#serafima

Throughout the game, Dankovsky doesn't struggle with trivial tasks or executions. He simply plans, orders, draws, and instantly people trip over their feet to work in his stead. He doesn't fight, he orchestrates. Even the two queens with the most influential powers during endgame, still tread carefully around Dankovsky because both the inquisitor and commander see the benefit of keeping such a valuable knight in their corner.

In all three installments of Pathologic, not one character has even come close to the way the inspector disempowers him. Who else could be said to have degraded Dankovsky in a conversation to such extent? The inspector talks down to him in all instances, treating him as an insolant lying child having a tantrum. Not only is he not impressed with Dankovsky's airs and utopian type, but he is downright bored of his pathos. People like Dankovsky are a dime a dozen to the inspector, and they always seem to think they're above the law, that they're special and their dreams are worth all the lives they cost.

The inspector is vital to make you realise the deepshit you've fallen into. Because as a player, no one has ever talked to Dankovsky with such blatant disregard and skepticism before or after, not even Karminsky.

Back in Pathologic Quarantine, people weren't theorising that the inspector is a manifestation of Dankovsky inner guilt-ridden psyche for nothing; the only person who treated the Bachelor with similar disdain has been the Bachelor himself.

He really made the biggest impression on me.

Minus two points because... well, it gets old fast. If you get sent to principle office every two hours, it becomes less daunting than the last time, until you question what were you even afraid of in the first place.

It's especially worse when the player has already become jaded and desensitised to the inspector'a belittling, whilst Dankovsky has not. Suddenly all his replies to the Inspector's insults and skepticism seems melodramatic. He's not overreacting, but it seems this way since the Inspector loses the last specks of intimidation during the fifth or sixth time you talk to him after reseting. In fact, his presence leaned more toward comfortable familiarity to me at that point.

His constant presence undermines his role. However the necessity of said role is so vital to the atmosphere of the story, that it's better with him than without. The sense of impending doom he brings to the table makes P1 Bachelor seem like a walk in the park, mentally speaking, at least no one was breathing down your neck then and demanding a justification for your ever action.

Dankovsky's battles are psychological, at least that's what I think the P3 devs are trying to achieve.

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Serafima & Platon

10/10

You know what always disheartened me about P1? How lacking in motives the player is. I'm not talking about the protagonists, but the player, you.

Because P1 is a game you have zero motivation to finish or endure, unless you love it... or you're a masochist. It's a test of resilience, so you need a reason to be resilient.

The protagonists have their motives, but only on written paper. You, as a new player have no reason to relate or empathise: You've never seen Thanatica nor know of who else works there. You've never met Isidor Burakh or got to form a connection with the kin to comprehend what exactly you should be afraid of losing. You might be better off homebrewing reasons for why this named protagonist in this town, at least then you'll feel a slight connection to them.

Pathologic 2 is brilliant in the way it integrates the player in Artemy's lore. In the intricate world of the kin, of the steppe, and the town. It shows you exactly what you'll be missing if you sacrifice the other, it lets you form connection to the children bound to you, it makes truly want to come into your role as a healer and prove all those who called you a killer wrong.

Not only that, but you get a resolution!

There was never any resolution for your background motive in P1. You never get to see Thanatica or what became of Dankovsky after his route. You don't get a single new information about the kin or Isidor either after the tower is torn.

So for P2 to not just make the abattoir fight akin to an out of body spiritual experience in this gorey cave dreamlike scape, where you're armed with nothing but a scalpel and meant to draw lines of blood through the cave corridors, be it through fighting, sneaking, or willing sacrifice of others—but also let you talk to Isidor Burakh at the end, Artemy's father, and by virtue of post-fight adrenaline and immense immersion, your father as well. The man who sent you the letter to come back home, the person who left you the inheritance with a puzzle you've been keen on deciphering.

The existence of a rendered Thanatica and its two other doctors were long overdue! Serafima and Platon are nothing short of perfect for the role they play, the reminder of what you left behind, of who you left behind.

They, alongside everything in Capital from the Institution lecture halls and its mesmerising bigger-than-life stained glass murals to the tiny colourful butteflies fluttering about behind glass in the corner of Thanatica's lab, are an incentive.

An incentive to finish the game, to endure the hardships. A reminder of why you CANNOT let the plague escape this town to the capital. A dangling hostage of what you're on the verge of losing if you fail, give up, or take too many risks.

