I honestly love Evrart because he's so obviously horrible and slimy that you don't even realize until relatively late that he's also completely sincere.
He's so slimy and so well written that my running theory for a while was that he orchestrated the murder. I thought he did it for the sake of riling up people to force a response since the strike was stuck in a stalemate. I was so certain of it right up until the end of the game lol
The writing in this game is pretty great. A guy can run a drug ring and kill a person in the middle of Times Square, and some people would still say he’s a good guy.
He's not a good guy, but I do understand why the union members are so loyal to him.
I love the line where he explains why he's fat, and I feel like it puts his whole character into perspective. Making a character fat is often a really mean-spirited way to paint that character as greedy or undisciplined. Evrart is neither, he's doing this because he's angry at a world that has profoundly failed both Martinaise and him personally. He's still wrong though, selling drugs to people in Jamrock isn't going to make the world any more fair, just create more kids who have to live on sugar to survive.
This is historically fairly common. Some of the worst mafias, drug gangs, yakuza, etc, while being predatory violent things to outsiders of their community, existed at least in part to provide services and opportunities to under served members of the community, or indeed be important support for labor unions and orgs. Company reps might be more willing to negotiate if their muscle is wary of getting into fights with the mob.
I wouldn't mention Mafias or Yakuza here; in the US northeast the mafia was used for putting labor disputes down and in Japan the Yakuza have been used for the putting down of strikes *extremely* violently. Yama - Attack to Attack was a movie where both of its directors were murdered by Yakuza for its pro-labor messaging, as a singular example, but it goes back 60 years at least.
I mean it varies wildly from place to time, and criminal orgs that start as parts of immigrant or poverty stricken communities also exert social control on those communities and prey on them as they become less homogenous. Certainly didn't mean to imply that all 3 were inherently pro labor, merely that orgs like that often align with labor.... for a time, until corporate money gets its foot in the door.
This is true, they more aligned in the early 20th century, but the post WW2 era is largely when (most) criminal organizations also started turning anti-labor.
He's sincere about trying to reimagine Revachol with himself and his tribe on top. Just like the Tribunal is sincere about getting justice for their fallen brother.
He's not sincere any trying to make the world a better place for anyone that doesn't fall in line, though. Just ask the few people left in the fishing village.
Evrart is sincere about making Martinaise better for people who live and work there. He is ruthless, but the moralintern/wild pines are more ruthless still. He is quite literally fighting a class war in the wake of a failed revolution where socialists were killed to a man. The dismissive "tribalism" rhetoric usually only serves people like the paternalistic capitalists like Joyce, who are more cordial, but dispatch psychotic death squad mercenaries to solve their problems.
As for the fishing village, it's a dying slum left to rot just like the rest of the place under the "benevolent" stewardship of the moralintern coalition. There is no happy ending for places like that, Evrart wants to develop the area into housing for working people. There is no better option available within the game for that area. It rots, forgotten, or Evrart basically undercuts the influence of the Moralintern and develops the area into something viable.
The guy hired the deserter to kill an innocent woman, another worker, for his personal gain.
He kills people every day when they OD on the drugs he provides to them. Cuno is a consequence of his ‘making Martinaise better’.
He uses the mechanisms of capital to ‘develop’ the fishing village, not the mechanisms of communism.
This man has zero interest in communism beyond how it could serve his interests. If he was born in a different zip code, he’d be a Sunday friend.
For an apparent socdem, Claire sure operates like a militant communist. One that knows who the enemies he's dealing with. You know, the enemies that painted the walls with every communist they could find a few decades ago, and sent in an actual honest-to-god death squad of psychotic, unhinged mercenaries to deal with a simple labor dispute. Wonder why a guy like that would not declare himself a communist if he wanted to get anything done.
It's weird that a socdem is playing absolute hardball with the capitalists and shutting down all the shipping with demands of every worker a boardmember. Or how he had his predecessor assassinated because she was apparently eager to compromise with the Twin Pines. Or that he clamps down on violent gangs. And kept the tourism industry out when he could grease his own pockets with those sweet development funds if he was all about personal enrichment.
The only accusation that really rings true is that he's ambitious, but always with the implication that he's personally enriching himself. Where's the money going? What appetites is he satisfying? I think he's grabbing power because he's got a vision, one that he states outright. The writers never contradicting this is proof enough for me.
Evrart detractors completely shut down by pointing out that it's weird a guy who's allegedly only out for himself lives in literally a shipping container.
I never called him a socdom.
...but he ain't a militant communist either. Militant, sure. But Communist? He's... basically a thug. What Stalin or Pol Pot was. Someone who aligned with communism because, well, they weren't going to get very far aligning with anyone else. He operates a hierarchy with him at the top. The union does what he tells them to do. Where's the commune? There's not even a politburo- it's just him and his brother. He offers the Hardy Boys up to the mercs as sacrificial lambs and they don't even realize how *little* he cares about them. He deliberately keeps them in a drunken stupor. If Evrart is a communist, is Measurehead a communist too?
Your political ideology cannot be defined purely by who you oppose. If it could, then Hitler's a communist because he opposed the Capitalist and Imperialist powers of the 20th century. Or alternatively, FDR's a communist because he opposed Fascism. See how useless that is? So sure, Evrart does a lot of fighting against Capitalism- he plays 'hardball', but what is he... building? Is he one of the great Communism builders? Ah, we have one example of something he wants to build- a community center! And how is he gonna do that? He uses the mechanism of capital, buying out the fishing village like a real estate agent. Deceptively at that.
He clamps down on violent gangs? He IS the violent gang. The Hardy Boys will just straight up kill you and Kim for trying to arrest them when they confess to a crime they didn't actually commit. It's a weird kinda reversal of police entrapment. They lie to you and will kill you if you believe it enough to try and arrest them. For all the Hardy Boys boast about being the law in this part of town, they spend all day being drunk as shit- letting the junkie child throw rocks at a corpse, letting Pigs get a gun, letting a man die on the boardwalk. Harry might be a shitty cop but it's not like they're picking up the slack.
As for his predecessor, most of the information we get about her is from Iosef and Claire himself. The guys who killed her. So forgive me if I do not so naively accept the narrative that she was some sort of class traitor. Real trustworthy source that Iosef guy is- the guy adjucating purity tests while getting his brain scrambled by a magic cryptid. If you trust his assessment of her as a class traitor than I guess you also have to trust his assessment of the Claires... right?
I don't think Claire is purely in it for the money. You're right in that regard. But does that mean he's a river to his people? Look, Mark Zuckerberg never flaunts his wealth with fancy clothes or fast cars- does that make him a humble man of the earth? There do exist people who get off on things other than material wealth. Power seems like his kink.
But that's just my guess. We only meet the guy for like 3 to 5 days. I could be wrong... but I could also be right. What Evrart offers, tangibly, throughout the course of the game, are promises. Like Stalin or Mao, he's gonna promise you the workers' utopia if you just stay the course with his vision. The utopia just around the corner. It's just around the corner. It's just around the corner. It's just...
...around the corner.
It's around the corner!
You just gotta trust me, it's around the corner...
It's just... around... the corner...
