EXECUTE JUSTICE: The Vile and Unspeakable Acts of Well-Dressed, Self-Proclaimed Underdogs
By Benn Ends
So, I’ll start by recommending that you go play Paradise Killer. Right now. Spoilers for all of Paradise Killer will follow this point, and you’ll get more out of this if you play the game first.
Anyway.
Screenshot from Paradise Killer, courtesy of the author
There's a beat, after the trial of the crime to end all crimes. Lady Love Dies, our hero, has presented her evidence to Judge. The verdict is passed down. They gesture to the gun on the pedestal.
It's not so much judge-jury-executioner as it is judge-jury and detective-prosecutor-executioner.
Screenshots from Paradise Killer, courtesy of the author
Paradise Killer’s world is an vaporwave fever dream beset by demons and glamorous backstabbing immortals clawing for power at the dawn of a minor apocalypse. It’s also deeply familiar to those of us who pay attention to the particular style of evil perpetrated by the wealthy rulers of modern imperial-capitalist empires. Such as, oh, the United States. Each character’s role in the nightmare dance of self-justification and accountability evasion is something we’ve see performed on political stages our whole lives. Though I might be too harsh on the death cult of The Syndicate here— they’ve killed far fewer people than the US.
Screenshots from Paradise Killer, courtesy of the author
Let’s talk a bit about what Paradise Killer is. It opens with a few screens of text giving you some guidance on the kind of game you’re getting yourself into. It helps! Paradise Killer is a lot of things. An investigation game, an open world exploration game, a dating sim, a collectathon, a Phoenix Wright trial. You play as the impeccably-dressed Lady Love Dies, born under the sign of the god Kiss Me To The Moon. She’s from Britain originally, (born in The Longest Tower), and transplanted to the Paradise Island Sequence after the Great Betrayal.
The whole game is like this.
Every bit of flavor text, every name, every piece of lore tied to collectibles around the island is dripping with aesthetic commitment. The game is utterly unashamed with itself. It’s ‘extra’ in the most beautiful and terrible sense. You spend the entire game learning about exactly how the world works, and still come out of it with more questions than you started with. Paradise is in a pocket dimension, so what’s “the real world” like? Which moon did we just go to? How does time work between the island and Earth? So they can gene therapy away aging, disease, and fall damage, but not, like. Gun damage?
I spent half the game shouting about how incredible the descriptions on each drink can are, and the other half deeply jealous that I haven’t made anything as singularly on it’s own bullshit as this game. I would consider this a triumph in and of itself, but what I want to focus on here, is playing as a character deeply invested in the success of an unquestionably evil government.
Screenshots from Paradise Killer, courtesy of the author
See, there's a wandering demon you run into a lot while exploring the gorgeously low-fi environments of Paradise Island. Shinji. He makes crude jokes, strange observations, crashes a jet ski, and remarks on everyday life on the island. Importantly, he informs you how fucked up the whole thing is. Repeatedly. He tells Lady Love that the Syndicate, and by extension, her, are the bad guys.
Screenshot from Paradise Killer, courtesy of the author
I find Hotline Miami-ass oooh-have-you-considered-that-killing-indiscriminately-might-be-bad-actually narratives as exhausting as anyone who's seen a million of them come and go. But, I want to underline what's different here.
The demon's not berating you the player. The demon's berating Lady Love Dies.
Why is this distinct?
Let’s consider her responses. You get dialogue options for some, not all, but generally it goes something like
"You and your people mass kidnap innocents and force them into a joyless life as the laboring worshipers of genocidal gods they hate and fear."
"I don't see how that makes us the bad guys."
Or
"At the end of the day we have a noble cause."
Or
"Sure, but I can reform it."
One time you can even get her to say that she doesn't think the Syndicate should exist anymore, but it never really comes up again. You could theoretically kill every Syndicate member left on Island 24 besides Judge and yourself, but most of the Syndicate has already moved on.
Screenshots from Paradise Killer, courtesy of the author
On to Perfect 25.
Engineered to be the final home for the Syndicate and their gods. Immune to the demonic corruption that rots the islands from their core. Ready to crack the whip on the kidnapped Citizens harder than ever, especially with Lady Love Dies reforming her investigations unit. This part isn’t mutable.
(As far as I know, maybe there’s a secret ending).
Lady Love Dies is evil in the same way that any member of the US ruling class is evil. They explain away mass death as the unfortunate cost of a greater goal. They use a history of persecution to play the part of the oppressed despite clearly holding the levers of power. And, by paying lip service to reform, they excuse themselves from their part in a systemic issue.
To hear them tell it, it’s not even a systemic issue! It’s always a few bad apples.
Lady Love sees the Syndicate as an oppressed religious group doing it’s best to survive on the margins of a world which betrayed them. She seems to believe that the mass enslavement of people leading up to their mass execution is a necessary evil in their survival as a people. She doesn’t really connect that religious affiliations don’t stop your small colonialist state from being just that. But she will agree with a tortured dead soul who was killed in the Slaughter Ritual that Citizens should have some more rights. A real woman of the people!
Screenshot from Paradise Killer, courtesy of the author
This current runs through the game, start to finish. There is no avoiding the atrocities, and Lady Love’s complicity in them. She’s not a self insert protagonist. The game isn’t setting you up for the super sweet epic reveal that she might be in the wrong. It’s just a fact of life. She’s never punished for it, and neither are you, other than the slight discomfort when Shinji calls her out.
The evil of the Syndicate looks cartoonish and unrealistic at first glance. But really. Look at the ways our media has justified the killing of people in other countries our whole lives. Look at the US pandemic response. Look how those justifications turn back on us. And consider that they shouldn’t have to turn on us for us to realize that it’s wrong.
That’s why I find Paradise Killer’s handling of evil to be so fascinating. As with life under imperial capitalism, all the pieces are there for you to understand the board. For you to realize that this isn’t tenable, and the world doesn’t have to be this cruel. For you to become radicalized.
Lady Love Dies never makes that leap. She moves to the next island. Henry Division, the primary suspect of the crime to end all crimes, innocent on all counts. He dies with island 24 even if you declare him not guilty. A failure of imagination means he’s not worth saving. The Syndicate continues, under new leadership.
Maybe the Citizens will get a day off on Perfect 25.
Real progress isn’t won by giving a single already powerful woman and member of the ruling class more power. Even if she seems reasonable. Not in Paradise Killer, and not in the real world.
Maybe the Citizens will revolt on Perfect 25.
It’s past due.
Benn 'Doomgender' Ends (she/her) Artificial artist. Haunted typewriter. Author of obscure landscapes, queer kink romances, and lonely afternoons at the end of summer. Find a general directory of her projects at Doomgender.online.
Patreon: Patreon.com/DoomGender
Twitter: @BennEnds (sfw) or @Doomgender