John Cruelty
Rag Maggot
 
 
The Georges Bataille quote at the end is the key to understanding the rest of the game:

It is a quote from his book "The Accursed Share" which describes the eponymous philosophy that essentially states if a system (e.g. an organism, economy, celestial body etc.) is unable to absorb excess energy (energy being wealth, life force, atomic mass etc. depending on context) for its own growth, that energy will inevitably be expended in a wasteful and/or catastrophic manner

The world of Cruelty Squad is a world without DEATH, as people have convenient access to resurrection technology. This resulted in an social-economy where "the value of life is negative" for it has an overabundance of said LIFE. This is why so many NPCs in the game are obsessed with human sacrifice. They want to, in vain, restore the value/meaning of LIFE by restoring its (economic) scarcity. This "overabundance of life" manifests itself into the fleshy augmentations, filth ridden landscape, and literal flesh caves popping up all over the earth as well as the abundance of mutant creatures made from recycled humans (who can't die properly). On multiple occasions they have established that the enemies/targets literally come back to life every time you replay a level and you are just killing them over and over again to annoy/punish them. Because the value of life is negative, so too is the wealth people accumulate, hence why so many targets (like the infamous chunkopops guy) just waste their money on stupid ♥♥♥♥, and the architecture and wall textures just stopped giving a ♥♥♥♥

The ending was essentially you confronting the "cradle of LIFE" (the giant orb in the final level) which essentially was the universal DEATH blocker responsible for the messed up sewage-infused garbage world you inhabit, the protag becomes a "being of pure grace" and reduces that universe down to an onion, and begins peeling it until it is totally undone, recreating a new universe where people are once again able to die (hence the "Golden Age" text). Notice how the protag and the people behind him in the cutscene are walking towards a giant DEATH healthbar.

It should be noted too that that "cradle of LIFE" orb is also a reference to another Georges Bataille book called "The Solar Anus" which recotextualizes the "Accursed Share" philosophy towards cosmic and biological analogies (rather than its original context in political economy), very similar to how Cruelty Squad mixes together grotesque bio-organic cyberpunk with cosmic horror

tl;dr Cruelty Squad is Bioshock replacing Ayn Rand with Georges Bataille
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Gelberlegostein Apr 5, 2023 @ 3:47pm 
+rep coffee
in rhythm within Oct 31, 2022 @ 6:35pm 
+rep

I have no idea who this guy is but his description was a good read
Shambler's Juice Oct 1, 2022 @ 8:36pm 
Hi my name is Carmen Winstead. I'm 17 years old. I am very similar to you. Did I mention to you that I'm dead? A few years ago a group of girls pushed me down a sewer hole to try and embarrass me. When I didn't come back up the police came.The girl said that I had fell and everyone believed them. The police found my body in the sewer. I had a broken neck and my face was torn off. Send this message to 15 people after you listened the whole message if you value your life. A boy called David received this message. He just left and deleted it. When he was in the shower he heard laughing. My laughter. He got really scared and rushed to his phone to repost this message but he was too late. The next morning his mom entered his bedroom and all she found was a message written in his blood saying 'You will never have him back'. No one has found his body yet because he is with me.
keski Jun 8, 2022 @ 5:49pm 
michael brain
Hanisch May 21, 2022 @ 8:36pm 
:phil:
Beef Mar 17, 2022 @ 1:19pm 
hhh:gearthumbsup: