The craziest part about this whole interaction is that at first glance, one's first instinct is to pass this off as the writers foregoing any realism and playing up the cold indifference of the soldier, which makes sense, as it's a bit difficult to imagine someone so capable to be so monstrous. The thing is, there's plenty of interviews out there of old retired veterans from different countries recounting similarly horrific stories with the same kind of nostalgic longing and sadistic pleasure. A lot of these men wouldn't strike you as the type to have done such things, but knowing that someone so unassuming could be capable of those levels of violence is horrific to say the least.
@@jackt4595 Its a big part of why countries had to prohibit war trophies, well officially that is. There are countless stories of veterans taking pleasure in countless individual war crimes and doing just heinous shit without a hint of remorse or morality to them. there are entire books about what the US Army did to the native. things like cutting off peoples genitals and wearing them while marching or recent cases like Charles Graner who took photos of himself and other torturing prisoners including actions like rape, mutilation and other horrible acts like a happy past time with friends. wouldn't be surprised if some of this wasn't inspired by Charles Graner given how public it became though there is also alot of clear inspiration from the Vietnam War
Nah this one really turns my stomach. I'm Indonesian (Basically Semenese in the game) and he's Oranjese (Basically Dutch in the game). The way his story parallels with our history makes me feel horrible.
@@ardibetrayal3493 When WW2 was over. When the boot was out of the neck of orange, I guess some heads had hopes it'd be business as usual. Our country wasn't even properly rebuilt yet, and already boats set off in 1945 to get infantry back on the ground in India. Y'see the rest of the allies had been... holding it down for us. The netherlands was still an empire right? Rightfull clay and all? Fucking disgusting man, everyone had learned what it was like to have foreign soldiers come and ruin your country, and not even before the war was over were we ready to get right back too it. 1945 to 1949, theres still men alive who came back from fighting there, but unlike any other veteran you'll never hear them say it. Its our Vietnam. Nobody talks about it.
I cant decide whats more twisted about it, the lives lost there or the fucked up logic driving it. Too any sane individual there was no physical way any orange was gunna be flying over Djakarta. But the great heads decided that no matter how trampled down the ruins of Rotterdam, Batavia was still Batavia. I'm sure the hypocrisy wasnt lost on the allies. Bleeding shame, thats I'll I can add
I think Semenese is more like Africa with its colonization, and Samara is closer to around east and southeast Asia, which includes Indonesia. This is backed up by the old washer woman in the coastal village singing the song "Suliram"which is from Indonesia
"the mask of humanity fall from capital, it has to take it off to kill every one, every thing you love, all the hope and tenderness in the world, it has to take it off for just a second to do the deed"
The old man was sort of right for the wrong reasons. He didnt see lely for the monster he was, he was only jealous for Klassje but his sour view fixated on a generalization and....it was correct. The devil knows more from being old than for being the devil....(spanish proverb).
@@minervaselysium137 No, he also had correct reasons. Being a communist means you fully understand how groups like this operate, who they work for, and what kind of shit gets swept under the rug. His jelaousy over Klaasje is just an extra factor.
Man you silly ass communists really did miss what joyce said about infra cultures, even a nationalist communist uprising is an infraculture to the international community. It's always been like this, the "capital" was around in rome, in mesopotamia, in egypt and sumeria. It's a good thing, typically, to have some national blood shed from time to time, to shake off the isolationism and update them to modernity. But if you genuinely think your "community" and it's needs and wants will outweigh the international "community" and it's needs and wants you are in for a eternally perpetual rude awakening. (spoiler alert, it always fails for a reason, it only serves to strip cultural identity away and serve it up to the internationale clique. Thanks for being critical of your culture.)
@@ImVeryOriginal The Deserter was a good communist once; yet he became a shell of his former self, you can hear him talk and see what used to be there, the rhetoric he learnt so long ago, and the experience which developed it as he became it. Pity is what I could feel, yet I cannot avoid to smile, as his blind jealousy did two 'good' deeds, even if he only saw one. In the end he rekindled the revolution, even if he may not live to see it. (also pretend that Sacred and Terrible Air is just a 'bad ending' scenario)
I didn't discover this interaction until my second run, but once I did I felt 0 sympathy for Lely whenever I heard about the more tragic parts of his backstory. He was more high-functioning than Korty and the other mercs but he was just as much of a despicable monster as the rest of them. He deserved to get merced even if Iosef was doing it for selfish and unwholesome reasons.
