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PART 1

From the start of day 2:

ELECTROCHEMISTRY — You mean why are you so tired? Too tired and *down* to even think? It *is* worrying, isn't it. You can't be a detective like this -- detectives need to be able to think.

YOU — Why is this happening?

ELECTROCHEMISTRY — It's just that your heart has finally pumped all the *speed* out of your system, buster. Time to get some more.

YOU — Wait. What *is*... speed?

ELECTROCHEMISTRY — Speed is a potent central nervous system stimulant. It kept you propped up all day yesterday despite your debilitating hangover. How else did you think you even got up from this floor?

VOLITION — You got up from this floor because of a holy vow you made sixteen years ago. With *me*. To wake up exactly 07:30 every morning until the day you die.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY — Don't be silly. There was no vow. You were high on speed. That was the only reason you got up. You can't *detect* without it, it's that simple.

YOU — No. I can take this. I am not going to go looking for speed.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY — Are you sure? Ready to live as this pathetic shell of yourself for days? Basically a week? Let's be honest -- two weeks, maybe three? You won't make it. Half the town will be dead by then. You will be fired.

YOU — That's a lie. I can do this without the speed. Half the town won't be dead... (Opt out.)

ELECTROCHEMISTRY — Suit yourself, slow, sad shell-man. See how you do without your spark.

And from this talk with Kim in Klaasje’s room:

KIM KITSURAGI — "Amphetamine -- does it make you a better detective?"

SUGGESTION — Be honest. He's not grilling you, he just wants to know. Ask if he's ever wanted to take it too.

YOU — "Honestly, it makes me the detective I am. Have you thought of taking it too?"

KIM KITSURAGI — "Maybe I should?" He lets out a little pensive hum, rubbing his shoulder...

DRAMA — It's not insincere. He's actually giving it thought.

KIM KITSURAGI — "Doesn't the... pupils and the gurning jaw, the sweating... doesn't it become tiring after a while?"

YOU — "I understand it's unbecoming but if I don't perform this job well I am nothing. It's the price I pay."

Harry knows that the cost of getting sober would be that the precinct would let him go. They’re not going to have the patience to deal with him slowing down from the combo of withdrawal and no speed to “keep him propped up.” Not when the reason that he’s stayed on the force this long and risen in the ranks is most likely because he manages such a massive caseload, as we find out from Kim:

YOU — "Is two cases a week a good case load, lieutenant?"

KIM KITSURAGI — "Huh?" He raises his nose from his notes. "Two *complex* cases to undertake is a lot, yes. You *really* have to push yourself. I would not suggest it. Lest you start making mistakes."

YOU — "Two cases a week appears to have been my load, lieutenant. I'm not sure I completed them though."

KIM KITSURAGI — "Two?" He raises both eyebrows. "That's a lot. I didn't mean to say you're making mistakes, by the way. That was presumptuous of me."

And later:

KIM KITSURAGI — "This next row -- the one that wraps all the way around -- is your number of closed cases. *Closed* is good. It means finished. You've got, let's see..."

KIM KITSURAGI — "Wow, more than 200!"

YOU — "Is that a lot?"

KIM KITSURAGI — "It's *quite* a lot, even for someone who's been on the force for nearly two decades. Usually clearing more than 10 cases a year puts you in the 90th percentile of *all* RCM officers..."

Despite the trouble Harry makes, he’s considered an asset so long as he closes cases. To the point where he wasn’t punished for drunkenly beating Burke unconscious and then injuring his knee so badly that he can’t walk anymore just because this allowed them to close the “unsolvable case” of Leslie and Burke. 41 and the RCM as an institution don’t care about Harry’s or anyone else’s wellbeing, they care about whether the pros of having him around outweigh the cons.

From the lazareth call with Gottlieb:

YOU — "Isn't there *anything* you can do for me?"

NIX GOTTLIEB — "What, you want me to do blood work for you again, tell you just how bad things really are *across the board*? You want another rundown of everything collapsing inside your body?"

YOU — "Yes. I want the truth!"

