“What was once prosperous is now in ruins.”
“I suppose the Duke doesn’t care, as long as he sips from silver cups.”
“And what are the cups at Dunwall Tower made from, Empress?”
The story of the Dishonored series, developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks, is, to put it lightly, a mess. The few times that it manages to make an insightful analysis of its own setting are set back by its ideological limitations, which results in a narrative that falls flat. It struggles at balancing a populist and individualist viewpoint, as evidenced by many of the background interactions peppered throughout the game: bystanders comment on the decadence of the Duke of Serkonos; the guards fear being replaced by the ruthlessly efficient clockwork soldiers; the Overseers continue to impose more and more ruthless measures; and Emily herself is criticized for her incompetence. Yet the working class of the world of Dishonored is not the main focus of the story. In this world, history is not shaped by the masses. Rather, it is shaped by great men. While one could forgive Dishonored 1 for its issues with its story, being the first in what’s supposed to be a franchise, the sequel still struggles to deal with the issues lying at the core of its world.
The opening chapter of Dishonored 2 seeks to subvert the two possible endings of its predecessor, to an extent. The Empire is not a peaceful, prosperous nation, nor is it one ruled by an uncontrollable tyrant. Instead, it is one that still teeters on the brink of collapse, largely thanks to a ruler that is less evil, more incompetent. The people are clearly frustrated, and even the Empress’s court is home to fifth columnists: two of the main orchestrators of the coup that kicks off the story are involved in the Empire’s government: Duke of Serkonos Luca Abele, and City Watch Officer Mortimer Ramsey. The mechanisms of Empire are fragile, and the status quo cannot be preserved. How does the game resolve this issue?
Well, it doesn’t.
After the turning point, things stay as they are. Sure, the individual actors may have changed, but the core of the political machine remains the same. The Empire still sucks its provinces dry, like how a bloodfly drains the blood of its victims. The Overseers still impose their dogma, crushing anyone that strays away from it with their boot. The Empress still sits on a throne made of corpses. The would be Empress Delilah Copperspoon and Duke Luca Abele may have been deposed from their positions, replaced by a benevolent ruler (either the former duke’s body double or potential player character Corvo, depending on your choices), aided by a council (which may include heretical gang leader Paolo, his rival, the extremely devout Vice Overseer Byrne, or, strangely enough, both, in one version of the low chaos ending). They may have pure intentions, but they cannot face the core problems that plague the world. Neither would the narrative allow them to. The game does reference certain issues such as colonialism (the design of the setting of DH2, Karnaca, is partially inspired by Cuban architecture, and the city has a history of being a proverbial melting pot of cultures from across the Empire) and the exploitation of natural resources that comes with it (NPCs chatter about the rampant deforestation of Serkonos and the Dust District of Karnaca is literally flooded with the dust that comes from mining silver), but the blame quickly falls on lazy or malevolent rulers instead of any underlying faults in an exploitative system.
A lot of the simplistic morality can be seen in the Chaos system. There is an attempt of injecting some moral greyness in a few of the missions, with Lady Boyle and Kirin Jindosh, but it falls flat due to the arbitrary High/Low Chaos binary. Low Chaos is good, High Chaos is bad, and the endings reflect this. Thus, giving Jindosh what amounts to a lobotomy and letting Boyle get kidnapped are good actions, whereas simply killing them is morally reprehensible. This theme continues throughout the game. Killing bad, sparing good. Violence is always shunned, no matter the context. Is killing tyrants on the same level as killing innocents? Of course it isn’t. Additionally, a large portion of the in-game enemies represent the worst aspects of the imperialist state. The City Watch are essentially glorified cops, given free rein to abuse the underclasses of Dunwall and keep them in line. The Overseers fulfill a similar function, torturing and killing people who even slightly stray from the state religion. Both are instruments of class warfare and have an untold amount of corpses under their feet, but the narrative would never suggest that they deserve to abolished, most likely because that would involve bloodshed, and violence is bad.
