Talk:Hiram Burrows/@comment-95.208.34.33-20130504225350

I must admire those who came up with the design of Burrows. They did a good job of creating an acceptably generic 'Evil Dude (tm)' for the masses of players that like their stereotypes all neat and clean, but I can't help but think that they didn't only look at photos from the turn of the 20th century, but also at the works of contemporary political thinkers who wondered about the possible futures of industrialized societies.

In fact, from a right-wing point of view, the Empire faces critical problems before the introduction of the plague: With the inclusion of all the other Isles, it has fulfilled its historical 'mission' as a state. Since there are absolutely no rivals left in the world, it had to abolish the central institution of any fully sovereign state, the one which actually demands and justifies the formation of political power in the first place: The military. In-game lore tells that there no longer exists an army aside from the Watch, and instead of costly dreadnoughts, which would have nothing to fight but the occasional pirate, we see only massive whaling ships. Now, without any external threat and no 'ultima ratio regnorum' to enforce its will, the very monarchy and the privileges of the social class committed to its support would probably soon be abolished by the parliament in favor of a heavily liberal system. In addition, without the traditional governmental means to control unemployment - said military - social problems would soon come to a boil, either because of a recess of whale oil production or increasing industrial automation. In this light, Burrows' reasoning is quite sensible: The rat plague is a threat inducing enough popular fear to justify tight government control - even over whale oil, the lifeblood of the national economy - and it would certainly keep the lower classes busy, poor and stigmatized enough to prevent them from challenging the social status quo. Even as it gets out of control, weakens and destabilizes the whole Empire, in relation it reinforces the power of the upper elite.

Between Marx and the 'Report from Iron Mountain', many interesting points have been made on such matters, and that they seemingly found their way into Dishonored's background is one of the qualities that, imho, make this game one of the very few post-2010 milestones of computer gaming.