Pathologic: The Ending, according to the Bachelor

If you haven't read the write-ups for Day 12 I suggest you go read them right now unless you've played the game through already. What we'd like to present to you right now is an overview of the endings.

As the Bachelor, I found three "choices" presented to me at the end of the game. I didn't have enough panacea to cure everyone's adherents, so the Devotress couldn't give me her input. So what I had--what I have to analyze here--is not the complete picture, though Kevin and Rory have filled me in, more or less.

The three choices I had were:

1. Let the Settlement be destroyed. But [the] Polyhedron may not be touched. The surviv[ors] will [rest] there until we vaccinate them, and the epidemic will finally [. . .] come to the end.
2. It is enough to destroy [the] Polyhedron to stop spreading of the infection. There is no sense to destroy the whole town.
3. So, I declare my decision to you. I refuse the choice. I shall not decide about the destiny of this town and [. . .] show my arguments to you.

Here's a quick summation of the results of each decision:

Destroy the Polyhedron; Save the Settlement.
We see the model of the town with the water jug that functions as the Polyhedron being slowly wrenched free.

It falls and lies, useless, on the ground. Then a vision of the Settlement with bluish skies, healthy. The kids, the Haruspicus, the turning of the wagon wheel: it looks like everything has turned out well.

"We aren't dying!"

After this, we're treated to an unsettling vision of the theatre, the three protagonists lying on stage like rag dolls with button eyes.

The game specifically notes that it "acknowledges the player's victory". We can walk around on stage, look at the dolls close up, before walking to the exit at stage left. Shimmering lights wait, suspended, in the void beyond the door, which slowly slips into the distance.

Destroy the Settlement; Save the Polyhedron.
The cutscene at the end shows the two Authorities--little kids--bashing the model of the town.

The artillery fires, the sun rises and Maria Kain stands looking very smug at the front of her entourage.

After a lovely view of the Polyhedron at dawn, silhouetted against the umber sky, the perspective shifts to the theater again, button-eyed dolls, the three protagonists arrayed at the back of the stage.

The game doesn't acknowledge the player's victory in this ending scenario. There's no text, no script. This ending is a defeat. The Kains won. The player let himself be manipulated, took the bait.

Again, floating lights, door, fade to black.

Refuse the choice.
The cutscene that plays exudes "bad ending vibes". The camera pans across the interior of a plague-ridden house, the light lingering on bloodstained bookshelves, the dirty floors, and so on.

Then we pull away to see the town bathed in red.

And eventually we see the corpses of the dead townsfolk.

The last shot is a fade-out on the Authorities' model of the town.

And then it's back to the town Theatre, on the stage with all the crumpled forms of the protagonists, buttons on their eyes. Door, fuzzy lights, fade to black.

Get this, though: at the end of this scenario, the game notes the player's victory.

(Others)
I'll let Kevin fill you in on the other ending--the one supplied by the Devotress. For now I have some thoughts.

Concerning Victory.
There's a lot of conjecture about what the endings mean, but it's pretty easy to see the trajectory of each character and how it lines up with their "ending"--the one they contribute to the final reckoning if you save all their adherents.

Artemiy Burakh, the Haruspicus, has grown from the steppe dirt and inherited his father's legacy as shaman and curate of the Settlement. His relationships with the town's children, the way the scenario is shaped, leads him to demonize the Polyhedron. His "ending", so to speak, is to destroy the Polyhedron so that the town can return to the status quo. While the cinematic paints the ending in a positive light, I can't help but be grieved, because it's just as it was before--no better, no worse. The ending is reflective of the traditions and perpetuity of life the Haruspicus seeks so desperately to protect: it's stayed the same.

There are so many unanswered questions I have about Klara, the Devotress, having not played her story myself. She's an enigma. She's a miracle, a curse: she's a cookie-cutter messiah, loved by some and hated by the rest. And apparently her ending functions as a sort of deus-ex-machina, allowing the town to both sustain its own life, do away with the plague, and keep the Polyhedron. Rory's playthrough on his blog will certainly explore this in-depth when he writes up Day 12. Like the Haruspicus' ending, Klara's ending fits with her character: enigmatic, paradoxical, out of the blue.

Daniel Dankovskiy, the Bachelor, is an outsider, a scientist: a reserved and judgmental young man who thinks he knows best. It quickly becomes evident that he has neither the experience nor the wisdom to defend the town against the plague, so the Inquisitor, and later the General, are brought in to mop up his mess. He views the Sand Plague as an enemy: winning is the goal here, rather than curing the disease.

