#pathologic 4

A popular theory I've seen floating around here is that Pathologic 4 will have a motif focusing on video games as the future of story-telling.

Artemy, who is focused on the past and traditions, had a theatrical motif. Plays were one the most popular forms of storytelling when it came to sharing thought-provoking ideas through stories, but they sadly are not as popular with the masses as they once were.

Daniil, a modern man with his eyes set on the latest innovation, had a cinematic motif. Movies are the most recent art form to reach a recognized "high art" status, for lack of better way to phrase that. You can watch an artsy, abstract film, and no one would blink twice at the idea.

Clara, the theory goes, would then have a video game motif in her story. She is by far the most meta character, and while video games haven't been elevated yet to a high art status by most people, Ice Pick Lodge clearly thinks differently and it shows.

I'm bringing this up to show how Mark Immortell's role has operated with these motifs so far.

In Pathologic 2, when Artemy dies, he is the one who makes him take it "from the top" and inflicts the punishment (sometimes). But while you can talk with him in certain scenes, he doesn't do anything that impacts the gameplay or story while Artemy is in town. He gives his direction behind the scenes, and then he lets everything play out again in real time.

Mark Immortell is acting like a theater director here, allowing scenes to play out before giving his input and letting the scene play again. However, this is also how audiences can interact with plays. If one version of a play is poorly received by an audience, the next iteration of that same play would certainly make changes to it. A director might even change the show from one showing to the next if the situation really calls for it. But the audience can't change the characters or a plot of a show while it is happening. (Though that bad reputation from previous showings may make it harder to attract a crowd for a new performance of the same material - kind of like how it's harder to survive after Mark Immortell decreases Artemy's health after he dies.)

In Pathologic 3, Mark Immortell is very hands off. He's not present behind the scenes, he does not provide any direction to Daniil. He just chats with him from time to time.

Mark Immortell is not acting like a movie director here. Mark Immortell is acting like an audience member in a movie theater. He can't change the final product, much like the average viewer can't influence a movie (in general - releasing the Snyder cut is not the norm and I'm not counting it.) Remakes are possible, but those come out many years later and act as their own separate film. Sequels may take audience feedback for prior entries into account, but those prior entries remain the same. If anything, Daniil is acting as a movie editor by traveling back in time to get more done, changing the final product movie-goers get to see as the "true" version of the film's events.

Obviously, Pathologic 3 should be called just Utopia. Come on!