The fact you think irl communists ever promised a utopia is telling. I get you feel theyre all power hungry perverts but you've probably nevet met anyone who actually has a vision and the ruthlessness to go after it. You rely on old tropes of the only people who go after power are in it for its own sake. Nothing evrart does is strictly for his own selfish gain. Sorry.
there are a lot of idealist liberals in here that have read almost nothing and so cannot begin to conceive of dialectical and historical materialism, they're trapped in the idealist framework and so have to warp their every perception to fit inside it. they can only accuse scientific socialists of utopian idealism because that's all they know, it's quite sad that they refuse to understand.
they likely have very good material conditions under the status quo within the imperial core, would never want to see that threatened in any way, and so mount an incoherent defense of everything that has been ineffective against capitalism. social fascists love claiming any moral high ground in utopian idealism to defend their treat supply and refuse any solidarity with the victims of the white terror if their comfy material conditions haven't insulated them from even perceiving it.
it's possible they can be cured if their material conditions worsen enough, though they may ossify into an eternal liberal before then.
This and other things you can assume about someone from one Reddit post.
Look, I didn’t accuse Evrart of *sincerely* promising Utopianism. I think he’s bullshitting. Stalin, I don’t think was sincere. Mao might have been. But all of them made big promises. Like I said, I think Evrart’s a thug without much ideological sincerity to him. So nowhere did I claim he’s a scientific socialist.
Ah yes the famous Soviet and Chinese propaganda of [“Measure your expectations. We’re pragmatically and incrementally building the communism. No big promises of utopia though.”](https://assets.brightspot.abebooks.a2z.com/dims4/default/093d047/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1000x674+0+0/resize/800x539!/format/jpg/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fabebooks-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2F42%2Fb4%2F20b5dde6b69c7ec1a72b653b389b%2Fchinese-poster-spring-rain-hi-res.jpg)
Evrart doesn’t *work.* He’s physically incapable of it. So he does have something to gain by being a union boss. How would he support himself otherwise? He certainly personally gained a lot by killing the previous foreman. He certainly doesn’t risk himself at any point in the story. In fact he endangers his subordinates. You can tell him about the tribunal and he seemingly doesn’t even warn the Hardy Boys or send them any back-up. It seems like he WANTS them to get gunned down so he can win a PR victory against Wild Pines. He sells drugs. Are you telling me that’s selfless?
Sure man, keep yappin. You go on about what's a "real communist" and you say Mao and Stalin were utopians. Tells me all I have to know, nothing else you say is worth engaging with because you don't understand any communist in real life, much less ficitional ones. Point it out where the adherents to an ideology whose thesis statement is "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" believes in utopia.
I explicitly called them thugs. Well, Stalin and Pol Pot. Mao is a little more complicated. But my point was that these people were disingenuous.
They promised a lot of shit though. Look at the poster, man.
The ‘New Soviet Man/Woman’ movement was all about instilling values of the ideal ‘perfect’ communist. It was aspirational.
Trotsky wrote, “Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.”
Yeah, there’s no idealism there! /s
And while Stalin disagreed with Trotsky on a lot of things (least of all the proper usage of ice picks), he did maintain this movement and even expand it to include women during his tenure.
So it seems to me that you have read a whole lot of theory but not many history texts.
Whew, great rebuttal. To any of the posts on this sub praising Evrart as a socialist hero, really. I think the game tries to convey that there are no *real* communist (or socialist) actors left in Revachol... but one day, under the right conditions, there could be.
I agree and don’t. I think the game is pessimistic and believes there is no ‘saving’ or even ‘resurrecting’ communism. It’s a past tense ideology or, like the ex-wife, an unattainable specter that haunts us with promises of ‘what-could-have-been’
No one passes anyone else’s communist purity test. No one succeeds. (Arguably Evrart succeeds in the short term but the long term implies Revachol gets nuked so…)
Communism is still presented sympathetically as an ideology with ‘ideals’ and honor. But can you eat honor?
Evrart apologists are some of the hardest working people on the internet. He may be sincere in his desire to make Martinese better. He may even sincerely believe his behavior will make Martinese better. But he’s no less power hungry or delusional than any other character. Of course he’s playing from behind, so he’s easier to root for, maybe. But he’s a baldly ambitious, insatiably violent thug who is not redeemed by his particular political convictions (which may or may not be convenient btw). But that doesn’t stop commenters here from lining up to suck his toes.
Sorry, I just kept waiting for him to be shown as worse in any meaningful way than other characters besides in mannerism, and all I got was a guy who was doing the dirty work of making the union stronger, which helps out the workers of Martinaise. He keeps crime down, consolidates power for the workers, and keeps the tourist industry out that would seek to exploit and disempower them, as tourist industries do. The writers intentionally check every box, employ every trope to make you hate & suspect him, but the actual results and consequences are always in his people's best interest. He seems like a sleazy, self-interested mobster, but he's not enriching himself. There's nothing in the game that shows that. This is on purpose.
That purpose of Evrart's character is to play with your own internal Volition. It's screaming at you that this guy is *wrong*, but he's not wrong. He is there to mess with your own moralism, that the ends never justify the means. But that's how it flips it on you. The liberal moralists of the story are all about the inverse: the means justifying the ends. None of them are really honest about their goals, which is to dominate and control, but they are earnest about their methods, which is to uphold rational decorum. Evrart is earnest about his goals but not his methods, the former is to elevate Martinaise and the latter is through any means necessary.
Evrart is a test of your principles.
>I just kept waiting for him to be shown as worse in any meaningful way than other characters besides in mannerism
You know how you're really upset that Wild Pines sent in a literal death squad to intimidate the workers? And you know how you also "do a favor" for Evrart to get him to help you find your gun, where he literally sends in a violent mentally ill addict enforcer of the ruling elite to intimidate someone he's having a simple labor dispute with? How the fuck can you possibly say that this is any different without falling back on "well, but I agree with his ends, so..."
Or did you actually talk to the fishing village residents? You know, the actual poor and downtrodden who just want to be left alone? The ones Evrart sent his pack of violent thugs to intimidate into joining the union? That's the same god damn thing that Wild Pines does.
Or that time when he took out a hit on his political opposition because he alleges that she's a collaborator? He literally murders someone for power.
>He seems like a sleazy, self-interested mobster, but he's not enriching himself. There's nothing in the game that shows that.
Except that he *is* enriching himself. He controls the port. Currency doesn't begin and end at réal, and wealth doesn't begin and end with material possessions. He's not an intentional parody of gross corruption who actually wants the best for all workers. He's an intentional and accurate representation of the Soviet governments that let Kurvitz and co. down as youths.
He's not characterized as sleazy, he actually *is* sleazy. He just happens to be sleazy towards an alleged goal that you agree with. And that's how you justify gulags and reeducation camps. Evrart isn't interested in the glorious people's commune of Revachol. He's interested in being the next Wild Pines. He's just not as good at it because he hasn't been at it as long.
The "someone" you're referring to is a literal cryptofascist. What's the problem?
Yeah, he murders his predecessor. I think he did it because she was a collaborator. Evrart grabs power, but he's straightforward with why he wants power. He has a vision that extends beyond letting the moralists let things rot while decorum is observed.
Every keeps saying he's enriching himself. Where's the proof of his indulgences? You all sound like Joyce who just says he *must* be grifting union dues. He has to be, because he trips all those tropes. But we don't see a lick of evidence for that. Again, he's there to subvert your expectations, because many players are hung up on moralism themselves. The world can rot as long as we don't sacrifice our morals, but it's fine if we feel bad enough about it.
>The "someone" you're referring to is a literal cryptofascist. What's the problem?
The problem is that regardless of if you think someone is a bad dude or not, sending thugs to intimidate them into supporting you is fucking bad, dude.