NIX GOTTLIEB — "You want the real, honest-to-god truth? Stop drinking, eat magnesium and vitamin D. Our station is not a retirement home. We don't have the funds to deal with *rock stars* past their prime."

RHETORIC — So it's political! You're being *neglected* because of political reasons...

NIX GOTTLIEB — "And no, I *don't* want to hear a *political commentary* on the topic. In fact -- I've got work to do."

If I were to quote every time Gottlieb was notably uncaring or said something blasé about how you probably didn’t have long to live, I’d have to quote pretty much every word of that dialogue. That’s the whole joke with Gottlieb. That’s just how it is dealing with doctors when you’re in Harry’s position.

From talking to Kim about Uuno:

KIM KITSURAGI — "We could take him to Remedie or Saint Batiste, but he doesn't have money for medical services. The Almshouse would turn him down..."

KIM KITSURAGI — "They don't do charity for people who're trying to kill themselves. Besides, he'll be dead in a few..." The lieutenant stops, listening to him.

RHETORIC — ... years? Months? Weeks?

“They don’t do charity work for people who’re trying to kill themselves” really sums up the absurdity of Harry’s situation and institutional responses to it. Harry isn’t seen as the kind of person in crisis who deserves intervention. He’s treated as a lost cause who deserves to suffer the consequences of his self harm, even though the unending crisis and the lack of response to it is what drives him to harm himself and hope that he “gets worse.” If he weren’t a cop, it’s unlikely that Kim would care about him any more than he cares about Uuno and Cuno’s situation. Harry’s job is killing him, but it’s also the only thing that gives him access to anything resembling a community or support network (at least at the start of the game). Again, that’s just the way it goes when you’re disabled.

From the second tribunal:

TRANT HEIDELSTAM — "Well -- here is my theory: What if this is an absolutely normal reaction to the world we're living in? What if this is *not* a significant anomaly at all, something to be explained, approached as a defect? Look at the sensory input here..." He gestures toward the scenery.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM — "Look at the ruins, the neon, listen to the radio, the multitudes. The people. Live here for forty years... As a police detective, he's like a magnetic reader on the world-tape -- to borrow a known metaphor. Harry's been pushed *flat against it*. Total input."

TRANT HEIDELSTAM — "Hard-wired to the free market..." He nods confidently. "He just needed for it to end."

JEAN VICQUEMARE — "Okay, Trant, thank you. That's... absolutely meaningless. I'm glad we brought you. Will he or will he not be able to work in the Major Crimes Unit? Is he a cretin now? I want to know *that*."

TRANT HEIDELSTAM — "He is *not* a cretin. And he *is* able to do work -- if not in his previous leadership role, then as a line detective."

YOU — "Line detective is good for now."

JEAN VICQUEMARE — "For *now*?" He looks at you, then at Trant. "I misphrased my question. It should have been: Is he able to put his clothes on, and use the potty, or do we need to get him on a disability pension?"

Or, alternatively:

YOU — "He's wrong. I'm too far gone for work."

JEAN VICQUEMARE — "Agreed, Harry." He nods. "Just don't expect us to get you a disability pension. Cops who actually gave a shit are waiting in line. You're not gonna hog their seat."

Trant, who, notably, is technically a civilian consultant rather than a cop, (edit: and maybe even more notably, as someone pointed out in the tags, has had experience with addiction, too) suggests to Jean that Harry’s breakdown is a basically inevitable result of his circumstances and the systems that created them, and Jean’s response is that he doesn’t care and all that he wants to know is whether or not Harry can work or if he’s going to be “hogging” resources from other people who are more deserving of help because they “actually gave a shit.” He’s a mouthpiece here for the institutions that he represents and his ableism is blatant and heinous to drive the point home. He denies that Harry’s case is as serious as it is and accuses Harry of faking it, despite the fact that it’s happened (at least) twice before, and very recently:

JEAN VICQUEMARE — "I believe you *drank*. People do that -- you especially. What they don't do is forget their *whole life* because of drinking."