I view them as an extension of what P1 Eva represents, and by shouldering the labour of her role, it frees P3 Eva to become something more than she ever was. She doesn't need to just be your incentive, although she is definitely that too, but something bigger than life as well with her intriguing journey... which I have yet to see said journey. Please tell me P3 actually does something more with her than the 50 amalgam night and day dispenser I've been treating her as.

Both Thanatica, Serafima, Platon, the Capital, and Eva are an incentive to overcome the plague, yes. But that's where their similarities stop.

Because their best role, by far, is representing a crossroad of what's next. You come into the town in order to save your one true love Thanatica, but in doing so, you stumble upon another beautiful miracle, the Polyhedron and Eva. And now you must choose.

You're too busy battling the plague and escaping death, that you don't see this crossroad coming until you slam face first into it and realise the ditch you've digged yourself into. I think that's beautiful.

For Artemy, P2 is homecoming. This town is his home, where he'll live from now on. It's in his best interest to stitch as many of the wounds as possible and clean the place up. So you make permanent everlasting choices. You tackle deepseated issue. You venture beneath the surface of the earth and look at the biggest problem of all, the source of it all, the punctured heart.

While for Daniil, it's the other way around, he's trying to get back home to his Thanatica but this town won't let him go. So no wonder his solutions are preventive and temporary nicotine patches. He's not here to heal or cure, he's here to prevent and endure. Outlast the plague and hopefully take a trophy home to revive his lab. Dankovsky's here to conquere the beast town, while Artemy's seeks to nurture it. He cannot see the plague for the cry for help that it is, only the monster that's in his path. He doesn't respect the earth or care for the rippling affects of his actions, why should he? He's not here for long to face the consequences.

As for what I think about Serafima and Platon alone as characters, it's still inconclusive; haven't seen much of them. I don't know if the game will show more, either. They aren't meant to be fully flushed out characters like the town bounds. They're more intended to be extensions of Dankovsky that compliment him beautifully. A clear synergy between the three of them: one measures up where the other two are lacking

Ha. Three. Things always come in three. Three ruling families, three Mistresses, three factions, three healers, and three doctors at Thanatica. Even the plague comes on the third day.

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Mark Karminsky

As early as P1, Inquisitor Aglaya Lilich was well established to be a radical amongst radicals. She's archaic by Inquisitor standards, and solves problems with minimum casualties.

It's funny really, I clearly remember those npcs in P1 calling her a bitch as they hunted her across town, thinking they'd kill her. Now with Karminsky as a point of reference, I wonder if those same npcs would get the chance to crawl back, begging for Aglaya after realising the undeserved leniency she's treated them with, or would bloodloss spell their demise before reaching her feet after Karminsky cuts off their tongues at the first sign of a disrespectful syllable.

Aglaya sets a gallows that she scarcely uses beyond the first cutscene in P1. The only other time she takes a live is in the Bachelor route where she orders a rebellious executor to jump off the Cathedral.

In P2, she does neither. The only corpse that hangs in her gallows is due to suicide. Why did Veronica Croy kill herself? Because she was scared. Of who? Her inquisitor father Peter Croy.

She wanted to escape, and her only form of escape was suicide.

She was studying to be a doctor, she attended the same institution Dankovsky taught at.

Aglaya Lilich is a saint amongst inquisitors. But it was only ever said, written, told, never shown.

Until: enter Mark Karminsky, the vampire inquisitor.

He was drummed up so much in P1. For Georgiy Kain to warn you about someone? The same guy who preached unbiases so the Bachelor may form his own opinions to honour Simon's memory?

And oh, he did not disappoint.

First hour after arrival, he immediately starts cleaning house. Gets down to who the important responsibile people are, and sends them calling cards in the shape of two armed guards to drag them into the Cathedral, willing or not.

But unlike Aglaya, who in P1 made them wait in line so each one may get a private 1 on 1 trial with her, Karminsky groups them together like sheep to the slaughter. He lines them up. He fucking lines them up like a gym teacher during dodge ball

He's not just throwing his weight around, he's blatantly rubbing his authority in their faces. They're nothing, less than the dirt under his boots.

They're not even human to him, he strips them of all the usual respect, privacy, and privileges they've take for granted all their lives. They don't get a private trial, they don't get a chair to sit on, and they most definitely don't get to speak unless they're spoken to.

He starts from left to right, like it's a steak he's digging into and not people he's deciding the fate of. One of the firsts to sink his fangs into? Artemy Burakh, the strongest looking hulk of a man in this entire room.

