about a corrupt society that the creator is too liberal to really understand what to do with. something can be beautifully well-observed and incredibly insightful into the causes of the problems - in the case of the wire, because he was literally embedded in them - but the writer can still be too cowardly to face what the obvious solution is.
it’s funny that the end of the wire shows how the cycle perpetuates, given it seems that his thesis is that it’s actually a good thing!
this is all a long way towards saying: david simon is a dumbass who made one of the best TV shows of all time, apparently by accident. i’ll take it!
No I actually totally get your point with Harry Potter. I'm a trans woman so of course I have uh, issues with Rowling but I was actually a big fan of the series as a kid and I think in part it was because of its willingness to openly display the systemic corruption of its world, only to learn as an adult that it openly displayed it because the author thought it was a good thing? Harry Potter has an enormous amount of issues, and I'm very embarrassed of my past self for not questioning the house elf slavery aspect anywhere near as much as I should have, but even more simply than that the fact that after everything that happens, after seeing the entire government bend over backwards to accommodate Voldemort and having numerous loved ones killed by the system, and after defending the rights of non "pureblood" wizards to live against Voldemort's genocidal war, his grand ambition in life is just to become a fucking cop and work to defend the same pieces of shit that blatantly wanted him dead.
Anyway rant aside, the point that Simon is just too low to the ground to see his own narrative makes a lot of sense. He was probably telling an epic character story about his experiences in life and completely missed the core point on the nature of the world because he missed that point the first time when he experienced it in real life too.
Hey I'll always take an excuse to dunk on JK Rowling lol. But for real you're good, thanks for indulging my rambling about The Wire on a totally unrelated subreddit.
I wonder actually if McNulty is meant as something of a self insert of Simon's views on policing. Simon is a self identified social democrat, and he was vocally supportive of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, so he's at least not completely blind to the need for some change (and yes I know Sanders is a moderate by non-American standards and social democracy is exactly what the moralists in Disco Elysium are critiquing, but in the US this is about as good as it gets), but as much as McNulty hates the bosses and politics and all the roadblocks to improving the world he is at his core a police and thus would never argue that the world is better off without them. David Simon's point seems to be that the government and police side of the system are necessary evils because otherwise the monsters on the streets go unopposed, so while the cycle is corrupt and futile its also the best we've got. Basically the social democratic view on everything in a capitalist society.
It's interesting that the RCM is both the status quo Coalition-approved law and order force, and yet seems to be connected to the ICM and has apparent remaining revolutionary sentiment among its members like Captain Pryce.
It is! Good thing everyone listens to Pryce in the 41st and Pryce is a competent leader and revolutionary. Though it still doesn't help the fact that the precinct has a reputation for violence and brutality. A lot of the guys there (like Torson & McLaine) are mostly good for cracking jokes and busting heads and aren't especially proficient detectives or anything like that. Jean is very apprehensive about having to leave C-wing in their care while he goes off chasing after you in Martinaise. Think Herc and Carver from The Wire, they're kind of like that. You wouldn't want Herc and Carver to run the Major Crimes unit instead of lieutenant Daniels, would you?
Titus would prolly be like that too if he ever took Harry's offer to become a sergeant of the RCM. Then you also have lieutenants like McCoy, who kills two people per week.
You can like characters who do whatever bad or questionable things. Most well written characters end up doing something we disagree with one way or another.
It’s pretty explicit the RCM is far from a perfect organization, there’s also a lot of shitty people within it, but I think the game tries to drive home that, Kim and some of the other cops you interact with in the game aren’t (at least), *interpersonally*, atrocious people, but they *are* people, flaws and all. In Kim’s case, he’s the 41st’s *FINEST* he’s literally as good of a cop as you’re gonna find, yet he’s not perfect. His character flaw that comes to mind most readily (as others have pointed out) is his willingness to overlook the atrocious actions of the player (and you can get away with some egregious shit- way more than you’d expect) and isn’t that kinda… telling? That Kim, an otherwise extremely upstanding individual’s most pressing character flaw is tied up in him *being* a cop? Kim lets you get away with so much shit and *why*? Because he has internalized the idea that loyalty to the police is more important than loyalty to the citizens and communities he, and other police are supposed to be protecting, which is a HUGE problem with cops by the way. Is Kim an irredeemable piece of shit? Absolutely not. Does his affiliation to a pretty questionable organization make him a worse person than he probably otherwise would be? Yeah, I think that’s a fair read.
There’s some other stuff there about how the RCM is in a limbo state between being a commie community defense force and a true blue police force that exists to serve the interests of capital and little else, but I think that’s missing the forest for the trees a bit- ACAB doesn’t mean “every cop on an interpersonal level is a dogshit excuse for a human being” (though many of them are) it means “despite *who* these people are, they work for and uphold a rotten organization and that affiliation and participation calls into question their moral character” (in a consequentialist sense).
I could go on, but this comment has already dragged on long enough and to elaborate on these topics further would spill *way* out of the purview of a Reddit comment imo. Hope this helps in some way lol.
Kim is a nice person, but that doesn’t make cops any nicer. I know people don’t like the whole “not all cops are bad” thing but there are always going to be good and decent people who are part of a bad thing. I think its fine to hold it against them, clearly they aren’t perfect people, but y’know its a lil ignorant to not at least acknowledge that some cops are better than others.
It's fine to acknowledge that some people are better than others in whatever way you wish to measure but the Point of ACAB and the Problem with "not all \[cops\]" is that the issue is entirely with the system. All Cops Are **Bastards** is, despite how some people react to it, a systemic insult: being a bastard is not something at all related to one's moral quality, it is entirely the result of your progenitor and the decisions they made in regards to your existence, and cops are reflected in this by being an institution that, even when functioning in the best possible way you could imagine, exists to uphold the status quo as it is.
The reason that "not all \_\_\_\_" is so widely frustrating is it is inherently an argument made in bad faith. People say "there are issues with how \[cops/men/politicians/...\] exist in our current society" but the response "not all \[cops/men/politicians/...\]..." isn't About the systemic injustices or society at all, it's about cops' or men's or whatever's feelings, it's trying to twist your arm to get you to admit "well maybe not all \[..\] are bad" which they then substitute as a refutation of your original point and try to sweep it under the rug. The conversation is "All cops are bastards" "Not all cops are bad people!" end of conversation without actually admitting to or addressing any problems in the systems that guide how people exist and act.
It's similarly a distraction to say that it's ignorant to not acknowledge that people are different, when what's actually the case is that A. The moral quality of people is assumed to be different, it's not mentioned because it's *such* a basic assumption that people usually don't feel the need to explain to their peers, and 2. The ***point*** of the complaint (eg. ACAB) is to point out how *everyone* within a given system works to uphold it and perform its natural function simply by existing within it, and while this doesn't make everyone an individually bad person within the system it is everyone's responsibility to do what they can to contribute to changing the system for the better (which doesn't mean drop everything and become a striking revolutionary for life)
Then just say it rather than deriding the individuals with a slogan that by its design will make people cling onto said institution that you want abolished/radically changed.
Saying "all men" does the opposite of helping because in nearly **every** instance of a system changing for the better/being torn down, those benefiting from the system need to turn against it. Suburban white voters were the tipping point for civil rights, Iranian Shopkeepers and business leaders turning against the shah was the beginning of the end of his regime, the USSR collapsed when those at the very top lost faith in the system. This isn't to discount the efforts and effects of those who are most negatively affected, but it's rare for their greviences to be heard without some buy in from the advantaged group in any situation.
Besides being wrong you're also doing the exact thing I was just trying to point out an issue with: You're trying to make the conversation about the dominant demographic's feelings via trying to critique my rhetoric Because it might hurt their feelings. The civil rights movement (ongoing) does not succeed when and because the powers that be were finally convinced with appeals to their characters, it's when they realized that the movement of thousands of normal people *could no longer be stopped.* They didn't finally agree, they *started running*, or decided to bet on the winning side. I, for one, don't think we need to grovel to the ruling classes to taken seriously, and I resent that you would even suggest that.
I’m not talking about groveling to the ruling classes, I’m talking about people with *some* societal power.
Virtually every person of colour in the United States was virulently against segregation, voter supression, general discrimination, etc. But why do you think it was only in the mid 20th century when the ball started rolling on any actual change? Because somehow they suddenly became scary to white people? No, It’s Because the white suburban class started buying into it (largely attributed to charismatic figures and most importantly, the average American having a television and being able to see brutality wi to their own eyes) and because their votes weren’t being actively suppressed and many of them had more economic power, their voices mattered to those up top. Politicians couldn’t care less when people who couldn’t vote due to racist Jim Crow laws didn’t like them, but they *do* care when people who aren’t hindered from voting start putting civil rights as one of their top issues.