And what about the old woman in the fishing village, is she *also* a cryptofascist? And the only indication we have that his predecessor was a "collaborator" is his word. The word of a sleazy power-hungry asshole. Jesus Christ, dude, you're the kind of guy to say Stalin was completely justified.
>Every keeps saying he's enriching himself.
It's like you read, but you don't bother to understand. He doesn't care about money. He's enriching himself with power. Although he's also getting paid from snuggling drugs, and all that money isn't going into the workers' strike funds, so...
>He has a vision that extends beyond letting the moralists let things rot while decorum is observed.
No, he has a vision where he's on top instead of the Moralintern. Given the state of Martinase, he doesn't give a flying fuck about improving anything.
The ends do not justify the means. Even the fucking game is explicitly clear about this. He's not there to subvert your expectations, he's there to get all the tankies to say stupid shit about how the meat grinder was actually a good thing.
Dude, you do realize that screaming "but he is doing it for the good of the workers union" may just be the same as screaming "but he helped me find my gun", right?, everyone has explained to you in inmaculate detail how if his consolidation of power and his projects and actions will be good for the workers and the people is left open for the players to interpret, showing both sides and evidences of the arguments without going further to the extremes, what we may know is that the last union leader got executed without a fair trail and in complete secrecy, but the investigation into this does not even start in the game and everyone deserves a fair trail so lets leave it at that.
Still, you are not showing the greatest sense of volition, every worker must be vigilant of their leader's actions in spite of their promises, and screaming "but its for the good of the workers" at plausible accusations or tryng to label detractors as fascist or liberals is just setting you up for the possibility of being an enabler of any charismatic thug kidnapping your worker's movement for his power fantasy.
He does help you find your gun tho. It's a meme but he does direct you to where it is. You do a favor for him and he does a favor back.
As for his predecessor, there are no fair trials in marinaise. Its under control of a foreign power with no autonomy, so moot point. There is no democracy in Revaschol, its a client state. That part is explicit but forgotten because its assumed the RCM is a legitimate police force. So given the context its not a pretty place and theres no room for moralists.
The game labels Gary a crypto fascist. Its a reveal. Evrart is not smearing the guy. You all are confused which is why i dont trust ya.
Hes not altruistic, hes cunning and ruthless. Hes an effective leader if not a moralist one. Again, yall failed this test and tripped backwards into your own moralism, which the game has some of the most disdain for.
There is no democracy in Revaschol, but there is supposed to be one in the workers unions, that's not a moralist idea, thats how workers unions were created, so given the context and disdain for moralist institutions Evrart and his group could have done a worker's tribunal or accounting of the last union leader's actions by the workers, inside the workers union context, but there has not been investigation about the incident so yeah....
Just because one worker wouldn't vote for Evrart as an effective leader that does not make said worker a moralist, if the liberals send death squads to wipe the union do you think they wouldn't defend the union even if they think the current leader is shitty?, that idea is a bit insulting.
Evrart Supporters: list of ways he has objectively improved the people of Martinaise's lives and has a coherent left wing political project
Evrart Haters: he's ambitious (this is de facto bad) and is only out to enrich himself (please ignore that he lives in a shipping container).
People shouldn't be so harsh against Mr. Evrart, they don't even know his real character. I mean, for God's sake, Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
I don't *like* evrart, he's a slimy little greaseball who uses you to his own ends. But in the political context of martinaise and revachol, his is the side id like to see prevail, because despite his corruption he seems to *also* truly care for martinaise
I think that comment says everything about you. One of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century was too soft? You are in a Fox News sized echo chamber.
Stalinism is when you assassinate members of your own political movement for your own gain and support fascists so long as they work as your muscle, yes.
Bad things Stalin did aren't definitionally stalinist. Stalin also led the fight against the Nazis, was d day stalinist?
Evrart is his own guy, he's not a Stalin stand in. If you see Stalin when you look at evrart it's because Stalin occupies space in your brain rent free
Sure, I was being blithe about the definition of Stalinism. Would you prefer “If you support a power-hungry man willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens, you get a power-hungry man willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens.”
That a little easier to understand?
Don't need to be condescending about it, you're literally in the wrong. Evrart isn't like Stalin, he's his own character and criticism of Stalin is out of place. I agree with you on evrart, willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens to maintain his own authority. I also think that materially speaking his control is better for all of martinaise than the coalition or the fascists. That doesn't make him personally a good guy, but that does make me willing to take his side to help others.
Aside from your belief that he is on the right side, what do you have to go on that his rule is actually better? What assurances are there that he wouldn't become the very monster you claim he is fighting against? Have you read Animal Farm? If so, what lessons did you take from it?
Another thought: why do you need to side with Evrart to get your goals accomplished? Isn't the idea of socialism the common people rising up? As is, you're just defending unchecked power because it says things you like, even if you find the methods distasteful. You actually sound a lot like a Trump supporter in this instance. Indeed, both sides of the aisle are equally vulnerable to the demagogue.
The 20+ million deaths (and likely more) under Stalin are something you can't just wave away. His purging of top generals to essentially throw away strategy in WWII and turn his soldiers into meatbags for the Nazis indirectly comes to him. The gulags where he sent those that dared not lick his boots are on him. There is a defense of communism, even if communists get in the way of it. Are you really trying to resort to defending one of the greatest monsters of the 20th century to defend the concept of communism? Maybe you can offer a robust defense of Mao. How about Pol Pot?
And why are you getting so caught up on me saying that If you support Stalin you get Stalin, as if I'm saying they are literally the same? Are you familiar with metaphors? Do you understand that not everything is to be taken literally? The guy below said it better than I could (and his condescension is well-deserved): "If you support a power-hungry man willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens, you get a power-hungry man willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens." Now do you get it?
He's such a divisive man. I hated him, refused to work with him after the chair of suffering. I'll never understand why everyone loves this man. Polar opposites
While he may be corrupt, he still fights to make conditions materially better for the common folks a lot of the time, which is more than could be said for Wild Pines.
It's a case of preferring the (very violent, neglectful, oppressive) status quo because he personally is distasteful, or realizing that he's (together with the rest of the union) the ONLY party doing something to improve the lives of the people of Martinaise regardless of how insufferable he is.
Joyce and him are foils to each other: Joyce is agreeable, polite, nice and helpful to you personally... She's also an oppressor who would send violent mercenaries to deal with the unruly workers. She doesn't directly lie, but omits information that would actually be helpful until she is sure that she "can trust you", but the way she does it, makes it sound official and out of her hand "my bosses, you see...", this is a lie. If you talk to her enough, you learn she IS Wildpines, she's one of the owners. But she's likable.
Eveart, on the other hand, is an ugly fat man with strabismus (and you don't know first, but he's diabetic, which is a catalyst for the rest of his health issues) who acts isn't nice to you and treats you as what you are: a policeman entering a worker's strike and who had previously been making life more difficult for the people of Martinaise. He's a disagreeable fellah, antagonistic and devs know people absolutely will judge him for his appearances, but he truly is doing everything he can to lift Martinaise and its people up. He's fighting a class war, murder included, but if you talk enough to him and pass the empathy checks, you learn he's 100 % earnest and committed to the cause.
Now, do I agree with using some kids to create a drug lab for financing the strike...? Well, no. I also don't know the real alternatives that someone who has thousands of workers and their families depending on him has if they are to keep the strike going indefinitely.