Now Burakh's gift is that he won't play your game, no matter what. It's what makes him infuriatingly immune to manipulation. You could tear your hair out attempting to sway him one way or the other, Artemy is stubborn as a bull and will only follow his heart.

He doesn't blame Aglaya for using Dankovsky in P1 to execute her revenge on the Kains, he blames Dankovsky. He says so to his face. Burakh tells him that it was his fault for holding the inquisitor up to the expectations of being a saint, then acting betrayed when she didn't meet those set of expectations you imposed on her.

That the Bachelor is responsible for his actions. He chose to trust her and aid in her cause, and true to her words she only promised a way to end the epidemic. If he feels betrayed that she seeked out personal vengeance in the meantime or didn't save the things he expected her to, then he's to blame for it, not her.

A cleancut no-bullshit mindset like that prevents Artemy from being intimidated by Karminsky. He doesn't care, literally. Doesn't matter what he'll say or do, the inquisitor will do whatever he likes, so there's no point in arguing with someone like him. He outright refuses to play his game.

The sole thing that saves him from hanging? Dankovsky's promise to vouch for him. By sheer fucking luck, or maybe menkhu intuition, Artemy knew it's good to have the Bachelor owe him a favour or two.

Next on the chopping block, Peter Stamatin.

I want you to stop and think for a moment, in what world would Andrey fucking Stamatin let his sensitive fragile twin (whom he constantly infantlises) walk into inquisiton custody without him?

As if.

In P2 Andrey was right there glued to Peter's side, standing in the line awaiting Lilich's trial.

What Karminsky has done is nothing short of forcibly ripping conjoined twins from each other. In less than an hour, he not only got a good read on the Stamatins to comprehend the codependent relationship they share, but to foresee the vulnerabilities and fractures in it, and take advantage of it.

He needed Peter, the pliant apathetic one. Needed someone who is meak and weak, who will surrender to circumstances and fold like a deck of cards. Sleep deprivation is a real tactic used to weaken the mind, Karminsky purposely wanted him ripped from his bedsheets first thing in the early morning.

But why go through all of this for such a weak prey? Isn't this supposed to be a show of power? It doesn't exactly add much to his credibility to take advantage of Peter, it's a feat even a child is capable of.

Because, Artemy's trial was the show of prowess. Peter's trial is a show of ruthlessness.

Karminsky wasn't showcasing his formidable abilities on Peter, but his lack of mercy, his drywell of morals. That even the most pathetic and apathetic recent-suicide-survivor addict won't be shown a speck of decorum in this blood feast.

He was toying with Peter like a cat would a wounded roach. He was ripping his wings off one by one, mutilating the scales with his claws. And when he grew bored of him, Peter's execution commenced at dusk.

He didn't even bother meeting Andrey, not giving him the chance to defend his twin. While Peter was amusing to abuse and kick around, Andrey was treated as a bore, as nothing. Even less than a bug. An unremarkable ordinary schmuck worthy of neither torment nor conversing.

All of this, with everyone watching.

Mark Karminsky didn't set up an lawful court of justice in the Cathedral, but a deviant powerplay exhibition. Forced everyone he deemed a little interesting to participate in it. To submit, stand silenced, and observe him tear into the herd of sheep one by one, basking in the bloodlust.

the first people lining up were akin to appetisers before his real supper

The most gut wrenching conversation I've read in a Pathologic game.

Let me reiterate, inquisitors have no regards for either kids or families. Even the least trigger happy such as Lilich, hold no remorse for the children Artemy would be leaving behind. Croy groomed his daughter from an early age to become an inquisitor, and that childhood left her traumatised so much so even the mere possibility of seeing him again is enough to get her to hang herself to death in the open gallows.

In a handful of sentences, laced with implicit accusations of dire consequences, inquisitor Mark Karminsky gets the noble and dignified esteemed ruler of this town, Governor Alexander of the Saburov dynasty, to disown his daughter on record. The orphaned little girl the Saburovs took in after years of failed conception attempts.

Katerina locks her door.

For the first time in the game, if you visit the Rod, on this day, after this conversation, you find the door to Katerina's bedroom locked.

He took her daughter away, he took her only child away. Her husband. Her loving and ever so loyal dutiful husband, disowned the one child who is more her daughter than her very own progeny could've ever been.

It would've been more merciful to make Saburov pluck out his eyes and swallow them. It would've been more humane to ask him to gut his own stomach out.

