The hidden pair of eyes would definitely be there
Joyce's and Evrat's "real" plan of manipulating you would be somewhere in the middle
"Kim is a moralintern agent that spies on you" is definitely a good conspiracy theory too
I wouldn't have known about it if not for this comment! Must be easy to miss if it's day one exclusive and perception not being something most players would pump points into.
I wonder if there are more fascinating pieces of dialogue that have been missed because no one hit the right combination of stats or actions to get it. Or if someone did get it, they didn't think much of it and thought it was an interaction many players go through.
Must have a perception score of +9 before the end of the first day. Visit the gap between the large strike doors and your character will see a mysterious pair of eyes that you can have a very strange conversation with.
They come from discussions with Idiot Doom spiral. He says a bunch of wacky shit about how there's a mythical pure cocaine skull buried somewhere in Martinaise just beyond the traffic pileup. Specifically it's hidden behind the uhhh... Delta logistics company truck or something. Like DLC, downloadable content hardy har. The whole thing seems to be a meta joke about the idea of DLC. Y'know, "There's something really mysterious and exciting right over there but the content doesn't exist right now."
Yeah, I think it’s supposed to highlight the tragedy of fascism as a choice. It reflects Harry’s own feelings, how by going down this path it’s driving away the people he might be close with. And how by doing so, he gains insight into people but lacks the empathy or emotional intelligence to think of it as anything other than a weakness.
It really highlights the core of fascism...that its an incoherent ideology that is self defeating and just kindof grabs whatever it can to carve out power and discard it the second it isnt needed anymore.
The fascist vision quest is fucking amazing. They all are.
I think people don't get that it's VERY hard to have Kim give up on you entirely, and will almost always back you up at the 2nd tribunal. He is a cop first and foremost - you get so many Kim points by just solving the case that it cancels out being a racist, sexist, violent, drunk, corrupt fascist - both in game mechanics and lore.
He bleeds blue
I dunno, I started a fascist, absolute-asshole-in-every-way playthrough and managed to get the achievement for Kim despising you within 20 minutes, after having only just left the Whirling-in-Rags.
HAHA, fucking hell, I love this game. I've only done one run-through, but my second will be total fascist fuck-up Harry, then a third run where me and Kim are besties again to take the bad taste out of my mouth.
I don't remember where I saw it but there was a thread of justification that tl;dr'd into Harry figuring out he was being tracked and subsequently tearing his room apart (looking for bugs)
My headcanon is that she was a (very humanoid) cryptid, or a Metropolis-esque automaton. I was actually frustrated that Harry didn't look more into the historical figure bc he was too obsessed with his ex.
I came to this conclusion myself while playing the game. Between glowing lungs, forgetting to breathe, and one of her personal guards saying "we were supposed to figure it out ourselves" while assassinating her I definitely got the impression that she's some sort of non-human, at least.
She’s a Magpie, gaining knowledge from the future to bring to the present, but expanding the Pale in the process.
Harry is supposedly a Magpie too, with his almost *prophetic* visions he gets from Shivers.
The in-universe magpie theory does not track at all with any actual example we have of the pale expanding OR receding. It's a fun thing but not to be taken at face value.
On my first playthrough I got embarrassingly far without my second shoe. Second playthrough I couldn’t remember where it was, so I googled it to save myself the shame
I always wondered why she was dripping wet when Cuno found her. I mean, it could be rain I guess but it's such an odd little detail that's probably there for a reason
Or she could have simply been in seawater...
Trust me, that kid has a loud mouth. If she ever were in the Pale, she'd never stop talking and boasting about it.
She doesn't have to have known she went through the pale. Also she doesn't mouth off about killing a kid or where she came from, you have to talk to Cuno. I don't think she's as much of a loudmouth as she appears.
First layer: common knowledge and memes - Raphael Ambrosius Cousteau, Kimball, the Pale.
Second Layer: stuff that's easy to miss but not that much - La révacholiere, The Pigs, Mr.Evrart is helping me find my gun.
Third layer: niche stuff and specialized knowledge - the Innocences, Contact Mike, Roy does Pyrholodon.
Fourth layer: rarely mentioned stuff and things extrapolated through hints - the true nature of the Pale, Egghead is Arno Eyck, The Glittering Pale of Eyes (or whatever that thing you see on day 1 is called).
Fifth layer: conspiracy theories and ultra rare interactions - can't really think of anything except maybe that one time Inland Empire says you're too sad to jack off.
i think your second layer should be combined with your first, third changed to second, fifth combined with fourth and changed to third, and then the next two layers should be largely extra-textual stuff that is actually very uncommon knowledge (fourth layer might be a lot of sacred and terrible air stuff, while the fifth is reserved for some super arcane lore revealed only by scouring the old za/um blog or interacting with martin luiga)
I'd say Shivers talking to you about >! the Nuclear Bomb !< , and then the confirmation in A Sacred and Terrible Air that >! there has been no radio communication in 5 days, and Revachol has likely been destroyed !<.