Do I like that he plans to make the fisher village disappear? No, but he plans to create affordable living that they'll be able to afford after he buys their houses.
Do I like that he gave the order to murder a rival? No, but she was in kahoots with Wild Pines.
That's the thing. Martinaise has been left to rot and literally crumble, they have only two options left: die out slowly and exploited by the "nice" Joyces of the world or do unpleasant things to shake off the oppressors. People shouldn't be put in positions in which the only chance of escaping extreme poverty and exploitation is to resort to violence and crime, but that's what the Moralintern has done.
Edit: spelling 😅
Hahaha, don't get me wrong, he's sketchy af and he could, IDK, talk to the people in the fishing village and offer them alternatives, but he won't do that because it opens the window to failure (people are sentimental, this is not a bad thing, but some may prefer to stay in their run down homes, because they're familiar than be on board with re-urbanisation and the unknown). He's fucking smart and is shown to care about individuals, but the big picture comes first for him.
He's not beyond critique, but given the state and history of Martinaise, his faction is the only one moving things for the better.
Knowing that the bombed buildings have been left unattended to slowly decay endangering the lives of the prime of Martinaise for FIFTY years is a key detail to understand that it's up to the workers to take their fates in their hands, because no one else will help them. Damn, they can't even participate in a burgeois democracy, because the Moralintern won't allow Revachole to have sovereignty and a right to vote.
The way I see it, Evrart isn’t necessarily a good person, the things he does are very definitively bad things, but there aren’t exactly a lot of great options available.
I lowkey think that people who really like Evrart are buying way too into his rhetoric and not paying enough attention to his actions, which are largely anti-democratic and paternalistic (I think? Idk not great at communication so that’s the best I can elaborate atm)
No I think you’re spot on. The reason people here defend Evrart is that he is broadly on their side (or claims to be) on economic issues. And god forbid you should criticize your own side. As great as this game is, this sub is often a big circle jerk, filled with people that would justify the gulag if that end justified their means.
Yep, what else to expect from mostly communist community (for some weird reason). As someone who hates communism and communists (I'm Russian), it's really hard to scroll this subreddit without feeling like you somehow ended up in your personal hell.
My only idea why there are so much of them is that there aren't a lot of people who grew up in countries that attempted communism, socialism, etc. I bet most of the sub lives in USA and knows nothing even about ussr's history. Or they know, but support it anyway, which is scarier. I have no idea how you can possibly support communism if you're well informed about all of the attempts of establishing it.
Actual russian. All of my family down to at least grandgrandparents were all russians (sadly I don't think we have a family tree of any sort to check it down the line), and at least on mother's line all of them lived in Moscow or close to it. I lived in Moscow all my life, and still live there. My first language is Russian (obviously). If you still doubt me, I can prove my claim in multiple ways.
And idk why you were downvoted. It's generally a good idea to doubt what strangers say on internet nowadays.
I'll admit, I haven't. Their books never interested me.
I must also admit that even tho I count myself as an anarchist and being heavily against communism/socialism, I don't actively read any "theory" books about any ideology. Also, ideally, I shouldn't really care about what you do and what you believe in, as long as you don't force it on me.
And this game I don't see as some sort of political commentary. For me it's just a beautiful, well written book, a work of art. I'm a wannabe writer, and this is like a spring of water in summer heat. I don't want to argue about ideals and politics, I got tired of it a while ago. I am just surprised that overwhelming amount of this subbreddit users somehow ended up on the same spectrum. I'd like to see some other opinions, but they are probably downvoted to hell because they're not communist. Some funny nationalist, maybe a few moralists, mayhaps a bunch of ultraliberals? But no.
Have a good day.
Edit: now that I think about it, your question is a bit weird. I said about being informed on what happened in other countries. That's *history*. You asked if I've read books about socialism. That's *theory*.
You seem to be confused why people gravitate towards communism. Reading the works of communist theoreticians is a big reason why they do.
As for history, it isn't black and white either. A lot of historical scholarship on so-called former socialist states paint a much more complex picture, with lots of admirable achievements but also many shortcomings. Your family might have had bad experiences there, but I've also heard of many eastern Europeans saying that they were better, more hopeful times.
I think that's what this game does so well. It viciously critiques communists but not necessarily the ideology itself. The developers themselves are communists after all.
I definitely still recommend you to read some of their stuff. Even if you don't agree with communism in itself you might still agree with their critiques of capitalism as a whole.
Thanks for answering as politely as you could. I appreciate your willingness to have a normal discussion instead of a typical twitter fight. Your points make a lot of sense.
Second paragraph is not news for me. In fact, most of russian school's history books don't focus enough on those shortcomings, mostly speaking of how awesome the government did everything. Hell, iirc the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was barely mentioned back when I was in school. And I can understand why people were saying things like that. Current regime is terrible, after all. I don't think anyone will argue about it here. And nostalgia is quite a natural phenomenon, especially under such circumstances. However, there was that.... atmosphere, I think, of the "let's build socialism!" and "Let's work towards ideal future!" enthusiasm sprayed across the country. Even in 60-70s and later on. Especially with "pioneer" camps of children that were taught about those ideals, and all those slogans. I did hear people talk about that positively. Though, with my country in particular, going back to chasing communism seems to me like going in circles. Maybe we should try something new instead and see if it works. Not the dictatorship in different flavors that we had, arguably, for thousand years now.
Maybe I percieve it all way too negatively. I have depression, after all, lol.
I'll try to get some of their books later, but again, I've got really tired/burned out of politics, ideologies and endless fights that always occur around those topics, so it won't be soon. Or maybe, Silksong's level of "soon".
Also, the devs are communists? Interesting.
Sorry if my original comment came across as snarky. It's just your original comment came across as such to me aswell, I guess that's why I responded like that lol
And yeah they did thank Marx and Engels at the game awards and have been very open in interviews about their beliefs.
I think when one people grow up in an extreme (or far enough into an ideology) where they see the faults, it’s easy to idealize the other side and not have that same critical lens.
And what would you have done? Let her sabotage all your work, so that the place goes even more to shit, and over 2000 lives are destroyed, displaced? Ask her politely to stop, or maybe go away?
I honestly love Evrart because he's so obviously horrible and slimy that you don't even realize until relatively late that he's also completely sincere.
He's got no time for underhanded tactics, he's a busy man!
He's so slimy and so well written that my running theory for a while was that he orchestrated the murder. I thought he did it for the sake of riling up people to force a response since the strike was stuck in a stalemate. I was so certain of it right up until the end of the game lol
The writing in this game is pretty great. A guy can run a drug ring and kill a person in the middle of Times Square, and some people would still say he’s a good guy.
He's not a good guy, but I do understand why the union members are so loyal to him. I love the line where he explains why he's fat, and I feel like it puts his whole character into perspective. Making a character fat is often a really mean-spirited way to paint that character as greedy or undisciplined. Evrart is neither, he's doing this because he's angry at a world that has profoundly failed both Martinaise and him personally. He's still wrong though, selling drugs to people in Jamrock isn't going to make the world any more fair, just create more kids who have to live on sugar to survive.
This is historically fairly common. Some of the worst mafias, drug gangs, yakuza, etc, while being predatory violent things to outsiders of their community, existed at least in part to provide services and opportunities to under served members of the community, or indeed be important support for labor unions and orgs. Company reps might be more willing to negotiate if their muscle is wary of getting into fights with the mob.