JUDIT MINOT — "But, Detective Vicquemare," she interjects. "He *has* blanked out before."

YOU — "I have?"

JUDIT MINOT — "Yes, a couple of times. After some of the more... serious benders." She pauses, remembering. "One was after the Two Drunks case, the other when we looked into that mural."

REACTION SPEED — The two cases... in your ledger. The Unsolvable Case and the Next World Mural. Those were recent.

And despite the fact that even Gottlieb doesn’t seem shocked about it:

YOU — "I've lost my memory. All of it."

NIX GOTTLIEB — "With all the damage you've been dealing yourself with drugs and alcohol, I'm not surprised."

AUTHORITY — There is no surprise in his voice. Only careless superiority.

DRAMA — It's hard to say if he doesn't believe you -- or doesn't care.

(Considering that Gottlieb’s PSY stat is so high (he’s even eating one of the PSY boosting candies during the call), along with his uncaring responses to all your other problems, it’s more likely the latter.)

Jean also won’t believe that you’re sober even if you haven’t touched so much as a cigarette for your entire playthrough, and even when Judit points out that he’s wrong, he’ll double down and say that it doesn’t matter because you’re going to relapse:

JEAN VICQUEMARE — "Even the insect -- I don't care. But you're an *alcoholic*. And you've been drinking -- again. I won't let my life unravel because of this."

JUDIT MINOT — "Jean -- I think he hasn't. I can see it on his face..."

ENDURANCE — The bloating *has* gone down since you woke up that morning...

JEAN VICQUEMARE — "Okay, so he's stayed clear for what? A week?" He sighs.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM — "It's tough. One of the toughest addictions to overcome. Comparable *only* to heavy synthetic opiates. Even morphine is easier to kick than alcohol -- statistically. The odds are against him. Especially at his age."

JEAN VICQUEMARE — He nods. "He's too old. He's been like this for too long. I've seen him try many times. It's a farce by now."

SUGGESTION — They're leaving. They're all turning away from you.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY — No. You can figure it out. *Replace* it! Replace the alcohol with amphetamine. Or GBL! Fuck it -- morphine! Graffito removal agent! Anything. It'll buy you time. All you need is time.

Electrochemistry brings up yet another facet of Harry’s struggles with substances, which is the idea that some of them may be replacements for alcohol. He doesn’t have time or space to try to quit in any way that is remotely healthy. What he has are substances like speed that keep him from collapsing from the strain of it all so that he can keep showing up to work, and other substances that might (he hopes) help him wean himself off the alcohol.

The game explores all of these different factors of Harry’s struggles with addiction and the circumstances that keep him trapped in them exhaustively (and the fact that Robert Kurvitz apparently was recovering from alcoholism during the development probably contributed a lot to that). The structure and culture of the RCM are hugely responsible for Harry’s situation. He’s mocked and berated for being an alcoholic and told repeatedly to get his shit together without actually providing him with the means to do that. Instead, he’s not only enabled but practically forced to keep using just so that he can show up to work at all and not risk losing the only support network he has (even if it’s the shittiest and most unhelpful network imaginable). As Luiga (iirc) said, Harry’s biggest tragedy is that he’s incapable of quitting the force. Many of the reasons for that are genuinely just due to Harry being a class traitor and an asshole, but it’s also true that even if he did want to quit, there is no safety net to catch him.

And then Harry comes to Martinaise, a town that has been “orphaned” by the RCM and neglected by Revachol at large, left mostly to their own devices. It’s not like policing doesn’t still exist in Martinaise, and things are pretty dire for everyone in the community, but at the very least you can see that it is a community. Isobel houses you for free. In Kim’s absence (and after Gottlieb stitches and ditches you), Cuno and Garte take care of you when you’re shot. Acele responds to your breakdown on the ice by saying it’s okay to cry and that you can talk with her about it when you’re ready. Idiot Doom Spiral and co run to your aid when they see you drive your car into the sea and invite you to come drink with them just to stop you from doing it again. Harry discovers that life, while very painful and bleak at times, isn’t necessarily hopeless for the marginalized. You can still find solidarity and support outside of the system.

