#(altho actually that's another fun subversion that feels even more fun in the remake of ds1)

[cyrsed]

i only realized recently that the reason it's been 3 years for isaac since ds1 is bc ds1 came out 3 years before ds2, which is cute. isaac has no memory of the past 3 years in ds2 bc he hasn't existed since 2008 lol. there's some fun (maybe partially unintentional in certain cases) meta narrative in ds2 that is interesting to think about? control vs lack of control, agency vs manipulation etc. i think it's sorta funny that isaac's arc goes from sort of "accidentally"/in self defense killing someone and feeling bad about it in a cutscene (QTE notwithstanding), where you the player don't control what isaac does, to the end where isaac is consciously making the decision to essentially execute tiedmann lol. which is interesting from a character growth perspective (like, what does it mean for him to take a life purposefully: is it catharsis? is it closure? is it heroic? idk about that since it's not like he wouldn't have died anyway lol, so is it just what tiedmann Deserves? oh, 2011 video games), but it's also interesting from a player/game interaction perspective, since the themes of dead space like paranoia/conspiracy/loss of control/memory/manipulation/free will/futility/etc. mean that isaac is never really in control and never really has agency. he's either manipulated by other humans, or by the marker, and very literally controlled by the player.

so in isaac's ds2 arc, ignoring the grief aspect, he goes from acting in a way that could arguably be considered to have more agency to it by killing someone in a cutscene where the player has no input into his actions one way or the other (other than being able to let isaac die if they fail the QTE, but the actual killing part is extra loll), to killing tiedmann, but with the caveat that the game gives the player the actual input to execute tiedmann rather than watching it happen like before. obvs that's just down to game mechanics more than anything, but it's FUN to think about the THEMATIC IMPLICATIONS okay??