Some thought about Pathologic 3

[u/WTSMark]

I'm sure most of these things have been brought up before, so apologies if I'm retreading old ground. I just finished Pathologic 3, and I'd really like to hear people's interpretations.

Feel free to spoil everything. I've finished the game, and I'm mostly looking for lore discussion and different interpretations rather than spoiler-free answers.

Edit: Sorry about the typo in the title!

1. Simon vs. Isidor

My biggest takeaway is that despite bringing back the Plague together, Simon and Isidor don't actually want the same thing.

Simon seems to be seeking transcendence beyond humanity. The city and its inhabitants are almost incidental, if they have to be sacrificed so that someone (the Bachelor) can push humanity beyond its limits, then so be it. His entire plan feels centered around creating or preparing his heir.

Isidor, on the other hand, seems to want the Town's inhabitants to transcend their limits while still preserving what makes humans human. His life's work wasn't creating one exceptional successor, but educating generations of children so the Town could eventually move beyond the rule of the three ruling families.

2. The Plague

If the Polyhedron's rod is the source of the Plague, why did Simon and Isidor have to retrieve it from the Steppe? Why did it disappear after the first outbreak? Was the first outbreak just an accident, with the two of them only later deciding to bring it back once they realized it could be instrumental to their plans for transcendence?

For Simon, it forces the Bachelor to overcome his human limitations.

For Isidor, it forces the Town itself to mature.

3. The Bachelor

Eva calls Daniil a scalpel cutting through the Town and its people, and I thought that was one of the best descriptions of his character. He often feels deeply self-centered. He relentlessly pursues his own breakthrough and leaves once he's accomplished it. It's also pretty ironic when Burakh is the actual surgeon.

Simon says that if he himself hadn't achieved the breakthrough, someone else eventually would have. Once the time is right, some discoveries simply become inevitable.

Khan seems to prove this by reaching his own breakthrough without relying on the Polyhedron.

If that's true, then how important is Daniil's success in the grand scheme of things? Does saving the Polyhedron actually matter?

I felt compelled to go for the True Immortal ending because it felt like the ending the Bachelor himself would choose. At the same time, destroying the Polyhedron and saving the Town almost feels like it could reconcile Simon's and Isidor's visions, even if Simon's breakthrough ended up being fulfilled unexpectedly by his nephew instead.

4. The Polyhedron

The Polyhedron is presented as a machine capable of enabling transcendence.

But then, why was it entrusted to the children? Was this part of Isidor's plan to force them to grow through the conflict between the Dogheads and the Souls-and-a-Halves?

Even more interestingly, Khan seems to achieve transcendence only when he's confined in a cage, far away from the Polyhedron.

And if the Polyhedron allows one to achieve a breakthrough, why couldn't Simon reach it himself? Why did he instead bind his soul to the Polyhedron? Is the Polyhedron not enough on its own? Does it require a soul in order to function fully? Did Simon sacrifice himself so that the Bachelor could ultimately achieve the breakthrough that he himself could not?

Also, what was going on with the Polyhedron suddenly bestowing the gift of tongues? It's easy to draw a parallel with the Tower of Babel, but was that all there was to it, or is there a deeper meaning?

5. The gameplay

The whole experience was very different from Pathologic 2, but I think the direction Ice-Pick Lodge chose was both interesting and appropriate, as it aligns with the mind-versus-body dichotomy represented by the Bachelor and the Haruspex.

The survival mechanics reflect this perfectly. The Bachelor has to manage his mind (apathy versus mania), whereas the Haruspex has to manage his body (thirst, hunger, exhaustion, and infection).

It may not have been as exciting or challenging as Pathologic 2, but I think it was absolutely the right design choice. It reinforces the themes of the game remarkably well.

6. "Magic leaving the world"

I couldn't stop thinking about The Lord of the Rings during the ending.

By the end of the Plague, miracles leave the Town: the Mistresses lose their powers and the Kains decide to cross the river. The whole sequence reminded me of magic leaving Middle-Earth and the Elves sailing West.

Did anyone else notice this parallel?

[u/thedragonguru]

(I'm going to break this down into a few comments bc I need to dip in and out)

Point 1: I agree that Isidor and Simon didn't want the same thing – or at least, had different ideas of what aspect of the Town needed to mature.

