168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disco Elysium rules. Whether it's the beautiful art direction, deep dialogue, heavy political themes, or captivating choice-based narrative, you’d be hard-pressed not to fall in love with it.
One of the most striking parts of Dis🐓co Elysium to me is also ꦏone of its most underappreciated. In the middle of their investigation of Revachol, protagonist Harrier “Harry” Du Bois comes across a smoker on a random balcony, and after a series of random questions, the player (but not Harry) finds out the smoker is homosexual.
It All Starts With A Random Smoker On A Random Balcony
Harry thinks of the smoker’s homosexuality as a𝔍 “secret underground movement” looking to conspire against the state. All the while, both Kim Kitsuragi and the smoker himself look♓ at Harry with amusement.
This interaction gives Harry the “Homo-Sexual Underground” thought, one of the most time-consuming thoughts in the entire game with its eight hours of research time. And your rewar🔯d is nothing other than the realization that obsessing over sexuality is dumb and that you should start thinking about other, far more important, things instead.
Kim Kitsuragi is a lieutenant of the RCM and accompanies Harry throughout much of the game as you both embark on a similar investigation🧸. He is a deep and fascinating man.
But Harry, being Harry, excitedly tells Kim he’s stopped🍌 obsessing about sexuality and has suddenly decided to grow up a little bit. Kim dryly congratulates him and hopes he spends the newfound time on actual detective work. However, Harry can’t resist and asks Kim if he’s “part of the underground.” To dissuade Harry from another hours-long introspective thought, Kim nonchalantly says yes and tells Harry to get back to work.
While this is such a small exchange in the grand scheme of things, it’s also one of my favorite character reveals the game has to offer, and why Kim Kitsuragi is one of my favorite queer characters. Th⛎rough this simple conversation, Disco Elysium establi💙shes Kim as one of the most iconic gay characters in video games, all with a single line. That’s all it takes when representation is executed so perfectly like this.
I’ve always found mundane representation to be sorely underrated. While I adore queer narratives, I also love having qu🔯eer characters just pop up in a story, and that’s it. There’s no elaboration other than a few lines or a confirmed relationship, because that’s just one part of an entire person and should never be used to define someone in their entirety. Mundanity is important because it highlights an important goal of acceptance: normalization.
Queerness Is Everywhere, Even In Places Like Revachol
It is, and always has been, perfectly normal to be queer. Even if some parts of society bare their teeth against the slightest hint of a multicolored flag, it’s an objective truth that there&rsq♔uo;s nothing wrong with being queer, and it’s as normal to be born queer as it is to be born a human being. Kim Kitsuragi might exist in a strange dystopian world, but beneath his queer identity sits a far more complicated and nuanced character we want to get to know.
And yet, that mundanity is often challenged by those who don’t understand it. Kim Kitsuragi isn’t ashamed of his sexuality, but neither does he need to flaunt it. For one thing, he doesn’t want or need to. He’s on the job, and the only thing he’s concerned about is Harry’s effectiveness as a detectiv꧟e. When Kim reveals he’s gay, it’s clear he’s more annoyed and amused at Harry caring so much than him having any internal angst over the matter.
Of course, there’s a more subtle rea🐎son for Kim’s hidden sexuality. Reva🌊chol is a backwater city with plenty of bigots strutting about, one of whom even directly heckles Kim. A character known as The Lorry Driver sardonically says “Welcome to Revachol” to Kim upon meeting them, signifying that “his kind” doesn’t belong here.
Harry And Kim's Relationship Is Wonderfully Platonic, But Is Still So Heartfelt
Kim Kitsuragi’s family hails from Seol, 🍃a fictional country inspired by various East Asian cultures. However, he was born and raised in Revachol. Despite the city’s flaws, Kim considers himself a true Revacholian and scolds the driver for driving a wedge between people when it should be a time of unity. Although racists claim “his kind” needs to watch themselves and behave, Kim stands proud as an officer of the law regardless.
Harry can support Kim’s outbuꦍrst, which leads to the lorry driver derisively saying the pair make a “cute couple.” On top of being a massive racist, it’s also clear the lorry driver is homophobic. These qualities are not in short supply in Revachol, as the fascist Measurehead can attest to just a few blocks away.
The encounter with the, asꦉ Kim calls him later on, “stupid f---ing racist” is to showcase how difficult life is for minorities in Revachol. Kim was born and raised in Revachol and showed enough talent to become a lieutenant in the police department. Yet even he’s not exempt from the bigotry that’s so baked into the city’s culture.
It’s no wonder Kim doesn’t flaunt his homosexuality. It also makes it all the more poignant when he reveals it to Harry. Technically, you can get Hཧomo-Sexual Underground regardless of your relationship with Kim (if it&rsqu🅰o;s bad, how dare you), but what matters is what Kim thinks of Harry. For all of his quirks, Kim trusts that Harry wouldn’t be bothered by it.
And unless you intentionaꦍlly play as the worst cop ever, Kim’s assessment comes true. Most players will play Harry as a bumbling, weird, horrifically depressed, yet ultimately compassionate cop who gets the job done. Harry accepts Kim for who he is, and so Kim does his best to protect Harry from himself throughout the game.
It’s rare to see a platonic friendship between two men in media like this, let alone a repressed bisexual and sort-of-open homosexual, but Disco Elysium makes the relationship beautifully mundane in ways I wish were so much more common.
