Fascism - Off Topic

You might expect a game about fascism to be angry and confrontational about why fascism is bad. This one is more indirect than that. I'm not even sure I ultimately got the point.

The title is certainly a reference to the Fascism - Off Topic thread that was created on intfiction.org in relation to the itch.io and Steam adult content bans, and the growing trend of internet censorship in the West. I caught that reference (and funnily enough, there's a movie poster featuring fictionalized versions of intfiction users that you can examine), but still felt too stupid to understand the game completely.

The game takes place in what seems to be a fascist US, in a subway in NYC. There are hints at a fascist takeover: the rundown subway, the ominous detail that there are "only a few people left riding".

The protagonist, from the x self response, seems to be onboard with the fascists: "Normal, unlike the clowns still left in this car. You know what I mean: white, male, patriotic." (Unless that was supposed to be irony, and I missed it, but the use of "clowns" feels too derogatory to be ironic. Or maybe that description is supposed to be from the narrator's perspective, and the protagonist is separate from the narrator, but the narrator seems to be an impartial spectator on every other occasion, so I doubt it.)

But the protagonist also has the option of interjecting in an argument between a couple on the subway to talk about how fascism works, indirectly accusing either the man or woman of fascism. The woman has cheated on the man; the man is confronting her not about that but about an Instagram post she made. Both are paranoid and controlling of the other. We don't know the content of the post, or the couple's political views.

If you interject (Spoiler - click to show)in a way that accuses the man, as I initially did, he fumes and asks "Is that what I am now? A fucking fascist?" If you interject and accuse the woman, which is what got me the true ending, the man just pointedly looks away and the story ends. If you interject at other times, your interjection about fascism is off-topic and the two react with confusion or disdain. For me, the whole situation was ambiguous and hard to read. Possibly the entire game is a shaggy dog joke based on the title: (Spoiler - click to show)when I got the true ending, it told me "You made fascism on-topic. You lost!"

I had a hard time figuring out when to interject for the true ending, and needed a fair number of tries to get the right timing: you need to do it (Spoiler - click to show)right after the woman says "Where are you going, then?"

My major point of confusion: I'm not sure if the fascist protagonist is the right kind of person to talk about the evils of fascism to random people on the subway. I can't imagine the kind of person who would describe himself as "Normal, unlike the clowns still left in this car... white, male, patriotic", and then read a news article about fascism and tell two strangers on the subway that "the enemy ain't anyone. The enemy is uncertainty". (I'd sooner expect this kind of person to explain how leftists/islamists/illegal immigrants/etc are the enemy.) Maybe I'm missing the life experience to comprehend this type of person. Is it supposed to be irony that the protagonist has read a news article about fascism and can spout eloquent talking points about it but can't comprehend that he currently lives under it? Is the point of the game that his words are empty and meaningless because he (presumably) supports the fascist government?

Another message of the game could be how life continues on as normal, no matter how awful the government becomes. The other people on the subway are browsing their phones or trying to get to Central Park, ignoring the argument, completely caught up in their own worlds. It speaks to the ability of humans to remain oblivious to what's going on around them, as long as their own lives can continue on unimpeded. No one can be bothered to get involved in strangers' problems. I did this the first time, too, hesitating to intervene until the man had left the subway car and the game informed me it was too late. --- But then, considering the lackluster response if you do intervene, and the protagonist's character in the first place, is intervention really a good thing? In this case, all you're really doing is getting involved in an argument between strangers. Are you actually helping people?

There's an element of helplessness in this game world, a world where awful things are happening far away and you can't see or prevent them. You can only deliver your off-topic monologue to strangers who are just as helpless as you. "maybe a bit something like... our own world currently, to be extremely heavy-handed about it."

No "fascism is bad" or "we must stop fascism"; just "fascism is off-topic".