Though he was (to my understanding) the only thing preventing the Mercs from doing something like the Tribunal. So the Union people ended up dying as a result.
on one hand, he was a monster, on the other hand, he had to keep his men on a leash or things would get BAD! i...dont know what i'd do in his specific situation fuck i hope i never have to be in charge of so many morally bankrupt people... but i feel like lely was the only thing in most situations that prevented a massacre or an even bigger war crime from happening. he is far from a good person but he tried to keep the horrible events to isolated incidents it seems, while his brother is an example of what most other leaders in mercenary groups like this are like. its just shitty all around and for everyone. its so gut wrenchingly human in its shittyness that i cant put all the blame on the bastard no matter how much of a monster h was.
‘The mask is getting sweaty’. . Just connected that with the events of the tribunal. "It was real, I'd seen it. I'd seen it in reality." "Seen what?" "The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone -- everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off; just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death...the sweetest, most courageous people in the world," he's silent for a second. "You see the fear and power in its eyes. Then you know. . The bourgeois are not human.”
Hmm. A lot of the game is about pretense and what is or isn't real beneath the mask you're showing the world. But if these are actually the only times the word "mask" is used explicitly, then that's a fairly good point.
I mean even beyond that the two feel very connected to me. The facade the Scab Leader puts up to hide his monstrousness, the fact that they’re literally instruments of capital sent to break a labor movement, the murder of The Deserters friends as paralleled by the death of the Hardie boys, etc.
What’s amazing about this is that the Deserter, as much of a crazy communist loon he appears to be, was correct. Lely WAS a horrific monster of a human who deserved a fate worse than death. And this entire story for the game started when the Deserter saw Klaasje and, disgusted that she would give herself willingly to such an awful man, shot him mid-coitus. Just… wow. It’s such a dark, human moment.
Yet Iosif knows nothing about the mercs beyond whatever he's heard on the radio - he's just associating them with the jackboots that crushed the revolution.
@@Xander77Ru Yes, Iosif can be quite the hypocrite sometimes. And yet, from that whole interaction with him, he clearly would be the type to simply own up to his hypocrisy if called out on it. Still, I really like his character
Keep in mind the Sargent in this story died in the Semenese Islands. He’s not in the game. But the Mercenaries from Krenel universally give off a “Meth Nazi Death Marine” vibe
The people completely misunderstanding Ellis's character are baffling. The entire take away is that the system is rotten and it doesn't matter if you're a good person like Ellis, there's still no way to keep your hands clean once you're in.
The Deserter’s mistake was jealousy. Klaase was a psychopath herself, and no one should be mad about her sleeping with anyone in the first place. She’s not worth the care. If anything he should have shot her later for manipulating The Hardy Boys and getting them caught up in (what she at first thought was) her shit. Hell, she even admits later on as an aside in her interrogation that if she were a guy, she would go off and do the same things the mercs do (albeit this is an odd counterfactual to make considering the mercs had a woman among their ranks already, so one wonders why she thinks being a guy keeps her from being a merc). She’s a completely irredeemable person.
@@ae5704 Talk to Cuno on all things Cunoesse and he will give you most of what you need to start to piece it together. All about how she got to where she is now, background and personality. Then you see how messed up it is but also overlooked from a generic glance at her.
this interaction made me pause the game for a hot minute it was genuinely one of the most harrowing pieces of dialogue ive heard in a video game made much worse because it's... not far off from what happens in occupied/war torn places on a concerningly casual basis
never thought of even asking him about those, was absolutely surprised by how I can't find anyone who would know something about them, except for maybe Klasjee who knew a little, but this scene is so great and it's just such a shame I missed it, there's so much to this game
@@cringeclown4087 That's simply wrong. American soldiers committing crimes against civilians in Iraq are very well documented. Haditha, Hamandiya, Sadr City, Samarra and Ishaqi have become synonymous with murder, rape and the multiple killings of civilians. Also the Taliban are not in Iraq. They are primarily Afghani.