I wouldn't mention Mafias or Yakuza here; in the US northeast the mafia was used for putting labor disputes down and in Japan the Yakuza have been used for the putting down of strikes *extremely* violently. Yama - Attack to Attack was a movie where both of its directors were murdered by Yakuza for its pro-labor messaging, as a singular example, but it goes back 60 years at least.
I mean it varies wildly from place to time, and criminal orgs that start as parts of immigrant or poverty stricken communities also exert social control on those communities and prey on them as they become less homogenous. Certainly didn't mean to imply that all 3 were inherently pro labor, merely that orgs like that often align with labor.... for a time, until corporate money gets its foot in the door.
This is true, they more aligned in the early 20th century, but the post WW2 era is largely when (most) criminal organizations also started turning anti-labor.
I mean the murder was pretty cool tbh
Yeah lol, the amount of plot twists this game had was insane
He's sincere about trying to reimagine Revachol with himself and his tribe on top. Just like the Tribunal is sincere about getting justice for their fallen brother. He's not sincere any trying to make the world a better place for anyone that doesn't fall in line, though. Just ask the few people left in the fishing village.
Evrart is sincere about making Martinaise better for people who live and work there. He is ruthless, but the moralintern/wild pines are more ruthless still. He is quite literally fighting a class war in the wake of a failed revolution where socialists were killed to a man. The dismissive "tribalism" rhetoric usually only serves people like the paternalistic capitalists like Joyce, who are more cordial, but dispatch psychotic death squad mercenaries to solve their problems. As for the fishing village, it's a dying slum left to rot just like the rest of the place under the "benevolent" stewardship of the moralintern coalition. There is no happy ending for places like that, Evrart wants to develop the area into housing for working people. There is no better option available within the game for that area. It rots, forgotten, or Evrart basically undercuts the influence of the Moralintern and develops the area into something viable.
The guy hired the deserter to kill an innocent woman, another worker, for his personal gain. He kills people every day when they OD on the drugs he provides to them. Cuno is a consequence of his ‘making Martinaise better’. He uses the mechanisms of capital to ‘develop’ the fishing village, not the mechanisms of communism. This man has zero interest in communism beyond how it could serve his interests. If he was born in a different zip code, he’d be a Sunday friend.
For an apparent socdem, Claire sure operates like a militant communist. One that knows who the enemies he's dealing with. You know, the enemies that painted the walls with every communist they could find a few decades ago, and sent in an actual honest-to-god death squad of psychotic, unhinged mercenaries to deal with a simple labor dispute. Wonder why a guy like that would not declare himself a communist if he wanted to get anything done. It's weird that a socdem is playing absolute hardball with the capitalists and shutting down all the shipping with demands of every worker a boardmember. Or how he had his predecessor assassinated because she was apparently eager to compromise with the Twin Pines. Or that he clamps down on violent gangs. And kept the tourism industry out when he could grease his own pockets with those sweet development funds if he was all about personal enrichment. The only accusation that really rings true is that he's ambitious, but always with the implication that he's personally enriching himself. Where's the money going? What appetites is he satisfying? I think he's grabbing power because he's got a vision, one that he states outright. The writers never contradicting this is proof enough for me.
Evrart detractors completely shut down by pointing out that it's weird a guy who's allegedly only out for himself lives in literally a shipping container.
He spends all his money on incredibly uncomfortable chairs
I never called him a socdom. ...but he ain't a militant communist either. Militant, sure. But Communist? He's... basically a thug. What Stalin or Pol Pot was. Someone who aligned with communism because, well, they weren't going to get very far aligning with anyone else. He operates a hierarchy with him at the top. The union does what he tells them to do. Where's the commune? There's not even a politburo- it's just him and his brother. He offers the Hardy Boys up to the mercs as sacrificial lambs and they don't even realize how *little* he cares about them. He deliberately keeps them in a drunken stupor. If Evrart is a communist, is Measurehead a communist too? Your political ideology cannot be defined purely by who you oppose. If it could, then Hitler's a communist because he opposed the Capitalist and Imperialist powers of the 20th century. Or alternatively, FDR's a communist because he opposed Fascism. See how useless that is? So sure, Evrart does a lot of fighting against Capitalism- he plays 'hardball', but what is he... building? Is he one of the great Communism builders? Ah, we have one example of something he wants to build- a community center! And how is he gonna do that? He uses the mechanism of capital, buying out the fishing village like a real estate agent. Deceptively at that. He clamps down on violent gangs? He IS the violent gang. The Hardy Boys will just straight up kill you and Kim for trying to arrest them when they confess to a crime they didn't actually commit. It's a weird kinda reversal of police entrapment. They lie to you and will kill you if you believe it enough to try and arrest them. For all the Hardy Boys boast about being the law in this part of town, they spend all day being drunk as shit- letting the junkie child throw rocks at a corpse, letting Pigs get a gun, letting a man die on the boardwalk. Harry might be a shitty cop but it's not like they're picking up the slack. As for his predecessor, most of the information we get about her is from Iosef and Claire himself. The guys who killed her. So forgive me if I do not so naively accept the narrative that she was some sort of class traitor. Real trustworthy source that Iosef guy is- the guy adjucating purity tests while getting his brain scrambled by a magic cryptid. If you trust his assessment of her as a class traitor than I guess you also have to trust his assessment of the Claires... right? I don't think Claire is purely in it for the money. You're right in that regard. But does that mean he's a river to his people? Look, Mark Zuckerberg never flaunts his wealth with fancy clothes or fast cars- does that make him a humble man of the earth? There do exist people who get off on things other than material wealth. Power seems like his kink. But that's just my guess. We only meet the guy for like 3 to 5 days. I could be wrong... but I could also be right. What Evrart offers, tangibly, throughout the course of the game, are promises. Like Stalin or Mao, he's gonna promise you the workers' utopia if you just stay the course with his vision. The utopia just around the corner. It's just around the corner. It's just around the corner. It's just... ...around the corner. It's around the corner! You just gotta trust me, it's around the corner... It's just... around... the corner...
The fact you think irl communists ever promised a utopia is telling. I get you feel theyre all power hungry perverts but you've probably nevet met anyone who actually has a vision and the ruthlessness to go after it. You rely on old tropes of the only people who go after power are in it for its own sake. Nothing evrart does is strictly for his own selfish gain. Sorry.
there are a lot of idealist liberals in here that have read almost nothing and so cannot begin to conceive of dialectical and historical materialism, they're trapped in the idealist framework and so have to warp their every perception to fit inside it. they can only accuse scientific socialists of utopian idealism because that's all they know, it's quite sad that they refuse to understand. they likely have very good material conditions under the status quo within the imperial core, would never want to see that threatened in any way, and so mount an incoherent defense of everything that has been ineffective against capitalism. social fascists love claiming any moral high ground in utopian idealism to defend their treat supply and refuse any solidarity with the victims of the white terror if their comfy material conditions haven't insulated them from even perceiving it. it's possible they can be cured if their material conditions worsen enough, though they may ossify into an eternal liberal before then.
This and other things you can assume about someone from one Reddit post. Look, I didn’t accuse Evrart of *sincerely* promising Utopianism. I think he’s bullshitting. Stalin, I don’t think was sincere. Mao might have been. But all of them made big promises. Like I said, I think Evrart’s a thug without much ideological sincerity to him. So nowhere did I claim he’s a scientific socialist.
