SPOILER QUESTION: “The Ex-Something”

[Breisenberg]

Spoiler question below…

…ok so, I just finished the game and I was curious what you all thought or if there was a firm answer on this…

I was enraged during the dream sequence when “Dolores Dei” (Dora) mentioned she aborted her and Harry’s child, gloating about it and her new pregnancy with another man. I wonder, do we know if she aborted because she didn’t want to have his child? Or was it something her and Harry agreed upon? Or maybe he convinced her to abort? I just want to know how much sympathy I should have for her, if any.

[Du-Vu]

She might have had an abortion, she might have talked to Harry about it or not, or this might just be him now feeling sorry for himself, his own bitter self-recriminations more than anything she actually said. She may not have said all the things in the dream, or said them in a completely different tone or context. They might have been trying or maybe it was an accident, maybe she lost the child in a miscarriage, maybe she never even got pregnant -- it's Harry's nightmare, after all.

She's being merged with a contradictory historical figure who is variously viewed as a tyrant or a saint or both. So I think it's meant to be deliberately ambiguous. There are moments when she gloats, but others when she sounds much more... human.

I don't think the pregnancy is mentioned elsewhere? I can't remember if Jacques says anything about it after the fact. So yeah. Ambiguous.

[Breisenberg]

Pretty insightful response, makes sense. I toured around with it being ambiguous as well. I feel like there were a couple of other thoughts where a wife and daughter were alluded to, maybe even drowning in that river? And it felt like your thoughts were warning of painful memories related to that. I could be wrong. The whole time I was expecting his backstory to involve him coping with the death of a wife and child. Anyway, yeah could be totally ambiguous.

[Shattered mind]

I agree with Du-Vu's response. That whole sequence is brutal, but I don't think you should take everything in it as gospel - it's important to note that rather than Dolores Dei/the x-something talking to Harry, it's more(likely) Harry talking to Harry through those phantoms from the past(similar to conversation with the corpse) and on top of that it's filtered through depression/self-loathing/drug-abuse/fever from the wound etc. it's about Harry trying to come to terms with that aspect of his past and also realising that his memory of his ex has been distorted in both directions something cruel/something loving, but also that ultimately it doesn't matter, it didn't work out and no matter how many times he revisits this final goodbye it still won't work out, because that is how life is - sometimes relationships just doesn't work out and you're better off moving on than being stuck in the past.

a fairly common coping mechanism for when relationships ends, especially if they're messy break-ups, is to vilify the other party, thus we get the classic "he/she never loved me in the first place" (often failing to realise that "love" isn't a strictly binary state) and slew of other revisionist takes on past situations/conversations making them far more cruel/sinister than they probably ever were - in an attempt to make it easier to let go, e.g. if they never loved me or they were this cruel to to me, then in theory it should be much easier to move on/deal with the break-up. I think that, while we can't be certain whether or not Dolores were abusive towards Harry(dysfunctional relationships has a tendency for this going both ways) , these are probably heavily exaggerated versions or entirely imagined.

I don't think you'll find a definitive answer for the "pregnancy" it's one of those things in the game that is left ambiguous enough that it could any number of the scenarios Du-Vu mentioned and none would be more correct than the others, and I think the game is better for it. Now if you want my personal take on this, I think that at the height of their relationship there were probably talk about starting a family, but it fell apart before they got there.... the abortion part is likely Harry being extra self-flaggelating that he let the relationship slip in the first place. my main reasoning for this scenario is that outside this dream sequence the pregnancy(as far as I'm aware) is not mentioned or hinted at anywhere else in the game, even the twin-scene "the saddest phone-call" does not mention it nor can Harry bring it up. It's unclear from your post if you're aware of this segment in the game thus the spoiler tag. but if you use the pay phone on the coast by the boardwalk and you keep making prank calls, eventually you'll get to a skill check(interfacing) that lets you call your ex, this segment is equally brutal but besides Harry's general ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ filters out the dream aspects and thus gives a more grounded representation of his ex and might help you to decide if she's worthy of your sympathy.

[masterthespian]

I read that as it was a dream that haunts Harry. We don’t know if there’s any truth about pregnancy. Or any if the rest of it .

I do figure that Harry went on the drug and alcohol binges as a result of his refusing to move on with life after breaking up with his girlfriend (7+ years ago?!).

[Shattered mind]

so after having read Sacred and Terrible Air I couldn't not start a new playthrough... and got reminded of another possible mention of a child ; when you use the phone in the harbour front office and call the video rental store, you can ask about a film that you haven't returned yet... I'm paraphrasing here because I don't remember the exact wording, but in short it's about a man who falls into deep depression after divorcing his wife after losing their unborn daughter.... of course this is still vague enough that it depends on how much a direct parallel the the player wants to draw to Harry's situation...but it's there.

[Charles Entertainment Cheese]

Originally posted by masterthespian:

I do figure that Harry went on the drug and alcohol binges as a result of his refusing to move on with life after breaking up with his girlfriend (7+ years ago?!).

I liked this detail. Men tend to spend way, way longer hung up on exes (or even rejections lol) than women do. It comes up in media sometimes but the degree of it is usually underplayed.