#Disco elysium art how to

Moreover, they immigrated because Hong Kong was no longer the Destined Land. There wasn’t really an Asian community in the city back then like there is today, at least in the neighborhood she lived in, and she experienced her fair share of racist bullshit that she, too, just had to take on the chin. While I’ve always benefitted from a degree of “white-passing privilege,” my mother and her family had to struggle in San Francisco after immigrating from Hong Kong. Not only is it one of the best representations of an Asian immigrant story I’ve seen in a video game, it also hits close to home for me and, I’d assume, many other players. I can’t fully articulate how much I love this. Kim grew and took life on the chin, because he loved his family, and he loved his city. More than that, while this man’s relationship to Revachol was more of a vague, shallow thing, Kim’s relationship to it was a hard-won, well-earned display of love.Īll his life, Kim was bullied for looking different, and subsequently acting different. In popping back at the lorry driver, Kim is establishing that while the lorry driver’s family were just mere settlers with no sentimental meaning assigned to Martinaise, his family was brave in seeking out a better life for themselves. He takes a lot of pride in his family’s exodus from Seol, which is meant to represent a catch-all East Asian nation (barring China, which is represented by Samara) that is completely submerged in fascist ideologies. Most obviously, yeah, right on Kim, feed this guy his own ass! Kim was born and raised in Revachol and ultimately loves the city like it’s his own blood. There is a lot to unpack here, so we’re gonna go step-by-step. My grandfather came to here from a three-thousand-year-old racist-isolationist culture, while your ancestors came to this island a mere three hundred years ago. But Kim goes on to fill in the blanks.ĭon’t you “Welcome to Revachol” me.

The game skips all pleasantries: as soon as you click on him, you’re greeted by the portrait of a seedy-eyed creep who’s simply named, Racist Lorry Driver.Īlso as soon as you click on him, he’ll say to Kim, not to you, “Welcome to Revachol!”Īt first glance, you’re not really sure what’s happening. Welcome to Revachol (ZA/UM)Įn route to the strike in Revachol, in search of the Union boss Evrart Claire, Harry and Kim will pass a lorry driver.

#Disco elysium art how to

Because Kim as a character, and Kim as a reflection of the game’s overall context, is a brilliant example of how to write us right. Most people find discussions of race so exhausting, they want them to be limited to what we already know and believe mixed people put these discussions in jeopardy, because they call all preexisting conditions into question just by being alive.īearing this in mind, I wanted to take an opportunity to talk about Kim, and how his mixedness should raise the bar of representation within our community. It’s something I’ve learned after a lifetime of being mixed: people don’t care, and they don’t want to feel like they have to care. People also just don’t talk about mixedness very much in media, because … well, most people don’t care. I assumed (like many, I’d imagine) that he was fully Asian, simply because of his name, and also because the portraits in Disco Elysium are fairly intentionally abstract. What I want to focus on is a very specific aspect of his character that often goes under the radar: his mixedness. While he may not always approve of what Harry does or says, he’s pretty steady with his loyalty to his partner of course, whether or not Harry respects that loyalty can affect many important plot points down the line.īut if we were here to sing all of Kitsuragi’s praises, we’d be here all day. What I think people love the most about him, however, is that he’s largely nonjudgmental, or at the very least he’s very tolerant. He’s Harry’s rock, and often the voice of reason and sanity that can pull a dangerous and nonsensical situation back to baseline.

Kitsuragi is the protagonist’s “sidekick,” but the role he fills is much more than that.

I knew I’d probably end up loving it as much as everyone else, but by extension, I was curious to see why everyone loved the character Kim Kitsuragi so much. It took a very measured and patient campaign of waiting, but eventually, the popular video game Disco Elysium went on sale, and I finally got a chance to give it a shot.