Tagged as Kirin Jindosh, Anton Sokolov

Contributors:

Magpie, Tim, Blue, Hiaen, Aidan

Jindosh's characterization and nonlethal

at his core i think jindosh is just a very paranoid and misguided man who needs a lot of help and love and the absence of it just makes him,, messed up

he has this very black and white way of thinking, he thinks Clockwork Soldiers will eradicate all crime and he doesn't see criminals as human (hence why he is experimenting on them and like letting people die in his house since they "break in") but otherwise he seems not really dangerous to like his staff and random bystanders so I don't know, he probably thought he is doing something good here with the Clockworks

generally i think he cares about his staff to some degree even if he has his moments

snarky and a bit of an asshole yeah but not evil, because the maid comments how she wishes he had a family and the butler worries about him not eating. also after the lobotomy the maid takes him out to the garden so these people don't hate him…

sometimes i think he’s too absorbed in whatever project he’s doing to see that and if he would’ve just fucking taken a break for once..

again he is very heavily ND coded and even though arkane does a pretty. shit job at portraying that it probably makes it a lot harder

Yeah they took a ND coded character, tried to make it seem like he is inherently a monster because of this from birth and not like him being hated and probably treated like shit through his childhood and teenage years contributed to him acting like a monster and they were like okay folks now give him a lobotomy

No wonder they made the lethal canon for him

all Emily needed to do is like put him under house arrest an have the new Duke control his funding and what he makes and all that, besides he was going to cooperate, he didn't care for Luca, just wanted freedom to advance his inventions

i don’t think it was a conscious choice to mean [that he was ND] but it’s still very bad

oh yeah defo not Intended i woulda hope BUT its icky (like its association w a ND character is not something i had considered until the past few months)

also! like theres some parallels w branding campbell with regards to "ruining lives" in a way that cannot be continued BUT!!! CAMPBELL DESERVES THAT WHOLEHEARTEDLY AND WAS BEYOND REDEMPTION!!! (or change my mind idk) - jindosh is SO different and like??? coulda?? coulda be turned into something Good

there’s the fucked up element of how he was treating sokolov BUT there's also the fucked up element of how sokolov treated human experiments in dh1 so like,, why treat them so differently arkane??

dh2 is like "yes sokolov had redemption no we won't show u it now lobotomise this man xx

people in general are more forgiving to Sokolov's off screen redemption than they were to Daud spending like 3 DLCs trying to fix his mess

It was kinda mentioned yesterday how Sokolov represents sort of a corruption of being a bystander and not taking action to prevent everything and how he's just uoughghgh asshole that didn't think about the consequences of his inventions nor how it's affecting lich rally everyone else

People like to act like Sokolov was forced to do what he did in DH1 bc of H*ram but they completely forget that he had a choice

jindosh was at least sympathetic

Also he literally made all the technology in Karnaca, good or bad. He made the railway carriages, the audiographs, the silvergraphs (which let regular people take pictures when they couldn't afford painted portraits) so like you rob Karnaca of a great mind over something that could've been easily stopped and prevented by just locking him up.

legitimately it makes me so angry that he loses everything because can you IMAGINE what he could’ve made if he was turned around and made good

And since you dismantle the Duke like the next day, Jindosh would've had his funding cut instantly and put under arrest, he couldn't make an army of Clockwork Soldiers in a day, DH2 writers fucked up

Blue: Its also interesting how jindosh like values intelligence above all (like w the "small mind" line to em/corvo) bc when u think about it, its really all he has?

Magpie: You are right omg...Never thought of it like that

I mean all he built and stuff is because of his mind, he has no friends, no family, and with the maid commenting that it's very lonely in the mansion and she wishes he had a family I think the point is driven home

Blue: its also something that likely set him apart and differentiated him from other ppl and kids growing up, and since society as a values intelligence and stuff, jindosh started to view himself as superior as he was pushed aside

Magpie: That's why his non-lethal is the worst thing you can do to him

Blue: his non lethal is so so so sad

like, i guess that breanna also has her stuff taken from her (her connection to the void) BUT she also has other stuff going and doing that is kinda important for the wider plans eg weaken delilah, likewise w the duke but he 100% deserves that. But jindosh??? again, who has no allegiance and is just straight up vibing

Jindosh and Sokolov's fates taken individually vs compared to one another

Hiaen: On the topic of Jindosh and Sokolov, I don't think that by themselves their respective fates are entirely wrong.

