Harrier Du Bois is Literally Me
no, seriously
Volition: In honor of your will, lieutenant-yefreitor. That you kept from falling apart, in the face of sheer terror. Day after day. Second by second.
Inland Empire: DETECTIVE.
Esprit-De-Corps: ARRIVING.
Authority: ON THE SCENE.
listen to this as you read:
Who is Harrier Du Bois?
Disco Elysium is a game that hardly needs any introduction at this point. If you’ve been living under a rock or don’t play any video games, seriously give this one a try. For me, it was one of the most surreal and lifechanging experiences and will probably remain as my favorite game of all time and possibly one of my favorite stories of all time.
Now for some much needed context, I was playing this game while going through an episode of psychosis, which for the sake of true immersion really kicked me into gear due to the fact that Harrier Du Bois (the player character) is also a literal insane person with over a dozen different voices talking to him in his head simultaneously. As you can see, Harrier Du Bois is literally me.
For some context, Harrier Du Bois is a detective in the city of Revachol in the world of Elysium, which apparently had this crazy revolution some time ago and is now living under what is essentially martial law. Harrier works as a detective in one of the rougher districts of the city, but is sent to another one that is more or less abandoned by the martial police force he works for in order to solve a homicide case.
The catch is that Harrier is a big time boozer and while in the new district trying to solve the case, he goes on the raunchiest bender of his life and ends up suffering from alcohol-induced amnesia and has to relearn literally everything from how the world works to his own identity and what happened leading up to his new awakening.
Throughout the game, Harry is influenced by different voices in his head that help keep him on track and guide his decisions. These voices represent different aspects of his character and personality and help him with different areas regarding his detective work and personal relationships. They help collectively tell the story of who he is and the world he is in.
A Kind and Vast Soul
As I was playing through the game back in around 2021 or so, I was suffering from an episode of mania-induced psychosis. It just so happened that at the same time I was playing Disco Elysium. The timing couldn’t have been better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). I was so entrenched in the game, believing that it was sending me personal messages about my own life story and who I was supposed to become. Now, I wasn’t going to drop everything and become a cop (fuck cops) but I did relate to Harry because I had similar set of skills, beliefs, and problems.
The voices that Harry was hearing, I could hear them too. They were conflicting, yet aligned to a singular vision: to get me to be who I needed to become. Now, psychosis is a funny thing because it sells you into believing in all kinds of delusional hysteria. I thought that I was going to save the world somehow and become some kind of super sexy light-bending hero. But alas, I was simply just panicking and going insane.
But still, there’s a certain tying of my identity to Harry’s after going through that experience. The same vastness that he feels for himself, for his comrades, and for his city, I feel the same in my own life. It’s difficult to describe, but the fire that burns inside of me burns deeply and courageously and never ceases to extinguish. It will never go out no matter how much I try to shove it down or hide it away.
After a while, I did have to go to the hospital and seek medical treatment. It was a frightening experience because I thought that the doctors were going to steal my brain. All they did though was just shoot me up with some sedatives and let me sleep it off. I woke up feeling spiritually hungover, like I had gotten too close to that holy light and gotten charred by it. I felt horrible, continuously. Something had to give, but I just didn’t know what.
But that’s another story for another time.
i’m trying to increase my volume of posts here as you can tell. i want to be able to push out as much as I possibly can. i need to get the thoughts out onto the page and just let them scream out into the unremarkable void. make the void remarkable by subscribing if you haven’t already.
if you got to the end, thanks for reading. it really means a lot to know that people actually give a shit about my thoughts and what i’m doing. i will make something of myself, i promise.