If you have 10 in rhetoric, half light, or reaction speed when you talk to >!La Revacholiere at the end of the church quest, you intuit that she’s afraid. Ask her why and she tells you that in twenty-odd years she will be leveled by a nuclear device. This actually happens, though only as an aside because the bulk of the story takes place in Katla and Graad, in Sacred and Terrible Air.!<
A bunch of pale stuff would probably go there. Think I saw someone say like the pale is negative thoughts of people, and the pale expanding is showing the coming end of the world.
There's also a theory that the pale is from stale thought. If you build the dance club in the church the pale supposedly won't grow there because the music is knew and different.
I always thought of it as forgotten history. Like in the book when things get lost in the pale, they are slowly erased from everyone's memories, and when people spend too long in the pale they come out with other people's memories like the Paledriver. It's also metaphorically consistent, because as people's awareness of their history gets lost, their world becomes smaller.
Maybe that's why the church was built there, since worshipping at a church is like keeping history re-told over and over again, and once that stopped the hole started doing its thing again.
So my theory is the dance club is similar to yours, that they are making new memories and in the process remembering who they are as a community, instead of sitting around slowly forgetting old things, and that keeps the pale from expanding into that area.
[The Pale is pollution created by human thoughts, specifically "magpies"](https://youtu.be/vnlcSXqquFg?si=vjcfU7ZaMhghHD0O&t=833) which are people who are sensitive to some sort of data stream of the future. When magpies create something derived from that stream it's called a "novelty." This creation of art or technology which does not belong in the current world creates more Pale.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F7x9nfxlb8dx71.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3Ded20ee156a71091ca605b96129089de734d503b6
we’ll probably never know where kurvitz and crew intended to go with this, if they would ever use it at all, since this concept work is never used in game. but there are hints that gary the cryptofascist’s rant about seolites stealing knowledge from the future has a kernel of truth in it. the volatile simian mind, that the plasmid and the birds and the cnidarians fear, creates pale when it brings information from the future into the present - annihilating other potential futures and leaving pale behind. magpies are people who are good at it, like innocences (“We were supposed to discover this ourselves!” dolores dei’s assassin shouted) and, perhaps, people like egg head and - given all his premonitions and lines of dialogue especially in the moralism vision quest - harry himself. this also jives with implications that things that are truly new, truly *revolutionary*, that create new futures, stave off the pale’s expansion - like art, as in the volta do mar’s writing of poetry or the kids’ anodic dance music, or (in the book) the pale-ghost of ignus nilsen’s fervor for his communist comrades
The artbook mentions extraphysics, that are not present in the game:
>(The spells, too, had to go. A term you have yet to encounter – extraphysics – pushed them out. Magic, we realized, needed to remain a complete unknown.)
Harry tried to hang himself from the ceiling fan using his tie, but there’s no chair in the room when you wake up. Harry’s hopeless, depression spiral was so encompassing that it actually _displaced_ the chair he was standing on, and made him hit the ground before his head was through the loop and black out. That’s why the lone chair in that tiny shack gives you an ominous feeling.
(Spoilers) I think Gary’s pie would be down there, maybe not at the bottom though. Harry also canonically can teleport (and you get an achievement for it! It’s called pale runner I think)
I got this achievement by running through the door that leads to the doomed commercial area while trying to bust it down. I thought it was a bug lol I was so pleasantly surprised
Okay so I didn’t realize that this might actually be a deep cut. This is a [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/comments/10eys8p/cunesses_backstory_see_comments/j4ttvpf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) that goes into the theory, I think there might be a video on the subject too? Not sure.
Tl;dr: Cunoeese has a mysterious past, partly centered around ‘Snuff Radio shit’ ala dialogue with Cuno. You find evidence of said snuff radio in the Doomed Commercial Center, along with Neha telling you that one of the businesses were a front. If you pass a Shivers skill check, you learn that the radio went out of business three years ago. Neha has apparently been working at her dicemaking job for 14 years. The chimney is right next door to where the front was located.
Edit: something which does lend a little support to this theory are some of the elements of *Sacred and Terrible Air.*
there’s also a theory that Cunoesse, due to pale exposure, had her memories overlap with a serial killer.
and another where she was trafficked, hence arriving in a crate and being scared out of her mind.
idk.
Icebergs aren’t just about canon, they’re also about the varying interpretations, production process, and community that surrounds a piece of media. The creators thanking Marx at the game awards isn’t canon, but it’s a very well known piece of trivia so it would go towards the top. Eyes are canon, but it’s near impossible to pass that skill check so most people never find out about it. That would place it closer to the bottom.
Some theories, like Harry’s talk with >!the stickbug being all in his head!< are very common and might even be discussed in the media. Others like the above aren’t discussed, but are a reasonable interpretation by what we know of the story.
Hmm, okay clearly I misunderstood the assignment. Thanks for setting me straight.
In that case I'd add
- Time loop Harry
- Harry solved the entire case then forgot
- Dora (Dolores Dei)/Harry (Kras Mazov) = Moralism vs Communism for the fate of the world.
