Disco Elysium Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Kasparov]

Well, there's also the ulterior issue that when you're a left-leaning gay guy living in Russia, finding this discourse reproduced elsewhere, particularly in a supposedly "high-brow" context, is a rather unpleasant experience. But I also honestly believe that it's Runglish in its worst form, and I have some experience with editing Russian-to-English translations, and my English-language texts being edited by native speakers, so I'm not talking out of my ass here.
Now we can count down the seconds before I'm branded an SJW.

While I understand what you are saying and sympathize with your plight - I have several friends in Russia that are gay and I know from personal accounts how tough it is - I disagree with you wholeheartedly. I also have no issues with any SJW´s as long as it is alright for me to disagree. This is not only a case of Russian and English - liberast is a word in Estonian - the language the book "Sacred and Terrible Air" was written in. Language changes in time. Language also has power. Personally I believe that for the change you wish to see in Russian (or any) society - you must allow language to morph and words to obtain new meanings. Liberast is derogatory, sure. But it is in context. And context is everything.

EDIT: As I do not author most of the game´s lore, I had to look it up, to be sure. Cursory reading also enlightened me to the fact that "pédérastie" is used in French - and that from and English article here. Reading further I feel my convictions strengthening. Must be minmaxing Rhetoric was a shit idea.

 

[Prime Junta]

One of the things I especially like about this prose is that it doesn't sound like it was written by your average Anglo-American copywriter. It's just a touch florid, just a touch eccentric, and just a touch like reading European literature in a very good translation. It has a flavour. Please don't bland it down.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

One of the things I especially like about this prose is that it doesn't sound like it was written by your average Anglo-American copywriter. It's just a touch florid, just a touch eccentric, and just a touch like reading European literature in a very good translation. It has a flavour. Please don't bland it down.

This, the writing is truly something else.

 

[V_K]

Well, there's also the ulterior issue that when you're a left-leaning gay guy living in Russia, finding this discourse reproduced elsewhere, particularly in a supposedly "high-brow" context, is a rather unpleasant experience. But I also honestly believe that it's Runglish in its worst form, and I have some experience with editing Russian-to-English translations, and my English-language texts being edited by native speakers, so I'm not talking out of my ass here.
Now we can count down the seconds before I'm branded an SJW.

While I understand what you are saying and sympathize with your plight - I have several friends in Russia that are gay and I know from personal accounts how tough it is - I disagree with you wholeheartedly. I also have no issues with any SJW´s as long as it is alright for me to disagree. This is not only a case of Russian and English - liberast is a word in Estonian - the language the book "Sacred and Terrible Air" was written in. Language changes in time. Language also has power. Personally I believe that for the change you wish to see in Russian (or any) society - you must allow language to morph and words to obtain new meanings. Liberast is derogatory, sure. But it is in context. And context is everything.

EDIT: As I do not author most of the game´s lore, I had to look it up, to be sure. Cursory reading also enlightened me to the fact that "pédérastie" is used in French - and that from and English article here. Reading further I feel my convictions strengthening. Must be minmaxing Rhetoric was a shit idea.

Estonian still isn't English. And it's pretty natural, given the number of Russian-speakers in Estonia, that it suffers some influence.
The problem isn't just that "liberast" alludes to an obsolete word, it's also that it references a discourse that doesn't exist outside of former Socialist Bloc.
Finally, it's also very easy to change. "Libtard" is equally un-PC, has the same meaning, but makes much more sense in Anglophone context.

 

[Prime Junta]

The problem isn't just that "liberast" alludes to an obsolete word, it's also that it references a discourse that doesn't exist outside of former Socialist Bloc.

So does this:

They had been talking, it seemed, about Jesus Christ. The fact was that the editor had commissioned the poet to write a long anti-religious poem for one of the regular issues of his magazine. Ivan Nikolayich had written this poem in record time, but unfortunately the editor did not care for it at all. Bezdomny had drawn the chief figure in his poem, Jesus, in very black colours, yet in the editor's opinion the whole poem had to be written again. And now he was reading Bezdomny a lecture on Jesus in order to stress the poet's fundamental error.