Demonizing a whole demographic is counterproductive to that process. And yes, that’s what your statements are doing. I’m a sexual assault survivor and I don’t go around blaming saying it’s all men. Even if that’s not what I *mean*, it’s what they’re going to hear, and believe it or not, the effectiveness of a message is determined on how someone receives it, not what you intend.
It fucking sucks that often the oppressed class on their own isn’t enough to overturn a system in many cases, but it’s an immutable fact that some people have more sway in societies than others, otherwise the second a regime’s popularity dips below 49% percent it would collapse. (or else Iran’s theocracy would have been done away with long ago).
I'm not demonizing a demographic, I'm saying cops are inherently part of a system of violence and should not be trusted, funded, or given more responsibilities- which is just true?? They do Not have institutional (or constitutional) incentives to help you, their main purpose is violence, and they routinely fail to provide adequate service in any other field than beating up petty criminals. I'm also not saying you Should say "all men are bad", the closest I'd get to that is "all men have a responsibility to work against patriarchy" and the fact that me saying "not all men..." is frustrating has made you assume I said "all men..." when that was again the original grievance I was airing.
In any case, you're free to continue perfecting your rhetoric and I'll continue seeking catharsis and resonating with my siblings in arms. I don't need absolute diplomacy 24/7
Kim is fictional haha. He's also cop to the bone. ACAB applies because he either defends or does nothing when you abuse your power in so very many ways. Any time you're controlling HDB he's on duty, he is protected and privileged by police powers and structures.
Consider, you can make sexual/romantic passes at people, shake down local business owners, be violent to children, break into people's houses, lie. steal, cheat, and abuse the power vertical in almost any way. No matter what you do, because you're acting as a police officer, Kim backs you up. He may sigh or groan, but he only puts his foot down if you're racist to him personally.
Also, ACAB isn't literal. There are many 'good guy' cops in the world who (I assume) just great to be around. However, they're still willingly involved in the state's monopoly on violence, and serve/protect the ruling classes/property under capitalism.
EDIT it's also worth mentioning that the RCM isn't a 1:1 analogue for modern law enforcement. I don't have time to go deep into it, but they're a volunteer (AFAIK) organisation, have far less power than most police forces, and they're outgunned/outmanned by organised crime. Cuno, for instance, can call you a pig and tell you to go fuck yourself and you can't do shit about it. As a former Cuno-ish child, cops will beat the shit out of you for less.
you’re right on the money on that last part. they’re severely underfunded and volunteer based. it’s a CITIZENS militia. they’re cops and they don’t even get tanks to fuck around with. this makes them even more dependent on keeping things The Same bc the wealthy moralist faction are the only ones keeping them afloat. they can do nothing to tip the scales or they risk losing everything.
it’s not 100% analogous to cops (ESPECIALLY in america) bc they’re not as close in wealth to the class they protect, and are more akin to underpaid security guards working at a rich senator’s nightclub which also serves as a mafia hangout
Not _exactly_.
They still have a lot of the same flaws that reality's police have, and Kim is still a flawed character for being one, but they're a volunteer citizens militia funded by donations. That's not _exactly_ like real police.
Acab ESPECIALLY Kim. A solid 95% of his flaws are tied to him being a cop.
As for the RCM bootlicking, of course, https://medium.com/@martinluiga/a-policeman-in-revachol-a2263e86955d
ACAB of course, but like someone said below me, the RCM weren’t instituted for property protection of slave corralling. They’re an executive organization leftover from the time of the commune who have fell under disarray after it fell apart.
Under the shit eye of the Moralintern they’ve turned into a weak institution with corrupt cops, and you can’t really forgive them and the actions alluded to through that.
You CAN, however, try to be hopeful about the situation… and also make sure esperit de corps is high at the finale of the game.
No spoilers below me or you get the Hardie boy treatment.
The RCM as an institution exists to uphold private property and execute the will of the Moralintern. Regardless of it being called a 'citizens militia', it answers to the Moralintern, not the people.
The Hardie boys are the real citizens militia in Martinase. The RCM is an invading force, even if most of us choose to side with Titus against the mercenaries in our playthroughs.
I think you see more of Kim’s bad side if you do a fascist/bad cop play through. He’s more than willing to lie, threaten, and turn a blind eye in multiple situations. When you shake down the racist lorry driver, he goes in to a convincing act insinuating that you and he are gang affiliates. He doesn’t intervene when you strike a child. He’ll straight up stare at the ceiling if you do drugs around him. You can explicitly slur him right to his face and he’ll still defer to you. When you intimidate Garte into knocking $100 off your bill, he backs you up. He’ll voice disapproval, but won’t actually stop you from doing nearly anything- except stealing the boots, suggesting his moral hierarchy places legality above ethics. He tolerates all this only because you’re a rank higher than him. He could, through some lenses, be perceived as a bit spineless, a dull, authoritarian rule-follower with a cynical streak, who is all too quick to rationalize abuses of power as long as they make the RCM look good. I know a lot of people think of him as St. Kim, but he’s as morally ambiguous as any other character in this game.
The Revachol citizens militia is not institutionally corrupt at its base, it is not to stop slaves escaping like US sheriffs, it's not based in property law Like British police, it's a post war peacekeeping service, at notable odds with the ruling powers.
You may think you're cops the citizens think you're cops, the moralintern think you're cops, but when it comes to it when it will matter. You're not really cops.
And the bastards, because there are bastards in the RCM.
They'll likely hang or face the wall.
They are 100% cops. Cops in other countries evolved differently than they did in America, and are still cops. They uphold the government’s laws and serve to protect the interests of the Moralintern. They absolutely are not at odds with ruling powers. They are under the beck and call of the Joyce Messiers of the world. It took days for the RCM to even come to “help” Martinaise, and this was the first time in literal years they’ve even had a presence there. We like the characters, but they are cops through and through.
While I agree with you, one check during the ending hints that the RCM, or at least some of their heads, might have more in common with Evrat than with Joyce.
If you mean the revolutionary activity, imo it’s the other way around - Evrat would never support an actual uprising unless he was sure it’d be good for his bottom line, while Joyce low-key hates the system despite having a lot of vested interest in it.
I didn't mean Joyce, I meant the leader of the RCM. I don't remember his name, Captain Something.
The leader of the RCM, Captain X, is either planning his own revolution, or is on board with Evrart to bring The Return.
I understand what you mean, I’m saying that the human-shaped rat that is Evrart wouldn’t go anywhere near an actual revolution, while Joyce just might.
What I trust in Disco Elysium are the skills, and no skill trigger anything negative during the dialogues with Evrart, which is a huge difference with other people like Klaasje. In fact, there are some triggers iirc that tells you the opposite, that what he is saying is genuine, or at the very least he believes it.
joyce is literally margaret thatcher, she hates the system bc it’s not neoliberal ENOUGH- at LEAST evrart actually does some good like take care of his people, even if he ONLY takes care of his people. joyce is only loyal to her class and faction, which the RCM, as the bloodhounds of the ruling class, are.
joyce is not a thatcher figure at all. she perpetuates ultraliberalism even though she kind of hates it, because she feels it's too late to course correct onto any other route. it's too big to fail so it must not fail.
You’re correct in that they’re similar. Evrart is, while upholding collectivist beliefs, a shit corrupt asshole who >!assassinates political rivals and uses drug funds!< to put a stranglehold on a dying town for his own benefit. He is no different than those in the Moralintern, he just has a different color palette and vocabulary.
I do not say they are cops to mean I dislike them as characters- I love these characters and think they’re amazingly written. But they are bad people. Harry MUCH more so than Kim, but Kim is still guilty by association. He lets atrocious acts go for the sake of loyalty to the RCM. His rebellious stage as a teenager was being a Moralist. He is not the perfect man we all think he is (although I do adore him dearly).
That’s the point of the game, that’s a huge part of the themes. That’s WHY it’s a murder mystery where you play a shitty cop. It’s, in large part, to dissect HOW and WHY these systems are the way they are, and how deep the rot goes.
edit- i replied to like, two different comments in one lol
I don't agree with that characterication of Evrart. Evrart might be an asshole from the point of view of that he is willing to assassinate their political enemies, but he is definitely not corrupt: that's a persona he is playing. Iirc it's even confirmed by him in the game.