The suggestion the Bachelor brings to the final decision in the other games is to preserve the Polyhedron. This decision leads to the Kains building their "utopia". However, this choice doesn't acknowledge the player's victory. It's not the right decision to make; in fact, I believe it's the only patently wrong choice the player can make at the end of the game. I don't say this out of opinion: every ending except the Kains' Victory has an explicit statement of the player's victory.

If you've read through my playthrough as the Bachelor, you should see how my thinking, both as character and player, shifted over the course of the game. I began bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so happy to save the town, save the world, and somehow, around midway through, I decided I hated the town. They were not worth saving. The crime, the politics, the horror of basic human nature. The problem was not the plague: it was the humans who were scarring the earth, doing violence by their very existence. I resolved that, on the final day, I would destroy the town when the decision was presented to me. The Polyhedron was a happy little coincidence--an inhuman marvel--that I wanted to save, and in the end, it was only a tool that would be misused.

The true enemy in this was never the Plague. The Bachelor realized it. His character introduction at the start of the game reads, "This is the story of a man who performed a miracle and defeated an opponent when victory seemed impossible." Could the conniving, clamoring people of the Settlement be this opponent?

Nukes and artillery aren't enough to kill the enemy, though. Men can escape shells. They can hide, reproduce, and rebuild. But the Sand Plague is a natural mechanism that, perhaps, was never evil to begin with. How does the Bachelor achieve the victory he has worked so hard to obtain? He walks away and allows the human parasite to devour itself. He lets the fever burn out.

Mother Nature: 7,776  -   Humanity: 0

Is this the "right" ending? For the Bachelor, who calculates in cold math, whose empathy has been steadily burned away by the shit-storm that is human nature, this ending makes perfect sense.

Edit [1-27-2013]: We've been hearing from other players who have differing reports about the way the Bachelor's scenario ends. If you are interested in reading about them, a few of our readers have kindly posted their own experiences in the comments below (and elsewhere on this site). Feel free to join the conversation, fellow players!

Pathologic: Day Twelve, in which it will become apparent what all this was for (Part II)

I don't need to repeat what Kevin has written. The children are psychopathic gods, and this town is their sandbox. To them, this is a game (as it is to me, I note with some irony--both as the Bachelor and as his player). I'm a "toy who came alive"--a "scary puppet".

"Ask whom you want - you are a puppet. Your name is Bachelor. You are a scary clown.
When we play with you, you are always bad."

In my journal afterwards:

Yes, the pestilence has happened in the sand box . . . Anyway, but the hero--the hero is severely deceived: It seems all this time he thought himself a living person saving living people. This feeling, no doubt, added eagerness to him, helped him to reach the ending, even with some triumph.


Vain. This is all in vain. He is a puppet saving silly dolls in a painted small town. It is strange that the almighty Authorities were silent till now. Probably they are bothered, or simply want to go home for supper.


Aoi.

I wander the town, talking to my adherents one last time. They all speak of the destruction of the town, specifically the construction on the other side of the river. It is strange how, till now, both as the Bachelor and player, I have cauterized any emotional connection to the town. It isn't that I'm not properly "role playing" as the Bachelor. In fact, I believe I experience the emotional disconnect precisely because I'm playing the part of the Bachelor. Yet here, on the final day, my head is spinning. Up till now I've known precisely the answer. The town must be destroyed. Not as an act of apathy or aggression: the root of the pestilence is here, has been here all along, and will endure long after I leave.

The Devotress tells me I have to sacrifice something. That a stand must be taken. "One queen by all means wants to destroy a wonderful tower; the other one wants to exterminate as many people as possible for her own calm."

Each of the Haruspicus' adherents have the same thing to say. "One always has to fight for li[f]e, otherwise it's not real. You cannot tear off the umbilical cord that has been feeding us all since the world's creation. It has already found death almost everywhere."

The Kains are obsessed with the idea of the Utopia on the other side of the river. The children are obsessed with their lives ahead here, in the town stained with blood. I can't help the feeling of despair in thinking of each possible future. The instruments of death are both here: the Polyhedron and the Sand Plague. The roles they played in the horror I've witnessed are irrelevant. The true evil is in our own humanity. As long as humans live, they will desecrate. They will cheat, lie, steal, murder--they will waste and build and lay waste again and again. It is here, in this manufactured game of pawns and queens, that I have been shown--not told--the true nature of the human spirit.

