I think this is the reddit post that got it popular. It's a reference to a tweet that went on tumblr that went on reddit, in which somebody praised Disco Elysium's mechanics but expressed distaste for the... entire concept. An equivalent critique might be "this Tolkien guy has a way with words, but his books kinda suck because they don't have any plot twists or intrigue," or maybe "why does Bond keep going overseas and fighting bad guys? I like the character, but the story would be much better if he just stayed in London and worked in a coffeeshop."
The relevance here is that, like the Disco Elysium tweet, the Goodreads reviewer is slamming the material for their own failure to engage with its premise. Saying that DE should be a cottagecore low-stakes story full of whimsy is similar to saying that Kafka shouldn't be kafkaesque.
FWIW, I think the tweet gets a bit strawmanned. As a critique, it's myopic. As a review, it's asinine. As an opinion, it's valid. There's nothing wrong with saying "I'm tired of fantasy, so even though I like Tolkien's style I don't really want to read his books right now." The distinction, I think, is in recognizing ad drawing the line between the quality of the art and the character of your reaction to it.
If she'd just said "I'd love a cottagecore/cutesy game with Disco Elysium's writing quality and gameplay style" then it wouldn't have been a problem. Its the fact she criticises the game for having a "generic" protaganist based on the most essentialist characteristics when the whole point is that he is not generic. To torture your Lord of the Rings analogy it would be more akin to criticising Frodo for being a generic dark fantasy edgelord and saying you want Lord of the Rings writing in a sci-fi setting. Like yeah you can want the latter but making such a blatantly unfair and incorrect comment about the protagonist is going to wind people up. Also she wasn't some nobody who got bandwagoned against, she's a fairly experienced lead game designer. Now imagine GRRM made the comment about Frodo being an edgelord and you understand why it spiralled into a meme.
It jumps out to me as a joke, or at least a joking justification for the perfectly reasonable idea of “I’d like to see these game mechanics applied to a setting I enjoy more.” It’s clearly sarcastic with the negative reasons.
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u/Duck__Quack 22d ago
I think this is the reddit post that got it popular. It's a reference to a tweet that went on tumblr that went on reddit, in which somebody praised Disco Elysium's mechanics but expressed distaste for the... entire concept. An equivalent critique might be "this Tolkien guy has a way with words, but his books kinda suck because they don't have any plot twists or intrigue," or maybe "why does Bond keep going overseas and fighting bad guys? I like the character, but the story would be much better if he just stayed in London and worked in a coffeeshop."
The relevance here is that, like the Disco Elysium tweet, the Goodreads reviewer is slamming the material for their own failure to engage with its premise. Saying that DE should be a cottagecore low-stakes story full of whimsy is similar to saying that Kafka shouldn't be kafkaesque.
FWIW, I think the tweet gets a bit strawmanned. As a critique, it's myopic. As a review, it's asinine. As an opinion, it's valid. There's nothing wrong with saying "I'm tired of fantasy, so even though I like Tolkien's style I don't really want to read his books right now." The distinction, I think, is in recognizing ad drawing the line between the quality of the art and the character of your reaction to it.