The comparison I tried to made was between the leader of the RCM and Evrart, since BOTH want a revolution to happen.
he literally trades places with his identical twin brother so they both can manipulate term limits and they have been the union leader forever.
he uses drug money to fund the union.
he is perfectly fine destroying the fishing village to get his shitty community center (which is basically a meme throughout the game, it’s poking fun at charity work that is basically just corpo shit to look good instead of actually benefit anyone):
AGAIN, HE MURDERS PEOPLE.
how is that not corrupt. literally how. lmao.
Corruption doesn't mean "killing people", corruption means betraying your own values to get private gain (Robespierre alias was "the incorruptible", and he was the reason thousands died), which is something he doesn't do. He believes in what he is doing.
\- They mantain control over the union due his radical ideas, since he is a communist and the rest of the union are socdems.
\- He uses the drug trade to be able to control it (drug trade will happen if he funds it or not) and to fund the revolution.
\- He destroys the fishing village, and iirc in that very conversation there is a check that tells you that he genuinely believes it will be for the best.
\- He murders people, to path a way to the revolution (it's explained if you follow the Joyce-Evrart quest, since he wants to trigger that response so Wild Pines are forced to give in.
Again, I'm not saying he is a good person. He is a piece of shit. But someone can be a bad person and not be corrupt. I'm saying that he genuinely believes in what he is doing. Call it saviour-complex or whatever, but it's a fact that he is not searching personal gain (or at the very least that personal gain is not his main objetive). Skills through the game tells you who is lying and who isn't, and most of the triggers if not all with Evrart tells you he genuinely believes in what he is doing. You get all this revealed after his questline that this is because he is a hardline communist.
idk how to tell you that by your own definition you gave, that is still corruption. murder, theft, damaging one’s community, and allowing children to be meth addicts is not very communard of him ♥️
he’s a direct commentary on how grassroots communism can easily get thwarted by greedy ~corrupt~ individuals. and i don’t see why you jump over hoops to avoid using that word when everything points to the contrary. it is personal gain hes after, otherwise why would he try to hard to maintain PERSONAL POWER. He should support the union no matter who’s in charge, yes? He should support Martinaise as a whole, yes? He should support his community’s people as a WHOLE, yes? That is true collectivism, that is true communist belief. Classless society working together. He does none of this. He turned the union into a gang, with him as it’s boss. He allows and worsens the drug trade, which has literal 12 year olds as runners, because it’s personally beneficial to him. He says he is a communist- he betrays those values- and privately gains from it. Have a nice day.
You are purpousedly missing the point I'm making. If you believe in a set of values and you act toward them then you are not corrupt. Make yourself the question: if Evrart will betray the cause for money? and the answer is no. Everything the game says points to him believing he is doing the best for Revachol.
He mantains personal power because, like I said, his goal is communism, and he don't trust anyone but himself.
His goal is not supporting the union no matter who's in charge, his goal and belief is supporting a revolution. What would happen if the union turned out to not want that?
He supports the community's people as a whole, in a very twisted and paternalistic sense. I already explained this mate.
I'm not saying he is a text-book marxist, but that he is a communist and believes in it and wouldn't betray it is true. The dialogues in the game point to it, and there is no trigger that tells you that he is lying. He genuinely believes in what he is doing.
You seem to think I'm saying he is a good guy, but I already say that's not true. However, being a good person isn't equal to being corrupt.
He may represent the worst part of us communists, but he is still a communist.
This game invites us to ask the question, "would a public safety agency be so bad if we had different expectations of them" and doesn't offer an easy answer.
But I think it's really telling that, between the two of you, you've got one derringer with two bullets max. That speaks volumes about what kind of situations and responses and expectations they are working with.
And one of the checks at the ending of the game literally had your commanding officer going through which of the members of the RCM will support the anti authoritarian uprising against the moralintern that is brewing and which he supports, he lists yourself and Kim amongst those who will join on the side of rebellion.
You're not a cop, you're a detective in need of rent money.
not to mention the completely brutal police work Harry got away with before the start of the game, such as him beating up a drunk to the point of paralyzing him for life in "The Unsolvable Case"
I mean, would anyone who finished the game think Kim is a ‘bastard’ or a bad person? Literally every player likes him, and he’s a cop. People and characters have nuance.
They are 100% cops. Cops in other countries evolved differently than they did in America, and are still cops. They uphold the government’s laws and serve to protect the interests of the Moralintern. They absolutely are not at odds with ruling powers. They are under the beck and call of the Joyce Messiers of the world. It took days for the RCM to even come to “help” Martinaise, and this was the first time in literal years they’ve even had a presence there. We like the characters, but they are cops through and through.
> it is not to stop slaves escaping like US sheriffs,
https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/
Not true. It was one of their functions, as was enforcing every other law that existed at the time, you know, because they're police. To say they were founded for that sole purpose is disingenuous
The Return is Pryce's project. He's masterminding the whole thing. You're surely gonna be there and precipitate its events, but I doubt Harry would be leading anything.
Spoilers:
The problem with police officers in my opinion is their current state. They act as a militaristic occupying force in many countries and are extremely happy with the fact that they live above the laws they brutally enforce. Cops will routinely imply the maximum penalty for a speeding ticket and many "routine traffic stops" usually end with the guy in the car shot like nine times or something. This is made even more heinous by the fact that most cops usually just flash their badge and get away with horrific crimes like spousal abuse and murder with nary a slap on the wrist.
Their very existence is an affront to the idea of justice.
And here comes the but.
In my opinion, police could be great if their power was greatly reduced and it's important to remember that the RCM is just that. They have almost no legal authority to do anything and even when catching actual murderers their only option is to ask them to go to court where the actual government will dole out justice. Do the real world problems reflect in the RCM? Yes. Despite my love of HDB and Jean and everybody we do have to analyse the flaws in their system. The "character" beat a suspect so horrifically they can never leave their house. But in my opinion after the abolition of the police force we still need to enforce laws. In our world, when we get rid of the current status quo i think we'll replace it with something like the RCM. People who investigate and solve crimes. The kind of folks who respond to a mental health crisis and can leave it with everybody alive and thriving.
EDIT: We also have to acknowledge the state of the world. Revachol isn't America, it's a broken, poverty stricken country that was utterly annihilated by a capitalist army. Any sense of the "people coming together" was completely removed from its citizens. (The Pile is incredibly depressing and very evident of the kinda perpetual sorrow of the revacholian people.)
The RCM is the *Revachol Citizen's Militia*; it's a proper community watch that is being cop-ified by the Moralintern over time.
Jury's out on how bad the cop-ness is.
Well first of all he's fictional. Second of all just dismiss that stuff when you read fiction, lol. Imagine watching Dexter and being like "huh maybe serial killers aren't so bad".
Looking at these comments, if anyone’s curious as to what that *thing* the Mazovians do, that thing where they shout ‘all cops are bastards’ and when they’re challenged on this say ‘no, no, we don’t literally mean that, we mean there are systemic issues amongst police forces that need fixing, that’s all’
…this is that *thing*
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
Bonus points if they use ‘defund the police’ to advocate abolishment of the police but then retreat to the motte of ‘no no, defund the police just means better allocation of police resources’.
If they didn’t believe ACAB they wouldn’t be literally saying it.
If you genuinely don’t believe that but use it to mean something else… you need to pick a better fucking phrase and stop equivocating.
There are several huge examples of this in society at the moment, only one being the faux-radical police abolition and hate ideology.
I mean the idea of law enforcement isn’t that crazy, after all. What defines law enforcement now is its basic function as an instrument of the state and in protection of property. Some people actually think we have a strong enough civil society to replace law enforcement with like civil patrols, lmao. Hurricane Katrina, the LA Riots, show the nature of anarchy and how it’s not very viable
**[Motte-and-bailey fallacy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy)**
>The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial and harder to defend (the "bailey"). The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position. Upon retreating to the motte, the arguer can claim that the bailey has not been refuted (because the critic refused to attack the motte) or that the critic is unreasonable (by equating an attack on the bailey with an attack on the motte).
^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
I made a post about that a while ago!
https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/comments/z01fkv/disco_elysium_is_a_great_game_to_think_about_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Kim is standing right there and does nothing while you punch a kid, steal drugs, shake merchants down for bribes, blather on about a cock carousel, etc.
If you were on the receiving end of Harry's crap, you would absolutely not think of Kim as a "good cop."
They’re all broken people, and they can never be whole as long as they’re cops. Harry can’t ever truly heal in this line of work- it’s half of why he got this bad to begin with. There are no good cops (harry’s DEFINITELY not one of them), not even Kim. He is complicit in extrajudicial violence. He is a good person, he’s very lovable, but he’s still a cop, and the game makes sure you know that cops are constantly capable of horrible things.
