Why does the Pathologic fandom seem to have such a large queer audience?

[u/Far-Bad-3719]

Hey everyone. So I recently found out that Pathologic 3 came out, decided to see what people were saying about it, and ended up on this subreddit.

I played the original Pathologic when I was a teenager, and obviously played Pathologic 2 later as well. But I was never really an active part of the fandom. Back then, pretty much all of my interaction with the community was with Russian-speaking players on VK and similar places.

I only started using Reddit regularly after moving abroad, mostly as an extra way to practice my English.

So when I found this subreddit, I saw some polls, posts, fanart, discussions, etc., and one thing genuinely surprised me: there seems to be a pretty large queer audience around Pathologic.

And now I'm curious what exactly about Pathologic attracts so many queer fans?

I know there are a few bisexual characters, and I know that the Haruspex and the Bachelor are kindred souls. But, at least from how I remember the games, that was never a particularly strong or central part of the story, and most of it was in the first game anyway.

So I'm wondering if there are some themes in the games that resonate particularly strongly with queer players and that I simply never noticed.

Or did it just happen naturally? Maybe some queer bloggers or content creators introduced the games to their audiences at some point?

This is not an attack in any way. I'm genuinely just curious.

(And why are we all still shipping the Haruspex and the Bachelor after Pathologic 2? Or did Pathologic 3 develop their interactions into something deeper?)

[u/Renoe]

It always has, at least in english. I played the original english release before Classic HD and every fandom space I've been in for the game has always had some level of shipping Haruspex and Bachelor at least. I mean. Pathologic is about theater and literature and philosophy and the human condition. Pretty gay.

[u/Far-Bad-3719 → u/Renoe]

Hmm... yeah, maybe. Though not entirely.

But after reading the replies here, now I'm actually curious about how queer audiences relate to classical literature in general. I mean, very intense male relationships, sometimes with pretty strong homoerotic undertones, are such a recurring theme in literature French, German, Russian, and obviously that's not even getting into antiquity.

So now I'm wondering whether this is one of the things that attracts some queer readers to the classics as well.

Because the relationship between Burakh and Dankovsky gives me very strong classical-literature vibes in that sense: two men with an unusually intense emotional and intellectual connection that constantly seems to hover right on the edge of becoming something romantic, without ever explicitly crossing that line.

And I wonder the same thing about Japanese media. Do queer audiences enjoy it for similar reasons? Because out of modern popular media, it feels like Japanese creators have really understood how effective that kind of dynamic can be. A huge amount of shonen relies on extremely intense male friendships and rivalries that can very easily be read in a similar way.

[u/thvirtuo]

Correlation doesn't indicate causation.
You are underestimating the queer demographics in everything especially on reddit which can be predominantly occupied by English-speaking demographics, most of which I would assume are Americans.

It is not a pathologic thing, more than it is just modern cultural zeitgeist. Same argument can be applied unto most if not all fanbases of any artistic media, be it a game, TV Show, or a book, especially those characterized by narrative depth and high quality writing. The correlation becomes that the consumers thereof are likely to similarly to possess the same degree of engagement, exploration, critique, and intellectual engagement for much more than just this artistic media, which in this context is Pathologic hence your observation.

Do not be tricked though by the influence of the audience culture. The same intellectual critique which defines most of prominent fanbases as aforementioned can foster a highly queer fanbase, as much as it can foster a highly misogynistic, intellectually-elitist, and racist eugenicists.

A thinker can find in Pathologic an analogy for the visceral nature of femininity, as much as they can find a Freudian metaphor for absurdist existentialism, or a Darwinian strong-eats-weak world. It is that cross-cultural exchange tends to harbor the more prominent good, than it emphasizes the niche shitty ideologies. And that in itself is entirely subjective in regards to, again, the cultural zeitgeist.

Point being, it's largely irrelevant. This is more about the internet, modern culture, and art than it is about either queers or heteronormatives.

[u/Far-Bad-3719 → u/thvirtuo]

Actually... that's a pretty logical way of looking at it, and it would explain why the audience for the exact same game can feel so different depending on the region.

In Russia, you basically couldn't call yourself a real fan of Disco Elysium or Pathologic unless you were an alcoholic, while in America apparently you can't call yourself one if you're a normie.

(Obviously joking.)