It was hard to say exactly what had made Bezdomny write as he had--whether it was his great talent for graphic description or complete ignorance of the subject he was writing on, but his Jesus had come out, well, completely alive, a Jesus who had really existed, although admittedly a Jesus who had every possible fault.

Berlioz however wanted to prove to the poet that the main object was not who Jesus was, whether he was bad or good, but that as a person Jesus had never existed at all and that all the stories about him were mere invention, pure myth.

The editor was a well-read man and able to make skilful reference to the ancient historians, such as the famous Philo of Alexandria and the brilliantly educated Josephus Flavius, neither of whom mentioned a word of Jesus' existence. With a display of solid erudition, Mikhail Alexandrovich informed the poet that incidentally, the passage in Chapter 44 of the fifteenth book of Tacitus' Annals, where he describes the execution of Jesus, was nothing but a later forgery.

Do you think it ought to have been changed?

 

[V_K]

Are you just dumb or trying to convince me you don't know the difference between a word and a plot point?
Also, a good edition would probably include a commentary in a footnote in this case.

 

[Kasparov]

Estonian still isn't English. And it's pretty natural, given the number of Russian-speakers in Estonia, that it suffers some influence.
The problem isn't just that "liberast" alludes to an obsolete word, it's also that it references a discourse that doesn't exist outside of former Socialist Bloc.
Finally, it's also very easy to change. "Libtard" is equally un-PC, has the same meaning, but makes much more sense in Anglophone context.

Man, we could go on like this forever, haha.

Here I disagree with you that "Libtard" has the same meaning as "Liberast". That "-tard" from "ratardation" implies inferiority, a lack of development/progress, while there is no such connotation with "pederasty". Unless, of course, when you have convinced yourself that homosexuality is developmental retardation. With the aid of that wiki article I cited above, we could go even further back in time than the Socialist Bloc discourse, basically to the etymological roots of "-rast": ἐραστής (erastēs) "lover". And "Lover of Liberalism" is clearer and in this context more pertinent than "Liberal Retard". The fact that the word is derogatory might be alien to a Western audience at first, but should be clear enough from context. And discourses like the one we are having now help bridge the gap as well.

Are you just dumb or trying to convince me you don't know the difference between a word and a plot point?

You put it so well. I could ask you the very same thing based on your very first comment on this topic.

 

[Got bored and left]

The problem isn't just that "liberast" alludes to an obsolete word, it's also that it references a discourse that doesn't exist outside of former Socialist Bloc.

There's nothing wrong with a piece of writing being rooted in its own cultural sphere, even when presented in a foreign language. Especially when context disambiguates things, as I assume it will be the case here.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[V_K]

Here I disagree with you that "Libtard" has the same meaning as "Liberast". That "-tard" from "ratardation" implies inferiority, a lack of development/progress, while there is no such connotation with "pederasty". Unless, of course, when you have convinced yourself that homosexuality is developmental retardation.

It's not about etymology, it's about usage. "Pederast" as a slang term is somewhat dissociated from homosexuality. It may refer to a homosexual, but it also may refer to someone whose behavior the speaker simply doesn't approve. It's mostly equivalent to "faggot", but it some contexts "moron" or "jerk" may be a more accurate translation. The neologism "liberast" was made referring to this more general meaning, not homosexuality per se.*
Moreover, "liberast" in Russian is used in precisely the same contexts as "libtard" in English. The only nuance is that "liberast" implies malice in addition to stupidity, but I don't think such a nuance is worth introducing an awkward neologism.

*There are some later connotations with the term with "Gayrope", referring to Europe's moral downfall embodied by the prominence of gay rights, but do you really want to spread that discourse around?