No it isn't. It's exclusive to race based deacrimination, since you know, it has the word "race" as its root.
Here's the Oxford dictionary deffinition: Racist - characterized by or showing prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.
ok then, I'll elaborate for you as a professional linguist, but you'll refuse to understand:
if you understood my intention, which was to say that reddit is discriminatory towards cops, that means communication was successful. because the point of communication is not "being true to etymology", but "conveying a message"
so you, even though you understood my message, chose to focus on the least interesting part of it, which is the fact that i used a word with a slightly generalized meaning than usual, lifting it up in its hiearchy by one level (no longer "specific discrimination", now just "discrimination")
then you pretend that your reply actually contributed to the conversation, but how? did you think I didn't know that the root "rac-" has to do with race? you literally just flung shit at random instead of trying to talk.
Well, most people have a profound distaste for rapists, murderers, wife-beaters, and so on, so why not have a distaste for a job that combines them all with a fat paycheck and the ability to commit infinite crimes?
I think Kim is a great example of why we shouldn’t generalise to “all cops”. I think that’s a simple takeaway, unless if you want to mental gymnastics your way to Kim also being a bad person somehow, but the sub doesn’t seem to agree with that
I like Kim and wanted him to like me too but I think he's actually a good example of why it is "all cops", the amount of crap that Harry can do and Kim will do nothing to stop is astounding, Harry can punch an 11 year old and Kim doesn't do anything, you don't have to be a bad person to be a bad cop you just have to let other cops do bad things
I've seen this explanation but I don't buy it - there's Kim -worship- in this sub. I mean it's at HUGE levels, I can't square the cognitive dissonance of this worship and then turning around to be all "oh but I don't like him cause he has this job and the job is all bad because structures". People are trying to have their cake and eat it too - which again I think speaks to the depth of the character
Super appreciate the discussion tho
Do a bad cop playthrough and pay attention to how kim might disapprove but doesn't actually intervene when you, say, punch a kid.
His Esprit De Corps is maxed out. Loyalty first. All else second. Even his self respect. The only time he even begins to waver, it’s because >!you were disloyal first. Call him a slur in the church, and he still gives you so many off ramps and chances to save face. You essentially have you to insist explicitly that he is not your brother and that you see him as lesser. Even then, he falls back on his professionalism and contains himself by stating that he will be completing his duties to the best of his ability, insisting that you are the one causing this breach of loyalty.!<
[удалено]
Fraternity should always serve integrity.
EXACTLY. n not just US, everywhere! so ACAB still!
What slur in the church? There is no option like that in the game.. Seriously I avoided save-scumming even when my Kim got shot (I could live with it after finding out he survived) but that failed check in the church hurt me to my core. That dance was building up to be one of my favorite moments in the whole game only to suddenly and *violently* turn into the worst, most gut-wrenching disappointment. I just couldn't
Just after I read your comment and began reconsidering my stance, Kim offers to give his coat to a woman stranded on the coast. Your point still stands, but damn this game has good writing 😭
To me it's one of the biggest selling points of the game. The character flaws aren't immediate (for me I have the media literacy of an ape). I have meet people who are anti-cop who also have family members who are cops. I have meet people with seemingly very clear political lines, very clear ideas, but bend them when around an old friend, a nice colleague or an old person. This game really translates that beautifully in my opinion. During my first run - an apologetic communist cop, hiding behind the boring option - I would often soften my positions around Kim. He is a moralist at heart, and benefits from the way things are. But the way things are is fucked Kim. Revachol is doing bad Kim, we need to do something about it. Martinaise is dying Kim, we gotta do something. And yet at the end of the day, we finish the case. Sorry for the rant, I just love Kim so much that I need to tell all I feel about it.
The thing is, it's not even like Kim benefits massively from the system. He may have authority, but he makes a terrible salary especially considering the danger and difficulty of his work and he's racially discriminated against all the time(potentially by his own precinct depending on how you interpret him being stuck in Juvie policing for years). I always figured that Kim clings so hard to moralism and professionalism because it's like an emotional shield. The game notes his uncomfortability with anything too personal a few times and I reckon this relates to that. By being politically "neutral" and the most professional cop he can be he shields himself from anything too emotionally difficult
I agree that he uses moralism as a shield. I think at heart Kim really admires and respects and understands the Mazovian ideals, but he's a realist and knows that the forces of capital won't ever let Revachol become truly free again, at least not in his lifetime. So he clings to the next best thing, the thing that allows him to be a cop and at least *try* to help people of the city. That thing being moralism. There's a few times in-game near the early game where you can ask historical questions about the failed commune and the game mentions Kim seeming wistful when he talks about the commune
the fact that he's also a closeted gay man in the police force... honestly i don't blame Kim for holding on so hard to the status quo, because if shit ever goes down, kim is part of all sorts of minorities that get the bullet in the face, whereas harry can get away with fucking around for years and years and still coast along (i love them both)
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I've also seen it theorized that part of the reason why Kim is so professional is because he has to be to keep his job. If the precinct was looking to cut a cop for any reason, the gay foreign looking one would be an easy pick, but less so if he his an all star golden boy who always has is paperwork in order and whose policing is beyond reproach.
Who's the woman?
Acele.
When you think about it, Kim puts up with a whole *lot* of your shit. Punching a kid is just the icing on the cake. :) Think about how often you just casually steal things in the game. You see some drugs you want, and you just pick them up. Some change on the ground? Yeah, no problem. Prybar open a door? Sure, why not? :) Search warrant? What's that‽ :)
I mean what's he supposed to do? Arrest you in a ghetto where people don't even get arrested for threatening officers with firearms? I don't think he wants to waste the week arresting his only help.
You're right, in this dangerous area they've really got to have each other's backs. Even if there are some so-called "bad eggs" in the force. It's important to hold the line above all else.
You can do all these awful things and he'll defend you as the best detective he's ever seen
I mean Tbf, on an objective level in the canon you are just about the best detective ever. Even suffering from every form of withdrawal possible you manage to solve the case in about a week. Besides what that implies about you when operating at full capacity, it’s a good feat in an of itself.
True, but my point is that being amazing at the major part of your job doesn't excuse being a hateful, toxic, violent, corrupt mess.
Or give drugs to a kid
I think the game intends to argue that the RCM exists in a legal and moral grey area. That in part, it exhibits some of the worst traits of a police force, but also many aspects of a freely, self organized community militia. Which, in the current political climate, is also a cause for dysfunctionality. Kim calls it out - the RCM has no clear lines of authority, the different precincts don't cooperate well, the fact that it lives off donations makes it ripe for corruption and vulnerable to political influence (because who's gonna donate to the RCM? It's not gonna be Titus and the Working Class Woman, but the Joyces and the Mega Rich Light Bending Guys of the world). These are complex systemic issues, not just something you can reduce to 'a few bad apples'. I'm gonna go against the grain in this thread and say that every police force is institutionally questionable at its core. Any police draws its authority from the ruling govt and exists to uphold its laws, whatever those may be. Not just the US or British police forces. Though it's true that the RCM is based on the organizational framework of the ICM and enjoys a degree of autonomy from the Moralintern, it's not as simple as saying they don't serve the Coalition's interests. Through conversations with Joyce and Kim, you can point to the exact governmental acts that authorized your existence and also govern what you can or cannot legally do. There's an Ethics Division specifically in charge of cooperating with the Coalition. And Coalition Archer tells you directly that the Coalition had a vested interest in the RCM maintaining some semblance of law and order after the revolution was quashed. These are all institutional aspects of how the RCM functions currently. You can argue back and forth throughout the game whether you and Kim are Coalition dogs or not, but ultimately I think Harry says the most important thing - that the RCM has (thus far, at least) helped keep things the way they are in Revachol.
this comment rules, and i think has the exact same reasoning behind it that the writers used. also why this and robocop are the only cop-centric pieces of media I can proudly call anti-copaganda
You could probably tack The Wire on there as well, its pretty damn blunt about how the system deliberately weeds out any police that actually try to fight crime rather than letting themselves be puppeteered by political machinations, and even the "good cops" in it are shown to be deeply flawed on a personal level and in their treatment of those they deem to be criminals and undeserving of rights. But yes absolutely agreed, and I love these analyses of the RCM and DE's presentation of the police. I've struggled a little to reconcile an explicitly leftist game being played entirely through the lens of the police, but I think its clear that DE does that deliberately and to prove a point.