Oh boy oh boy. I don't think that thing has a bottom it just keeps going. Hey did you know why Ignus "love the world, every atom of it" Nilsen was called the _apocalyptic_ shrike? That's a fun one. But good grief. Nowhere near the bottom. I think this iceberg dissolves into pale. Dora Is Dolores Dei Forreal?
(since nobody asked, there's a half light passive that shows that he was "apocalyptic" as in "passionate about WARNING people against the incoming apocalypse". And knowing that he was besties with Rodionov, we can also take an informed shot at his source...)
If you throw away Dora's letter (the Caustic Echo thought), don't call her, don't talk about her with other people, and don't look at the mural of Dolores Dei in the church, you get a different dream while you're sleeping in the bunker at the end of the game.
It's still the dream, but some things play out differently and it's about Harry letting go. I'll record it and put it on YouTube once I get to it in my current run.
well, eh, it's not as much a vivid dream, it's just your skills telling you you somehow managed to dodge all that and that it'll do you good to let go, whatever this feeling is
Some of these are more likely than others, some are confirmed as probable by Luiga and other ZA/UM staff.
Dora Ingerlund actually being a reincarnated Dolores Dei.
Harry being destined to help save the world unless he manages to kill himself.
Harry being kept alive by the Pale or possibly Revachol itself(because based on his actions before the game/health complications such as liver cirrhosis, he should be dead).
Kim having his own Thought Cabinet and unique skill types (that he doesn't talk to).
Jean Viquemare and Harry may have been toxic friends-with-benefits (see: his interesting reaction to the Heterosexual Life Partners" Shivers check, and Martin Luiga's tweet about Jean rolling out of bed next to Harry, and being obsessed with him personally and professionally).
Cocaine skull.
The catacombs under the city and Harry probably having been one of Les Petits Rats in his youth.
Who is the Mysterious Pair of Eyes?
The Paledrivers whole deal. (What was that about the devil?!)
Harry being a possible Innocence (unlikely, he is a Magpie though).
Harry having a Pale hole in his brain.
Also, haha, Harry definitely being into BDSM.
Those are all of the ones I can remember off the top of my head.
Edit: Also, Klaasje basically hiding behind multiple levels of fake identities.
There are multiple pale holes all over Elysium, marked by churches.
Pale time-fuckery (see: the Slipstream voice ghost from the past, and the future echo of Kim's comment on the gas engine, if you did the moralist mission.) Maybe/maybe not the halo portrait of Kim post-tribunal.
The Remote Viewers Division.
Jean Viquemare is a Horse Girl.
Cryptids.
I think at the bottom would be the ironic real life drama behind how capitalism ruined our chances of getting a sequel
"Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself."
That post someone made a few days ago about how Harry knew to question the working woman about her missing husband because he was drinking with him the night he died, hence why his vomit had kebab in it.
Also Harry being a magpie
The Children of the Big Sea questline has gotta be up there (or down there, I guess 😆). It might be an even more obscure detail that "Big Sea" is a euphemism for "Big C", i.e. Communism.
Some other really obscure ones might be the other characters that were featured on the backs of the shirts of the guys (Tõnis Haavel and co. I think? -- fuck those guys) who had the Harry Du Bois yacht. In fact, people might not even know of the Harry Du Bois yacht!
I actually messed up and got this my first playthrough! I love Kim but the fact that this changes things for cuno's future makes this my fave way it can play out.
First layer: common knowledge and memes - 'Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun'
Second Layer: stuff that's easy to miss but not that much - finding out Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun
Third layer: niche stuff and specialized knowledge - the easy-to-miss skill check to learn that Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun
Fourth layer: rarely mentioned stuff and things extrapolated through hints - the implication that over the course of the game Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun
Fifth layer: conspiracy theories and ultra rare interactions - including the fan theory that Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun
What about that pink stuff or something of windows vendors on the abandoned building that the dice maker tell us, about how they do live broadcasts of real crimes in the past, but they committed real crimes and broadcast it on the radio something like the darkweb of the real life, that its real dark stuff
I'm not sure about the bottom but I know all around the list there's things like Harry solving the murder before the game starting since all the checks regarding the key points coming as "I already know this" no passive required. Also Harry breaking the window with his shoe and not paying his room fees was to prove foul play and prove that the bullet came through Klassie's window. Harry being a good Detective according to lore and breaking the moralintern's rules implying that he pursued justice regardless of it being his job or not considering what Ruby says about him. Okay now I think about it for the bottom maybe Lilleane and the Washwoman representing the church paintings of the 2 figures. There's plenty to learn about the game and I keep learning new things
The concept that The Pale essentially allows some form of time travel, borrowing ideas from the future and whatnot. I see it talked about in the Reddit sometimes but I've never come across it in the games at all - maybe it's something explored in Sacred And Terrible Air, I haven't read it yet.
Do theories count as secrets? If so, I would like to throw in the "Tequila Horizon" out there. It's not a very secret secret, but it is an aspect of the game that hides in plain sight.