Then again, Dishonored has a very narrow definition of violence. Poverty is violence; monarchy is violence. Yet instead of confronting these issues, the narrative insists that if we remove a few bad apples, all the problems will simply vanish. The systemic roots of these problems simply do not exist, and a few noble souls are the solution.
This focus on great men is best exemplified by the character of Anton Sokolov. Sokolov is essentially Dishonored’s equivalent to our conception of the Renaissance Man. He’s a talented painter, sculptor, physician, inventor and even womanizer (as implied by a throwaway line). In the first game he also conducts several experiments on people, but by the time 2 takes place that seems to have entirely been forgotten, presumably because he is such a great intellectual. Meanwhile, all the workers that (presumably) toiled away on Sokolov’s numerous inventions are nowhere to be found, gone without a trace.
This isn’t the only case of the narrative either erasing the worker’s struggle or erasing their agency.
The first proper mission of the Knife of Dunwall DLC involves Daud, assassin of the Empress and star of both this DLC and The Brigmore Witches, investigating clues related to a mysterious ship known as the Delilah, which leads him to the Rothwild Slaughterhouse, owned by Bundry Rothwild.
During this investigation, it’s revealed that the workers at the slaughterhouse have unionized and are on strike, protesting against appalling work conditions and seeking better wages. The workers are punished for the slightest of mistakes (including spitting on the floor) and the butchers enforce these draconian measures. You might be forgiven for thinking that at this point Dishonored will finally start to deal with class politics (or any politics, for that matter) in a meaningful manner. Instead it’s revealed that a single person is behind the entire strike, and worse still, that she’s a spy hired by one of Rothwild’s competitors to get more free labor.
On the other hand, there’s the case of Aramis Stilton. His backstory is a fairly standard tale of rags to riches, as a once poor miner eventually ends up becoming a mine baron. He’s depicted as a man who treats his workers fairly and defends them from the injustices of the corrupt Duke Luca Abele. The union can’t be trusted, for it’s a foreign plot (and it will always be a foreign plot), the worker must depend on their boss to give them fair wages and treat them with dignity.
This is reactionary propaganda, and the narrative does nothing to challenge it. Because it can’t imagine workers as anything other than helpless victims, who need the guiding hand of a gentle and wise empress to save them. The working class is there to be pitied, or admired to in the most condescending way, but it can never be respected, never be the driving force of structural changes, never be the heart of a revolution.
Another thing to note is that Dishonored’s handling of other forms of oppression leaves a lot to be desired as well. One could point to misogyny, always present because it must be (it is steampunk after all) and not to be explored or criticized. Homophobia remains confined to subtext, as it always is. There is a single transgender character, and a minor one at that. Race seems to have vanished without a trace. While all of those could be explored more thoroughly, special attention should be paid to the question of the right of determination of nations.
While not directly set in 19th century Europe, the series does try to reflect it, mainly through its aesthetics, but also through other minor elements, such as the songs and even the calendar (Dishonored 1 is set in 1837, its sequel in 1852).
The 19th century was the time of liberal nationalist revolutions (one only need recall the Revolutions of 1848) yet, barring a failed insurrection in Morley (the Dishonored equivalent of Ireland and Scotland, mashed together) taking place roughly 40 years before the plot of the first game, these do not seem to be reflected in-game. Revolutions, socialist or nationalist, have been completely erased, as the subjects of the Empire’s various isles don’t even consider the concept of independence, seemingly happy with the scraps that they are given.
All of these flaws coalesce to form a world that, although brimming with potential, is ultimately flat and lifeless. It’s clear that a lot of care was put into the setting, especially when it comes to art direction, but it is all in service of covering up a story that fails to make a meaningful point about oppression, the nature of imperialism, or violence.
“The downtrodden. The poor and forgotten. Mudlarks, beggars and orphans. Who speaks for them?” asks the Heart. Dishonored certainly does not.
Special thanks to my dear friends Petit, Cailie and Skitch for helping me edit this piece and sort out some tidbits with regards to canon.
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