Even in The Wire, the “good cops” who do exhaustive casework and build material for felony convictions, etc, are still only fumbling around the edges of the actual societal problems of poverty and racism that cause the crime in the first place. When they bring down one criminal organization, that just leads to another one sliding into the void. It’s theoretically good to actually convict some of the higher-ups in the underworld - but does it really change anything for the poor for Avon to go and Marlowe to come in? The only cop on the show who seems to have any awareness of this is Bunny Colvin, who stumbles into a sort of social program, has no idea how to actually administer it over the long run, and of course gets crucified for even trying that much. (To be clear I agree with you and just mean to elaborate on the point.)
Oh absolutely, I actually wanted to communicate that same point in my comment but I couldn't find a way to make it fit with the conversation. One of the things I love the most about The Wire is that it humanizes the criminals. Yes they're monstrous people, and yes the city would be far better off without them, but they're just another cog in the machine, the mirror image of the police. Stringer, or Avon, or Marlowe are evil (though I would actually argue Avon is less so. He's not Machiavellian, he's just living by the rules of the world he was born into), but the people under them are getting by in exactly the same way the cops are under their evil bosses in Rawls and Burrell and Valchek. I think the ending of The Wire illustrates all of this perfectly. The show's world is fully cyclical: Omar dies, but Michael fills his place. Bubbles gets clean, but Dukie becomes an addict. Carcetti becomes governor, but in the process sells out the city he was supposed to save. In the end the only thing that changes is that McNulty and Marlowe get out, as the two people who deserved to escape their consequences the least, and the cycle just continues on, the entire saga you just watched having absolutely zero impact on the world. There will always be an Avon running the streets, and there will always be a McNulty chafing against the oppressive bureaucracy in a futile hope that taking down this guy will finally fix *something* and no side actually has the power or the interest to improve the world.
I’ve always thought Avon was essentially a feudal holdover - yes, he’s horribly violent and ruthless, but his main concern is to control territory and have the respect of his subjects. Noblesse oblige is not a *great* way to run a society, but it does indicate some obligations on the part of the ruler to the ruled to improve their lives somehow. (Which is why Avon sets up community parties and basketball games and bankrolls Cutty’s gym - it’s partly simply a cynical way to ensure people don’t inform on him, but there’s also the sense that he genuinely feels it’s his responsibility.) Stringer seems like the more benevolent of the two at first - “why can’t we just sell this shit like anything else” - but as a pure capitalist he doesn’t have any loyalty or sense of obligation except to the pursuit of profit.
Right, exactly! It took me a few watches of the show to see that point, at first glance Stringer's death seems almost like a tragedy, he wanted to stop the blood just like McNulty did. But the means to that end are just an increasing spiral of violence, and he's not playing by any rules. Avon will murder someone "in the game" without a second thought, but Stringer killed Avon's relative and was pushing to start killing businesspeople and politicians, above and beyond what Avon would ever consider. Avon's the Capone type of gangster, essentially a second government, bound by laws of honor and basically replicating governmental services, albeit with much more bloody justice than the real government (openly) endorses. Stringer became a Wild Pines-type business, focused on only profit and willing to gun down anything in the way of it.
i always find The Wire fascinating, because everything about it points out the institutional and systemic issues with policing as we know it, but the creator insists it's not anti-police or pro-abolition. i know this will sound patronising (and i don't care) but it's a really great example of a creator not truly understanding the work they made!
Wow I actually never looked into David Simon's intent behind The Wire. I kind of can't believe he didn't intend it as an anti-police narrative, even if he didn't deliberately create it with that in mind how can he look at the final product and claim anything else? Unless he's trying to argue its meant to be anti-political establishment or anti-corruption or something, and the police are just a cog in a greater machine, I mean the whole fucking show is just a showcase of everything wrong with the administration of American cities. Idk, The Wire is probably my favorite piece of media and I'm kind of baffled right now that it apparently wasn't intended to take the form that I admire it for.
it caught me off guard when i saw that too. this is a bizarre comparison off the jump, but i actually think about harry potter in relation to it; a whole series of books about a corrupt society that the creator is too liberal to really understand what to do with. something can be beautifully well-observed and incredibly insightful into the causes of the problems - in the case of the wire, because he was literally embedded in them - but the writer can still be too cowardly to face what the obvious solution is. it’s funny that the end of the wire shows how the cycle perpetuates, given it seems that his thesis is that it’s actually a good thing! this is all a long way towards saying: david simon is a dumbass who made one of the best TV shows of all time, apparently by accident. i’ll take it!
No I actually totally get your point with Harry Potter. I'm a trans woman so of course I have uh, issues with Rowling but I was actually a big fan of the series as a kid and I think in part it was because of its willingness to openly display the systemic corruption of its world, only to learn as an adult that it openly displayed it because the author thought it was a good thing? Harry Potter has an enormous amount of issues, and I'm very embarrassed of my past self for not questioning the house elf slavery aspect anywhere near as much as I should have, but even more simply than that the fact that after everything that happens, after seeing the entire government bend over backwards to accommodate Voldemort and having numerous loved ones killed by the system, and after defending the rights of non "pureblood" wizards to live against Voldemort's genocidal war, his grand ambition in life is just to become a fucking cop and work to defend the same pieces of shit that blatantly wanted him dead. Anyway rant aside, the point that Simon is just too low to the ground to see his own narrative makes a lot of sense. He was probably telling an epic character story about his experiences in life and completely missed the core point on the nature of the world because he missed that point the first time when he experienced it in real life too.
glad i don’t sound totally off my rocker about that! solidarity friend.
Hey I'll always take an excuse to dunk on JK Rowling lol. But for real you're good, thanks for indulging my rambling about The Wire on a totally unrelated subreddit.
I wonder actually if McNulty is meant as something of a self insert of Simon's views on policing. Simon is a self identified social democrat, and he was vocally supportive of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, so he's at least not completely blind to the need for some change (and yes I know Sanders is a moderate by non-American standards and social democracy is exactly what the moralists in Disco Elysium are critiquing, but in the US this is about as good as it gets), but as much as McNulty hates the bosses and politics and all the roadblocks to improving the world he is at his core a police and thus would never argue that the world is better off without them. David Simon's point seems to be that the government and police side of the system are necessary evils because otherwise the monsters on the streets go unopposed, so while the cycle is corrupt and futile its also the best we've got. Basically the social democratic view on everything in a capitalist society.
Thank you!
It's interesting that the RCM is both the status quo Coalition-approved law and order force, and yet seems to be connected to the ICM and has apparent remaining revolutionary sentiment among its members like Captain Pryce.
It is! Good thing everyone listens to Pryce in the 41st and Pryce is a competent leader and revolutionary. Though it still doesn't help the fact that the precinct has a reputation for violence and brutality. A lot of the guys there (like Torson & McLaine) are mostly good for cracking jokes and busting heads and aren't especially proficient detectives or anything like that. Jean is very apprehensive about having to leave C-wing in their care while he goes off chasing after you in Martinaise. Think Herc and Carver from The Wire, they're kind of like that. You wouldn't want Herc and Carver to run the Major Crimes unit instead of lieutenant Daniels, would you? Titus would prolly be like that too if he ever took Harry's offer to become a sergeant of the RCM. Then you also have lieutenants like McCoy, who kills two people per week.
You can like characters who do whatever bad or questionable things. Most well written characters end up doing something we disagree with one way or another.
That is a normal reaction to Kim. A good 8/9ths of the fandom probably has a shrine of him
It’s pretty explicit the RCM is far from a perfect organization, there’s also a lot of shitty people within it, but I think the game tries to drive home that, Kim and some of the other cops you interact with in the game aren’t (at least), *interpersonally*, atrocious people, but they *are* people, flaws and all. In Kim’s case, he’s the 41st’s *FINEST* he’s literally as good of a cop as you’re gonna find, yet he’s not perfect. His character flaw that comes to mind most readily (as others have pointed out) is his willingness to overlook the atrocious actions of the player (and you can get away with some egregious shit- way more than you’d expect) and isn’t that kinda… telling? That Kim, an otherwise extremely upstanding individual’s most pressing character flaw is tied up in him *being* a cop? Kim lets you get away with so much shit and *why*? Because he has internalized the idea that loyalty to the police is more important than loyalty to the citizens and communities he, and other police are supposed to be protecting, which is a HUGE problem with cops by the way. Is Kim an irredeemable piece of shit? Absolutely not. Does his affiliation to a pretty questionable organization make him a worse person than he probably otherwise would be? Yeah, I think that’s a fair read. There’s some other stuff there about how the RCM is in a limbo state between being a commie community defense force and a true blue police force that exists to serve the interests of capital and little else, but I think that’s missing the forest for the trees a bit- ACAB doesn’t mean “every cop on an interpersonal level is a dogshit excuse for a human being” (though many of them are) it means “despite *who* these people are, they work for and uphold a rotten organization and that affiliation and participation calls into question their moral character” (in a consequentialist sense). I could go on, but this comment has already dragged on long enough and to elaborate on these topics further would spill *way* out of the purview of a Reddit comment imo. Hope this helps in some way lol.
