Disco Elysium’s The Expression Is A Scathing Portrait Of Your Misery

thegamer.com:

Spoilers ahead for Disco Elysium.

Etched among the creases of Harry’s visage is the smug, shit-eating grin known as “The Expression”, a look that he had adapted from Revachol’s second greatest disco artist known as Guillaume le Million. The smile is not so much as an expression of joy as it is a grimace, a contortion of his face that he cannot unease. The first time after his night of suicidal debauchery, he saw that face reflected on the mirror, and thought he was staring back at a figure who’s dead, whose face is now in an advanced state of rigor mortis. His eyes, presumably, are that of a man who wants to die. All signs of life have largely been drained, leaving behind only that uncomfortable, inappropriate, perpetual leer.

One reason why Harry has, consciously or not, engraved this look on his face could be due to his odd obsession with disco in recent years. It was a coping mechanism he used to deal with the heartache from his failed relationship. He bought a gaudy necktie (that Horrific Necktie) that reminded him of the disco fashion of his youth, began to wear increasingly tacky clothes, partied way too much, and was neck deep in alcohol and substance abuse. “The Expression” is thus the ugly manifestation of his pain, his way of grinning and bearing through all the anguish burning in his chest. Perhaps if he smiled even harder, he’ll forget everything. Investing in Electrochemistry—the Disco Elysium skill about bingeing drugs and indulging in your worst impulses—is his own, awful way of dealing with his pain.

Related: The Very Essence of Disco Elysium is Hardcore

But there is a way to stop “The Expression”. In a poetic twist, doing so means having to succeed in an extremely high Electrochemistry check that would