Sokolov was never really involved with the coup, he's just doing his thing to suck up to the new rulers and survive, and also, we have to recognize, to stop the plague. His methods may be despicable but the end goal is positive. Also, there are practical reasons for which he is spared: he's needed for info first, and then to help curing the plague (which he ends up doing, with Piero's help). He's getting off lightly, but it's understandable - in fact it didn't hit me as weird at the end of DH1 when he didn't get any worse fate.

Jindosh's fate may be terrible and a bit of overkill, but that's kinda the point with the nonlethals in general (though they could have avoided the electroshock/lobotomy, if purely for the unfortunate real-world parallels :grimacing: ). And it does the job: stopping him from providing the Duke and Delilah with future weaponry they could use to ensure long-term control of the Empire. Though here again, I'll have to admit the "why are we killing him" could have been emphasized more. One good thing with DH1's villains is that since they're so superficial for most of them, it's obvious where they stand in the coup crew and why they have to be eliminated, while DH2 gave the villains more personality and kinda lost their political role along the way.

However, the two of them put side by side? That's some strong preferential treatment for Sokolov. Either you have to emphasize the necessity to get rid of Jindosh, or you have to explain Sokolov's character development better. Their crimes are easily comparable, but their fates aren't on the same level at all. Hell, I think Jindosh's fate would have been much more acceptable if you didn't have Sokolov right there on the boat to compare the two.

We could have dealt a much harsher fate on Sokolov in DH1 and Jindosh's fate would have seemed about ok. We could have spared both of them and with the right justifications it would have also gone well. But dealing such different punishments to two people with crimes that easily comparable, just doesn't sit right.

Also for the "Sokolov seen as a good guy in DH1" I don't think he's really depicted that way? Because Emily and Billie may be friends with him, but they both have an emotional attachment to him, meanwhile we as the player can find books about his travel to Pandyssia where he depicts himself as a cold(hearted bitch

Blue: yeah, but i suppose thats more subvert storytelling while the overt story is that sokolov is Friend. for a wider story, the overt stuff is most remembered, subvert thigns being like owo sokolov WAS bad is kinda meaningless when the overt story is saying other

Aidan: i agree the game’s portrayal of him isn’t Good but i guess it’s just odd that emily doesn’t ever comment on his role in helping dunwall turn into a military state. IDK I just feel like emily’s prideful enough that when sokolov made a comment on her rule she would’ve replied with something or other about the time during the rat plague (though he did help cure it so hrnnngnn morality shit)

Blue: YEAH but i guess emily isnt the best to do that - since she was a child and likely doesnt really know all the things tbh?? whereas CORVO

Hiaen: I'll also forgive Emily for not calling out Sokolov on his DH1 behavior (because 10yo + she knew him mostly as a teacher figure, and her mother's former friend), but Corvo should know better

Blue: like i could imagine emily making remarks say about the walls of light and stuff, even if uninformed, if in reference to those in karnaca - but the human subjects and so on??

i think a lot of the meta regarding this topic is the comparison of jindosh and sokolovs non lethals, as similar people, and comparing jindosh to the other dh2 villians who arguable have a larger involvement in the coup (e.g. delilah) and dont get lobotomised. like Awful but also like r incapacitating him another way 2 prevent him being able 2 build would also work like he doesnt need 2 get babied but destroying his entire self is kinda extreme. theres the poetic justice of his own machine being used against him (which hes used 2 destroy the minds of others in canon i believe, pre sokolov) so he IS an awful person, its just like. for the only "non lethal" for the heros of the story to have is that is wuehgh. once again magpies idea of trapping him in his house is spicy, but also like sokolov who sold out for a bottle of booze, jindosh has no strong allegiance and if u go the lobotomy route, he begs and says hell do anything - and tbh if u actually gave him a choice he probably would

keep jindosh occupied and throw him in jail at the end!

like if the other non lethals were just as harsh it would be less eek but yes also the real-world implications of lobotmising the nd coded character

like in dh1 a lot of the non lethals are awful so the effect is lessened - ok its bad but look at all the targets, its all p bad overall. a pretty neat idea would be 2 dump jindosh in sokolovs cell w a rewired clockwork outside - altho i know theres a voice command of jindosh to protect him sfrom his own clockworks [source: note in doto, although clearly not within game mechanisms], the idea is sweet if they had included a mechanism to make it possible

Hiaen: The idea of trapping him in his own mansion is really good tbh, it's poetic and while it doesn't get rid of him indefinitely, you can easily handwave it as "we'll deal with him after this whole clusterfuck is resolved"