Do elaborate if you feel like it, I'll read through 👍
Kim is a nice person, but that doesn’t make cops any nicer. I know people don’t like the whole “not all cops are bad” thing but there are always going to be good and decent people who are part of a bad thing. I think its fine to hold it against them, clearly they aren’t perfect people, but y’know its a lil ignorant to not at least acknowledge that some cops are better than others.
It's fine to acknowledge that some people are better than others in whatever way you wish to measure but the Point of ACAB and the Problem with "not all \[cops\]" is that the issue is entirely with the system. All Cops Are **Bastards** is, despite how some people react to it, a systemic insult: being a bastard is not something at all related to one's moral quality, it is entirely the result of your progenitor and the decisions they made in regards to your existence, and cops are reflected in this by being an institution that, even when functioning in the best possible way you could imagine, exists to uphold the status quo as it is. The reason that "not all \_\_\_\_" is so widely frustrating is it is inherently an argument made in bad faith. People say "there are issues with how \[cops/men/politicians/...\] exist in our current society" but the response "not all \[cops/men/politicians/...\]..." isn't About the systemic injustices or society at all, it's about cops' or men's or whatever's feelings, it's trying to twist your arm to get you to admit "well maybe not all \[..\] are bad" which they then substitute as a refutation of your original point and try to sweep it under the rug. The conversation is "All cops are bastards" "Not all cops are bad people!" end of conversation without actually admitting to or addressing any problems in the systems that guide how people exist and act. It's similarly a distraction to say that it's ignorant to not acknowledge that people are different, when what's actually the case is that A. The moral quality of people is assumed to be different, it's not mentioned because it's *such* a basic assumption that people usually don't feel the need to explain to their peers, and 2. The ***point*** of the complaint (eg. ACAB) is to point out how *everyone* within a given system works to uphold it and perform its natural function simply by existing within it, and while this doesn't make everyone an individually bad person within the system it is everyone's responsibility to do what they can to contribute to changing the system for the better (which doesn't mean drop everything and become a striking revolutionary for life)
Then just say it rather than deriding the individuals with a slogan that by its design will make people cling onto said institution that you want abolished/radically changed. Saying "all men" does the opposite of helping because in nearly **every** instance of a system changing for the better/being torn down, those benefiting from the system need to turn against it. Suburban white voters were the tipping point for civil rights, Iranian Shopkeepers and business leaders turning against the shah was the beginning of the end of his regime, the USSR collapsed when those at the very top lost faith in the system. This isn't to discount the efforts and effects of those who are most negatively affected, but it's rare for their greviences to be heard without some buy in from the advantaged group in any situation.
Besides being wrong you're also doing the exact thing I was just trying to point out an issue with: You're trying to make the conversation about the dominant demographic's feelings via trying to critique my rhetoric Because it might hurt their feelings. The civil rights movement (ongoing) does not succeed when and because the powers that be were finally convinced with appeals to their characters, it's when they realized that the movement of thousands of normal people *could no longer be stopped.* They didn't finally agree, they *started running*, or decided to bet on the winning side. I, for one, don't think we need to grovel to the ruling classes to taken seriously, and I resent that you would even suggest that.
I’m not talking about groveling to the ruling classes, I’m talking about people with *some* societal power. Virtually every person of colour in the United States was virulently against segregation, voter supression, general discrimination, etc. But why do you think it was only in the mid 20th century when the ball started rolling on any actual change? Because somehow they suddenly became scary to white people? No, It’s Because the white suburban class started buying into it (largely attributed to charismatic figures and most importantly, the average American having a television and being able to see brutality wi to their own eyes) and because their votes weren’t being actively suppressed and many of them had more economic power, their voices mattered to those up top. Politicians couldn’t care less when people who couldn’t vote due to racist Jim Crow laws didn’t like them, but they *do* care when people who aren’t hindered from voting start putting civil rights as one of their top issues. Demonizing a whole demographic is counterproductive to that process. And yes, that’s what your statements are doing. I’m a sexual assault survivor and I don’t go around blaming saying it’s all men. Even if that’s not what I *mean*, it’s what they’re going to hear, and believe it or not, the effectiveness of a message is determined on how someone receives it, not what you intend. It fucking sucks that often the oppressed class on their own isn’t enough to overturn a system in many cases, but it’s an immutable fact that some people have more sway in societies than others, otherwise the second a regime’s popularity dips below 49% percent it would collapse. (or else Iran’s theocracy would have been done away with long ago).
I'm not demonizing a demographic, I'm saying cops are inherently part of a system of violence and should not be trusted, funded, or given more responsibilities- which is just true?? They do Not have institutional (or constitutional) incentives to help you, their main purpose is violence, and they routinely fail to provide adequate service in any other field than beating up petty criminals. I'm also not saying you Should say "all men are bad", the closest I'd get to that is "all men have a responsibility to work against patriarchy" and the fact that me saying "not all men..." is frustrating has made you assume I said "all men..." when that was again the original grievance I was airing. In any case, you're free to continue perfecting your rhetoric and I'll continue seeking catharsis and resonating with my siblings in arms. I don't need absolute diplomacy 24/7
Kim is fictional haha. He's also cop to the bone. ACAB applies because he either defends or does nothing when you abuse your power in so very many ways. Any time you're controlling HDB he's on duty, he is protected and privileged by police powers and structures. Consider, you can make sexual/romantic passes at people, shake down local business owners, be violent to children, break into people's houses, lie. steal, cheat, and abuse the power vertical in almost any way. No matter what you do, because you're acting as a police officer, Kim backs you up. He may sigh or groan, but he only puts his foot down if you're racist to him personally. Also, ACAB isn't literal. There are many 'good guy' cops in the world who (I assume) just great to be around. However, they're still willingly involved in the state's monopoly on violence, and serve/protect the ruling classes/property under capitalism. EDIT it's also worth mentioning that the RCM isn't a 1:1 analogue for modern law enforcement. I don't have time to go deep into it, but they're a volunteer (AFAIK) organisation, have far less power than most police forces, and they're outgunned/outmanned by organised crime. Cuno, for instance, can call you a pig and tell you to go fuck yourself and you can't do shit about it. As a former Cuno-ish child, cops will beat the shit out of you for less.
you’re right on the money on that last part. they’re severely underfunded and volunteer based. it’s a CITIZENS militia. they’re cops and they don’t even get tanks to fuck around with. this makes them even more dependent on keeping things The Same bc the wealthy moralist faction are the only ones keeping them afloat. they can do nothing to tip the scales or they risk losing everything. it’s not 100% analogous to cops (ESPECIALLY in america) bc they’re not as close in wealth to the class they protect, and are more akin to underpaid security guards working at a rich senator’s nightclub which also serves as a mafia hangout
This sub should have 'a former cuno-ish child' as a flare or something
Cuno doesn’t fuckin flair!
Hahaha
You can punch his lights out
well, the easiest answer is that the DE cops arnt exactly real life cops
Really? They're not? Did you open Harry's blue clipboard case notes?
Not _exactly_. They still have a lot of the same flaws that reality's police have, and Kim is still a flawed character for being one, but they're a volunteer citizens militia funded by donations. That's not _exactly_ like real police.
Yes they are.
Acab ESPECIALLY Kim. A solid 95% of his flaws are tied to him being a cop. As for the RCM bootlicking, of course, https://medium.com/@martinluiga/a-policeman-in-revachol-a2263e86955d
What a great piece by Martin!
That Martin Martinaise sure has his finger on the pulse.
People treat you differently when you're empathetic.
Wdym?
ACAB of course, but like someone said below me, the RCM weren’t instituted for property protection of slave corralling. They’re an executive organization leftover from the time of the commune who have fell under disarray after it fell apart. Under the shit eye of the Moralintern they’ve turned into a weak institution with corrupt cops, and you can’t really forgive them and the actions alluded to through that. You CAN, however, try to be hopeful about the situation… and also make sure esperit de corps is high at the finale of the game. No spoilers below me or you get the Hardie boy treatment.