that's not the kind of bullshit you see from normal peoples, it's the kind of things you see from deranged individuals in positions of absolute-freedom. that's what you'd expect from soldiers who have been isolated for a long-time in a single-location, or mercs who intrude into a warground knowing damn well no-one would stop them. that's some "Apocalypse-Now" type of bullshit that could only happen back when field-communication weren't a thing, and wars were fought on battlefield and not small-scale tactical operations to avoid casualties and wastes of ressources. nowaday we have protocoles made SPECIFICALLY to avoid this kind of situations, you guys are fucking ignorants if you truly believe that.
The craziest part about this whole interaction is that at first glance, one's first instinct is to pass this off as the writers foregoing any realism and playing up the cold indifference of the soldier, which makes sense, as it's a bit difficult to imagine someone so capable to be so monstrous. The thing is, there's plenty of interviews out there of old retired veterans from different countries recounting similarly horrific stories with the same kind of nostalgic longing and sadistic pleasure. A lot of these men wouldn't strike you as the type to have done such things, but knowing that someone so unassuming could be capable of those levels of violence is horrific to say the least.
Read on Siegfried Müller,this men exist and are horrifying as hell
@@jackt4595 Its a big part of why countries had to prohibit war trophies, well officially that is.
There are countless stories of veterans taking pleasure in countless individual war crimes and doing just heinous shit without a hint of remorse or morality to them. there are entire books about what the US Army did to the native. things like cutting off peoples genitals and wearing them while marching or recent cases like Charles Graner who took photos of himself and other torturing prisoners including actions like rape, mutilation and other horrible acts like a happy past time with friends.
wouldn't be surprised if some of this wasn't inspired by Charles Graner given how public it became though there is also alot of clear inspiration from the Vietnam War
The Act of Killing is a chilling documentary where you kind of see that happen on the screen.
So glad you get to make this guy's face gone
the shift in tone from the somewhat silly dressed leader to a COLD BLOODED KILLER sent shivers through my being. absolutely harsh yet brilliant scene
Actually chilling, this game is so damn good.
Nah this one really turns my stomach. I'm Indonesian (Basically Semenese in the game) and he's Oranjese (Basically Dutch in the game). The way his story parallels with our history makes me feel horrible.
Well i never heard Dutche's attrocaties other than slavery and starved people to death in our country it seems like you know more @VirtualInsanity77
@@ardibetrayal3493 When WW2 was over. When the boot was out of the neck of orange, I guess some heads had hopes it'd be business as usual. Our country wasn't even properly rebuilt yet, and already boats set off in 1945 to get infantry back on the ground in India. Y'see the rest of the allies had been... holding it down for us. The netherlands was still an empire right? Rightfull clay and all? Fucking disgusting man, everyone had learned what it was like to have foreign soldiers come and ruin your country, and not even before the war was over were we ready to get right back too it. 1945 to 1949, theres still men alive who came back from fighting there, but unlike any other veteran you'll never hear them say it. Its our Vietnam. Nobody talks about it.
I cant decide whats more twisted about it, the lives lost there or the fucked up logic driving it. Too any sane individual there was no physical way any orange was gunna be flying over Djakarta. But the great heads decided that no matter how trampled down the ruins of Rotterdam, Batavia was still Batavia. I'm sure the hypocrisy wasnt lost on the allies. Bleeding shame, thats I'll I can add
I think Semenese is more like Africa with its colonization, and Samara is closer to around east and southeast Asia, which includes Indonesia. This is backed up by the old washer woman in the coastal village singing the song "Suliram"which is from Indonesia
@@olipoi8218the point he is making is that the experience is almost universal. Where the oppressors sent their army these things always happened.
"the mask of humanity fall from capital, it has to take it off to kill every one, every thing you love, all the hope and tenderness in the world,
it has to take it off for just a second to do the deed"
The old man was sort of right for the wrong reasons. He didnt see lely for the monster he was, he was only jealous for Klassje but his sour view fixated on a generalization and....it was correct. The devil knows more from being old than for being the devil....(spanish proverb).
