{"id":15179,"date":"2012-02-29T17:23:51","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T22:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=15179"},"modified":"2012-02-29T17:24:02","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T22:24:02","slug":"deus-ex-human-revolution-ep28the-one-true-pairing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=15179","title":{"rendered":"Deus Ex Human Revolution EP28:<br\/>The One True Pairing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Management would like to apologize for the slash fic contained in this episode of Spoiler Warning, and for any personal injury or loss that the reading of this slash fic might have caused. <\/p>\n<p><table class='nomargin' cellspacing='0' width='100%' cellpadding='0' align='center' border='0'><tr><td><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0MNcF8_0mS4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0MNcF8_0mS4'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>About that earth \/ baseball motif&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Here is the &#8220;Hand&#8221; statue as it appears in the Illuminati base:<\/p>\n<p><table   class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/dehr_baseball2.jpg' class='insetimage'   alt='dehr_baseball2.jpg' title='dehr_baseball2.jpg'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>You can see a similar hand in the opening cinematic of the original <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zStn70Ot4r0\">Deus Ex<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And here is David Sarif keeping his eye on the ball when we go to argue with him about the strange secrets he&#8217;s keeping:<\/p>\n<p><table   class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/dehr_baseball1.jpg' class='insetimage'   alt='dehr_baseball1.jpg' title='dehr_baseball1.jpg'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>During the argument, he picks up the baseball and holds it in his metal hand to complete the image:<\/p>\n<p><table   class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/dehr_baseball4.jpg' class='insetimage'   alt='dehr_baseball4.jpg' title='dehr_baseball4.jpg'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>Then he sets the baseball down for a minute: <\/p>\n<p><table   class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/dehr_baseball3.jpg' class='insetimage'   alt='dehr_baseball3.jpg' title='dehr_baseball3.jpg'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>Is this&#8230;<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>&#8230;a red herring on the part of the writers?<\/strong> Did they place this imagery here to make us think that David Sarif is part of the Illuminati?  He&#8217;s pretty sketchy throughout the game. He keeps secrets, tells you half-truths, and sounds guilty every time he opens his mouth.  As I said earlier in the series, he sounds like he&#8217;s lying when you reveal that Megan is alive during the scene in the computer core.\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8230;a secret within a secret?<\/strong> Sarif is never outed as an Illuminati during the course of the game, and at the end he comes across as pretty anti-conspiracy.  But you could make the case that David is actually in on it, but unlike the rest of the Illuminati he&#8217;s actually good at his job.  If he can&#8217;t hide the Illuminati itself from you, then he&#8217;ll try to misdirect you. This baseball thing is the developer&#8217;s way of hinting at this truth.  Kind of like the (fan suggested) idea that in Bladerunner, <span class=\"spoiler\">Deckard was also a replicant<\/span>. It&#8217;s not something spelled out in the work itself, but it&#8217;s something that is possible within the story, and which changes our perception of it in subsequent viewings.\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8230;a bunch of wanking?<\/strong>  Like conspiracy nuts obsessing over the pyramid eye on the dollar bill, are we making too much of this, and perceiving intent behind random chance?\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>In an age where games are so afraid we&#8217;ll miss The Message that they imprint The Message on the face of a hammer and beat us with it, I&#8217;m very grateful that the devs have given us room to think for ourselves.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Management would like to apologize for the slash fic contained in this episode of Spoiler Warning, and for any personal injury or loss that the reading of this slash fic might have caused. Link (YouTube) About that earth \/ baseball motif&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[76,208],"class_list":["post-15179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spoilerwarning","tag-deus-ex","tag-spoiler-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}