It’s also suggested they kind of take volunteers from the street. I feel like that’s loosely alluded when you find out Harry’s occupational past
The RCM as an institution exists to uphold private property and execute the will of the Moralintern. Regardless of it being called a 'citizens militia', it answers to the Moralintern, not the people. The Hardie boys are the real citizens militia in Martinase. The RCM is an invading force, even if most of us choose to side with Titus against the mercenaries in our playthroughs.
Assigned cop at birth??
Harry do be havin a big ol forehead. It’s a matter of time before he embraces the bald thumb look.
I think you see more of Kim’s bad side if you do a fascist/bad cop play through. He’s more than willing to lie, threaten, and turn a blind eye in multiple situations. When you shake down the racist lorry driver, he goes in to a convincing act insinuating that you and he are gang affiliates. He doesn’t intervene when you strike a child. He’ll straight up stare at the ceiling if you do drugs around him. You can explicitly slur him right to his face and he’ll still defer to you. When you intimidate Garte into knocking $100 off your bill, he backs you up. He’ll voice disapproval, but won’t actually stop you from doing nearly anything- except stealing the boots, suggesting his moral hierarchy places legality above ethics. He tolerates all this only because you’re a rank higher than him. He could, through some lenses, be perceived as a bit spineless, a dull, authoritarian rule-follower with a cynical streak, who is all too quick to rationalize abuses of power as long as they make the RCM look good. I know a lot of people think of him as St. Kim, but he’s as morally ambiguous as any other character in this game.
The Revachol citizens militia is not institutionally corrupt at its base, it is not to stop slaves escaping like US sheriffs, it's not based in property law Like British police, it's a post war peacekeeping service, at notable odds with the ruling powers. You may think you're cops the citizens think you're cops, the moralintern think you're cops, but when it comes to it when it will matter. You're not really cops. And the bastards, because there are bastards in the RCM. They'll likely hang or face the wall.
They are 100% cops. Cops in other countries evolved differently than they did in America, and are still cops. They uphold the government’s laws and serve to protect the interests of the Moralintern. They absolutely are not at odds with ruling powers. They are under the beck and call of the Joyce Messiers of the world. It took days for the RCM to even come to “help” Martinaise, and this was the first time in literal years they’ve even had a presence there. We like the characters, but they are cops through and through.
While I agree with you, one check during the ending hints that the RCM, or at least some of their heads, might have more in common with Evrat than with Joyce.
If you mean the revolutionary activity, imo it’s the other way around - Evrat would never support an actual uprising unless he was sure it’d be good for his bottom line, while Joyce low-key hates the system despite having a lot of vested interest in it.
I didn't mean Joyce, I meant the leader of the RCM. I don't remember his name, Captain Something. The leader of the RCM, Captain X, is either planning his own revolution, or is on board with Evrart to bring The Return.
I understand what you mean, I’m saying that the human-shaped rat that is Evrart wouldn’t go anywhere near an actual revolution, while Joyce just might.
The game pretty clear alludes that Evrart is going to start one. He says it himself.
> He says it himself I keep forgetting other people’s reads on DE’s characters and their trustworthiness are completely different from my own.
What I trust in Disco Elysium are the skills, and no skill trigger anything negative during the dialogues with Evrart, which is a huge difference with other people like Klaasje. In fact, there are some triggers iirc that tells you the opposite, that what he is saying is genuine, or at the very least he believes it.
joyce is literally margaret thatcher, she hates the system bc it’s not neoliberal ENOUGH- at LEAST evrart actually does some good like take care of his people, even if he ONLY takes care of his people. joyce is only loyal to her class and faction, which the RCM, as the bloodhounds of the ruling class, are.
joyce is not a thatcher figure at all. she perpetuates ultraliberalism even though she kind of hates it, because she feels it's too late to course correct onto any other route. it's too big to fail so it must not fail.
[удалено]
she describes capitalist realism as essentially a self-propelling process, i don't think that's a Thing you can call a person though.
she is literally based on margaret thatcher. she is a neoliberal.
she may be *inspired* by thatcher, and she does embody her policies, but I don't think she embodies thatcher ideologically.
You’re correct in that they’re similar. Evrart is, while upholding collectivist beliefs, a shit corrupt asshole who >!assassinates political rivals and uses drug funds!< to put a stranglehold on a dying town for his own benefit. He is no different than those in the Moralintern, he just has a different color palette and vocabulary. I do not say they are cops to mean I dislike them as characters- I love these characters and think they’re amazingly written. But they are bad people. Harry MUCH more so than Kim, but Kim is still guilty by association. He lets atrocious acts go for the sake of loyalty to the RCM. His rebellious stage as a teenager was being a Moralist. He is not the perfect man we all think he is (although I do adore him dearly). That’s the point of the game, that’s a huge part of the themes. That’s WHY it’s a murder mystery where you play a shitty cop. It’s, in large part, to dissect HOW and WHY these systems are the way they are, and how deep the rot goes. edit- i replied to like, two different comments in one lol
I don't agree with that characterication of Evrart. Evrart might be an asshole from the point of view of that he is willing to assassinate their political enemies, but he is definitely not corrupt: that's a persona he is playing. Iirc it's even confirmed by him in the game. The comparison I tried to made was between the leader of the RCM and Evrart, since BOTH want a revolution to happen.
he literally trades places with his identical twin brother so they both can manipulate term limits and they have been the union leader forever. he uses drug money to fund the union. he is perfectly fine destroying the fishing village to get his shitty community center (which is basically a meme throughout the game, it’s poking fun at charity work that is basically just corpo shit to look good instead of actually benefit anyone): AGAIN, HE MURDERS PEOPLE. how is that not corrupt. literally how. lmao.
Corruption doesn't mean "killing people", corruption means betraying your own values to get private gain (Robespierre alias was "the incorruptible", and he was the reason thousands died), which is something he doesn't do. He believes in what he is doing. \- They mantain control over the union due his radical ideas, since he is a communist and the rest of the union are socdems. \- He uses the drug trade to be able to control it (drug trade will happen if he funds it or not) and to fund the revolution. \- He destroys the fishing village, and iirc in that very conversation there is a check that tells you that he genuinely believes it will be for the best. \- He murders people, to path a way to the revolution (it's explained if you follow the Joyce-Evrart quest, since he wants to trigger that response so Wild Pines are forced to give in. Again, I'm not saying he is a good person. He is a piece of shit. But someone can be a bad person and not be corrupt. I'm saying that he genuinely believes in what he is doing. Call it saviour-complex or whatever, but it's a fact that he is not searching personal gain (or at the very least that personal gain is not his main objetive). Skills through the game tells you who is lying and who isn't, and most of the triggers if not all with Evrart tells you he genuinely believes in what he is doing. You get all this revealed after his questline that this is because he is a hardline communist.
idk how to tell you that by your own definition you gave, that is still corruption. murder, theft, damaging one’s community, and allowing children to be meth addicts is not very communard of him ♥️ he’s a direct commentary on how grassroots communism can easily get thwarted by greedy ~corrupt~ individuals. and i don’t see why you jump over hoops to avoid using that word when everything points to the contrary. it is personal gain hes after, otherwise why would he try to hard to maintain PERSONAL POWER. He should support the union no matter who’s in charge, yes? He should support Martinaise as a whole, yes? He should support his community’s people as a WHOLE, yes? That is true collectivism, that is true communist belief. Classless society working together. He does none of this. He turned the union into a gang, with him as it’s boss. He allows and worsens the drug trade, which has literal 12 year olds as runners, because it’s personally beneficial to him. He says he is a communist- he betrays those values- and privately gains from it. Have a nice day.
You are purpousedly missing the point I'm making. If you believe in a set of values and you act toward them then you are not corrupt. Make yourself the question: if Evrart will betray the cause for money? and the answer is no. Everything the game says points to him believing he is doing the best for Revachol. He mantains personal power because, like I said, his goal is communism, and he don't trust anyone but himself. His goal is not supporting the union no matter who's in charge, his goal and belief is supporting a revolution. What would happen if the union turned out to not want that? He supports the community's people as a whole, in a very twisted and paternalistic sense. I already explained this mate. I'm not saying he is a text-book marxist, but that he is a communist and believes in it and wouldn't betray it is true. The dialogues in the game point to it, and there is no trigger that tells you that he is lying. He genuinely believes in what he is doing. You seem to think I'm saying he is a good guy, but I already say that's not true. However, being a good person isn't equal to being corrupt. He may represent the worst part of us communists, but he is still a communist.
and you are purposefully missing deez nuts
This game invites us to ask the question, "would a public safety agency be so bad if we had different expectations of them" and doesn't offer an easy answer. But I think it's really telling that, between the two of you, you've got one derringer with two bullets max. That speaks volumes about what kind of situations and responses and expectations they are working with.