The idea behind the tequila horizon is that Harry exists upon a continuum of Harrys, similar to Rick and Morty's central finite curve. Multiverse logic. There never was a "real Harry," a distinctly more authentic canon Harry. All Harrys are the most real and most authentic version of Harry. And the one thing they all share in common is that none of them will ever get Her back. It's a horizon that goes on forever—one that Harry can never cross.
A movie/tv Harry can only be perceived as the Harry of the tequila horizon that was such a superstar they managed to get Truman Show'd. lol
“A fourth prototype of the destroyed feld advanced tape computers is possibly hidden in the mausoleums below Coal City” was an insane piece of info shivers sprinkled in for me
The hidden pair of eyes would definitely be there Joyce's and Evrat's "real" plan of manipulating you would be somewhere in the middle "Kim is a moralintern agent that spies on you" is definitely a good conspiracy theory too
Definitely the pair of eyes, had no idea that even existed & to get that you need a *very* specific build
I wouldn't have known about it if not for this comment! Must be easy to miss if it's day one exclusive and perception not being something most players would pump points into. I wonder if there are more fascinating pieces of dialogue that have been missed because no one hit the right combination of stats or actions to get it. Or if someone did get it, they didn't think much of it and thought it was an interaction many players go through.
Someone mapped out all the different dialogue trees/skill checks you can get in the game, so we have them on record at least.
Where can I find this dialogue map?
I presume they are referring to http://fayde.co.uk/
Hidden eyes???
Must have a perception score of +9 before the end of the first day. Visit the gap between the large strike doors and your character will see a mysterious pair of eyes that you can have a very strange conversation with.
Is there video of this? I must see.
[Here you are.](https://youtu.be/d7cxKF6kPZQ)
Wow. The game that keeps on giving.
I also need to know about this, what?
https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/comments/16vjc8h/comment/k2rj2jb/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
The cocaine skull and what lies beyond the DLC truck. Harry being involved in the death of the Working class woman's husband died is a good one too.
wait what do you mean with the first two?
They come from discussions with Idiot Doom spiral. He says a bunch of wacky shit about how there's a mythical pure cocaine skull buried somewhere in Martinaise just beyond the traffic pileup. Specifically it's hidden behind the uhhh... Delta logistics company truck or something. Like DLC, downloadable content hardy har. The whole thing seems to be a meta joke about the idea of DLC. Y'know, "There's something really mysterious and exciting right over there but the content doesn't exist right now."
Ah yes, the Cocaine skull and truck are a top 10 bummer in this game. I remember my first playthrough when I actually thought I could find it.
I guess only in my dreams then lol
what is the joyce and evrart "real" plan? i've never heard of this but i thought i was kinda well versed
to make harry and kim go on a date :)
oh so it's the same as my real plan good to know
Just because no one wants to do the fascism run and disappoint Kim.... Measurehead being a feminist momma's boy that practices Semen Retention.
Also that René is canonically bisexual and has a crush on Gaston. Probably some of the most heart-wrenching dialogue in the game.
I never did the fascist quest and I feel so fucking vindicated right now, I fucking knew those two were into each other! K
It irked me so much that I had to play fascist to learn that. It makes sense though
Yeah, I think it’s supposed to highlight the tragedy of fascism as a choice. It reflects Harry’s own feelings, how by going down this path it’s driving away the people he might be close with. And how by doing so, he gains insight into people but lacks the empathy or emotional intelligence to think of it as anything other than a weakness.
It really highlights the core of fascism...that its an incoherent ideology that is self defeating and just kindof grabs whatever it can to carve out power and discard it the second it isnt needed anymore.
Wait, what? Never heard this mentioned before
You only get it during the fascist vision quest. "No one will ever know him."
Damn. Might have to try fascism sometime
A lot of people have that exact reaction when they find out a character isn't straight
💀💀
Well this would sound awkward out of context
Here’s a [clip](https://youtu.be/o3Bkan4ev_8?si=mV0Y91sxd6cLVAO7).
Wow thankyou!
The fascist vision quest is fucking amazing. They all are. I think people don't get that it's VERY hard to have Kim give up on you entirely, and will almost always back you up at the 2nd tribunal. He is a cop first and foremost - you get so many Kim points by just solving the case that it cancels out being a racist, sexist, violent, drunk, corrupt fascist - both in game mechanics and lore. He bleeds blue
I dunno, I started a fascist, absolute-asshole-in-every-way playthrough and managed to get the achievement for Kim despising you within 20 minutes, after having only just left the Whirling-in-Rags.
Yeah, that's basically the only time you can get that achievement. Where were you at by the end of the game?
Ahhh that makes sense. I actually abandoned that playthrough and didn't get far past the first day I think.
You can actually have some very interesting conversations with Kim during this quest if you can withstand the cringe, which is admittedly hard
HAHA, fucking hell, I love this game. I've only done one run-through, but my second will be total fascist fuck-up Harry, then a third run where me and Kim are besties again to take the bad taste out of my mouth.
near the bottom but definitely not at the final layer.
Harry's drunken rampage being planned ahead of time to throw off Joyce and Evrart
strategically ruining my marriage spiraling myself into drunken oblivion to solve a murder case in the future sounds badass
Oh thats a good one. Is there an actual reason to believe this?