 

[Kasparov]

...

*There are some later connotations with the term with "Gayrope", referring to Europe's moral downfall embodied by the prominence of gay rights, but do you really want to spread that discourse around?

I consider that discourse mildly funny and less mildly retarded and I´ll gladly say so. Again - avoiding a discussion is not productive. While I believe that any and all political debates are fruitless in changing the participants´ minds - all the noise will eventually make others look up from their phones and influence their thinking. One can hope, right?

 

[--89--]

liberast is a word in Estonian

Liberast is a word in Estonian the same way as Pohui is a word in Estonian. Meaning, it is not a word in Estonian.
Source: I'm an Estonian.

 

[V_K]

Again - avoiding a discussion is not productive. While I believe that any and all political debates are fruitless in changing the participants´ minds - all the noise will eventually make others look up from their phones and influence their thinking. One can hope, right?

I'm loathe to use the word, but it's a very privileged position.
You can't discuss something with your opponents when said opponents outright outlawed such discussions. And that's precisely what happend to both liberal agenda and gay rights in Russia.
And the fact that it's this dominant discourse that you chose to represent and not e.g. "vatnik" one, well, casts a bit of a doubt on the sincerity of your noble proclamations.
So yeah, I probably can't untangle my style concerns from gut reactions in this issue, but they're both telling me the same thing anyway.

 

[Skittles]

"Pederast" as a slang term is somewhat dissociated from homosexuality. It may refer to a homosexual, but it also may refer to someone whose behavior the speaker simply doesn't approve. It's mostly equivalent to "faggot", but it some contexts "moron" or "jerk" may be a more accurate translation. The neologism "liberast" was made referring to this more general meaning, not homosexuality per se.*

Weighing in as a native English speaker the word "liberast" stands out as a neologism but it tracks, even without contextual clues. You're correct that in English "pederast" is usually reserved these days specifically for pedophiles but the fact that's being used as a general slur with implications of unnatural desire/attachment comes across fine.

EDIT: In fact, that reading "pederast" as "homosexual" is becoming a bit archaic means it doesn't carry the anti-homosexual tones that you suggest it would in Russia or the Baltic.

 

[V_K]

general slur with implications of unnatural desire/attachment comes across fine

But that's not how "pederast" is used in Russian. For example, it may refer to someone who shortchanged you, or broke a promise, or slept with your girlfriend, or utterly failed a task - that sort of thing.

 

[Prime Junta]

I probably can't untangle my style concerns from gut reactions in this issue

I can see how it would be triggering.

Somehow I have my doubts that NTwtF will be any easier on vatniks than it is on liberasts. They are promising entire mechanics around the development of your politico-ideological character, running the gamut from radical feminists to fascists, presumably by way of liberasts. But we will see when we will see, no?

 

[Kasparov]

Again - avoiding a discussion is not productive. While I believe that any and all political debates are fruitless in changing the participants´ minds - all the noise will eventually make others look up from their phones and influence their thinking. One can hope, right?

I'm loathe to use the word, but it's a very privileged position.
You can't discuss something with your opponents when said opponents outright outlawed such discussions. And that's precisely what happend to both liberal agenda and gay rights in Russia.
And the fact that it's this dominant discourse that you chose to represent and not e.g. "vatnik" one, well, casts a bit of a doubt on the sincerity of your noble proclamations.
So yeah, I probably can't untangle my style concerns from gut reactions in this issue, but they're both telling me the same thing anyway.

I am indeed privileged to live in a country where it is allowed for me speak about topics like this one. And believe me - the discussions get hot every time they hit the news.

A not insignificant part in Estonia achieving independence (again) in the nineties was years of "lobbying" done by ex-pats and their descendants outside of the Soviet Union. I wouldn't offhandedly discount those that do not necessarily... "sit in the same cell with you right now" so to say.