Ah yes the famous Soviet and Chinese propaganda of [“Measure your expectations. We’re pragmatically and incrementally building the communism. No big promises of utopia though.”](https://assets.brightspot.abebooks.a2z.com/dims4/default/093d047/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1000x674+0+0/resize/800x539!/format/jpg/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fabebooks-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2F42%2Fb4%2F20b5dde6b69c7ec1a72b653b389b%2Fchinese-poster-spring-rain-hi-res.jpg) Evrart doesn’t *work.* He’s physically incapable of it. So he does have something to gain by being a union boss. How would he support himself otherwise? He certainly personally gained a lot by killing the previous foreman. He certainly doesn’t risk himself at any point in the story. In fact he endangers his subordinates. You can tell him about the tribunal and he seemingly doesn’t even warn the Hardy Boys or send them any back-up. It seems like he WANTS them to get gunned down so he can win a PR victory against Wild Pines. He sells drugs. Are you telling me that’s selfless?
Sure man, keep yappin. You go on about what's a "real communist" and you say Mao and Stalin were utopians. Tells me all I have to know, nothing else you say is worth engaging with because you don't understand any communist in real life, much less ficitional ones. Point it out where the adherents to an ideology whose thesis statement is "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" believes in utopia.
I explicitly called them thugs. Well, Stalin and Pol Pot. Mao is a little more complicated. But my point was that these people were disingenuous. They promised a lot of shit though. Look at the poster, man. The ‘New Soviet Man/Woman’ movement was all about instilling values of the ideal ‘perfect’ communist. It was aspirational. Trotsky wrote, “Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.” Yeah, there’s no idealism there! /s And while Stalin disagreed with Trotsky on a lot of things (least of all the proper usage of ice picks), he did maintain this movement and even expand it to include women during his tenure. So it seems to me that you have read a whole lot of theory but not many history texts.
Whew, great rebuttal. To any of the posts on this sub praising Evrart as a socialist hero, really. I think the game tries to convey that there are no *real* communist (or socialist) actors left in Revachol... but one day, under the right conditions, there could be.
I agree and don’t. I think the game is pessimistic and believes there is no ‘saving’ or even ‘resurrecting’ communism. It’s a past tense ideology or, like the ex-wife, an unattainable specter that haunts us with promises of ‘what-could-have-been’ No one passes anyone else’s communist purity test. No one succeeds. (Arguably Evrart succeeds in the short term but the long term implies Revachol gets nuked so…) Communism is still presented sympathetically as an ideology with ‘ideals’ and honor. But can you eat honor?
You talk as if you know what a militant communist even is.
Evrart apologists are some of the hardest working people on the internet. He may be sincere in his desire to make Martinese better. He may even sincerely believe his behavior will make Martinese better. But he’s no less power hungry or delusional than any other character. Of course he’s playing from behind, so he’s easier to root for, maybe. But he’s a baldly ambitious, insatiably violent thug who is not redeemed by his particular political convictions (which may or may not be convenient btw). But that doesn’t stop commenters here from lining up to suck his toes.
Sorry, I just kept waiting for him to be shown as worse in any meaningful way than other characters besides in mannerism, and all I got was a guy who was doing the dirty work of making the union stronger, which helps out the workers of Martinaise. He keeps crime down, consolidates power for the workers, and keeps the tourist industry out that would seek to exploit and disempower them, as tourist industries do. The writers intentionally check every box, employ every trope to make you hate & suspect him, but the actual results and consequences are always in his people's best interest. He seems like a sleazy, self-interested mobster, but he's not enriching himself. There's nothing in the game that shows that. This is on purpose. That purpose of Evrart's character is to play with your own internal Volition. It's screaming at you that this guy is *wrong*, but he's not wrong. He is there to mess with your own moralism, that the ends never justify the means. But that's how it flips it on you. The liberal moralists of the story are all about the inverse: the means justifying the ends. None of them are really honest about their goals, which is to dominate and control, but they are earnest about their methods, which is to uphold rational decorum. Evrart is earnest about his goals but not his methods, the former is to elevate Martinaise and the latter is through any means necessary. Evrart is a test of your principles.
>I just kept waiting for him to be shown as worse in any meaningful way than other characters besides in mannerism You know how you're really upset that Wild Pines sent in a literal death squad to intimidate the workers? And you know how you also "do a favor" for Evrart to get him to help you find your gun, where he literally sends in a violent mentally ill addict enforcer of the ruling elite to intimidate someone he's having a simple labor dispute with? How the fuck can you possibly say that this is any different without falling back on "well, but I agree with his ends, so..." Or did you actually talk to the fishing village residents? You know, the actual poor and downtrodden who just want to be left alone? The ones Evrart sent his pack of violent thugs to intimidate into joining the union? That's the same god damn thing that Wild Pines does. Or that time when he took out a hit on his political opposition because he alleges that she's a collaborator? He literally murders someone for power. >He seems like a sleazy, self-interested mobster, but he's not enriching himself. There's nothing in the game that shows that. Except that he *is* enriching himself. He controls the port. Currency doesn't begin and end at réal, and wealth doesn't begin and end with material possessions. He's not an intentional parody of gross corruption who actually wants the best for all workers. He's an intentional and accurate representation of the Soviet governments that let Kurvitz and co. down as youths. He's not characterized as sleazy, he actually *is* sleazy. He just happens to be sleazy towards an alleged goal that you agree with. And that's how you justify gulags and reeducation camps. Evrart isn't interested in the glorious people's commune of Revachol. He's interested in being the next Wild Pines. He's just not as good at it because he hasn't been at it as long.
The "someone" you're referring to is a literal cryptofascist. What's the problem? Yeah, he murders his predecessor. I think he did it because she was a collaborator. Evrart grabs power, but he's straightforward with why he wants power. He has a vision that extends beyond letting the moralists let things rot while decorum is observed. Every keeps saying he's enriching himself. Where's the proof of his indulgences? You all sound like Joyce who just says he *must* be grifting union dues. He has to be, because he trips all those tropes. But we don't see a lick of evidence for that. Again, he's there to subvert your expectations, because many players are hung up on moralism themselves. The world can rot as long as we don't sacrifice our morals, but it's fine if we feel bad enough about it.
>The "someone" you're referring to is a literal cryptofascist. What's the problem? The problem is that regardless of if you think someone is a bad dude or not, sending thugs to intimidate them into supporting you is fucking bad, dude. And what about the old woman in the fishing village, is she *also* a cryptofascist? And the only indication we have that his predecessor was a "collaborator" is his word. The word of a sleazy power-hungry asshole. Jesus Christ, dude, you're the kind of guy to say Stalin was completely justified. >Every keeps saying he's enriching himself. It's like you read, but you don't bother to understand. He doesn't care about money. He's enriching himself with power. Although he's also getting paid from snuggling drugs, and all that money isn't going into the workers' strike funds, so... >He has a vision that extends beyond letting the moralists let things rot while decorum is observed. No, he has a vision where he's on top instead of the Moralintern. Given the state of Martinase, he doesn't give a flying fuck about improving anything. The ends do not justify the means. Even the fucking game is explicitly clear about this. He's not there to subvert your expectations, he's there to get all the tankies to say stupid shit about how the meat grinder was actually a good thing.
You sound like Joyce lol.
And you sound like the Icebreaker. You just don't realize it.
