Disco Words

it makes him so much more of an interesting character like in defanging him people reduce him to Ashes they reduce him to Nothing

Because the way fandom discussions go people will say I’m defending the former. And I’m not. I’m not defending police brutality. These are fundamentally different actions coming from different mindsets and that’s why we talk about it.

Jean, fully sober, stealing mustard from a homeless man is crucial characterization too is the thing. It’s cruel, it’s unusual, it’s a petty display of dominance that is perfectly in line with how he treats Harry for the entire game. Jean is someone who punches down on people.

I can't believe I haven't seen much discussion about Burke being disabled and how that impacts the police response to Harry beating him, because yeah that's also such an important detail. I also think a lot of people severely underestimate how much cops as a whole (and most people in positions of power, but especially cops) aggressively hate homeless and disabled people. You wanna know a real easy way to get people to reveal themselves as fascists? Vaguely mention homeless people around a cop and there's a good chance you'll get a crash course on eugenics.

SO true!

Harry is described as sturdy, chubby and husky in game. Kim calls him sturdy at least once. He gets called a fatass by Cuno and Cunoesse, and Cuno even pokes him in the gut while saying it.

The following happens to a Harry with a Physical Instrument of at least 5 iirc (that is a High FYS Harry, which means a lot of players miss out on it, sadly):

When talking to the Working Class Wife, she describes her missing husband using you as a yard stick. And calls you chubby. Whereupon Physical Instrument throws a fit (Did she just call you *fat*? You are *not* fat!) and you can correct her, saying you have a Franconigerian Hard-body (Softly round, yet still in shape. Chicks dig it.)

Moments later, depending on how you play, you can try to convince Plaisance the Book Store Owner to let you into the back room to investigate, by flexing. Again, Physical Instrument pipes up and has to correct itself as it speaks (Your lean- Uh, husky and chubby brawn -- is pure animal magnetism) because not even it can lie to itself like that.

Harry is NOT a lean man.

So I assume he really does give that "gym teacher gone to seed"-vibe, as in he was athletic, once, but alcohol and fast food has done a number on him (Endurance reflects on this in a dialogue and you can reflect upon your soft stomach as you try to sleep on day 1 iirc, seeing as it makes the blanket not quite cover your feet).

He has a reputation for being able to get inside anyone's head regardless of how much they don't want to talk, he can literally sense what his fellow officers are doing and saying about him remotely, he can (and at one point in the story, has to) acquire information that he simply would not possibly be able to possess about the city, its history, and its denizens just by breathing in the air with the Shivers skill. His Empathy skill ranges from picking up general vibes to just straight up reading people's minds and the Drama skill when high enough is practically a lie detector.

And he doesn't even really seem to understand these abilities, where they come from, or how to even use them on command: in his head he just has a really uncanny intuition but it's clear from the amount of and kinds of information he picks up that he is subconsciously tapping into some kind of ESP and it's likely related to the Pale.

He’d do something small like immediately regretting bringing up the drummer thing and I’d just put my head in my hands going “oh no is this how I sound to other people”. Lame as hell guy.

I think the general player is more comfortable writing off the whole interaction as a silly joke, because it's easier and causes less discomfort than having to seriously evaluate ideas like "nonwhite eugenicists" and "how easy it is for our protagonist to internalize racial pseudoscience". It's related to the way that many white leftists (ie. Vaush) love to shit on Hoteps all day rather than acknowledge the complexities of black radicalist ideology. Cause haha, isn't it hilarious that there are black people who believe they're superior to white people? Isn't that ridiculous?

He has Magic Powers. He’s smart, sensitive, fit. He has the energy and insane drive to make the world Better. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

Nothing lays this out more than the Greatest Innocence. Harry is an avatar of the world spirit, a mirror held up to all of Elysium. So many characters see themselves reflected in him.

Except Innocences aren’t actually real. They’re the narrative's way of ripping apart the Great Men Of History concept. They’re an elected position. They’re people who commit mass scale atrocities and claim those atrocities were an inevitability after the fact.