[SPOILERS] Dolores Dei dialogue

[Carcosian]

During the dream sequence in the island near the end, when Dolores/Dora tells you about her pregnancy and you ask if it's yours, she says the following:

"Of course not." She looks down at her belly, then up into your old eyes...

"I terminated yours. Don't you remember, you poor f*ck? Poverty-stricken f*ck."

It just felt extremely out of left field. While she criticizes you during the entire scene, she wasn't this vicious or aggressive, nor did she directly insult you like that. Hell, I think this is the only time she actually swears. I expected the scene to go more into that, whether that was Dolores or Dora speaking, but she never talks like that again. There isn't even a dialogue choice to react to it. It's completely ignored by the game. It seems extremely out of character to how the rest of the interactions characterize her.

My question is what was the intention of adding that line? The line makes no sense with how the character is presented and I'm confused as to why it was added and handled that way.

[Du-Vu]

Pretty sure that's the exact moment where everything she's been saying about how she's not really Dora and your own bottomless self-loathing intersect. This vision of Dora is both idealized and vilified, but she's not really Dora at all. So either it's something the real Dora said, pushed to the limit at the height of one of the long arguments we hear about but never see, or it's just something you conjured up yourself, out of rage and guilt and despair.

[Sisyphus]

Similarly to when you open your ledger's hidden compartment, smell the apricots and there's a dialogue line "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ kill yourself".

[Carcosian]

Publicado originalmente por Du-Vu:

Pretty sure that's the exact moment where everything she's been saying about how she's not really Dora and your own bottomless self-loathing intersect. This vision of Dora is both idealized and vilified, but she's not really Dora at all. So either it's something the real Dora said, pushed to the limit at the height of one of the long arguments we hear about but never see, or it's just something you conjured up yourself, out of rage and guilt and despair.

I understand the narrative reason, I just don't get the design reason. When some important or shocking piece of dialogue happens you either have some dialogue option or one of the emotions comments on it. The contrast between this line and the rest of the dialogue makes me feel like the game should acknowledge it in some manner.

Publicado originalmente por Sisyphus:

Similarly to when you open your ledger's hidden compartment, smell the apricots and there's a dialogue line "♥♥♥♥ing kill yourself"

I might have missed that bit or I don't remember. Who is the one saying that? Is it Harry? Because that's very much in character and acknowledged constantly, while the Dora line here feels out of place and something that should warrant the game acknowledging too.

[Du-Vu]

There are times in the game when you can't fully control your actions, your reactions, your emotions. You can only watch yourself make one bad decision after another. This whole scene is like that, really. The conscious part of you -- the player -- doesn't remember, but some deeper part of you -- your skills, your reptile brain and limbic system -- still does. The conscious part is shocked, but the other parts have been trying to spare you exactly this all along. They no longer can. You've gone too deep.

Did you call her on the phone earlier, in reality? Talk to the two cops who show up in the Whirling? Even failing that first Savoir Faire check refusing to pay Garte in the Whirling lobby? Sometimes you're not in control.

re: the line from the ledger, no one is saying it, exactly. It's just a dialogue choice that appears when you start opening up your ledger, just as you're about to find Dora's letter. Which does seem similar -- the contrast between how the two of you started out versus how things ended. If indeed she did say '♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ kill yourself', then I don't think 'poverty-stricken ♥♥♥♥' is too far removed. Even as Dolores, she does say the two of you had some brutal screaming matches toward the end.

[Carcosian]

It's not about me having a choice, it's about the game ignoring something that felt like would be of more importance.

For example, an emotion telling you that someone is a bit twitchy. Or that they think bad of you. Or that they foind something funny. Not a choice or an action, but the game acknowleding it because of how important it is.

Like, imagine if during your conversations with Evrart he suddenly confesses his love for you. That's out of character, right? It would be weird if that happened and the game ignored it and acted like it didn't happen. If he said that the game would expand on that because it's not something he would say with how he was characterized.

It's the same here. That line is out of character and there's a reason for it, so why did the game ignore it and acted like it didn't happen when during the rest of the game it always expanded on important or weird stuff like that? Even just an emotion saying "woah, that's harsh" would make it easier to understand that yes, what looks like a non-sequitur is actually intended.

Maybe I'm overthinking this. But it felt weird because none of the rest of the scene had anything like that.

[Du-Vu]

Really? The whole scene feels that way to me. It's a dream of a memory mixed with heavy symbolism. You can't really say or do the things you might want to, based on what you've learned, because you didn't know them at the time. And that's very different from not having those choices in 'reality'. But if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work.

I think the thing I'm saying, though, is that it doesn't strike me as out of character. It actually strikes me as likely being a lot more *in-character*, in terms of how this breakup actually probably went, than your ex being this angelic, messianic figure you've reimagined her as.

[Carcosian]

My confusion is to why no emotion said anything, when during the rest of the game they would comment about anything, whether big or small. So it seemed to me that Dora straight up verbally attacking you like that would get a reaction from one of them in any other scene. I understand the thematic and narrative aspect of it, I just find it weird that the game didn't talk about it when it talks about pretty much everything else.

I'm sure this is me focusing on an irrelevant and unimportant detail, but hey, discussion board, might as well see if it's just me.

Either way, thanks for the chat, got my mind more in order about it.

[Du-Vu]

Yeah, that's fair. Good talk.

[Lee]

Just read it. It makes sense, brother.

It hurts her, she was the one who desired to have kids. She mentioned that they couldn't make two daughters in the beginning of dialogue. Seems like Harry did something horrible to her, or argued with her about having kids, or even beat up. He definitely wasn't prepared to be father. These lines were real and said aloud in anger, which Harry has actually heard in life.

The opposite of this point could be the nightmare. It's a dream, right? It is the mind who plays games with Harry, he reproaches himself and accusing him of his miserable, drunk, pathetic life. The harsh truth he had to meet with, the one he denied.

[Lλmbdλ]

It's because you don't really talk to her
You talk to a representation of her in Harry own mind
When you harras her on phone however it's seems pretty real ...