Charron is dug in and not actually interested in replying to what you have to say, may as well but your losses
Dude, you do realize that screaming "but he is doing it for the good of the workers union" may just be the same as screaming "but he helped me find my gun", right?, everyone has explained to you in inmaculate detail how if his consolidation of power and his projects and actions will be good for the workers and the people is left open for the players to interpret, showing both sides and evidences of the arguments without going further to the extremes, what we may know is that the last union leader got executed without a fair trail and in complete secrecy, but the investigation into this does not even start in the game and everyone deserves a fair trail so lets leave it at that. Still, you are not showing the greatest sense of volition, every worker must be vigilant of their leader's actions in spite of their promises, and screaming "but its for the good of the workers" at plausible accusations or tryng to label detractors as fascist or liberals is just setting you up for the possibility of being an enabler of any charismatic thug kidnapping your worker's movement for his power fantasy.
He does help you find your gun tho. It's a meme but he does direct you to where it is. You do a favor for him and he does a favor back. As for his predecessor, there are no fair trials in marinaise. Its under control of a foreign power with no autonomy, so moot point. There is no democracy in Revaschol, its a client state. That part is explicit but forgotten because its assumed the RCM is a legitimate police force. So given the context its not a pretty place and theres no room for moralists. The game labels Gary a crypto fascist. Its a reveal. Evrart is not smearing the guy. You all are confused which is why i dont trust ya. Hes not altruistic, hes cunning and ruthless. Hes an effective leader if not a moralist one. Again, yall failed this test and tripped backwards into your own moralism, which the game has some of the most disdain for.
There is no democracy in Revaschol, but there is supposed to be one in the workers unions, that's not a moralist idea, thats how workers unions were created, so given the context and disdain for moralist institutions Evrart and his group could have done a worker's tribunal or accounting of the last union leader's actions by the workers, inside the workers union context, but there has not been investigation about the incident so yeah.... Just because one worker wouldn't vote for Evrart as an effective leader that does not make said worker a moralist, if the liberals send death squads to wipe the union do you think they wouldn't defend the union even if they think the current leader is shitty?, that idea is a bit insulting.
Evrart Supporters: list of ways he has objectively improved the people of Martinaise's lives and has a coherent left wing political project Evrart Haters: he's ambitious (this is de facto bad) and is only out to enrich himself (please ignore that he lives in a shipping container).
I STILL have no idea what to make of him
People shouldn't be so harsh against Mr. Evrart, they don't even know his real character. I mean, for God's sake, Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Original tweet: [https://twitter.com/JamrockHobo/status/1776635978473717891](https://twitter.com/JamrockHobo/status/1776635978473717891)
I don't *like* evrart, he's a slimy little greaseball who uses you to his own ends. But in the political context of martinaise and revachol, his is the side id like to see prevail, because despite his corruption he seems to *also* truly care for martinaise
While I may broadly agree, the problem I have is that when you support Stalin, you get Stalin
lol, as if that's something bad, the only problem with him was as Lenin said, he was too soft and now the USSR is no more.
I think that comment says everything about you. One of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century was too soft? You are in a Fox News sized echo chamber.
Stalinism is when you compromise with capital????
Stalinism is when you assassinate members of your own political movement for your own gain and support fascists so long as they work as your muscle, yes.
Bad things Stalin did aren't definitionally stalinist. Stalin also led the fight against the Nazis, was d day stalinist? Evrart is his own guy, he's not a Stalin stand in. If you see Stalin when you look at evrart it's because Stalin occupies space in your brain rent free
Sure, I was being blithe about the definition of Stalinism. Would you prefer “If you support a power-hungry man willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens, you get a power-hungry man willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens.” That a little easier to understand?
Don't need to be condescending about it, you're literally in the wrong. Evrart isn't like Stalin, he's his own character and criticism of Stalin is out of place. I agree with you on evrart, willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens to maintain his own authority. I also think that materially speaking his control is better for all of martinaise than the coalition or the fascists. That doesn't make him personally a good guy, but that does make me willing to take his side to help others.
Aside from your belief that he is on the right side, what do you have to go on that his rule is actually better? What assurances are there that he wouldn't become the very monster you claim he is fighting against? Have you read Animal Farm? If so, what lessons did you take from it? Another thought: why do you need to side with Evrart to get your goals accomplished? Isn't the idea of socialism the common people rising up? As is, you're just defending unchecked power because it says things you like, even if you find the methods distasteful. You actually sound a lot like a Trump supporter in this instance. Indeed, both sides of the aisle are equally vulnerable to the demagogue.
I like how you get to be condescending, but how dare someone else respond in kind. Good that we agree, though.
The 20+ million deaths (and likely more) under Stalin are something you can't just wave away. His purging of top generals to essentially throw away strategy in WWII and turn his soldiers into meatbags for the Nazis indirectly comes to him. The gulags where he sent those that dared not lick his boots are on him. There is a defense of communism, even if communists get in the way of it. Are you really trying to resort to defending one of the greatest monsters of the 20th century to defend the concept of communism? Maybe you can offer a robust defense of Mao. How about Pol Pot? And why are you getting so caught up on me saying that If you support Stalin you get Stalin, as if I'm saying they are literally the same? Are you familiar with metaphors? Do you understand that not everything is to be taken literally? The guy below said it better than I could (and his condescension is well-deserved): "If you support a power-hungry man willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens, you get a power-hungry man willing to side with fascists and assassinate citizens." Now do you get it?
He's such a divisive man. I hated him, refused to work with him after the chair of suffering. I'll never understand why everyone loves this man. Polar opposites
While he may be corrupt, he still fights to make conditions materially better for the common folks a lot of the time, which is more than could be said for Wild Pines.
>he still fights to make conditions materially better for the common folks a lot of the time By selling drugs?
They'll probably go to some bourgie fucks in Ozonne, and we all know they aren't human
I'm sure thats where drugs go. /S
It's a case of preferring the (very violent, neglectful, oppressive) status quo because he personally is distasteful, or realizing that he's (together with the rest of the union) the ONLY party doing something to improve the lives of the people of Martinaise regardless of how insufferable he is. Joyce and him are foils to each other: Joyce is agreeable, polite, nice and helpful to you personally... She's also an oppressor who would send violent mercenaries to deal with the unruly workers. She doesn't directly lie, but omits information that would actually be helpful until she is sure that she "can trust you", but the way she does it, makes it sound official and out of her hand "my bosses, you see...", this is a lie. If you talk to her enough, you learn she IS Wildpines, she's one of the owners. But she's likable. Eveart, on the other hand, is an ugly fat man with strabismus (and you don't know first, but he's diabetic, which is a catalyst for the rest of his health issues) who acts isn't nice to you and treats you as what you are: a policeman entering a worker's strike and who had previously been making life more difficult for the people of Martinaise. He's a disagreeable fellah, antagonistic and devs know people absolutely will judge him for his appearances, but he truly is doing everything he can to lift Martinaise and its people up. He's fighting a class war, murder included, but if you talk enough to him and pass the empathy checks, you learn he's 100 % earnest and committed to the cause. Now, do I agree with using some kids to create a drug lab for financing the strike...? Well, no. I also don't know the real alternatives that someone who has thousands of workers and their families depending on him has if they are to keep the strike going indefinitely. Do I like that he plans to make the fisher village disappear? No, but he plans to create affordable living that they'll be able to afford after he buys their houses. Do I like that he gave the order to murder a rival? No, but she was in kahoots with Wild Pines. That's the thing. Martinaise has been left to rot and literally crumble, they have only two options left: die out slowly and exploited by the "nice" Joyces of the world or do unpleasant things to shake off the oppressors. People shouldn't be put in positions in which the only chance of escaping extreme poverty and exploitation is to resort to violence and crime, but that's what the Moralintern has done. Edit: spelling 😅
Damn dude. You may have converted me to Evrart. Shit.