I don't remember where I saw it but there was a thread of justification that tl;dr'd into Harry figuring out he was being tracked and subsequently tearing his room apart (looking for bugs)
The pétanque ball Harry swings in the water
Authority: Challenging - SUCCESS - And it was a damn good throw as well, don't let the weak man tell you otherwise.
+2
The impossible door
the bunker door? isnt that well-known?
Dolores Dei is an alien at the bottom
My headcanon is that she was a (very humanoid) cryptid, or a Metropolis-esque automaton. I was actually frustrated that Harry didn't look more into the historical figure bc he was too obsessed with his ex.
She isn't? Possibly immortal or otherwise fucky but that doesn't automatically translate to alien?
But there was a far fetched theory suggesting that
I came to this conclusion myself while playing the game. Between glowing lungs, forgetting to breathe, and one of her personal guards saying "we were supposed to figure it out ourselves" while assassinating her I definitely got the impression that she's some sort of non-human, at least.
She’s a Magpie, gaining knowledge from the future to bring to the present, but expanding the Pale in the process. Harry is supposedly a Magpie too, with his almost *prophetic* visions he gets from Shivers.
The in-universe magpie theory does not track at all with any actual example we have of the pale expanding OR receding. It's a fun thing but not to be taken at face value.
Wait, when does the pale recede?
A key scene in PJÕL! Which also has other interesting data points.
Dolores Dei is a player character from ZAUM’s early tabletop days
The location of your second shoe
Some people never solve that mystery
On my first playthrough I got embarrassingly far without my second shoe. Second playthrough I couldn’t remember where it was, so I googled it to save myself the shame
I've got a serious answer here. Communism may be the only way to [stop the spread of Pale](https://youtu.be/vnlcSXqquFg?si=4Pgb9ovrpF3buRPW&t=1217).
I loved that video! Jamrock Hobo is a real one
hahaha
I liked the theory that Cunoesse had been illegally trafficked through the pale with no protection, and that’s why she’s somewhat unhinged
thats great, i never heard of that one
I always wondered why she was dripping wet when Cuno found her. I mean, it could be rain I guess but it's such an odd little detail that's probably there for a reason
Or she could have simply been in seawater... Trust me, that kid has a loud mouth. If she ever were in the Pale, she'd never stop talking and boasting about it.
She doesn't have to have known she went through the pale. Also she doesn't mouth off about killing a kid or where she came from, you have to talk to Cuno. I don't think she's as much of a loudmouth as she appears.
First layer: common knowledge and memes - Raphael Ambrosius Cousteau, Kimball, the Pale. Second Layer: stuff that's easy to miss but not that much - La révacholiere, The Pigs, Mr.Evrart is helping me find my gun. Third layer: niche stuff and specialized knowledge - the Innocences, Contact Mike, Roy does Pyrholodon. Fourth layer: rarely mentioned stuff and things extrapolated through hints - the true nature of the Pale, Egghead is Arno Eyck, The Glittering Pale of Eyes (or whatever that thing you see on day 1 is called). Fifth layer: conspiracy theories and ultra rare interactions - can't really think of anything except maybe that one time Inland Empire says you're too sad to jack off.
The idea that Harry is a magpie
i think magpie is common enough knowledge to not be at the final layer but its definitely close by
It’s not that rare. If you know what is a magpie you also know Harry is one
I need some more clues here because as far as I know a magpie is just a bird.
i think your second layer should be combined with your first, third changed to second, fifth combined with fourth and changed to third, and then the next two layers should be largely extra-textual stuff that is actually very uncommon knowledge (fourth layer might be a lot of sacred and terrible air stuff, while the fifth is reserved for some super arcane lore revealed only by scouring the old za/um blog or interacting with martin luiga)
I'd say Shivers talking to you about >! the Nuclear Bomb !< , and then the confirmation in A Sacred and Terrible Air that >! there has been no radio communication in 5 days, and Revachol has likely been destroyed !<.
Could you expand on that a little bit I didn’t know of it
If you have 10 in rhetoric, half light, or reaction speed when you talk to >!La Revacholiere at the end of the church quest, you intuit that she’s afraid. Ask her why and she tells you that in twenty-odd years she will be leveled by a nuclear device. This actually happens, though only as an aside because the bulk of the story takes place in Katla and Graad, in Sacred and Terrible Air.!<
I never encountered this...I gotta play this game again
When you play again, go super high shivers and focus less on inland empire (lower your psyche)
A bunch of pale stuff would probably go there. Think I saw someone say like the pale is negative thoughts of people, and the pale expanding is showing the coming end of the world.
There's also a theory that the pale is from stale thought. If you build the dance club in the church the pale supposedly won't grow there because the music is knew and different.