@@minervaselysium137 No, he also had correct reasons. Being a communist means you fully understand how groups like this operate, who they work for, and what kind of shit gets swept under the rug. His jelaousy over Klaasje is just an extra factor.
Man you silly ass communists really did miss what joyce said about infra cultures, even a nationalist communist uprising is an infraculture to the international community. It's always been like this, the "capital" was around in rome, in mesopotamia, in egypt and sumeria. It's a good thing, typically, to have some national blood shed from time to time, to shake off the isolationism and update them to modernity.
But if you genuinely think your "community" and it's needs and wants will outweigh the international "community" and it's needs and wants you are in for a eternally perpetual rude awakening. (spoiler alert, it always fails for a reason, it only serves to strip cultural identity away and serve it up to the internationale clique. Thanks for being critical of your culture.)
@@ImVeryOriginal The Deserter was a good communist once; yet he became a shell of his former self, you can hear him talk and see what used to be there, the rhetoric he learnt so long ago, and the experience which developed it as he became it.
Pity is what I could feel, yet I cannot avoid to smile, as his blind jealousy did two 'good' deeds, even if he only saw one.
In the end he rekindled the revolution, even if he may not live to see it.
(also pretend that Sacred and Terrible Air is just a 'bad ending' scenario)
I didn't discover this interaction until my second run, but once I did I felt 0 sympathy for Lely whenever I heard about the more tragic parts of his backstory. He was more high-functioning than Korty and the other mercs but he was just as much of a despicable monster as the rest of them. He deserved to get merced even if Iosef was doing it for selfish and unwholesome reasons.
Though he was (to my understanding) the only thing preventing the Mercs from doing something like the Tribunal. So the Union people ended up dying as a result.
@@vincegalila7211 That's true, but he still had a fate like that coming after decades of committing war crimes against defenseless civilians.
You spend 15 years in the semenese conflict and try to retain your morality
on one hand, he was a monster, on the other hand, he had to keep his men on a leash or things would get BAD!
i...dont know what i'd do in his specific situation
fuck
i hope i never have to be in charge of so many morally bankrupt people...
but i feel like lely was the only thing in most situations that prevented a massacre or an even bigger war crime from happening.
he is far from a good person
but he tried to keep the horrible events to isolated incidents it seems, while his brother is an example of what most other leaders in mercenary groups like this are like.
its just shitty all around and for everyone.
its so gut wrenchingly human in its shittyness that i cant put all the blame on the bastard no matter how much of a monster h was.
@@larsbuss6007 Are you trying to justify his actions?
Really makes you want to adjust your funny tie for some reason.
It's Harry instinctively setting his hand on his weapon. And in this case, it's the weapon that kills Kortenaer.
Makes me want to admire my beautiful necktie..
‘The mask is getting sweaty’. . Just connected that with the events of the tribunal.
"It was real, I'd seen it. I'd seen it in reality."
"Seen what?"
"The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone -- everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off; just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death...the sweetest, most courageous people in the world," he's silent for a second. "You see the fear and power in its eyes. Then you know. . The bourgeois are not human.”
Hmm. A lot of the game is about pretense and what is or isn't real beneath the mask you're showing the world. But if these are actually the only times the word "mask" is used explicitly, then that's a fairly good point.
I mean even beyond that the two feel very connected to me. The facade the Scab Leader puts up to hide his monstrousness, the fact that they’re literally instruments of capital sent to break a labor movement, the murder of The Deserters friends as paralleled by the death of the Hardie boys, etc.
What’s amazing about this is that the Deserter, as much of a crazy communist loon he appears to be, was correct. Lely WAS a horrific monster of a human who deserved a fate worse than death. And this entire story for the game started when the Deserter saw Klaasje and, disgusted that she would give herself willingly to such an awful man, shot him mid-coitus. Just… wow. It’s such a dark, human moment.
Yet Iosif knows nothing about the mercs beyond whatever he's heard on the radio - he's just associating them with the jackboots that crushed the revolution.
