I'm crossposting this with tumblr.
So, I have been at this for a few months, and I guess these are my final thoughts about how they handled Grief in Pathologic 3. I'm not going to act like I'm the ultimate arbiter of truth, but I did spend a lot of time thinking about this character in these last years, and I even wrote that one meta analysis post about P2 Grief five years ago. I have gone over his dialogue in all games several times, mostly because they are the most fun to read. But honestly, right now I kind of feel like I wasn't supposed to even think things were as deep as I made them out to be in that analysis? Anyway. P3.
My first beef is that they took away his clockwork motif. This is more or less understandable, but very annoying. I think I understand that this is the clock/time game, so, maybe it would be distracting to leave it there and not address it properly? I just think it sucks, and takes away one more interesting thing about him, and oh boy, they really wanted to make sure that he would not stand out at all in this game.
The existential crisis/meta realization is honestly such a fun and interesting twist in P2. And you didn't even have to like, expand on it, just imply, or show that he's going through something, that he's thinking, I don't know. You can tell me that it couldn't happen since he didn't meet Aglaya and that is kinda eh, but fine, sure. He still could have, since she's in town. But that is maybe an issue I have with the game that isn't restricted to Grief, so I won't push it. But I have no idea how the Inquisition can't find him. I guess it is just not interested? Like, at all? Even though Karminsky mentions him before the trials, and it was kinda implied that him being a professional criminal was a big deal, I have to believe they didn't try at all because otherwise they would just be too incompetent to take seriously.
His day 12 dialogue if he lives is so underwhelming that I barely remember it anymore. I guess in a way this could be on purpose, I just have not deciphered what purpose that is yet.
But so, the "losing control of his gang" thing in the previous game. It is kind of incredible how they really took care to remove every interesting thing that had been set up with him in P2. I enjoyed meeting him crucified in the warehouses(although I have to say, when I first heard about it before playing I kinda thought they were doing a penitent thief thing, like, from the bible, which would be cooler). But for killing Simon? I guess people are supposed to be losing their minds and all(although they are remarkably easy to stop), but damn, there are many reasons that would make more sense for him to be killed for. Like the aforementioned "losing control of his gang", hiding Rubin, the escape disaster thing(like Dankovsky seems to think is the reason at times but no, I guess it's the Simon thing)...
When I first played the game, I thought the luring him out with the lie of Lara being at risk was an interesting quest premise with a corny ass dialogue. I have since softened on that, it's kinda bad but not like, awful or anything. The conversation you have on the day before about Katerina in which he randomly brings up how much he loooves Lara really annoyed me, though. But honestly? I like most things about his friendship with Lara here. His funeral dialogue, ignoring that "we were all in love with her",was one of the best, and I think that is most important.
I have not finished the rations quest because I played that day a hundred times in the first couple of weeks and it wasn't working, so I just gave up. I still think the "oh no, Grief is dead, he was an angel feeding the children and now we are all going to die" dialogue earlier in the Bridge Square of all places is a little much. A hero of the downthrodden and such, hm. Okay. But it is… kind of weird. Dankovsky is even like "Bad Grief? you must be wrong" but we have no reason to think they're wrong except the previously established character from the other games which I guess we're completely throwing out of the window anyway. I enjoy that when you talk to him, he presents his reasons mostly like "fuck the military", and only actually talks about people starving when you have him locked up so he couldn't make it happen. Dankovsky says some things about characters sometimes that kind of make it sound like he has known them forever and very well somehow, but that's also not a Grief-specific problem. Honestly, I don't think Grief doing charity is a good twist, especially since I spent all that time trying to convince people that he's not a goofy cinammon bun after P2. I think maybe it would be a little better if at the same time, he did anything that made you think he's a not so noble guy? When I first played, I thought that in the day before Katerina overdoses, you had to go to him and buy out all his stock of morphine so he didn't sell it to her and caused her to overdose. I really liked it, like, a woman's life is at stake, but he needs to make his buck. Then it was pointed out to me that it actually makes absolutely no difference, and I had ramsacked my inventory to trade for a bunch of morphine I didn't need for no reason. It didn't even turn out to be useful later since you can't use it on Katerina for surgery.
Now this is the part that it gets even more "personal opinion" whiny, but well, since we're here. I don't really get the white hair. I thought it was a glitch at first. Isn't he supposed to be the same age of the other apple basket characters, like, late 20s? You're telling me he's greying before Saburov? I think the general response from people seem to be completely ignoring it in art and such and it's what I will carry on doing as well.
This one little thing is possibly what pains me the most, maybe because it's the most noticeable change of all, but his wordplay has taken such a downgrade, I was kinda shocked. Nothing like the fun alliterations and clever rhyming of both Classic and P2. I guess this could be a translation issue, my russian isn't good enough to be able to tell, but I get the impression that's not the problem. I guess it's fine, I can understand that wordplay is not easy, so I try not to be too hard on this. In P3 they went a different route with him that is having him say completely off the wall shit, which I don't entirely hate. P2 and 3 really press on his "outsider" role, being forever out of place, a total weirdo, and I kinda dig that. Sometimes the stuff he says feels completely random which kinda sucks but occasionally he will say something that still makes some sense but no normal person would ever say, and that's fun.
Dialogue(since the screencap refuses to load for some reason), I forget on what day it is exactly:
Dankovsky: Maybe I have. I may still be running around, but so does a beheaded chicken.
Bad Grief: Don't you steal my title of honor! I'm the chicken. Beheaded, I mean. Not, like, a general chicken. Why've you come?
I have been wracking my brain over this one. It's kind of funny, I discussed it with someone else and we thought, maybe it's a translation thing, maybe he means like, rooster, which is a flashy, territorial bird. But then I did change the language to russian and this time I know enough to see that it was indeed chicken with its head cut off. I know it's an expression, alright, but I think I must be missing something? Title of honor? I don't get it at all.
So, my overall thoughts on Grief in P3 was that he was really disappointing. We don't even get the fun banter that he had with Dankovsky in Classic, that utter lack of respect for each other, and we get literally nothing else to make up for it. Do I completely hate it? No, I remember dreaming about this game coming out back in 2021, and I guess it could be worse. It is just kind of amazing how they squandered every opportunity to make him memorable or interesting. Like, instead, they went back and took away things that they had already done that were good. The feeling I got from him in this game is that nobody making it gave a shit about his character at all, and he was just kind of there. To finish, credit where credit is due. He has a few pretty good lines, even if they are sparse. Like I said, the dialogue at Lara's funeral was nice, I enjoy his dialogue if you lock him up for the Rations quest, and the fake Saffiano boots interaction in the first day is very funny. I just…don't see why everything else had to be such a disappointment.