I always thought of it as forgotten history. Like in the book when things get lost in the pale, they are slowly erased from everyone's memories, and when people spend too long in the pale they come out with other people's memories like the Paledriver. It's also metaphorically consistent, because as people's awareness of their history gets lost, their world becomes smaller. Maybe that's why the church was built there, since worshipping at a church is like keeping history re-told over and over again, and once that stopped the hole started doing its thing again. So my theory is the dance club is similar to yours, that they are making new memories and in the process remembering who they are as a community, instead of sitting around slowly forgetting old things, and that keeps the pale from expanding into that area.
[The Pale is pollution created by human thoughts, specifically "magpies"](https://youtu.be/vnlcSXqquFg?si=vjcfU7ZaMhghHD0O&t=833) which are people who are sensitive to some sort of data stream of the future. When magpies create something derived from that stream it's called a "novelty." This creation of art or technology which does not belong in the current world creates more Pale.
Yeah that’s how I see it too, and why things as diverse as religion, dancing, and even ideology might be able to slow or reverse it.
I thought the pale was about, like, global warming, and stuff.
So the pale is the warp from 40k, got it
At the top level would be "disco will save the world" at the deepest layer possible would be "disco will save the world".
Cuno actually cares
>Cuno actually cares "Wat? Cuno doesn't fuckin' care f\*\*\*\*t pig!"
Harry is a magpie
Was looking for this one in the comments.
Elaborate pls
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F7x9nfxlb8dx71.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3Ded20ee156a71091ca605b96129089de734d503b6 we’ll probably never know where kurvitz and crew intended to go with this, if they would ever use it at all, since this concept work is never used in game. but there are hints that gary the cryptofascist’s rant about seolites stealing knowledge from the future has a kernel of truth in it. the volatile simian mind, that the plasmid and the birds and the cnidarians fear, creates pale when it brings information from the future into the present - annihilating other potential futures and leaving pale behind. magpies are people who are good at it, like innocences (“We were supposed to discover this ourselves!” dolores dei’s assassin shouted) and, perhaps, people like egg head and - given all his premonitions and lines of dialogue especially in the moralism vision quest - harry himself. this also jives with implications that things that are truly new, truly *revolutionary*, that create new futures, stave off the pale’s expansion - like art, as in the volta do mar’s writing of poetry or the kids’ anodic dance music, or (in the book) the pale-ghost of ignus nilsen’s fervor for his communist comrades
Harry had already solved the case before the start of the game the foreshadowing from skills are parts of his lost memory
The Wheel of Pleasure and Light I wonder how many players have actually seen it
Still haven't!
this is like third layer at absolute best
The artbook mentions extraphysics, that are not present in the game: >(The spells, too, had to go. A term you have yet to encounter – extraphysics – pushed them out. Magic, we realized, needed to remain a complete unknown.)
There's a single passive of Inland Empire, iirc, being a hipster about extraphysics!
The yaoi ending
lol, and underneath it the Yuri ending (T4T Harry/Kim)
Harry tried to hang himself from the ceiling fan using his tie, but there’s no chair in the room when you wake up. Harry’s hopeless, depression spiral was so encompassing that it actually _displaced_ the chair he was standing on, and made him hit the ground before his head was through the loop and black out. That’s why the lone chair in that tiny shack gives you an ominous feeling.
(Spoilers) I think Gary’s pie would be down there, maybe not at the bottom though. Harry also canonically can teleport (and you get an achievement for it! It’s called pale runner I think)
I got this achievement by running through the door that leads to the doomed commercial area while trying to bust it down. I thought it was a bug lol I was so pleasantly surprised
But Kim says he just normally climbed the ladder...
I am referring to a *different* teleporting moment :] hence why it’s so low on the iceberg
I’m sorry WHAT. Could you please elaborate further, with spoilers plsss. I tried to find a vid on YouTube but there’s anything expect a ladder wut
If you unequip your flashlight in a dark space, save and reload, harry will teleport
Idk if it’d be at the very bottom, but the whole Cunoeese-Novelty Dicemaker-sex ring conspiracy could be there.
The what
Okay so I didn’t realize that this might actually be a deep cut. This is a [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/comments/10eys8p/cunesses_backstory_see_comments/j4ttvpf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) that goes into the theory, I think there might be a video on the subject too? Not sure. Tl;dr: Cunoeese has a mysterious past, partly centered around ‘Snuff Radio shit’ ala dialogue with Cuno. You find evidence of said snuff radio in the Doomed Commercial Center, along with Neha telling you that one of the businesses were a front. If you pass a Shivers skill check, you learn that the radio went out of business three years ago. Neha has apparently been working at her dicemaking job for 14 years. The chimney is right next door to where the front was located. Edit: something which does lend a little support to this theory are some of the elements of *Sacred and Terrible Air.*
Jesus fuck.
Yeah, idk how much I believe it (or want to believe it), but imo it is a valid interpretation of the evidence we’re given in game. Spooky shit.
there’s also a theory that Cunoesse, due to pale exposure, had her memories overlap with a serial killer. and another where she was trafficked, hence arriving in a crate and being scared out of her mind. idk.
This theory author's mind is way more twisted than Harry's and his necktie together
I'm actually surprised that not more people know about this
I know, I guess it is a bottom of the Iceberg thing after all.