As Kevin walks toward the Cathedral, the sky above blue with broken clouds, I have nothing more than the same yellow haze to which I've grown accustomed. Perhaps I played the game wrong. Perhaps I have been too pessimistic.

I have no idea what to say when I come to the Cathedral at 7pm. The Executor says that "All works in the interest of inevitability. You cannot hide anywhere from it. Evil conquers all." With I sigh, I open the doors and enter the sanctuary. There are Aglaja the Inquisitor, Artemiy Burakh the Haruspicus, Maria Kain and General Blok; all of them have something different to say--some piece of the puzzle. The Haruspicus is under the impression that I would destroy the town as a way of spiting Aglaja. Aglaja says "Here and now I suggest buying the happiness of several thousand for a small sacrifice, because Utopia demands sacrificing more and more. Even this Utopia."

On the Polyhedron, she remarks, “On a whim of the Authorities, the Miracle, casually embodied in the Polyhedron, has been violently rejected by the flesh of the town which has grown it up and fed it with the resources: people and hot blood. This flesh became for it simultaneously a bowels and a prison . . . And how is that you came to the town at this time? A hero by all attributes. Almost a miracle maker. The Authorities tried to manipulate you to defend the miracle—not the Kains; they are unfortunate and possessed. This is their role. They are puppets. But you—You want to become a slave again? The Authorities subordinate you to the plan.”

Is she lying? Am I being manipulated? Everyone in this town has an angle: The Inquisitor has her death sentence hanging over her head, the Kains envision their own paradise. The Haruspicus has his crop of children, all waiting to be corrupted like their forebears. The General only wants to see this place burn. As for me, all I want is to win. Not as a player, but as the Bachelor, at the edge of the board, finally empowered, no longer pawn.

Maria Kain takes me aside at the rear of the Cathedral. “I have already begun, my Daniel,” she says. “When night falls and the wind scatters smoke from the charred ground, and the dust and rubble are swept clean, you will see new constellations in the sky. They will shine down, and when they reach the merlons of the Polyhedron, a miracle will happen.”

“What will they be like? And how will you name them?” I ask.

“We shall see. But I expect the red shall prevail in them. Ruby, scarlet, crimson, violet, pink, claret, garnet—the colour of fire, stained blood. Perhaps you will even see something familiar in their structure.”

I imagine, in this scene, the Bachelor's expression as he listens to Maria. The brief hope her words give, even as she talks about her "Authority"--her place as mother in this town, giving birth to whatever Utopia she envisions. My pulse racing, I turn, walk down the steps, and speak to the General.

"So, Bachelor. Your decision was not made by calculation or self-interest; it was not urged by the circumstances, but only by your conscience. I have received the order to raze everything to the ground. But there is no such necessity. I am ready to believe you, having risked my life and honour, wherefore I am merciful. Where do I target my guns?" he asks.

The Final Set of Decisions

The general is wrong. In the end, I have only my own interests at heart. My modus operandi as the Bachelor has been calculation and manipulation from the beginning--a power play. Things have finally become clear. The Authorities are irrelevant. All I want--and have wanted--is my own victory. And that is, in the end, what all of this was for.

I am reminded of something Mark Twain once said. "Faith is believin' what you know ain't so." I look to Maria, smug and assured behind the general, then down at my choices. Utopia was always a myth. Moreover, I can't stand the thought of letting the Kain family have their own private paradise.

For a moment, I imagine the Bachelor spitting at Maria's feet, then looking to General Blok.

"It is enough to destroy the Polyhedron to stop the spreading of infection. There is no sense to destroy the whole town," I tell him.

Check and mate. Smug, I leave the Cathedral. The trains will leave soon. I can imagine the scenarios beyond. With the Architect's help, and proper planning, the Bachelor could very well return to the capitol and build several more Polyhedrons. Perhaps in healthier soil, with fewer variables, he could perfect the work that was started here and begin anew.

I sleep until midnight and see the ending. The general orders the guns to fire, and the Polyhedron is blown to bits as the Authorities watch in horror. The town blossoms. The Haruspicus sits with the children, the streets are green, and the Sand Plague has retreated into the warm earth. This is, of course, not my victory: it belongs to Artemiy Burakh. The town has no need of me anymore. I imagine the Bachelor back at the Capitol right now, hard at work, and closer than ever to creating a Utopia.