I am feeling very strange arguing with that avatar, with this avatar, with our respective positions. Send help.
Anyway, you're taking the politics much too seriously.
I don't think I am, and for someone that subscribes to the ideological mantra of "everything is politics", it's odd (read: hypocritical) that you'd dismiss criticism based entirely in it. The game
overtly and
explicitly wants to play around with politics. As opposed to many other games, this game
is both political and politicized, regardless of the observer's subjective opinions and personal politics, and thus should be taken seriously.
The game is taking a piss at all ideologies and all ideologists, and at refusing to commit to any ideology.
It's
really not, though. As I've
discussed previously, there are considerable differences in terms of tone and presentation. Yes, the game
does take a piss at virtually all ideologies at one point or another, and at the very least the writers are clearly not afraid of joking about the perception of communism, but some are very clearly presented differently than others, and they seem to have a solid grasp on some politics, while absolutely none when it comes to others.
For example, "Communism" has vaguely positive representations when it comes to explicitly and obviously corrupt people like the explicitly not-really-communist SocDem Union Boss, who nevertheless takes care of René, and he genuinely believes he is doing things for the greater good - things like Empathy tells you as much. While Joyce is an ultraliberal, she nevertheless comes across as kind and caring, and is a well-written character.
And while there are many dialogue choices that count as "communism" that involve violence and blood-shed, they are rarely statements that bonafidé communist revolutionaries would disagree with in anything other than the degree of intensity, if even, and plenty of fairly positive-neutral ones regarding the sharing of resources and group responsibility, which in reality would be applicable to a host of possibilities all the way from socdem/libsoc to fascism. The same is true for ultraliberal, where while the writers may have a lesser understanding, the responses tend to be "bootstrap"-based naïvité often parroted by market liberals and ancaps, but nevertheless rarely or never
malignant, other than at worst things like how all the commies should be hung, which is at least a directed ideological conflict.
Meanwhile, the centrist moralist choices are things like "I choose a mysterious fourth choice. I am very, very smart." The lukewarm nature of which is obviously entirely tongue-in-cheek, the point being a critique of the inability or unwillingness to act or make decisions, but nevertheless again rarely
misrepresentative; if anything, this opposition to extremes at least shows an understanding and presents a choice that is likely acceptable by anyone subscribing to the ideology, especially if they are able to joke about it - which most centrists are, since most of them are centrists
by default - which is in turn part of the jokes heaped by Disco Elysium.
There seems to be a "hierarchy of understanding" exhibited by the developers, expressed through the game. They clearly "understand" communism, can refer to the Disco Elysium counterpart unironically as "scientific communism", and find ways to joke about the ideology based on that understanding ("We need to kill the real estate agents", etc). This genuinely adds to the game. Similarly, their understanding of "ultraliberalism" and "moralism", whether it's come from the developers actually being communists in opposition to "ultraliberalism" and "moralism" and developing arguments based on that, or simply from interacting with proponents of such ideologies, it's there - but it's far more base than (seemingly) their understanding of communism and the potential jokes therein.
But then when it comes to Fascism, it is clear that they do not understand it at all (except potentially as defined (i.e. not at all) by communists), nor talked to anyone that does. Is it imperialism? Is it royalism? Is it nationalism? Is it conservatism? Is it racism? Is it "lol foreigners"? Is it any adherence to hierarchy or tendency towards authoritarianism? ZA/UM clearly doesn't know. Disco Elysium obviously doesn't. There's
countless jokes you could've made with Fascism that wouldn't have revealed a complete ignorance regarding it. You could've made a joke about how unions should be abolished because corporates/corporations are soooooooooooooo different and better and totally not just puppets of the gubermint. You could've joked about the (historical real-world) tendency of Fascism to oppose established power-structures yet ally with conservative forces because that always works out
so well. You could have joked about the supposed co-opting of "socialist" causes and names and how X is totally ackshually the proponent of the working class because of A, B, C.
Instead, the stand-ins are caricatures like Racist Lorry-Driver and Measurehead, which while funny characters are a far cry from a serious take indicating any understanding, and arguably René, who, while endearing, doesn't come across as remotely Fascist by any stretch of the imagination, and given that Fascism appears to have
no in-universe relevance, not even as a movement towards the Moralintern following the failure of communism (which would've been an interesting take, imo), I find myself wondering why it even features as one of the four ideologies used as a crutch throughout the game.
It seems to me you completely missed their point. The political views, dialogues and points are all completely exaggerated, but of course fascist ones cause the most butthurt, as usual. While I don't like it that all politics are "for lulz", because I was hoping for a major political shitstorm around the game, and personally I think it's a damn shame they lacked balls to pull it off in the end, but I still find it hard not to notice what was their goal.
If you were hoping for a political shitstorm, it would've been better to hope for a human/relatable depiction of historical Fascism or third-positionism, rather than the caricature that is in the game. The issue here isn't that "political views, dialogues and points are all completely exaggerated", the issue is that in regards to this, they're not exaggerated, they're essentially either vapid strawmen or nonsensical. If I were to boil this down to a single sentence; Communism in the game is exaggerated, while Fascism is without substance.
And if you can't do it well, you shouldn't do it at all. The game is fundamentally good, but it stands because of the writing, the emotions, the pacing, the world-building, the countless individual stories that intertwine. But it is a good game
in spite of its political ignorance, and it would've been better without it, whether that'd mean leaning into the politics
better or simply
not having it there as a sub-systemic crutch.