@@Xander77Ru Yes, Iosif can be quite the hypocrite sometimes. And yet, from that whole interaction with him, he clearly would be the type to simply own up to his hypocrisy if called out on it. Still, I really like his character
Keep in mind the Sargent in this story died in the Semenese Islands. He’s not in the game.
But the Mercenaries from Krenel universally give off a “Meth Nazi Death Marine” vibe
The people completely misunderstanding Ellis's character are baffling. The entire take away is that the system is rotten and it doesn't matter if you're a good person like Ellis, there's still no way to keep your hands clean once you're in.
The Deserter’s mistake was jealousy. Klaase was a psychopath herself, and no one should be mad about her sleeping with anyone in the first place. She’s not worth the care. If anything he should have shot her later for manipulating The Hardy Boys and getting them caught up in (what she at first thought was) her shit. Hell, she even admits later on as an aside in her interrogation that if she were a guy, she would go off and do the same things the mercs do (albeit this is an odd counterfactual to make considering the mercs had a woman among their ranks already, so one wonders why she thinks being a guy keeps her from being a merc). She’s a completely irredeemable person.
This has to be the darkest story inside a reeally popular game.
Then Cunoesse story is runner up if you piece it together.
@@rhysdavies3479 what’s the story?
@@ae5704 If I told you wouldn't it ruin the adventure? :p
@@rhysdavies3479 True that.. hints on how to find out about it?
@@ae5704 Talk to Cuno on all things Cunoesse and he will give you most of what you need to start to piece it together. All about how she got to where she is now, background and personality. Then you see how messed up it is but also overlooked from a generic glance at her.
this interaction made me pause the game for a hot minute
it was genuinely one of the most harrowing pieces of dialogue ive heard in a video game
made much worse because it's... not far off from what happens in occupied/war torn places on a concerningly casual basis
never thought of even asking him about those, was absolutely surprised by how I can't find anyone who would know something about them, except for maybe Klasjee who knew a little, but this scene is so great and it's just such a shame I missed it, there's so much to this game
Jesus
One of my favourite moments to have gotten in my first playthrough (maybe second I don't recall)
Stories like these were pretty common in areas occupied by Japan during ww2
Like nanjing
Same with Americans in Iraq and Vietnam.
Newsflash, it's common everywhere in wartime.
@@molybdenumrose Vietnam, yes. Iraq, not really. Unless you're talking about the Taliban and the other fringe extremist factions.
@@cringeclown4087 That's simply wrong. American soldiers committing crimes against civilians in Iraq are very well documented. Haditha, Hamandiya, Sadr City, Samarra and Ishaqi have become synonymous with murder, rape and the multiple killings of civilians.
Also the Taliban are not in Iraq. They are primarily Afghani.
Klaasje has reeeeally good taste in men
She looked past all that 🤡
BuT I MUsT PrOtEcT HER!!!!!!!!!!!
she could fix him
Too complex and twisted to understand, I myself cant fully grasp the full appeal that men like Lely could have, only incomplete theories come to mind.
@@DuckieMcduck I doubt so, too far gone and I bet Klaasje knew it well. I think their relationship was more of a holiday for both.
i didnt feel bad about blasting him before seeing this but now that ive seen this yeah no
This guy is your average US Marine
And I think the average US Marine would take that as a compliment.
that's not the kind of bullshit you see from normal peoples, it's the kind of things you see from deranged individuals in positions of absolute-freedom.
that's what you'd expect from soldiers who have been isolated for a long-time in a single-location, or mercs who intrude into a warground knowing damn well no-one would stop them.
that's some "Apocalypse-Now" type of bullshit that could only happen back when field-communication weren't a thing,
and wars were fought on battlefield and not small-scale tactical operations to avoid casualties and wastes of ressources.
nowaday we have protocoles made SPECIFICALLY to avoid this kind of situations, you guys are fucking ignorants if you truly believe that.
Include average NATO soldier too.
Probably no
@@yurichekov8944Of course those crayon munchers would
Oh wow, this is one of the few times Inland Empire is wrong
Edit: nm this is terrible
Siegfried Muller...
Is that a different voice actor?
Not the traphouse guy, yeah.
I like the previous voice more
@@orelyosif5852 i like this guy better