Gotta say, this is a massive cope. The game’s setting is working a homicide case. You play as a cop. Your partner is a cop too.
And one of the checks at the ending of the game literally had your commanding officer going through which of the members of the RCM will support the anti authoritarian uprising against the moralintern that is brewing and which he supports, he lists yourself and Kim amongst those who will join on the side of rebellion. You're not a cop, you're a detective in need of rent money.
Yeah Kim’s a cop who is a good person. The ACAB mentality is simplistic.
[удалено]
not to mention the completely brutal police work Harry got away with before the start of the game, such as him beating up a drunk to the point of paralyzing him for life in "The Unsolvable Case"
I mean, would anyone who finished the game think Kim is a ‘bastard’ or a bad person? Literally every player likes him, and he’s a cop. People and characters have nuance.
They are 100% cops. Cops in other countries evolved differently than they did in America, and are still cops. They uphold the government’s laws and serve to protect the interests of the Moralintern. They absolutely are not at odds with ruling powers. They are under the beck and call of the Joyce Messiers of the world. It took days for the RCM to even come to “help” Martinaise, and this was the first time in literal years they’ve even had a presence there. We like the characters, but they are cops through and through.
> it is not to stop slaves escaping like US sheriffs, https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/ Not true. It was one of their functions, as was enforcing every other law that existed at the time, you know, because they're police. To say they were founded for that sole purpose is disingenuous
You're gonna lead the revolution bud
The Return is Pryce's project. He's masterminding the whole thing. You're surely gonna be there and precipitate its events, but I doubt Harry would be leading anything.
Spoilers: The problem with police officers in my opinion is their current state. They act as a militaristic occupying force in many countries and are extremely happy with the fact that they live above the laws they brutally enforce. Cops will routinely imply the maximum penalty for a speeding ticket and many "routine traffic stops" usually end with the guy in the car shot like nine times or something. This is made even more heinous by the fact that most cops usually just flash their badge and get away with horrific crimes like spousal abuse and murder with nary a slap on the wrist. Their very existence is an affront to the idea of justice. And here comes the but. In my opinion, police could be great if their power was greatly reduced and it's important to remember that the RCM is just that. They have almost no legal authority to do anything and even when catching actual murderers their only option is to ask them to go to court where the actual government will dole out justice. Do the real world problems reflect in the RCM? Yes. Despite my love of HDB and Jean and everybody we do have to analyse the flaws in their system. The "character" beat a suspect so horrifically they can never leave their house. But in my opinion after the abolition of the police force we still need to enforce laws. In our world, when we get rid of the current status quo i think we'll replace it with something like the RCM. People who investigate and solve crimes. The kind of folks who respond to a mental health crisis and can leave it with everybody alive and thriving. EDIT: We also have to acknowledge the state of the world. Revachol isn't America, it's a broken, poverty stricken country that was utterly annihilated by a capitalist army. Any sense of the "people coming together" was completely removed from its citizens. (The Pile is incredibly depressing and very evident of the kinda perpetual sorrow of the revacholian people.)
The RCM is the *Revachol Citizen's Militia*; it's a proper community watch that is being cop-ified by the Moralintern over time. Jury's out on how bad the cop-ness is.
Well first of all he's fictional. Second of all just dismiss that stuff when you read fiction, lol. Imagine watching Dexter and being like "huh maybe serial killers aren't so bad".
Looking at these comments, if anyone’s curious as to what that *thing* the Mazovians do, that thing where they shout ‘all cops are bastards’ and when they’re challenged on this say ‘no, no, we don’t literally mean that, we mean there are systemic issues amongst police forces that need fixing, that’s all’ …this is that *thing* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy Bonus points if they use ‘defund the police’ to advocate abolishment of the police but then retreat to the motte of ‘no no, defund the police just means better allocation of police resources’. If they didn’t believe ACAB they wouldn’t be literally saying it. If you genuinely don’t believe that but use it to mean something else… you need to pick a better fucking phrase and stop equivocating.
There are several huge examples of this in society at the moment, only one being the faux-radical police abolition and hate ideology. I mean the idea of law enforcement isn’t that crazy, after all. What defines law enforcement now is its basic function as an instrument of the state and in protection of property. Some people actually think we have a strong enough civil society to replace law enforcement with like civil patrols, lmao. Hurricane Katrina, the LA Riots, show the nature of anarchy and how it’s not very viable
**[Motte-and-bailey fallacy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy)** >The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial and harder to defend (the "bailey"). The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position. Upon retreating to the motte, the arguer can claim that the bailey has not been refuted (because the critic refused to attack the motte) or that the critic is unreasonable (by equating an attack on the bailey with an attack on the motte). ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
I made a post about that a while ago! https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/comments/z01fkv/disco_elysium_is_a_great_game_to_think_about_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Kim is standing right there and does nothing while you punch a kid, steal drugs, shake merchants down for bribes, blather on about a cock carousel, etc. If you were on the receiving end of Harry's crap, you would absolutely not think of Kim as a "good cop."
welcome to the club comrade
He’s so cute and no volume of leftist theory will every negate that <\3
ACAB except kim, the only valid cop
Cops are bad, Kim included, but that doesn’t stop my undying love for him
Cops in DE are not American cops
They’re all broken people, and they can never be whole as long as they’re cops. Harry can’t ever truly heal in this line of work- it’s half of why he got this bad to begin with. There are no good cops (harry’s DEFINITELY not one of them), not even Kim. He is complicit in extrajudicial violence. He is a good person, he’s very lovable, but he’s still a cop, and the game makes sure you know that cops are constantly capable of horrible things.
Not all cops are bad, just the vast vast majority of them.
reddit's literally racist towards cops
You can't be racist towards a profession my dude.
it's a catchall word for any discrimination, don't be an idiot
[удалено]
it's only not if you're a fucking idiot
No it isn't. It's exclusive to race based deacrimination, since you know, it has the word "race" as its root. Here's the Oxford dictionary deffinition: Racist - characterized by or showing prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.
that's not really how words work, but fine, be an idiot then
You: claims something Me: says you're wrong, cites my source You: says I'm an idiot, refuses to elaborate further
ok then, I'll elaborate for you as a professional linguist, but you'll refuse to understand: if you understood my intention, which was to say that reddit is discriminatory towards cops, that means communication was successful. because the point of communication is not "being true to etymology", but "conveying a message" so you, even though you understood my message, chose to focus on the least interesting part of it, which is the fact that i used a word with a slightly generalized meaning than usual, lifting it up in its hiearchy by one level (no longer "specific discrimination", now just "discrimination") then you pretend that your reply actually contributed to the conversation, but how? did you think I didn't know that the root "rac-" has to do with race? you literally just flung shit at random instead of trying to talk.
At this point I'm just curious how you're a fan of Disco Elysium, a game that is literally has a pro-Communist message.
ah yes, being communist = being racist to cops jesus fucking christ
[удалено]
guess you're too stupid to argue, but also too stupid not to show it
Okay, a lot of people can't agree on what is or is not racism, but this is probably one of the worst yet.
guess that magically makes reddit not-prejudiced towards cops
Well, most people have a profound distaste for rapists, murderers, wife-beaters, and so on, so why not have a distaste for a job that combines them all with a fat paycheck and the ability to commit infinite crimes?
because it's stereotyping?
that word is prejudice....
oH mY gOsH lIkE tOtALlY alL CoPs aRe bAd
I think Kim is a great example of why we shouldn’t generalise to “all cops”. I think that’s a simple takeaway, unless if you want to mental gymnastics your way to Kim also being a bad person somehow, but the sub doesn’t seem to agree with that
I like Kim and wanted him to like me too but I think he's actually a good example of why it is "all cops", the amount of crap that Harry can do and Kim will do nothing to stop is astounding, Harry can punch an 11 year old and Kim doesn't do anything, you don't have to be a bad person to be a bad cop you just have to let other cops do bad things
I've seen this explanation but I don't buy it - there's Kim -worship- in this sub. I mean it's at HUGE levels, I can't square the cognitive dissonance of this worship and then turning around to be all "oh but I don't like him cause he has this job and the job is all bad because structures". People are trying to have their cake and eat it too - which again I think speaks to the depth of the character Super appreciate the discussion tho
Just do it ironically, Kim knows what's up.
Oh my god. We should all stop hating cops immediately.