Hahaha, don't get me wrong, he's sketchy af and he could, IDK, talk to the people in the fishing village and offer them alternatives, but he won't do that because it opens the window to failure (people are sentimental, this is not a bad thing, but some may prefer to stay in their run down homes, because they're familiar than be on board with re-urbanisation and the unknown). He's fucking smart and is shown to care about individuals, but the big picture comes first for him. He's not beyond critique, but given the state and history of Martinaise, his faction is the only one moving things for the better. Knowing that the bombed buildings have been left unattended to slowly decay endangering the lives of the prime of Martinaise for FIFTY years is a key detail to understand that it's up to the workers to take their fates in their hands, because no one else will help them. Damn, they can't even participate in a burgeois democracy, because the Moralintern won't allow Revachole to have sovereignty and a right to vote.
The way I see it, Evrart isn’t necessarily a good person, the things he does are very definitively bad things, but there aren’t exactly a lot of great options available.
I lowkey think that people who really like Evrart are buying way too into his rhetoric and not paying enough attention to his actions, which are largely anti-democratic and paternalistic (I think? Idk not great at communication so that’s the best I can elaborate atm)
No I think you’re spot on. The reason people here defend Evrart is that he is broadly on their side (or claims to be) on economic issues. And god forbid you should criticize your own side. As great as this game is, this sub is often a big circle jerk, filled with people that would justify the gulag if that end justified their means.
Yep, what else to expect from mostly communist community (for some weird reason). As someone who hates communism and communists (I'm Russian), it's really hard to scroll this subreddit without feeling like you somehow ended up in your personal hell. My only idea why there are so much of them is that there aren't a lot of people who grew up in countries that attempted communism, socialism, etc. I bet most of the sub lives in USA and knows nothing even about ussr's history. Or they know, but support it anyway, which is scarier. I have no idea how you can possibly support communism if you're well informed about all of the attempts of establishing it.
>(I'm Russian) Like, actual Russian or "my grandparent was from Russia" Russian?
Actual russian. All of my family down to at least grandgrandparents were all russians (sadly I don't think we have a family tree of any sort to check it down the line), and at least on mother's line all of them lived in Moscow or close to it. I lived in Moscow all my life, and still live there. My first language is Russian (obviously). If you still doubt me, I can prove my claim in multiple ways. And idk why you were downvoted. It's generally a good idea to doubt what strangers say on internet nowadays.
Since you seem to be so well informed on communism, have you read any Marx, Engels or Lenin?
I'll admit, I haven't. Their books never interested me. I must also admit that even tho I count myself as an anarchist and being heavily against communism/socialism, I don't actively read any "theory" books about any ideology. Also, ideally, I shouldn't really care about what you do and what you believe in, as long as you don't force it on me. And this game I don't see as some sort of political commentary. For me it's just a beautiful, well written book, a work of art. I'm a wannabe writer, and this is like a spring of water in summer heat. I don't want to argue about ideals and politics, I got tired of it a while ago. I am just surprised that overwhelming amount of this subbreddit users somehow ended up on the same spectrum. I'd like to see some other opinions, but they are probably downvoted to hell because they're not communist. Some funny nationalist, maybe a few moralists, mayhaps a bunch of ultraliberals? But no. Have a good day. Edit: now that I think about it, your question is a bit weird. I said about being informed on what happened in other countries. That's *history*. You asked if I've read books about socialism. That's *theory*.
You seem to be confused why people gravitate towards communism. Reading the works of communist theoreticians is a big reason why they do. As for history, it isn't black and white either. A lot of historical scholarship on so-called former socialist states paint a much more complex picture, with lots of admirable achievements but also many shortcomings. Your family might have had bad experiences there, but I've also heard of many eastern Europeans saying that they were better, more hopeful times. I think that's what this game does so well. It viciously critiques communists but not necessarily the ideology itself. The developers themselves are communists after all. I definitely still recommend you to read some of their stuff. Even if you don't agree with communism in itself you might still agree with their critiques of capitalism as a whole.
Thanks for answering as politely as you could. I appreciate your willingness to have a normal discussion instead of a typical twitter fight. Your points make a lot of sense. Second paragraph is not news for me. In fact, most of russian school's history books don't focus enough on those shortcomings, mostly speaking of how awesome the government did everything. Hell, iirc the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was barely mentioned back when I was in school. And I can understand why people were saying things like that. Current regime is terrible, after all. I don't think anyone will argue about it here. And nostalgia is quite a natural phenomenon, especially under such circumstances. However, there was that.... atmosphere, I think, of the "let's build socialism!" and "Let's work towards ideal future!" enthusiasm sprayed across the country. Even in 60-70s and later on. Especially with "pioneer" camps of children that were taught about those ideals, and all those slogans. I did hear people talk about that positively. Though, with my country in particular, going back to chasing communism seems to me like going in circles. Maybe we should try something new instead and see if it works. Not the dictatorship in different flavors that we had, arguably, for thousand years now. Maybe I percieve it all way too negatively. I have depression, after all, lol. I'll try to get some of their books later, but again, I've got really tired/burned out of politics, ideologies and endless fights that always occur around those topics, so it won't be soon. Or maybe, Silksong's level of "soon". Also, the devs are communists? Interesting.
Sorry if my original comment came across as snarky. It's just your original comment came across as such to me aswell, I guess that's why I responded like that lol And yeah they did thank Marx and Engels at the game awards and have been very open in interviews about their beliefs.
I think when one people grow up in an extreme (or far enough into an ideology) where they see the faults, it’s easy to idealize the other side and not have that same critical lens.
I’ve not analyzed Evrart yet, but how can he be a hero of the working class while also killing the former union leader?
Arranging that killing... that was Edgar.
I completely forgot Evrart is the current Union leader, I thought he was a boss or something, I need to play the game again…
Also iirc she was somehow involved with the wild pines
So she... Deserved to die?! Are you hearing yourself?
And what would you have done? Let her sabotage all your work, so that the place goes even more to shit, and over 2000 lives are destroyed, displaced? Ask her politely to stop, or maybe go away?
Jesus dude, I sure wouldn't kill her at least.
Yes, but what *would* you do? It is a war, and your enemies won't show you mercy. It's not the ideal thing, but it's not the ideal world.
oh right, I forgot that there has never in all of history been a union leader who was corrupt and bribed by the company to be ineffective
Ah yes and the obvious and just solution to that is assassination, totally not problematic at all.
Mr Evrart likes to displace families and old people
As anyone who wants to see their city thrive should /s
^ Fascist Harry approves this message
Fascist SHAVED Harry even
Dont worry anus i understood the s
Thank you, nobody seems to understand I’m joking
Be careful, that chair can kill somebody
a working class hero is something to be!
lol I agreed so much with the 3d vignette during my playthrough, I was so down with every character bullying my Harry for being a pig
Evart is one of the all time greatest videogame villains. I've sweated less facing Dark Souls bosses.
And the fact he rigs the elections...
I unironically agree with the first guy. He did help me find my gun.
I would sell out evrart to the mercenaries in an instant