#to quote Death of Stalin

[terrorquotestm]

Fitzjames: Right, what's a war hero got to do to get some lubrication around here?

[thepersonalwords]

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

Joseph Stalin

[emmikay]

Mustang: Look, enough of this. Are you in?

Olivier Mustang: I’m in, I’m in. That fucker thinks he can mess with my fort?

Olivier Mustang: I fucked Drachma. I think I can take an asshole in a fucking eyepatch.

[incorrect-niche-quotes]

I know the drill. Smile, shake hands, and try not to call them cunts.

-Kalen before some royal gathering probably

[quotelr]

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

Joseph Stalin

[damerid]

Literally me when I try to find hidden meanings

[incorrectringsofpower]

Durin, to Elrond: What took you so long, you fucking walk here?

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

.

[preposterousgreen]

Tseng: [to Veld] How can you run and plot at the same time...?

[realsablinhours]

The members of Overwatch are all standing around Gérard's coffin, talking in low tones

Jack: "Ask Reyes if he invited Blackwatch."

Ana: "Don't give me orders." to Winston "Ask Reyes if he invited Blackwatch."

Winston: to Gabriel "Did you invite Blackwatch?"

Gabriel: "Yes."

Winston: to Ana "Yes."

Jack: "Well?"

Ana: "He said yes."

Jack: "I'm going to give everyone in Overwatch a voucher permitting one kick each to his stupid face."

Gabriel: to Winston "Is he asking for some delicious hay?"

Winston: "No, he said something quite complicated about a voucher system."

[terrorquotestm]

Crozier: I know the drill. Smile, shake hands, and try not to call them cunts.

[thepersonalwords]

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

Joseph Stalin

[soviet-space-ace]

Guiteau: *says something intelligent for once*

Zangara: You know, he has a point.

All the other assassins: Point?! There is no point to Charles Guiteau!

[hindbodes]

[quotelr]

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

Joseph Stalin

[suresne]

while we're talking about mayakovsky and disco elysium, i think the suicidal themes are very important, too.

mayakovsky died by suicide in 1930 (shot himself). his poetry is rife with suicidal imagery. it is essential to his poetic persona.

mayakovsky was also a devoted communist up to his death--"the greatest poet of our soviet epoch" according to stalin (there's a lot i can say about that quote itself and what it means for mayakovsky's complicated legacy, but i won't).

mayakovsky believed in the power of communism--especially through poetry--to fundamentally change the world.

he believed that the ideal communist state would eventually achieve actual resurrection of the dead (no, that's not an exaggeration).

he had SO much hope in the communist project. he believed that a better world could exist. at the same time, he suffered extreme disillusionment in the face of NEP communism and literary censorship by the soviet state and personal despair that he ultimately could not overcome.

these facts about him resonate a lot with characters in disco elysium.

there's kras mazov, who shoots himself after becoming disillusioned with his own revolution.

and, of course, there's harry du bois, who is often only a couple of dialogue options away from talking about suicide or even attempting.

mayakovsky wrote: "more and more often, I think / would it not be better to place / the period of a bullet at the end of my sentence?" (the backbone flute)

and eventually, he would. but he also wrote some of the most hopeful words ever written about art, about love, about human ingenuity. those contradictions lived inside him and made his art revolutionary and so utterly him.

i'm not really sure how to end this beyond saying that despair can overtake even the most hopeful and future minded of us all, but there is beauty and hope alongside darkness. disco elysium embodies that perfectly, imo.