Meanwhile, if Harry in the end has no one to vouch for him and hasn’t stayed sober, that system will abandon him, a well-known suicide risk with at least one bullet hole in him and severe amnesia, with the promise of nothing but getting served a station call slip. The point is not whether or not Harry “deserves” to be forgiven or even whether he’s a danger to himself and others (to be clear, he is). The point is that this is a system that doesn’t care whether Harry and people like him live or die. That is why, even in a “good” ending where Harry is welcomed back to the 41st, the work won’t be sustainable. It’s going to kill him because that’s what it’s designed to do. The miracle of Martinaise was the realization that he doesn’t have to die. There are people who will help to keep him on this earth. They’re just not members of the fucking RCM.

It’s not a “gotcha” to say that if Jean (and the RCM, and the institutions of Revachol on the whole) is ableist for wanting Harry fired, then saying that cop work is unsustainable for Harry is also ableist. I won’t even say what I personally think of that logic because I’m trying to keep the tone of this post polite. Jean’s dialogue during the tribunal is meant to parrot every bit of ableist rhetoric that the system is built on and that keeps Harry trapped in this hellish feedback loop. He’s a mouthpiece for the general culture of the RCM, just like Gottlieb is a mouthpiece for the shit that addicts and the disabled have to deal with from the medical system. He thinks Harry should be fired because he’s a drunk and therefor a lost cause. The truth is that Harry needs to quit this job because it shouldn’t exist and because it is actively killing him.

In one of Martin Luiga’s articles about the process of creating the game, he brings up the concept of social murder, which is a term coined by Engels:

When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.

None of this is subtext. And all of it is intended to make players actually spare a thought for what it’s like for people in Harry’s situation in real life. For God’s sake, please engage with it. You have to try and understand what it means to be trapped in a life that is made unlivable and to know that your death will be ungrievable. That’s what this whole game is about.

If you read the link the company does of course say they’re replacing the existing forums with new ones, and I’m sure no one would say the old ones didn’t perhaps need a lil bit of a glow up, some tech debt fixing… but there’s a few key notes in there:

They are NOT carrying over any history, data messages etc. from the old forums

They are NOT archiving, retaining or in any way saving the existing forums in any way

They have NOT provided any reasoning past ‘as part of continued efforts to support developers’

As an offhand, moderate read, this sounds to me like a desire for some change in the forums but deciding nuking everything is less expensive than rebuilding and carrying over info.

If I’m cynical, and likely realistic? Probably to increase sales of their latest GameMaker software by making it inherently more difficult for someone getting the older software for cheap pushing it to its limits. The amount of institutional knowledge on those forums is absurd.

And even if it is a benign reason, it’s still terrible because what do you mean you’re doing this with no recourse or potential for change? You sell software that runs on community goodwill? In an era where people are pulling away to open source software?? Crazy.

There are yeeeaaars of answers, plugins, suggestion, community built up on those forums - I’ve used the em to learn and grow my own skillet!!! And soon it won’t exist.

At the very least, they gave a ‘heads up’ - the deletion occurs mid December, so archiving by the community is possible from now. It’s just absurd that it needs to happen in the first place.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/

https://rpgmakerchat.com/

https://github.com/imraf/rpgmakerweb-archive/

setting aside the safety nets Harry has in Martinaise in the form of the fishing village shack and Evrart, yeah man??? you disappear for three days to binge every drug under the sun, lose your memory and trash 45k worth in equipment in the process, your temporary partner gets up in critical condition on your watch, and you can’t even muster the restraint to not drink once the job for a single week

The rcm is chock full of people who just kill and kill and get away with it. Thats what the police force does. Harry has not and will never be fired for assault because assaulting people is what the rcm does. Meanwhile jean leaves harry for dead because he... told him to fuck off and drinks alcohol. Theres an enormous double standard in jeans (or anyones!) justification for leaving harry to die.

-god of fear and hunger-

The new god smiles at you.