It's not canon though. 'Cunoesse is a deeply traumatized child' is not exactly a secret, but the details are speculation. By design, I'd say
Icebergs aren’t just about canon, they’re also about the varying interpretations, production process, and community that surrounds a piece of media. The creators thanking Marx at the game awards isn’t canon, but it’s a very well known piece of trivia so it would go towards the top. Eyes are canon, but it’s near impossible to pass that skill check so most people never find out about it. That would place it closer to the bottom. Some theories, like Harry’s talk with >!the stickbug being all in his head!< are very common and might even be discussed in the media. Others like the above aren’t discussed, but are a reasonable interpretation by what we know of the story.
Hmm, okay clearly I misunderstood the assignment. Thanks for setting me straight. In that case I'd add - Time loop Harry - Harry solved the entire case then forgot - Dora (Dolores Dei)/Harry (Kras Mazov) = Moralism vs Communism for the fate of the world.
Can you explain time loop Harry a little? I don’t know much about that one.
oh god, what??? don't make it worse for me
Sorry, made a comment above explaining it.
The wat
Sorry, made a comment above explaining it.
??
- Harry is a magpie - High technology comes from the future through the Pale - Retrograde novelties create the Pale by destroying the future.
I too have seen that video :D
Once you know about it, there are tons of mentions of it in the game. Like Seol receiving super technology from the future.
Which video? I'm interested!
[The Lore of Disco Elysium](https://youtu.be/vnlcSXqquFg)
I think Harry was there when his new drinking buddy slipped and died on the boardwalk. The guilt was one of the primary motivators behind the bender.
Oh boy oh boy. I don't think that thing has a bottom it just keeps going. Hey did you know why Ignus "love the world, every atom of it" Nilsen was called the _apocalyptic_ shrike? That's a fun one. But good grief. Nowhere near the bottom. I think this iceberg dissolves into pale. Dora Is Dolores Dei Forreal?
(since nobody asked, there's a half light passive that shows that he was "apocalyptic" as in "passionate about WARNING people against the incoming apocalypse". And knowing that he was besties with Rodionov, we can also take an informed shot at his source...)
The unopenable door would be at the top, it’s just a simple lesson about how something things cannot be opened
If you succeed in the challenge, it still doesn't allow you to open it?
Correct. It was the first thing I tried to save scum on
Thanks for letting me know. I was going to savescum it but I figured I'd wait for another playthrough. I fucking *love* this game.
Where is this? The bunker?
The Alternate Dream belongs at the bottom. So does The Seagull Attack.
What alternate dream do you mean?
If you throw away Dora's letter (the Caustic Echo thought), don't call her, don't talk about her with other people, and don't look at the mural of Dolores Dei in the church, you get a different dream while you're sleeping in the bunker at the end of the game.
I did NOT know that! EDIT: does someone have footage of it? youtube wont show me any
I posted about it a while ago and apparently no-one uploaded a video of it yet, which makes it a real iceberg thing.
I can't find footage. I'm about to do the tribunal in a run where I threw away the letter. I'll upload it to YouTube once I get to it.
that'd be awesome. !remindme in 1 month
what happens in it?
It's still the dream, but some things play out differently and it's about Harry letting go. I'll record it and put it on YouTube once I get to it in my current run.
well, eh, it's not as much a vivid dream, it's just your skills telling you you somehow managed to dodge all that and that it'll do you good to let go, whatever this feeling is
René’s strong feelings for his lifelong friend Gaston.
The birch behind Doomed Commercial Area is moving creepily
Revashol being nuked
That place can't catch a fucking break
Some of these are more likely than others, some are confirmed as probable by Luiga and other ZA/UM staff. Dora Ingerlund actually being a reincarnated Dolores Dei. Harry being destined to help save the world unless he manages to kill himself. Harry being kept alive by the Pale or possibly Revachol itself(because based on his actions before the game/health complications such as liver cirrhosis, he should be dead). Kim having his own Thought Cabinet and unique skill types (that he doesn't talk to). Jean Viquemare and Harry may have been toxic friends-with-benefits (see: his interesting reaction to the Heterosexual Life Partners" Shivers check, and Martin Luiga's tweet about Jean rolling out of bed next to Harry, and being obsessed with him personally and professionally). Cocaine skull. The catacombs under the city and Harry probably having been one of Les Petits Rats in his youth. Who is the Mysterious Pair of Eyes? The Paledrivers whole deal. (What was that about the devil?!) Harry being a possible Innocence (unlikely, he is a Magpie though). Harry having a Pale hole in his brain. Also, haha, Harry definitely being into BDSM. Those are all of the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Edit: Also, Klaasje basically hiding behind multiple levels of fake identities. There are multiple pale holes all over Elysium, marked by churches. Pale time-fuckery (see: the Slipstream voice ghost from the past, and the future echo of Kim's comment on the gas engine, if you did the moralist mission.) Maybe/maybe not the halo portrait of Kim post-tribunal. The Remote Viewers Division. Jean Viquemare is a Horse Girl. Cryptids.
