#also the sea monster line is from him trying on the blue lens glasses lmao it sounds much deeper than that but i still love it so much

[stressfulsloth]

Thinking about Harry and all the animal parallels that follow him through the narrative. It's true that these animal parallels reflect the way that the brutality of individualist moralism strips him of humanity as someone who has fallen through the safety nets, and his agonised shout of 'I don't want to be this kind of animal anymore' can be interpreted as a direct admission of the RCM's dehumanisation of him as a disabled addict who is no longer as 'useful' as he once was. Gottlieb even directly tells him '[he] lost [his] human visage a while back.' Jean calls him 'the most dangerous animal of them all'. The rabid dog that needs to be put down, the black dog (also a common metaphor for chronic mental illness!) that Mollins shoots as it licks its wounds; the scared, hurt, frightened animal lashing out, chewing off it's own leg to escape the trap that it's caught in. The wild dog is all they can see.

But then there is a flipside to these parallels too; a kindness, a gentleness, almost a freedom in Harry’s animal parallels. He's strong like a 'goddamn ox,' like a bear ('I had to kill the bear to become the bear'). He's a harrier hawk, a name given to ensure his safety, raised up to the level of the aerostatics looking down over Revachol, 'soar[ing] on the wings of [his] spirit hawk.' He's a leopard ('its impossible to know where you end and the leopard begins'), discovering or rediscovering a love of softness and sensuality that he'd not known before via the leopard print leotard that 'speaks to the animal inside [him]' and touches on his relationship with his gender ('Yes, this is the type of animal I want to be.').

He's a 'seagull', a bird that will do 'whatever it takes to survive,' a 'bird of paradise' that tells a story of 'endurance- and adaptation' ('You! You and the seagull are just alike!'). He survives, despite everything, despite the grimness of the world around him. He endures. Even the sea monster comparison is oddly kind ('You've become a sea monster -- giant, hidden and... strangely tender at heart'). Even as a monster, he's still gentle; he still has so much love for this world that has wrung every last bit out of him. As if his tenderness is such an inherent part of him that no matter what monstrous face he wears, no matter what creature is there in his shadow, he cannot help but have some trace of it at his core. His tender soul 'quivering like jello.' The pain he feels is raw and animal but so is the love he feels. So is the hope and the fear and the wonder.

#every time i read the leopard scene i go feral over it i love him #guhhhh words are difficult and this is a mush but i hope you understand what I'm trying to say #disco elysium #harry du bois #long post #again apologies if this doesn't make sense #also the sea monster line is from him trying on the blue lens glasses lmao it sounds much deeper than that but i still love it so much #tender as in his still-aching heart and the raw wound of his memory loss but also tender in his love for the world #calling himself a monster but even still he can't erase the tender parts of himself #DE rambling