She called him "Dad" but do you know what she calls Katerina?

"Mama"

Not "mom" not just a mom, not a mother. But Mama, mama. The first words of every child, mama. Mama.

Could you imagine being in Katerina's shoes? Being raised on the principle that being a mother is her sole purpose in life, and then failing at that said purpose. Despite your many attempts and efforts, you remain barren. People start speculating nasty things about you, that you eat your own kids, that you're cursed, that your husband never loved you.

You spiral into insanity, you wither like a rotten rose, scratch at walls, whisper to rats, drown your pain in morphine. Become addicted to a debilitating degree, it feels like shards of glass are cutting your veins inside out if you go a week without a vial.

And then, by some miracle, you stumble upon a little girl who reminds you so much of yourself. Who, without any incentive from you, crowns you with the title of Mama.

That word you thought you'd never hear, to have it coldly ripped from you by a crimson-eyed inquisitor who twisted your husband's arm into submission.

Mark Karminsky, is not evil. For the word evil is too good for him.

And I absolutely love him, his role is immaculate. A horrific work of art. A truly despicable bloodsucking demon from the razed bowels of hell.

He paints a most vivid picture of what the rest of the Inquisition is like. Of what exactly sets Aglaya Lilich apart from her peers; her lack of heart. She is pure mathematical formulas, devoid of life and love. She is a creepy steel-hearted cunning inquisitor, but not a demon.

-

In general, I'm appreciating the new characters more and more. Because they help shape the world of Pathologic better. I love the town and the bounds, but they've been tried to death and back. I know more about the contents of Stainslav Rubin's sock drawer than what's the ruling government system in Pathologic world is like. Who are the other indigenous tribes living in the steppe seperate from the Kin with their own traditions and mythology? Why were the Olgimskys bribing the government for before? Are the Saburovs still shareholders in the bull project? What do the Stamatins other projects look like? Can I please see House House?

Although, I admit, that's how it's always been. To expand upon needless details of worldbuilding is disingenuous to what Pathologic is built upon, P1 at the very least. The writing is theatrical on purpose; it's not supposed to be realistic! You should be immersied in the drama and stakes, not by the world being a convincing replica of our real world.

The town npcs are a greek chorus, a many headed hydra meant to set the ambiance and only tell you what's relevant to you. They're not supposed to have names or moods or dreams. The world should only change in reaction to your input or to move the plot.

Mystique needs to be maintained to pinpoint the lights on the main actors instead. Serafima and Platon shouldn't get more humanised because they'd be overstepping their roles as actors in a play. Tutorial characters like the Cathedral Caretaker should not be acknowledged by the bounds, that's like them acknowledging the P2 pantomimes handing you bread in the street.

I won't lie, a lot of things in P3 steer away from what set P1 aside from other games. It's less unique. It's more simplified, as if the dialogue is too insecure to monologue at you in long complex intricate sentances that require a couple rereads and a pocket dictionary to decipher, so it retorts to watering down the daunting poetry and philosophy by being witty and sarcastic... too much at times.

It's entertaining, it's still pathologic, but... it feels off. It's too easy, I feel like it has to be said.

There is no pressure to survive, but it's on purpose with the devs vision since the Bachelor's struggle is psychological and not physical like the Haruspex. Sure, whatever. Gosh darn it I hate the mind vs body duality, they don't exist in a vacuum but sure.

There is no pressure, at all. I don't feel any psychological pressure. The town is thriving. I'm killing the shabnak everyday and the infection is plummeting. This is my first playthrough, blind and guideless. I'm breezing by. Diagnosing paitents is so much easier than extracting organs and brewing tinctures in P2. God do you remember how exhusating and time draining that was? How on top of it all, you still have a set chance to fail even if you did everything right? How you never had the time to do everything so you had to focus on the organs you actually need?

Well, in P3, I have plenty of time, and plenty of fail-safe methods. There were permanent consequences to dying in P2, but in P3 they're all... temporary? You can fix it at the Cathedral, or by collecting Amalgam which there is a shit ton of, everywhere.

You can even farm it endlessly by repeating old quests with amalgam rewards.

There should be consequences for rewinding a day more than twice, there should be some sort of limited missable things you can't take back.

Like I'm enjoying the game and I'm ever so grateful for the studio. It's visually stunning and the music is phenomenal. I love getting to see all these characters again.

But a crucial Pathologic element is clearly missing.