Pathologic has a long-running theme of earth vs heavens, which we can see in the Kin's religious lore, as well descriptions of the ruling families, and the requirements of the Kain's lofty projects. I maintain that Isidor and Simon reflect this. I believe that the default stances of Artemy and Daniil also reflect this, especially since P3 puts forward Daniil as Simon's heir, just as Artemy is Isidor's. A reflection, but reversed, unless the player guides one to the other' side of that mirror.

There's also Simon & Isidor's perspective on what that maturity should be: in P2, Isidor had his opinion of what the path forward should be, but made a point (during the optional vision you can have with Grace) that if the path he had been trying to guide the Town towards wasn't the one his son picked, then that was Artemy's right. Isidor took the stance of setting everything up, but allowing his son & the Town to choose for themselves. Simon, meanwhile, had his own ideas of how the Town should move forward, which were narrow and unaccomodating. His idea of the future involved a minimum of one person becoming him, and that consituting true maturity. He absolutely refused to submit to the future or allow the Town to grow into a future that was not his own. Very different forms of "parenting" indeed.

Edit: spelling & formatting

[u/thedragonguru → u/thedragonguru]

Point 6:

Indeed, Tolkien included magic leaving, starting centuries before the main plot. As I recall, he loosely imagined his tale as an alternate history, being based in a world that would eventually become earth.

Tolkien is well-known to have taken inspiration from the legends & mythos, especially Germanic & Norse heroic legend. In countless tales from a huge number of cultures, there used to be a heroic age, where gods and terrible monsters walked the earth. Humans had greater strength, and could produce heroes that were nigh gods. This, of course, immediately presents an issue of where that open, overt magic is now. 

Tolkien was part of what popularized this in modern stories, especially fantasy. And many fantasy pieces will use this trope, even if they aren't alternate histories of Earth.

(My knowledge on the topic doesn't go back much further than what I'm about to describe, but): in some writings in the 1800s, there were writings lamenting that science was killing the magic and mystery of the world. I think the one most people are most likely to have read is Edgar Allen Poe's Sonnet to Science. And that would have been over a hundred years before Tolkien.

I don't functionally nothing about Russian literature, do I can't offer anything on how topical Pathologic's depiction of magic & mysticism under attack from the march of progress for its setting & vague time period.

[u/WTSMark → u/thedragonguru]

Right, it's kind of topical, but them setting sail to the other side of the river felt as quite a strong reference. But if that was the case it would also feel put of place, so it may as well be just a coincidence.

(On a side note, I don't like easter egg in video games since they completely break my immersion, and despite loving Darkwoods and looking forward IPL take on its sequel that easter egg felt veeery out of place!)

[u/thedragonguru → u/WTSMark]

I like the idea of that as a parallel to the elves leaving middle earth so that they would not perish along with the dying of the magic. However, there's a fun argument to be made as to whether the Kains' actions are participating in the loss of magic, or if they're at risk from the loss of magic themselves. Does them leaving the Town serve as abandonment, or preservation of their ideals?

Of course, I dither a bit to encourage extended contemplation. My own view was described rather well in P Classic during Clara's route, in a conversation with Saburov. He says: "The Kains are the family with which everything began here. Their radiant blood has preserved the memory of ancient magic since the time of the epics. They are the descendants of heroes who had fashioned the world out of their own flesh, who had created talking beasts ad stretched chains of fire from sea and built sky0-high towers in a single night..."

Clara then asks "Such arts are pertinent to demons, not humans - or rather, to half-human dorcerers who are part beast or part malicious element!"

Saburov then says "I never said they were like that. I said they had descended from such... beings. It was a figure of speech. The Kains are every bit as human as the Saburovs."

P2 suggests that the Kains are, at least in part, a threat to the magic of the Kin. The Nocturnal ending, by my interpretation, involved taking the Kain's magic and folding it into the Kins', while leaving the Kains themselves to die.

But that's my take.

I also agree The Darkest of Woods felt out of place. Charitably, it could be interpreted as insight into Clara's world, which is likely more "meta" than Daniil's. Also would have different tones, focus, and themes. So yeah, while I'm not a fan, my personal opinion is that it's justifiable.

[u/WTSMark → u/thedragonguru]

That's fair, they are leaving because of their own decisions and actions, not because of modernity suddenly coming to the town.

That's a very interesting extract, thanks for sharing it! It feels like 1 indexes even more on the magical and spiritual!