Downfall

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Co tu dużo mówić świetna historia Joe Davisa i jego żony Ivy, relacji która jest przeżarta przemocą, depresją i obopólnym żalem. Symbolika miejsca quiet haven hotel jest dobrze przemyślana i to mi się bardzo podobało, lubię gdy gry nie mówią wszystkiego wprost i trzeba trochę więcej czasu aby zrozumieć fabułę i jej zakończenia.

(Spoilers)
Gosh i love this game so much. Yet since the ending is a mindfck i'll share my thoughts! (it will be a long fcking one)
so basically my theory is actually kinda split in 2 because There is a few conflicting things for me but lemme explain:
Many things in this game have actually lead me to believe that Joe is worsening Ivy‘s eating disorder either deliberatly (if you‘re mean and dismissive) or accidentally (if you‘re kind.)
I personally see the Sophie’s not just as memories but also as metaphors for Ivy. Why do only the thin sophies have a clear mind yet they absolutely hate themselves and the fat ones are more like pigs than human beings? Because that‘s how Ivy percieves being fat and the thin sophies are her past memories of binge eating gross food just to barf it out (like with the smoothie lady). However, Joe isn‘t helping her by killing the Sophies because Ivy‘s core issue aren‘t the sophies that are there, but rather it‘s her refusal to embrace those parts of herself and to not see them in such a dehumanizing way. Aka unlearning to hate her own body that she sees as fat and being compassionate towards her suicidal or bulimic/anorexic self.
I especially get that feeling towards the fat sophies. They do nothing really to warrant being murdered other than looking grotesque and that‘s kind of a very interesting portrayal of how self hatred due to being fat works. The fat sophies are just heavily injured but they don‘t attack, act, say or do anything. Except for one of them I think. So To Ivy, being fat alone already warrants a death sentence wich is pretty accurate considering how eating disorders work and that is why Joe still loses after he kills all the sophies because you simply can‘t take someone‘s mental problems and self image away like that. That‘s why Agnes was against the killing. She knew that it wouldn‘t help anything.
But it‘s not only that though. I also can see a lot of confusion about Ivy‘s revival attempts and Agnes‘s involvement in that. We see in the A ending how Ivy only becomes ressurected once Agnes is put into the machine. Agnes seems to not only be the Ivy he fell in love with, but she‘s also the ivy that is free of all her issues and that Ivy can‘t exist without her problems. That‘s why susan said in the end: „wait! I think she‘s alive!“ before Ivy got burned to a crisp. He almost got it but failed thanks to a accident.
Generally speaking though I‘m not sure If I‘m even close to understanding downfall but I really don‘t like the idea of Joe killing Sophie as a good thing. Mainly because it just comes off as a dude desperately trying to get back his perfect wife aka ivy without trauma by just taking away her problems wich isn‘t how it works. If you have mental issues you have to learn to deal wirh them yourself otherwise you‘ll be stuck in loop of constant denial and mental breakdowns. Kinda like Joe is in the game. He can love ivy as much as he wants, but if he keeps trying to swoosh her issues under the rug it isn‘t gonna ever go away and killing sophie really is just sweeping them under the rug because as we know, the cycle begins anew as we reach the climax of ending A. Joe is obsessed with the ivy that‘s suffering. This goes to the point where the rest of ivy, the part that makes her a person is alienated from her in Joe‘s delusional world seeing the Ivy in the game as an issue to be fixed. Not as a person. Only with agnes Ivy can be a fully contained human person, and if ivy had to learn to cope with the sophies rather than sweeping them away then she might have actually been able to beat her eating disorder.
But just killing Sophies all over again and again isn‘t helping anything just how forcefeeding Ivy didn‘t help. Treating eating disorders is difficult because it‘s an addiction. And those disorders won‘t be cured by kind words of forcefeeding alone. If the person with the eating disorder doesn‘t want to get better then nobody can stop their eating disorder. The problem isn‘t seeing fat and getting rid of seeing that fat. The core problem is self hatred that comes at you when looking in the mirror and no „oh you‘re not fat!“ or „oh you‘re beatiful though!“ is gonna work if the person seeing themselves that way don‘t believe that themselves. Ivy needs self compassion. She needs to embrace those sophies and she has to be compassionate towards them. Because at the core, they are a abused and bullied part of her and more abuse and hatred towards them will only make them grow bigger and bigger.
Also I always saw Joe as a guy who‘s kind of a hypocrite and saw the normal ending as canon. Cause to me up until the ending it is implied imo that all he ever did was feed into her ed by thinking he was helping Ivy. Wich to me is interesting cause all the women in the game also imo represent her in some ways. Ivy as ivy, the real one. Then agnes as his idealized version of her, and the creepy lady as her repressed sexuality imo. And so when joe basically is tasked to kill all the sophies, to me it reads like him taking on the part of her ed unknowingly. Cause as someone with an ed, the first sophie reads to me as a personification of an ed. Of the voice in your head bullying you into starvation. A toxic force making you lose weight through the most vile damaging way possible. And not many games or media does this well. So it always meant a lot to me. Like how nuanced it all is. And how joe‘s attempts to help are so misguided cause he never even once tried to treat the sophies nicely. Especially the fat ones. The skinny ones up until the last one at least were given a more dignified death by him. But the fat ones he brutally murdered and they did literally do nothing to him. To me it really implies how he thinks about fat women. How he tries to tell Ivy to get better but ivy being able to read through him how he‘d reject her for being fat anyways. Fact is that joe says he loves her, but not the version of her she fears. Ivy is witnessing that joe sees fatness just how her ed does. And he‘s very unselfaware about it. Thinking he‘s helping while his brutaliity and lack of compassion only reinforce how he‘s not actually helping. Cause he can‘r accept what she fears being. Ivy needed him to accept her even if she was fat. He needed to treat the sophies with compassion. That‘s what ivy needed. But instead he just listened to her ed and did what it told him. Not once realizing he‘s helping the thing that‘s killing her. And imo that‘s a reflection of a possible normal life prior. In wich he would probably comment on other women‘s weight. Or saying stuff like: „you‘re not fat ivy you‘re pretty!“ without understanding that it is still triggering ofc cause the implication is that he wouldn‘t find her pretty if she gained weight reinforcing her ed more. But this is a real issue for many line us in our lives. Loved ones commenting on our bodies. Being praised for losing weight despite the fact you eat less than 500 cal a day and are actively destroying yourself. It‘s stuff like that from well meaning ppl that makes it worse. Ppl trying as they still end up feeding the beast with comments. Putting others down to make us feel better and stuff like that. The scary thing is imp that many of us suffering with ed‘s had a joe in our lives. And the sad thing is that he always thought he was helping while he only made us worse. But that‘s just the plight of the anorexic. Cause sadly it is still a very stigmatized misunderstood disorder and many don‘t even know the basics about it let alone how to deal with ppl having them.

If You like games with twist, this one is for You!
Quite amusing gameplay and really good dialoges together with the plot makes this game really a SOMETHING!
On top of that psychodelic atmosphere and great music behind!

And the choices do matter :)

Joe Davis so relatable

Polecam.

Nasty