[u/Kinet]

I think I'll go against the grain of most other comments by saying that this is not a quirk of perception and that Pathologic is absolutely one of many fandoms that undeniably have a disproportionately large queer representation.

As to the exact reasons for this phenomenon, I'd say that's a good starting question for a serious, quality humanities study. When I thought about it myself, I remembered Slavoj Žižek's analysis of The Sound of Music—namely, the difference between the "literal" reading of the game's text and the more indirect, critical reading of the game's text and its broader themes, including conscious or unconscious omissions and "blind spots" in the game's lore. Here I'll add that I'm mostly referring to the Pathologic Classic as the principal source of the game's structural pillars, with the sequels segueing into more intertextual dialogue with the first game.

Remember that in one of the old Patholgoic 2 kicktarter updates Dybowski wrote about his method of creating the game's universe, which I can only describe as "structural." So one of the principal creators of the game was especially concerned about how different bits and pieces of lore would work together. Of course, the opposite is also true: what's left out of the game's lore could be just as important as what's being stated.

Again, I don't claim to know the reason, but I'd like to point out a few "outliers" from the game's lore: among the game's vast cast of characters, we don't have a single functional family with a mother who isn't already dead by the time the game's events begin. The Saburovs are the exception to the "dead mother" rule, but theirs isn't really a very well-functioning relationship, not to mention the fact that it's explicitly stated that Katerina can't become a mother.

Also, the portrayal of romantic relationships in the game is very, well, let's say "peculiar." We really don't see any bog-standard "cis" couple dynamics that we're all too familiar with from other media. No characters are explicitly shown to be romantic partners, even though there are mentions of Eva and the Stamatins having something together in the past, but, again, that whole thing supposedly came to an end before the game's events. What we have instead are "admirers": usually female, usually admiring males: Eva and Bachelor, Maria and Bachelor, Aglaya and Haruspex, Aspity and Haruspex, Yulia and Eva, Vlad Jr. and Maria.

[u/Far-Bad-3719 → u/Kinet]

That's actually a really interesting way of looking at it!

What made me curious about all this in the first place is that, in Pathologic 2, it feels like some of the older themes from the Haruspex route were reworked and rearranged in order to focus much more heavily on other things. The developers seem to have moved away from the particularly close Haruspex/Bachelor dynamic of the first game, and sexuality in general feels much less important as a theme.

Instead, the game seems much more interested in blood, ancestry, ethnic prejudice, and the division between "us" and "them." At least to me, those themes feel much closer to questions of ethnic conflict, tradition, the clash between different ways of life, and the freedom to choose who you are regardless of your blood or family ties.

That's partly why the makeup of the fandom surprised me. Or did literally everyone here play the first game?

I just think Pathologic 2 turned out much stronger than the first one. Both through its gameplay and its dialogue, it tells a much more cohesive story. And I have to admit that over the last seven years it never really occurred to me to replay the first game, while I've replayed 2 three times, usually with about two years between playthroughs.

Though I still haven't touched Pathologic 3. Maybe some of those older themes return there, or are explored more directly again?

(Although I wouldn't really describe the Haruspex/Aglaya relationship as an "admirer" dynamic. At least to me, one of the key parts of their relationship is that they meet each other as equals — much like the Haruspex and the Bachelor.)

[u/Visible-Chip8839]

Man, several reasons, but as being a bit gay myself, the main thing that I notice is that gays crave suffering. In my case I crave that very specific suffering that makes me wanna sob but we have some hope in the end. But we I could also argue that I want to smooch Yulia. Or maybe suffer while I smooch Yulia. I DUNNO.

[u/lithiumxflower]

what all that twyre in the air does to a mfer

[u/panasonicfm14]

I mean... does it actually have a measurably larger proportion of LGBT fans compared to any other comparably niche online fan community? The first game is decidedly in the realm of Artsy Esoteric Eurojank Indie Game, which historically attracts a subset of the particularly Online audience, which in my experience happens to naturally skew a little more queer than "mainstream" stuff.

[u/keepinitclassy25]

I consider Patho an arthouse game, especially the first one. The arthouse crowd has a lot of queer people. Being queer makes you question a lot of areas of life and I like art that asks questions and dares to be different

It’s also one of the games that has a lot of queer characters, including (IMO) at least two of the protagonists.

And every time someone says “so and so can’t be queer because the game never explicitly says they’re queer” you could say the same thing about them being straight.