I believe this topic has mostly run it's course, though, and we have established that the text in No Truce has a certain flavor. You can run with it or not. It's been interesting to chat with you, but in the end it's really out of my hands, if you wish to play the game, or not; endorse the game as a whole, or not.

EDIT: also what Prime Junta just said

EDIT2:

Weighing in as a native English speaker the word "liberast" stands out as a neologism but it tracks, even without contextual clues. You're correct that in English "pederast" is usually reserved these days specifically for pedophiles but the fact that's being used as a general slur with implications of unnatural desire/attachment comes across fine.

EDIT: In fact, that reading "pederast" as "homosexual" is becoming a bit archaic means it doesn't carry the anti-homosexual tones that you suggest it would in Russia or the Baltic.

Interesting. Thanks for piping in :D

 

[V_K]

I can see how it would be triggering.

What was triggering was being talked down to. Especially for a comment that came for a place of expertise, not ignorance.
I can deal with hostility, but arrogance gets me every time.
Yes, I'm butthurt, no need to waste your time clicking a button to state the obvious.
[stillnotoverit.jpg]

 

[Kasparov]

I can see how it would be triggering.

What was triggering was being talked down to. Especially for a comment that came for a place of expertise, not ignorance.
I can deal with hostility, but arrogance gets me every time.
Yes, I'm butthurt, no need to waste your time clicking a button to state the obvious.
[stillnotoverit.jpg]

Arrogance, shouts the man who demands from the authors of a piece of fiction that they change a phrase that makes sense in context and is justified in context. Sure, you began by suggesting a change, but even before I got to join the party, you were already making demands.

Let us look at that troublesome sentence again:

Or become the ultimate liberast (perpetrator of the sin of liberasty), extolling free trade and slimy personal freedoms at the expense of the downtrodden.

The ultimate liberast = one who extolls free trade and slimy personal freedoms at the expense of the downtrodden.

Ultimate signifiying extreme, and the rest of it hinting that this is all "in character".

 

[ArchAngel]

Uh, uh V_K brought the Furies upon himself now. Best to ask for Truce. But I am not sure if there can be Truce with the Furies.

 

[V_K]

Arrogance, shouts the man who demands from the authors of a piece of fiction that they change a phrase that makes sense in context and is justified in context. Sure, you began by suggesting a change, but even before I got to join the party, you were already making demands.

So stating a fact - that awkward language is unacceptable in a game with literary aspirations - is now suddenly a demand?
With that level of reading comprehension, no wonder you don't see anything wrong with lifting a made-up word from another language wholesale.
(Yes, it's a game that can be played by two.)

 

[Kasparov]

Arrogance, shouts the man who demands from the authors of a piece of fiction that they change a phrase that makes sense in context and is justified in context. Sure, you began by suggesting a change, but even before I got to join the party, you were already making demands.

So stating a fact - that awkward language is unacceptable in a game with literary aspirations - is now suddenly a demand?
With that level of reading comprehension, no wonder you don't see anything wrong with lifting a made-up word from another language wholesale.
(Yes, it's a game that can be played by two.)

Hey, No Truce is strictly a single player experience.

Also - fuck this. See you guys some time around next news post.

EDIT: you can shove your butthurts into your butts. The man stopped making sense and was no fun to talk to anymore and I got tired of that shit

 

[Prime Junta]

awkward

It's not awkward. It's flavourful. Learn to tell the difference.

 

[Berekän]

Job Name Bye

 

[V_K]

It's not awkward. It's flavourful. Learn to tell the difference.

It would be flavourful if such invented/transplanted words were consistently used throughout, like in Clockwork Orange for example.
As a one-off thing it just feels out of place.

 

[Kasparov]

It's not awkward. It's flavourful. Learn to tell the difference.

It would be flavourful if invented words were consistently used throughout, like in Clockwork Orange for example.
As a one-off thing it just feels out of place.

Dude. Your mom was a one-off thing. And now we're having this conversation.