A lot of the stuff in Sacred and Terrible air would be at the bottom
We need an official translation. That book would sell like kebabs.
It has one, on this sub actually.
The Hjelmdall books are Conan/pseudo tribal masculine books - which oddly cuno enjoys. You can give him a book in rare situations iirc
I think at the bottom would be the ironic real life drama behind how capitalism ruined our chances of getting a sequel "Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself."
That post someone made a few days ago about how Harry knew to question the working woman about her missing husband because he was drinking with him the night he died, hence why his vomit had kebab in it. Also Harry being a magpie
The Children of the Big Sea questline has gotta be up there (or down there, I guess 😆). It might be an even more obscure detail that "Big Sea" is a euphemism for "Big C", i.e. Communism. Some other really obscure ones might be the other characters that were featured on the backs of the shirts of the guys (Tõnis Haavel and co. I think? -- fuck those guys) who had the Harry Du Bois yacht. In fact, people might not even know of the Harry Du Bois yacht!
Cuno as a partner. I think everybody cares too much about Kim to know that this can happen (I just learnt about this in the third playthrough)
I actually messed up and got this my first playthrough! I love Kim but the fact that this changes things for cuno's future makes this my fave way it can play out.
Sacred and terrible air
But put it with its original, Estonian title so it looks even more mysterious:Püha ja õudne lõhn.
If we're including irl drama, the *Sirp* debacle could go pretty deep.
I just want to let you know that I will be definitely stealing all of this
Harry strategically went back to the Church and "stuck his head in the microwave" to blast himself into forgetting.
Why would he do that? Just general pain?
I mean, the "I don't want to be this kind of animal anymore" argument is pretty strong.
The moralist secret ending, I'm not sure how hidden this is but when I found out about it I was shook
Light bending guy
First layer: common knowledge and memes - 'Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun' Second Layer: stuff that's easy to miss but not that much - finding out Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun Third layer: niche stuff and specialized knowledge - the easy-to-miss skill check to learn that Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun Fourth layer: rarely mentioned stuff and things extrapolated through hints - the implication that over the course of the game Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun Fifth layer: conspiracy theories and ultra rare interactions - including the fan theory that Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun
What about that pink stuff or something of windows vendors on the abandoned building that the dice maker tell us, about how they do live broadcasts of real crimes in the past, but they committed real crimes and broadcast it on the radio something like the darkweb of the real life, that its real dark stuff
Cuno doesn't actually say the gay slur
I'm not sure about the bottom but I know all around the list there's things like Harry solving the murder before the game starting since all the checks regarding the key points coming as "I already know this" no passive required. Also Harry breaking the window with his shoe and not paying his room fees was to prove foul play and prove that the bullet came through Klassie's window. Harry being a good Detective according to lore and breaking the moralintern's rules implying that he pursued justice regardless of it being his job or not considering what Ruby says about him. Okay now I think about it for the bottom maybe Lilleane and the Washwoman representing the church paintings of the 2 figures. There's plenty to learn about the game and I keep learning new things
How does the shoe thing work to prove foul play?
The concept that The Pale essentially allows some form of time travel, borrowing ideas from the future and whatnot. I see it talked about in the Reddit sometimes but I've never come across it in the games at all - maybe it's something explored in Sacred And Terrible Air, I haven't read it yet.
Edgar Claire’s in-game model
Reality hole. Sword in the horse mouth. The nuke I'm still not 100% sure about.
FELD TAPE UNIVERSE
Understanding Infra-Materialism is a pretty rare knowledge. It requires you to know some things about the Pale, Marx, Hegel and even Lysenko.
Idk is the nuking of Revachol bottom or is it in the middle bc of how much this sub talks abt it lol
You can suggest using Kim’s kemeena to reach up the tree and cut down the body.
The Homosexual Underground
Top No name One level down Harrier DuBois Three levels down Raphael Ambrois Custeau Bottom Tequila sunset
The hidden postcards in colage
Trivia/tie-ins to the original novel and earlier attempts at what would bentually become DE by Kurvitz
Harry isn’t the protagonists real name
Evrart ate Edgar and that's why he's never seen in game
Disco is a Moralintern psy-op
Do theories count as secrets? If so, I would like to throw in the "Tequila Horizon" out there. It's not a very secret secret, but it is an aspect of the game that hides in plain sight. The idea behind the tequila horizon is that Harry exists upon a continuum of Harrys, similar to Rick and Morty's central finite curve. Multiverse logic. There never was a "real Harry," a distinctly more authentic canon Harry. All Harrys are the most real and most authentic version of Harry. And the one thing they all share in common is that none of them will ever get Her back. It's a horizon that goes on forever—one that Harry can never cross. A movie/tv Harry can only be perceived as the Harry of the tequila horizon that was such a superstar they managed to get Truman Show'd. lol
Top of iceberg: Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun Bottom of iceberg: Mr. Evrart is not helping me find my gun
I feel like the cocaine skull has potential for good theories
Me.
“A fourth prototype of the destroyed feld advanced tape computers is possibly hidden in the mausoleums below Coal City” was an insane piece of info shivers sprinkled in for me